Newspapers / The Courier (Asheboro, N.C.) / June 27, 1918, edition 1 / Page 2
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Thursday, June 27,1913 .trow i ctttt rrt r rinimrrn a CTTT,TnTr TkJ f eTWO , aixij tuiirsiuxvvj jmnxa AJxxuiJivt v - - . 4ri? t (11) 111" MOVENT iOTlffllYim MACHINE aJMEMBMNG W FPJW 1917 OY AurHiiRttiY tripnr CHAPTER XXIV. other eleven containing Dan cartridges. Every man Is expected to do his duty . 'r I and fire to kill. Take your orders from The Firing Squad. me SquadShun!" ,;i A few days later I had orders to re-, We cftme tQ attentlon. Tnen he left. Jtort back to divisional headquarters, i My heflrt WM of ,eud and my knee8 bout thirty kilos behind the line. I i s00 reported to the A. P. M. (assistant pro- j Aft standlng nt "attention" for vost marshal). He told me to report whnt seemed fl wei,k though ln reallty : billet No. 78 for quarters and ra- ,t cou,d not have boen over five min. BODS. It was about eight o'clock at night utes, we heard a low whispering in our rn r nun i ( 11 n i fin ii liic oiuuc nut. tod I was tired and soon fell asleep in jng of tnu courtyard. jthe straw of the billet. It was a mis- Gur officer mlppeure(i and in a low, rable night outside, cold, and a drizzly j but flrm voice onjc.re(i: rain was falling. "About Turn I" : About two in the morning I was J We turned aD0Ut. ja the gray light ; awakened by some one shaking me by j of dawn) a few ynrds ln front of mei j the Bhoulder. Opening my eyes I saw j could make out n brick wnU Against a regimental sergeant major bending j tWs wall was a dark form with a white .'lover me. He had a lighted lantern in square pinned on ts breast. We were fI right hand. I started to ask him ; suppose(3 to aim at this square. To the jwhart was the matter, when he put his j rjgnt of the form 1 notice(i a white spot :ftnger to his lips for silence and whis- 'fered: A "Get on your equipment, and, with jOTt any noise, come with me." , This greatly mystified me, but I 'beyeo. his order. I Outside of the billet, I asked him 'What was up, but he shut me up with: v "Don't ask questions, it's against or . Jiers. I don't know myself." '.. It was raining like the mischief. T We splashed along a muddy road for : jabont fifteen minutes, finally stopping at the entrance of what must have I flkeen an old barn. In the darkness, I on the wall. This would be my target. "Ready! Aim! Fire!" The dnrk form sank into a huddled heap. My bullet sped on its way, and hit the whitish spot on the wall; I could see the splinters fly. Some one else had received the rifle containing the blank cartridge, but my mind was at ease, there was no blood of a Tommy on my hands. "Order Arms ! About Turn ! Pile Arms ! Stand Clear." The stacks were re-formed. "Quick March ! Eight Wheel P And we left the scene of execution be- feoffltl hear pigs grunting, as if they hind us. ibad just been disturbed. In front of . it was now daylight. ?the door stood an oftlcer in a mack Mm, whispered something, and then ileft. TiV.s officer called to me, asked ti" my nnnic, number and regiment, at the f .iaame time, in tho light of a lantern be !Was holding, making a notation la a tattle book. ? When he had finished writing, he 'whispered : "Go Into that billet and wait orders, (and no talking. Understand?" f.f I stumbled into the barn and sat on the floor ln the darkness. I could see fv BO one, but could hear men breathing land moving: they seemed nervous and I,1 brestless. I know I was. ' During toy wait, three other men :ntered. Then the officer poked his '4 Saead In the door and ordered : , p Tallin, outside the billet, in single .frank." We fell in, standing at ease. Then M Jhe commanded : ; "Squad 'Shun ! Number 1" f - There were twelve of us. ' ' "Right Turn ! Left Wheel ! Quick (-March V And away we went. The (rain was trickling down my back and 2 was shivering from the eold. With the officer leading, we must Save marched over an hour, plowing (through the mud and occasionally 'stumbling into a shell hole In the road, Pmm 4 it.'- . . . , i Buritd With Honors, imddenlyttha ofllcer mads a left '. and wt found o (metres la a sort '"ned courtyard. dai-o wss breaking and tbs id cMsed. .'