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A CHAMBER OF HORRORS. Strange Story of Famous Dead Man's Hill. The Charleston Sunday News prints below one of the strangest stories of the war, which is now published, we believe, for the first time. Its authenticity is beyond question. The writer is a French colonel who, with bis four sons, has been in the thick of the fighting on the western front from the very beginning of the war. The letter was written to his cousin, an American woman, well known in Charleston, who for a number of years has lived in France. It was forwarded by her to a friend in ' * ? 1 ? x 3 li. f Charleston, wno nas irausiaieu. n j.ui the Sunday News. The letter follows: May 26th,' 1918. My Dear A - What I am about to tell you surpasses in horror anything that this war, so fertile in the production of terrible things, has yet produced. You remember that on the 16th of March, 1916, I had arrested the offensive of the Boches on the Morthomme, which from that date was definitely broken. For three months they have steadily gained slightly in terrain, but at a terrific cost in men. Finally, after July, 1916, they had cliuimeu Willi gicaici Uiinv-uii: ? j/usition before Verdun. / In order to hold Morthamme they excavated under the mountain an enormous tunnel, in which were stored quantities of food and munitions, as well as ,houses, infirmaries, hospitals, etc., the whole length intersected by a railroad and lighted by electricity. Here they lived, using the tunnel as a passage by which they could reach their front lines'Without K encountering the danger of our guns. .But they reckoned without their host. , During nearly a year they enjoyed peace, if one can so speak of their subterranean labor, but in August, 1917, I was sent again to this same region, with other officers and some cannon of a new style that were ca, pable of good work. It was an interesting thing that we who had been on so many other points at the front, notable at Noyon and St. Quentin, should have been detailed to beg the Boches to retire from a situation in which they were so comfortable installed. I need not tell you with what delight we undertha miasinn?remftmber. only. WVA VU<9 ? ? ? , _ w , that on the 20th of August, 1917, and during the days following, we achieved a complete victory, took 10,000 prisoners and recovered all the Boches had taken so long to conquer in 1916. That was nine months ago and again I find myself in the same region. A .Strange Story. There is a rumor among the poilus whom I encounter that among the tunnels abandoned by the Boches in 1917, there are certain parts which have never been penetrated because they can be entered only by going in front of our lines, in the zone called by the English "No Man's Land." They say also that the Boches who * were killed in August, X191T, still ,remain in these sections to which the enemy has never been able to effect an entrance, as the slightest movement in that direction is stopped by a rain of bullets. I decided to clear up this mystery fd to visit these tunnels myself. It is necessary to start at night and arrive before dawn that our passage might not be intercepted by the Rrwhec Wp urerp aroused. therefore. shortly after midnight and reached Mortomme after a long ride by automobile until we reached a point so encumbered by bomb holes an$ wire that we were obliged to finish the jSurnev on foot. The night was dark and one had to be guided by instinct and by the slight declivities of the ground. There were three of us who had the physical strength and the determination to accomplish our object, but our way was strewn with difficulties. Each misstep threw us into a shell hole or into a nest of barbed wire. A Perilious Adventure. 0 We walked in this way for two hours, fearing often tl^at we had lost our-way and that we should fail to accomplish our mission. Fortunately it was the Boches themselves who aided us by sending up innumerable colored lights, which thoroughly illuminated their own lines, showing ? us what to avoid as well as the direction which we should take. In a quarter of an hour we reached the mouth of the tunnel, through which we entered, and after a descent of forty meters reached a great tunnel, through no man's land and entered one kilometer only to find the end closed. One of our shells had burst and completely demolished this sector of the tunnel, killing hundreds of Boches. Further progress was impossible. We must retrace our steps, pass through No Man's Land and enter the (Continued on page 7, column 1) i-4 Foolish Rejection. 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