INTO THE MILL
AND
BEING THE PERSONAL EXPERI
ENCES OF SELLDEM OUT
OUT LAYTE, RELATED BY
S. O. L. HIMSELF.
To continue Punk Bailey's
where I dropped it last week:
I sure was having a regulation
good time for the first ten days I
spent on ‘The Sunny Isle,’ hut after
that—Wow. But there I am miles
ahead of my tale already. After I
landed the furlough I grabbed my old
hand-trunk by the handle and made a
dash to the pier of the Nippon Steam
ship Company. I knew there was a
barge docked there and about due to
pull out. My luck was with me, boys,
and I made it and without doing the
old ‘movie’ gag of hopping the ship
as she pulled out.
We had a slight blow on the way
over and for a little bit I kinda,
thought I’d lost my sea-legs for my
grub-bag began to feel somewhat
strange but I weathered it all right
and when we tied up at Yokohoma
I was feeling fit as a fiddle.
As I said, things ran along in great
style for about ten days and it was
on Monday morning when I came to
Illy senses in Toldo or rather in a
little town about ten miles outside of
the city and 'I scouted around until
I came to a little Tayen-ho, sort of
a Jap restaurant, where I had a bit
to eat and met a sailor from the de
stroyer Pocahontas, who was ashore
on a few days’ leave. He was reading
the English edition of one of the
Toldo papers and I sat down on ;
cushion near his and began chating
with him. I saw the deck-scrubber
glance at my collar ornaments kinda
sharp and then he passed the paneT-
over to me. pointing mt one of the
articles, with a “Your outfit, ain’t it?”
“For the love o’ Pete and dirty bo-
los,” I says as I read the lines. ‘The
old regiment pulling out and me not
notified?” That was before the days
of crabby censors, and it told how
the old —th was ordered back to tbr
States. Now. you can tell the world
that I did some quick thinking and T
doped it out after a minute or so
that if I could make Tokio and naail
an afternoon train for the coast I’d
grab a boat that would come mighty
close to getting me to the Islands on
time. The old kid in blue across from
me says. “Why don’t yer give this
new electric line a try-out, buddie; it
oughter help you, a bit,” I yelps, “Yes,
by golly I’ll take the chance,” and
dashed for the street.
They had .just put in a little jerk
line between this town and the city
and I was just nuts enough to try it,
in preference to the old and slower
'rickshaws. Well. I had covered about
two miles of the distance and were
going at the reckless speed of ten
miles when we struck a curve or rath
er we didn’t strike it and with a
lurch the car left the track and rolled
down a steep bank and sowle! up
against a tree. The car stopped right
The next I knew I woke up in an
old shanty and upon trying to move
discovered that I was tied hand and
foot. I twisted my head around and
, who did I see but a hard-boiled egg
with six months’ growth of whiskers
on his map and the rottenest smelling
pipe I ever run up against stuck be
tween his teeth. He was a new one
on me, all right. “What’s the bip;
idea, kid?” I pipes out.
The fossil turns around, looks hard
at me, takes the incinerator out of his
face and replied, “Yer come to, eh?
And old Piinky don’t recognize his old
pal.” That put me away for a little
bit and then I thinks kinda steady for
a bit and I get a happy thought,
‘Wou ain’t Rooky Hill?” I remarked.
Not a sound for a minute or so as
a cloud that smells like burninng ruo-
ber goes sailing towards the roof.
"The same,” he says. “The same.'.
“Well, I’ll be darned," I returned.
“And what the deuce are you doing in
this hole and why am I trussed up
like this?”
Let me explain, this same Hill had
been missing from our company since
about tw'o weeks after we landed in
the Islands and never a word had we
heard o’ him. He had been mixed up
in a scrape with a Jap girl and a na
tive. The Spic had tried to knife him
one night on guard and Rocky get
him with the bayonet square in the
stomach, then getting scared ’cause
he thought what they could do to
him for murder, had deserted on the
spot.
I gave him the dope on how the
Corporal of the guard picked the man
up a couple o’ minute? afterward and
shoved him in the sick-bay and how
he came around and got out a couple
o’ months later. That sure tickled
old Rocky, so he out my ropes and
we have a great talk about the boys
we both knew so well. He tells me
that he kinda thought I’d come to
run him in but when I explained it to
him the whole deal was fake. Wc
gets together and doctors up my uni
form for she sure was some ripped
up and muddy. Hill was hungry for
the old life again and says he was
willin’ to take what he had coming
to him just to get back under Old
Glory again and give up the dog’s life
he’d been leading, hidden away In the
swamp, buried, away from the eyes of
his countrymen.
I told him how the old outfit was
leaving and that I thought we’d both
be out of luck but still he was game
so out we set for Tokio. He was on
to all the little paths so it wasn’t long
before we were out on the main road
and luck was with us for an empt'-
’rickshaw was coming our way and
we got in and finally to the city.
To cut a long story short, at Yo
kohoma we found another lad from the
regiment who disproved the newspaper
tale for it wasn’t our outfit that was
leaving but another and a slight m’
take had been made in the figures.
Continued on page 18
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