" Then just ahead of us I saw Captain Straight crawling slowly but
surely, and through the "Zing!" of bullets I heard his voice, fainter but
still earnest and full of courage, cry out: "Come on, lads--come on!"
He was one of the first to roll over into that improvised German trench.
No, we could not have failed; we could not have stopped. As one of our
young boys said afterward: "Fellows, I'd have followed him to Hell and then
some!"
It was Hell all right, but no matter; we had gone through it, and got what
we had come for--the German trench.
Out of the seven hundred and fifty of us who advanced, a little over two
hundred and fifty gained the German trench; and of that number twenty-five
or more fell dead as soon as they reached the enemy, and got that revenge
for which they had come.
I doubt if there will again be a battle fought in this war where the
feeling of the men will be as bitter as at St. Julien. Men were found dead
with their bayonets through the body of some Hun, men who had been shot
themselves thirty yards down the field of advance. Their bodies were dead,
as we understand death, but the God-given spirit was alive, and that spirit
carried the earthbound flesh forward to do its work, to avenge comrades
murdered and womanhood outraged.
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