seen one of them backward in going to the aid of a wounded man. Often
they would spend hours in the effort to bring back to the lines some
soldier too badly injured to help himself; and the pity of it was
that, on many occasions, after all their self-sacrificing labor, they
would be shot down just as they were about to come over the parapet
and into the trench.

And all without hope of reward other than the love and admiration of
their comrades. There was a time, before this war, when such exploits
were considered worth the Victoria Cross. Now, however, they are
merely a matter of daily routine. Thousands of men are, every day,
performing deeds of valor, which in any other war would have brought
the highest decorations, without receiving even so much as an
honorable mention. Exposure to fire such as theorists had told us
would demoralize any army is merely a part of the day's work. Troops
go in and out of the trenches, often under artillery fire that,
according to our books, ought to annihilate them, and they do it
without thinking it anything unusual or worthy of comment other than
perhaps, in answer to a question, to remark: "Oh, yes, they shot us up
a bit in the P. & O." or "They handed us a few 'crumps' and 'woolly
bears' coming through Ridgewood." ("Woolly bear" is the name given to
a large, high explosive shell, with time fuse, which bursts overhead,
giving out a dense black smoke, which expands and rolls about in such
a manner as to suggest the animal for which it is named.) In fact,
nearly all the names invented by the soldier to describe the various
projectiles are so apt and expressive as to be self-explanatory. The
"Silent Lizzies," "Sighing Susans" and "Whispering Willies" belong to
the class of large caliber, long range naval gun shells which pass
over the front line so high that only a sort of whispering sound is
heard. The "middle heavies" with percussion fuses, which burst on
impact and give out a dense black smoke, have been called "Jack
Johnsons" and "coal boxes," but are now usually grouped under the
general designation of "crumps," because of the peculiar sound of
their explosion. They run all the way from 4.1 inch to 9.2 inch
calibers. Some of the very large shells are called "Grandmothers" or
"railroad trains." The French call them "marmites," meaning a large
cooking pot or kettle. The "whizz-bang" is just exactly what the name
would suggest: a small shell of very high velocity, which arrives and