6D
an amoican soiwni
WIIO WENT ^ *
MIllMJYMPLT
MACHINE OUNMtR, SERVING IN fRAlK
Si
1917 BY
Afiftux urt cnm
CHAPTER XX.
"Chats With Frltx."
Wo were swimming In money, from
the receipts of our theatrical venture,
and had forgotten all about the war,
when an order came through that our
brigade would again take over their
sector of the line.
The day that these orders were In
sued, our cupfuiu assembled the com
pany and asked for volunteers to go to
the Machine Oun school at St. Omar.
I volunteered and was accepted.
Sixteen men from our brigade left
for the course In machine gunnery.
This course lasted two weeks and we
rejoined our unit and were assigned to
the brigade machine gun company. It
almost broke my heart to leave my
company mates.
The gun we used was the Vlckers,
Light .SOU, water cooled.
I was still a member of the Suicide
club, having jumped from the frying
pan Into the Are. I was assigned to
aectlon 1, gun No. 2, and the first time
"In" took position In the front-line
trench.
During the day our gun would be
dismounted on the fire step ready for
Instant use. We shared a dugout with
the Lewis gunners. At "stand to" we
would mount our gun on the parapet
and go on watch beside It until "stand
down" In the morning. Then the gun
would be dismounted and again placed
in readiness on the fire step.
We did eight days In the front-line
trench without anything unusual hap
pening outside of the ordinary trench
routine. On the night that we were to
"carry out," a bombing raid against the
German lines was pulled oft. This raid
ing party consisted of sixty company
men, sixteen bombers, and four Lewis
machine guns with their crews.
The raid took the Roches by surprise
and was a complete success, the party
bringing back twenty-one prisoners.
The Germans must have'been awful
ly aore, because they turned loose a
barrage of shrapnel, with a few "Min
nies" ami "whizz bangs" Intermixed.
The shells were dropping into our front
line like hailstones.
To get even, we could have left the
prisoners In the fire trench, In churge
of the men on guard and let them click
Fritz's strafelng but Tommy does not
treat prisoners that way.
Five of them were brought Into my
dugout und turned over to me so that
they would be safe from the German
fat
In the candlelight, they looked very
much shaken, nerves gone and chalky
faces, with the exception of one, n
great big fellow. He looked very much
at ease. I liked hlui from the start.
I pot out the rum jar and gave each
a nip and passed around some fags,
the old reliable Woodbines. The other
prisoners looked their gratitude, but
.the big fellow said in English, "Thank
you, sir, the rum Is excellent and I ap
preciate It, also your kindness."
? He told me his name was Carl
Schmidt, of the Sixty-sixth Havarla-n
Light Infantry ; that he had lived six
years in New York (knew the city bet
ter than I did), had been to Couey
island and many of our ball gamed. He
was u regular fan. I couldn't make him
believe that Hans Wagner wasn't the
best ball player in the world.
From New York he had gone to Lon
don, where he worked as a waiter in
the Hotel Russell. Just before the war
he went home to Germany to see his
parents, the war came and he was con
scripted.
He told me he was very sorry to
hear that London was In ruins from
the Zeppelin raids. I could not con
vince him otherwise, for hadn't he seen
moving pictures In one of the German
cities of St. Paul's cathedral In ruins.
I changed the subject because he
was so stubborn In his belief. It was
my Intention to try and pump him for
Information as to the methods of the
German snipers, who had been caus
ing us trouble In the lq#<t few days.
I broached the subject und he shut
up like a clam. After a few minutes
lie very Innocently said :
"German snipers pet paid rewards
for killing the English."
I eagerly asked, "What ure they?"
He answered :
"For killing or wounding an English
private, the sniper gets one mark. For
killing or wounding an English officer
he gets five marks, but If he kills a Red
Cap or English general, the sniper gets
twenty-one days tied to the wheel of a
limber as punishment for his careless
ness."
Then he paused, waiting for me to
bite, I suppose.
