en guns swept them.

In another trench the American attaches counted the bodies of more than
900 German guards, not one of whom had attempted to retreat. They had
stood fast with their shoulders against the parapet and taken the cold
steel. Everywhere the loss of life was appalling. In places the dead lay
across each other three and four deep.

TURCOS FIERCEST FIGHTERS OF ALL

"The fiercest fighting of all seems to have been done by the Turcos and
Senegalese. In trenches taken by them from the guards and the famous
Death's Head Hussars, the Germans showed no bullet wounds. In nearly
every attack the men from the desert had flung themselves upon the
enemy, using only the butt or the bayonet. Man for man no white man
drugged for years with meat and alcohol is a physical match for these
Turcos, who eat dates and drink water," said Richard Harding Davis,
who saw the end of the fighting at Meaux. "They are as lean as starved
wolves. They move like panthers. They are muscle and nerves and they
have the warrior's disregard of their own personal safety in battle, and
a perfect scorn of the foe.

"As Kipling says, 'A man who has a sneaking desire to live has a poor
chance against one who is indifferent whether he kills you or you kill
him.'"

NIGHT BATTLE DESCRIBED BY SOLDIER

The following narrative of a night engagement during the prolonged
battle of the Marne is quoted from a French soldier's letter to a
compatriot in London:

"Our strength was about 400 infantrymen. Toward midnight we broke up our
camp and marched off in great silence, of course not in closed files,
but in open order. We were not allowed to speak to each other or to make
any unnecessary noise, and as we walked through the forest the only
sound to be heard was that of our steps and the rustling of the leaves.
It was a perfectly lovely night; the sky was so clear, the atmosphere so
pure, the forest so romantic, everything seemed so charming and peaceful
that I could not imagine that we were on the warpath, and that perhaps
in a few hours this forest would be aflame, the soil drenched by human
blood, and the fragrant herbs covered with broken limbs.

"Yet all those silent, armed men, marching in the same direction as I
did, were ever so many proofs that no peace meeting or any delightful
romantic adventure was near, and I wondered what thoughts were stirring
all those brains. Suddenly a whisper passed on from man to man. It was
the officer's command.