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They had fortified it with
sand-bags and crammed it with machine--guns which could sweep the
ground on three sides, so making a direct attack by infantry a
suicidal enterprise. Our trenches immediately faced this stronghold
from the other side of a road at right angles with the Menin road, and
our men--the New Army boys--were shelled day and night, so that many
of them were torn to pieces, and others buried alive, and others sent
mad by shell-shock. (They were learning their lessons in the school of
courage.) It was decided by a conference of generals, not at Hooge, to
clear out this hornets' nest, and the job was given to the sappers,
who mined under the roadway toward the redoubt, while our heavy
artillery shelled the enemy's position all around the neighborhood.
On July 22d the mine was exploded, while our men crouched low,
horribly afraid after hours of suspense. The earth was rent asunder by
a gust of flame, and vomited up a tumult of soil and stones and human
limbs and bodies.


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