I bit all right und nsked him why the
sniper was punished for killing an
English general. With a smile he re
plied :
"Well, you see. If all the English gen
erals were killed, there would be no
one left to make costly mistakes." _
1 shut him up, he was getting too
fresh for u prisoner. After ? while he
winked at me and I winked hack, then
the escort came to take the prisoners
to the rear. I shook hands and wished
him "The best of luck and a safe Jour
ney to Blighty."
I liked that prisoner, he was u fine
fellow, had an Iron ('ross, too. I ud
vlsed him to keep It out of sight, or
?ome Tommy would be sending It homo
to his girl In Blighty us u souvenir.
One dark and rainy night while on
guard we were looking over the top
from the tire step of our front-line
trench, when we heard u noise Imme
diately in front of our barbed wire.
The sentry next to me challenged,
"Halt, who comes there?" and brought
his rltle to the aim. His challenge was
answered In German. A captain In the
next traverse climbed upon the sand
bagged parapet to Investigate ? a brave
but foolhardy deed ? "Crack" went a
bullet and he tumbled back Into the
trench with a hole through his stomach
and died a few minutes later. A lane*
corporal In the next platoon was so en
raged at the captain's death that he
chucked a Mills bomb in the direction
of the noise with the shouted warning
to us: "Duck your nappers, my lucky
lads." A sharp dynamite report, a flare
In front of us, and then silence.
We Immediately sent tip two star
shells, and In their light could see two
dark forms lying on the ground close
to our wire. A sergeant and four I
stretcher-bearers went out in front and
soon returned, carrying two limp
bodies. Itown In the dugout. In the
flickering light of three candies, we
saw that they were two German ofll- j
cers, one* a captain and the other an
"unterofllxler," a rank one grade higher ]
tHan a sergeant general, but below the
grade of Ueutenuut.
The captain's face had been almost
completely torn away by the bomb's
explosion. The unterofli/.ier was alive,
Dead Bodies Everywhere.
breathing with difficulty. In u few niliF
utes he opened his eyes and blinked In
the glare 0f the candles.
The pair had evidently been drink
ing heavily, for the alcohol fumes were
sickening and completely pervaded the
dugout. I turned away In disgust,
hating to see a man cross the Great Di
vide full of booze.
One of our officers could speak Ger
man and he questioned ihe dying man.
In a faint voice. Interrupted by fre
quent hiccoughs, the uuterofflzler told
his story.
There had been n drinking bout
among the officers In one of the Ger
man dugouts, the main beverage being
champagne. With a drunken leer he
Informed us that champagne was plen
tiful on their side and that It did not
cost them anything either. About seven
that nlglit the conversation had turned
to the "contemptible" English, and the
captain had made a wager that he
would hang his cap on the English
barbed wire to show his contempt for
the English sentries. The wager was
accepted. At eight o'clock the captain
and he had crept out Into No Man's
Land to carry out this wager.
They had gotten about halfway
across when the drink took effect and
the captain fell asleep. After about
two hours of vain attempts the unter
offizler had at Inst succeeded In wak
ing the captain, reminded him of his
bet, and warned him that he would be
the laughing stock of the officers' mess
If he did not accomplish his object, but
the captain was trembling all over and
Insisted on returning to the German
lines. In the darkness they lost their
bearings ami crawled toward the Eng
lish trenches. They reached the barbed
wire and were suddenly challenged by
our sentry, llelng too drunk to realize
that the challenge was In English, the
captain refused to crawl back. Finally
the unterotllzier convinced his superior
that they were In front of the English
wire. RenJlzlnj? this too la teethe cag
tain drew his revolver ?nd with a mut
tered curse fired blindly toward our
trench. Ills bullet no doubt killed our
captain.
Then the bomb came over and there
he was, dying ? and a g ood Job too, we
thought. The cuptaln dead? Well, his
men wouldn't weep at the news.
Without giving us any further infor
mation the unteroillzler died.
We searched the bodies for identifi
cation disks but they bad left every
thing behind before starting on their
foolhardy errand.