. . ;"" front of os vers four stacks of ibrra to a stuck. ('Hirer brought as to attention After march ing about five minutes, we were dis missed with the following instructions from the officer In command : "Return, alone, to your respective companies, and remember, no talking about this affair, or else it will go hard with the guilty ones." We needed no urging to get away. I did not recognize any of the men on the firing squad ; even the officer was a stranger to me. The victim's relations and friends ln Blighty will never know that he was executed; they will be under the im pression that he died doing his bit for king and country. In the public casualty lists his name will appear under the caption "Acci dentally Killed," or "Died." The day after the execution I re ceived orders to report back to the line, and to keep a still tongue In my head. Executions are a part of the day's work, but the part we hated most of all, I think certainly the saddest. The British vnr department Is thought by many people to be composed of rigid regulations all wound around with red tspo. But it has a heart, and one of the evidences of this Is the considerate WBy in which an execution is concealed and reported to the relative of the un fortunate man. They never know the truth. He is listed In the bulletins as among tho "accidentally kllied." In the last ten years I have several 1 times rend stories In magazines of ': cowards changing, in a charge, to he i roes. 1 used to laugh at It. It seemed easy fur story-writers, but I said, "Men aren't made thut way." But over In France 1 learned once that .the streak tf yellow can turn all white. I jilcked up the story, bit by bit, from the captain of the company, the sen tries who guarded the poor fellow, as well as from my own observations. At first I did not realize the whole of bis story, but after a week of Investiga tion It stood out as clear in my mind as the mountains of my native West ln the spring sunshine. It impressed me so much that I wrote It all down la rest billets on. scraps of odd paper. The Incidents are, as I tdj, every bit Iroe i the feelings. of the man are true I know from all I underwent In the fighting over la France. We will call him-Albert Lloyd, That J wasn't bis nam's, bat It will do: Albert Lloyd was what tbs world terms a coward. In Loodoh they called him a stacker. His country had been at war nearly eighteen months,' and stm ha wsa not In khaki ' . , lis bad no good reason for not en listing, being alone In the world, hat ing been educated la an orphsn sty 1pm, and there being no one dependent upon blm for support lie hid no good nLTZTZZoinni lett fbompixsonj the Lord to protect blm. ' " I M vjtitnr- - I Even his Uadlady dpUed him, al- wffl ask you to be kind' though she had to admit that ha was raousa to racognixa another letter tov "good pay" I your paper. The Courir Is very u very senium ran uiv pBy ( instructive ana is eauea ny one i me ne momentoas morning the landlady .'state's most popular men. A man that put the mornlngpaper at bis place be- we have lust cause to be proud of, es fore be came down to breakfast Tak- jpecially the citizen of Randolph conn ing his seat he read 'the flaring head-ty. I think I can safely say that he line, "Conscription Bill Passed."' and. bmm oone more lor me progress ana nearly fainted. Excusing himself, he.BPlift o our County than any other ored position at the hands of the Pres ident of the United SUtea, T Sim nn.kl. -tot. ,,. n..nn,:AM I shall touch, but before I bring this note to a'clojse I will promise not to say any good things about the man or woman that is not for America from head to foot in this great struggle for freedom. However, I shall try to hit . p the order to unplle arms. W sweetheart to tell him with her Hps position to lose, and there wss no i; a rifle. Olvlng us "Stand at i to go, while her eyes pleaded for Urn In a nervous and shaky volca, to stay.. - : , nnrd: J t' .-.j. Kvery time be sow a recruiting ser s. yu e,re here on a Tory solemn ; gront he'd slink around the corner out Von hove hero selected as a of sight, With a terrible fear gnawing wl for the ejccutlot. of a sol-' ( hn bearL When pawrtng the big re- hnvlng Iwen fouod guilty t crultlng pontnrs, and on his wny to vous crime stralnut king and buMnexs snd back be pfliwed many, be i,n been rguUrly sod duty would pull dawn Ms csp and look ths 1 n.-idenrrfl rj S shot St U3 ':.. Thl svn"nce has been : ! y t! e reviewing Sufhorlty i r srririi miU It I our doty . v;,;i t!i 9titotice dT the stumbled upstairs to his bedroom, with the horror of It gnawing Into bis vitals. Having saved up a few pounds, be decided not to leave the house, and to sham sickness, so he stayed ln his room and had the landlady serve his meals there. Every time there was a knock at the door he trembled all over, Imagining It j the German sympathizing idiot so hard j was a policeman who had come to take . that he won't know his parents when ' him away to the army. One morning his fears were realized. Sure enough, there stood a policeman with the fatal paper. Taking It ln his trembling hand he read that he, Albert n I v r: other way from that swful linger pointing at him, under -tho cnptlon, "lonr Klog and Country Need lotis" of the tirrrlng pjrs Of Kitchener, which Immed Into his very soul, causing him Tt.'n ll.'o 7-f-r1!n raM 1f)rlnf t'.wn. 1 H"4 to frnmh In a cor not of he meets them on the street As I have stated hertofore, there are a large percent of the