, and they fell backward [Transcriber: original 'bakward'] or on to
us or lay hanging on the bank. Then we all waited.

"As it grew lighter they did not dare move away, and none of us could
get out alive or over the bank to use the bayonet. A few men made holes
in the looser earth, and so we fired at each other through the bank here
and there. Our guns could not help us, and theirs could not shoot
across, for we were all together, and yet we could not get at each
other. Some of the men--theirs and ours--got over lower down, so there
was firing now and then, and two men were killed near me sliding down
into the water in the trenches.

"Somebody threw a cartridge case across close to me. On a paper inside
was scrawled one word: 'Surrender!' We did not know if they wanted to
surrender themselves or wanted us to surrender. They were more numerous,
but we were better placed, so we went on scrapping and crawling around
to get a shot at them.

"Perhaps it was the French who got round at the ends. There was heavy
firing. We heard quite close through the raised bank a few slipping down
on the river edge and water splashing. Some of us pulled ourselves up on
to the bank. I heard our men scrambling up on either side of me, but
could not see them. I think I was too sleepy. I shouted to charge, and
then must have fallen over on my head, rolling down the bank.

"I am on the way down with these wounded. There are fifteen of us unhit
here, but I think we came away just now with nearly a hundred out of our
600 of yesterday."

He was doing gallant Captain's work, a young, slight, ordinary Belgian
trooper, a volunteer private in the ranks, muddy, limping, and
unspeakably tired in muscle and nerve. His story is as nearly as
possible in his own words, interrupted by blanks in his own
consciousness of events--lapses familiar to men whose muscles and nerves
are exhausted, but who must still work on without sleep.

For the following ten hours, without pause, he acted as interpreter and
most capable adviser in getting long trains of stretchers with his
wounded Belgian compatriots down and on to the British hospital ships.

*A Visit to the Firing Line in France*

[By a Correspondent of THE NEW YORK TIMES.]

PARIS, Sept. 30.--In company with several representatives of American
newspapers, I was permitted to pass several days in "the zone of
military activity," on credentials obtained at the personal request of
Ambassador Herrick