With Our Soldiers in France

nal course for a few weeks in a training school, where the expert drill masters put th

inal drill ground, the "Bull Ring." It is a thrilling spectacle to see many thousands of men across a vast plain going through the various maneuvers of actual warfare

hasty breakfast. The shrapnel-proof steel helmets are donned, the heavy seventy-pound kits and rifles are swung to

er mind directs every motion, and at the word of command thousands of feet are moving in exact time, wheeling, marching, maneuvering with a precision that proves the lo

used. In a gentle favoring wind it is put over invisible in the darkness, and if it catches the foe unprepared, can kill from ten to fifteen miles behind the lines. The mixture is squirted as a liquid from metal generators. It quickly forms a dense greenish yellow cloud o

r a time he may go almost blind. He is then taken violently sick. The surface of the lungs and the entire body, especially where it is moist with perspiration, is burned. The skin may blister and come off. Many cases have proved fatal and many more suffer cruelly for weeks in hospital. With the men we attended a lecture on the nature of the various gases used by the enemy and the proper methods of meeting them. The lecture throughout was unconsciously

nd hold your breath you will have six seconds to get on your gas helmet or respirator." The attack, remember, is a surprise in the dark; brain-splitting gas shells are dropping on all sides, and it is hard to keep cool and hold one's

bag carried on the chest and the respirator is grasped and with one skilful swoop it is drawn over the face. Your nose is pinched shut by a clamp, your teeth grip the rubber mouthpiece, and, like a diver, you must now get your one safe stream of pure air through the respirator. You draw in the air from a tube which rises from a tin of chemical on your chest.

bey what the expert has said. I fling on the helmet and we start into the death chamber, but suddenly a string is loose-will the respirator work? There seems to be something the matter with my nosepiece which should be clamped shut. I would like to ask the instructor just one question to make sure, but I can no more talk than a diver beneath the sea. It is too late, we are moving, I can only hope and trust the helmet will hold. We have left the sunlight and are in a long dark covered chamber, like a trench, groping forward, and looking at a distant point of light through the dim goggles. We are alone in these deadly fumes, the instructor is not here,

as we hold our breath. That yellow green chlorine will corrode the lungs and fill them with pus and

y the fear of the gas from the men. This particular gas has no effect upon the lungs, but sends a stinging pain th

sun, are listening with all their ears, yet one or two fall asleep for very weariness and may again be caught napping by the enemy's poison gas up the line. The instructor

you go under it will be your own fault from one of four causes-unbelief, disobedience, carelessness, or fear. If you carelessly go without your helmet it means death. During an attack, after putting on the respirator, just stand and wait. There is nothing you can do for yourself except to keep your helmet on. Your skill, your strength are nothing. Now if y

fter the gas has ceased, the charge of the enemy will come and you must never let him get past your barbed wired entanglements. After exposure to gas, all food, water, and wells are poisonous.

ou, the latter is an effort to destroy you. The whole experience was so obviously parallel to the deadly moral dangers which surround the soldier in war time that it needs n

ith vomiting five hours after the gas shells exploded. Seven of his fourteen companions sleeping in the dugout were killed outright, the others were gassed. He does not know where they are. He lay unconscious for several days, and now his eyes and skin are burned as though he had passed through a fire. The next boy is badly burned in his eyes and chest. Half the men of his battery were killed by gas while asleep at night. On the next cot is a boy who has been suffering for seventeen days; the burns on his body have been improving, his lungs also are better, but he is still blind and fears he may lose his

iumph of modern science, which will shatter

ws out the pin and holds down the lever. Once this is released, it explodes in just five seconds. The man heaves his bomb over a parapet at a dummy dressed in German uniform. The whistle blows and we all duck. There is a terrific explosion like a small cannon and you hear the pieces whizzing through the air. Every man is holding in his hand and wielding a terrible power.

man who outruns his comrades is useless and is soon killed by the enemy. The drill sergeant shouts to the men "Keep together, keep together, men, one man can't take a trench," and my friend the "padre" notes his words to tell to his congregation when he goes home, wher

f obstacles-trenches, fences, barbed wire, shell holes, and ditches. There they are practicing musketry and advancing under cover. In one place the artil

of the enemy's system of trenches. These diagrams are reproduced far behind the front in elaborately prepared earthwork and trenches which are an exact replica of the enemy's lines. The divisions which are to take part in the attack are sent back to rehearse their exact duties at just the point corresponding to that which they will have t