Energy books

Not for them was the glory of a victorious assault.
Their job was to "demonstrate" by exposing their bodies to devouring
fire, and by attacking earthworks which they were not expected to
hold. Here and there men of ours, after their rush over No Man's Land
under a deadly sweep of machine-gun fire, flung themselves into the
enemy's trenches, bayoneting the Germans and capturing the greater
part of their first line. There they lay panting among wounded and
dead, and after that shoveled up earth and burrowed to get cover from
the shelling which was soon to fall on them. Quickly the enemy
discovered their whereabouts and laid down a barrage fire which, with
deadly accuracy, plowed up their old front line and tossed it about on
the pitchforks of bursting shells. Our men's bodies were mangled in
that earth. High explosives plunged into the midst of little groups
crouching in holes and caverns of the ground, and scattered their
limbs. Living, unwounded men lay under those screaming shells with the
panting hearts of toads under the beat of flails.


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