Next afternoon we buried them in
our little cemetery apart from the
graves of the Tommies. If you ever
go into that cemetery you will see two
little wooden crosses in the corner of
the cemetery set away from the rest
They read:
Captafn
German Army
Died ? 1910
Unknown
II. L P.
/if 4 '
Unterofflzler
GePuan Armf
Died ? 1910
Unknown ' j
I u L 9. - ?
, afr ~ CHAPTER XXI.
About Turn.
The next evening we were relieved
by the ? th brigade, and once again
returned to rest billets. Upon arriving
at these billets we were given twenty
four hours in which to clean up. I had
Just finished getting the mud from my
uniform when the ordterly sergeant In
formed me that my name was In orders
to leave, and that I was to report to
the orderly room In the morning for or?
ders, transportation and rations.
i nearly had a fit, hustled about,
packing up, filling rny pack with sou
venirs such as shell heads, dud bombs,
nose caps, shrapnel balls, and a Prus
sian guardsman's helmet. In fact, be
fore I turned in that nlglit, I had every
thing ready to report at the orderly
| room at nine the next morning.
I was the envy of the whole section,
swanking around, telling of the good
time I was going to have, the places I
would visit, and the real, old English
beer I Intended to guzzle. Sort of
rubbed it into them, hecuuse they all
do It, and now that it was my turn, I
took pains to get my own back.
At nine I reported to the captain, re
ceiving my travel order and pass. He
asked me how much money I wanted
to draw. I glibly answered, "Three
hundred francs, sir;" he just as glibly
handed me one hundred.
Reporting at brigade headquarters,
with my pack weighing a ton, I waited,
with forty others, for the udjutant to
Inspect us. After an hour's wait, be
came out ; must have been sore because
he wasn't going with us.
The quartermaster sergeant Issued
us two days' rations, in a little white
canvas ration bag, which we tied to
our belts.
Then two motor lorries came along
and we piled in, laughing, joking, and
in the best of spirits. We even loved
the Germans, we were feeling so happy.
Our Journey to seven days' bliss In
lillghty had commenced.
The ride In the lorry lasted about
two hours; by this time we were cov
ered with fine, white dust from the
road, but didn't mind, even if we were
nearly choking.
At the railroad station at F we
reported to an officer, who had a white
baud around his ann, which read "R.
T. O." (ltoyal Transportation Officer).
To us this officer wus Santa Claus.
The sergeant in charge showed him
our orders ; he glanced through them
and said: "Make yourselves comfort
able on the platform and don't leave;
the train Is iluble to be along in Ave
minutes ? or five hours."
It came in five hours, a string of
eleven match boxes on big, high
wheels, drawn by a dinky little engine
with the "con." These match boxes
were cattle cars, on the sides of which
was painted the old familiar sign,
"llommes 40, Chevaux 8."
The It. T. O. stuck us all Into one
car. We didn't care; It was as good
us a Pullman to ns.
Two Uuys we spent on that train,
bumping, stopping, jerking ahead, and
sometimes sliding buck. At three sta
tions we stopped long enough to make
some tea, but were unable to wash, so
when we arrived at B , where we
were to embark for Blighty, we were
as black ns Turcos und, with our un
shaven fncNj, we looked like a lot of
tramps. Though tired out, we were
happy.
We had packed up, preparatory to
detraining, when a K. T. O. held up his
hand for us to stop where we were
and came over. This is what he said:
"Boys, I'm sorry, but orders have Just
been received cancelling all leave. If
you had been three hours earlier you
would have gotten away. Just stay in
that train, ns it is going back. Hatlons
will be Issued to you for your return
Journey to your respective stations.
Beastly rotten, 1 know." Then he left.
A dead silence resulted. Then men
started to curse, threw their ritles on
the floor of the car; others snid noth
ing, seemed to In? stupefied, while some
had the tears running down their
cheeks. It was a bitter disappointment
to all.
llow we blinded at the engineer of
that train; It was all his fault (so we
reasoned) ; why hadn't he speeded up a
little or been on time, then we would
have gotten off before the order ar
rived? Now It was no Blighty for us.
That return Journey was misery to
ns ; I Just can't describe It.
When we got back to njst billets, we
found that our brigade was in the
trenches (another agreeable surprise)
und that an attack wus contemplated.
Seventeen of the forty-one will never
get another chance to go on leave;
Uiey were killed la the attack. Just
? - > * -?? *m< - ? ? ? ?
think If thut train hud been on ttm?,
thos<* seventeen would still be alive.
1 bate to tell you how I wus kidded
by the boys When I got back, but it wui
good and plenty.
Our machine gun company took ove?
their part of the line at seven o'clock,
the night after I returned frotf. toy
?ear leave.
At 3:30 the following morning three
waves went over and captured the first
and second German trenches. The
machine gunners went over with the
fourth wave to consolidate the cap
tured line or "dig in," as Tommy calls
it
Crossing No Man's Land without
i clicking any casualties, we came to
' the German trench and mounted oui
guns on the parados of same.
I never saw such a mess in my life
?bunches of twisted barbed wire lying
about, shell holes everywhere, trench
all bashed in, parapets gone, and dead
bodies, why, that ditch was full of
them, theirs and ours. It was a regu
lar morgue. Some were mangled hor
ribly from our shell fire, while others
were wholly or partly buried in the
mud, the result of shell explosions cav
ing In the walls of the trench. One
dead German was lying on his back,
with a riile sticking strulght up In the
air, the bayouet of which was burled
to the hilt in his chest. Across his feet
lay a dead English soldier with a bul
let hole In his forehead. This Tommy
must have been killed just as he ran
his bayonet through the German.
Rifles and equipment were scattered
about, and occasionally a steel helmet
could be seen sticking out of the mud.
At one point, Just in the entrance to
a communication trench, was a stretch
er. On this stretcher a German was
lying with a white bandage around hla
knee, near to him lay one of the
stretcher-bearers, the red cross on hla
arm covered with mud and his helmet
filled with blood and brains. Close by,
sitting up against the wall of the
trench, with bead resting on his chest,
was the other stretcher-bearer. He
seemed to be alive, the posture was so
natural and easy ; but when I got
closer I could see a large, Jagged hole
In his temple. The three must have
been killed by the same shell-burst.
The dugouts were all smashed in and
knocked about, big square-cut timbers
splintered into bits, walls caved In and
entrances choked.
Tommy, after taking a trench, learns
to his sorrow that the hardest part of
the work is to hold it.
In our case this proved to be so.
The German artillery and machine
guns had us taped (ranged) for fair;
it was worth your life to expose your
self an instant.
Don't think for a minute that the
Germans were the ynly sufferers; we
were clicking casualties so fast that
you needed an adding machine to keep
track of them.
Hid you ever see one of the steam
shovels at work on the Panama canal?
Well, it would look like a hen scratch
ing alongside of a Tommy "digging in"
while under fire. You couldn't see day
light through the clouds of dirt from
his shovel.
Alter losing three out of six men of
our crew we managed to set up our
machine gun. One of the legs of the
tripod was resting on the chest of a
half-burled body. When the gun was
firing. It gave the Impression that the
body was breathing. This was caused
by the excessive vibration.
Three or four feet down the trench,
about three feet from the ground, a
foot was protruding from the earth.
We knew it was a German by the black
leather boot. One of our crew used
that foot to hang extra bandoliers of
ammunition on. This man always was
a handy fellow; made use of little
points that the ordinary person would
overlook.
The Germans made three counter
attacks, which we repulsed, but not
without heavy loss on our side. They
also, suffered severely from our shell
and machine-gun fire. The ground was
spotted with their dead and dying.
The next day things were somewhat
quieter, but not quiet enough to bury
the dend.
We lived, ate and slept In that trench
with the unburled dead for six days.
It was awful to watch their faces be
come swollen and discolored. Towards
the last the stench was fierce.
What got on my nerves the most was
that foot sticking out of the dirt. It
seemed to me, at ulght, In the moon
light, to be trying to twist around.
Several times this impression was so
strong that I went to It and grasped It
in both hands, to see if I could feel a
movement.
I told this to the man who had used
it for a hatrack Just before I lay down
for a little nap, as things were quiet,
and I needed a rest pretty badly.
When I woke up the foot was gone.
had cut it off with our chain saw
out of the spare parts' box, and had
plastered the stump over with mud.
During the next two or three days,
before we were relieved. I missed that
foot dreadfully ; seemed as If I had
suddenly lost a chum.
I think the worst thing of all was to
watch the rats, at night, and some
times in the day, run over and play
about among the dead.
Near our gun, right across the para
pet, could be seen the body of a Ger
man lieutenant. the head and arms of
which were hanging into our trench. 1
The man who had cut off the foot used
to sit and carry on a one-sided conver- \
satiou with this officer, used to argue |
and point out why Germany was In the |
wrong. During all of this monologue \
I never heard him say anything out of ?
the way ? anything that would have
hurt the otlicer's feelings lad he been
alive. He was square all right; I
wouldn't even take advantage of a
dead man in an argument.
To civilians this must seem dres*V
(OU but out here oue gets so used to
?wfu! nights that It makes no Impre*
?ion. In passing a butcher shop you
are not shocked by seeing a dead tur
key hanging from a hook. Well, in
France, a dead body Is looked upon
from the same angle.
But, nevertheless, when our six days
were up, we were tickled to death to
be relieved.
Our machine gun company lost
seventeen killed and thirty-one wound
ed in that little loon' affair of
"straightening the line,'* while the
other companies clicked i*: worse than
we did.
After the attack we went into re
serve billets for six days, and on the
seventh once again we were in rest bil
lets.
(To Be Continued.)
I HAVE ONE BAY PONEY HORSE
for sale. Gentle and works well any
where. Can see him at Ivanhoe Cot
ton Mills. For sale also 1 buggy
and harness, 1 one horse wagon and
two plows. J. H. Williams, Smith
field, N. C.
DON'T PUT OFF SCREENING
house. See us at once. Cotter Hard
ware Company.
OUR ARMY AND HOW TO KNOW
IT for sale at THE HERALD of
fice. Price 25 cents.
WE HAVE THE JOHN DEERE
Corn Planters. Cotter Hardware
Company.
FOR ALL SKIN AND FACIAL
eruptions such as black heads, pim.
pies, freckles, and sunburn, use Dr.
Muns' tile and eczema ointment.
JUST RECEIVED A BIG LOT OF
Lynchburg Casting. Cotter Hard
ware Co., Smithfield ,N. C.
WE HAVE THE jpHN DEERE
Corn Planters. Cotter Hardware
Company.
WE HAVE THE JOHN DEERE
Corn Planters. Cotter Hardware
Company.
WHY SUFFER FROM ECZEMA!
Get a jar of Dr. Muns' pile and
eczema ointment.
FOR BURNS AND OLD SORES, DR.
Muns' pile and eczema ointment is
a valuable remedy.
SEE US FOR ASPHALT ROOFING.
Cotter Hardware Co.
SAVE THE QUARTERS
and
SEE THE DOLLARS GROW.
BUY WAR-SAVINGS STAMPS!
MERCHANTS WILL NEED FLOUR
Certificates to be signed by their
customers and we have the blanks
for sale 100 for 35 cents, 200 for
60 cents or 500 for $1.25. Apply to
Beaty and Lassiter, Smithfield, N.C.
The Well-Known
CHEVROLET AUTOMOBILE
The hill climber. Makes more miles to
the gallon of gasoline.
If you are thinking of buying a car it
will pay you to see me before our present
stock is exhausted, as we will then have to
drive them from factory.
W. H. LEE , Four Oaks , N. C.
LIKE BACON
YOU know how cooking
brings out all the rich
pungent flavor of bacon ?
there's nothing that tastes
better. But you wouldn't like
it raw.
IT'S TOASTED
So we toast the Burley tobacco
used in LUCKY STRIKE Ciga
rettes for exactly the same reason
?to bring out the rich, solid flavor.