people in' this section that at heart are praying j ior a tnumpn oi verman arms, iney haLVn'r T ho hfiilrhAna 4 n , t u t n thai. irt Lloyd, was ordered l- to the nearest recruiting station i for , ed Qn their faceg theFde est spathy physical examination. He reported lm- j for the Kaiser and his baby murder mediately, because he was afraid to ng gang jjot one word nave I heard disobey. this bunch of Kaiserites utter for Am The doctor looked with approval erica. They are so full of ignorance, upon Lloyd's six feet of physical per-1 prejudice and malice they rather die fection, and thought what a fine than speak a word in sympathy for guardsman he would make, but exam-1 the country they look to for protec ted his heart twice before he passed j ti(m- him ns "nhvsicnllv fit:" It was beating . There are P.ePle m thls sectl0n that . v;u:. (hi' IRJ Mm j so fast. From the recruiting depot Lloyd was taken, with many others, in charge of a sergeant, to the training depot at Al dershot, where he was given an outfit of khaki, and drew his other equip ment. He made a fine-looking soldier, except for the slight shrinking in his shoulders and the hunted look in his eyes. At the training depet it does not take long.fo find out a man's character, and Lloyd was promptly dubbed "windy." In the English army "windy" means cowardly. The smallest recruit in the barracks looked on him with contempt, and was not "slow to show It in many ways. Lloyd was a good soldier, learned quickly, obeyed every order promptly, never groused at the hardest fatigues. He was afraid to. He lived ln deadly fear of the officers and "noncoms" over him. They also despised him. One morning about three months after his enlistment Lloyd's company was paraded, and the names picked out for the next draft to France were read. When his name was called, he did not step out smartly, two paces to the front, and answer cheerfully, "Here, sir," as the others did. He just faint ed in the ranks and was carried to bar racks amid the sneers of the rest That night was an agony of misery to him. He could not sleep. Just cried and whimpered in his bunk, because on the morrow the draft was to sail for France, where he would see death on all sides, and perhaps be killed him self. On the steamer, crossing the channel, he would have Jumped over board to escape, but was afraid of drowning. Arriving In France, he and the rest were huddled Into cattle cars. On the side of each appeared in white letters, "Hommes 40, Chevaux 8." After hours of bunii ing over the uneven "French roadbeds tln arrived at the training base of JIou(;n. At this place they were put through a week's rigid training in trench war fare. On the morning of the eighth day they paraded at ten o'clock, and were Inspected and passed by General n , then were marched to the quar termaster's, to draw their gas helmets and trench equipment. At four In the afternoon they were again hustled into cattle cars. This time the journey Hasted two days. They dlspmbarked at the town of Fre vent and could hear a distant dull booming. With knees shaking,. Lloyd asked the sergeant what the noise was, and nearly dropped when the sergeant replied in a somewhat bored tone : "Oh, them's the guns up the line. We'll be up there In a couple o' days or so. Don't worry, my laddie, youll see more of 'em than you want before you get 'ome to Blighty again, that Is, If you're lucky enough to gt back. Now lend a band there unloadln' them' enrs, and quit that ererlastln' ahakln'. I believe yer scared." The last with a contemptuous sneer. . They marched ten kilos, full pack, to sHltUe dilapidated village, and the sound of (he guns grew louder, con stantly louder. The rlllsge Was full of soldiers who turned out to Inspect the new draft, ths men who were shortly to bo their mates ln tho trenches, for they were going "up tho line" on tho morrow, to "take over" . their certain sector of tranches. v The draft wss paraded la' front of battalion headquarters and tho men were assigned to companies. -' Lloyd wis the only man assigned to D company. Perhaps the, ofllcer. In charge of the draft had something to do with it, for be called' Lloyd aslds and, saldi . U - , ."Lloyd, yon are going to a new com pany. No one knows yon. Tour bed will be as you make It so for God's sake, brace up and be a man. X think you have tho stud In you, my boy, so good by and ths best of lock to you." - Tbe next day the battalion look over their part or th trenches. It happened to be s ery quM dny. The artillery behind the lines wss slUL except for fin occailpnn! shell Mat over to let ths Oermain know the gunners were nut Miecp. In tbe derksoM, la elngle file, the company- sliwly weeded their way down lb communirdtlon trench Ui ibu front lino. ,'o oi.n notffrd fjord's -h'S.s anil Cran fv4, (To I rrr,'ir.uc4 c- tt ck.1 know more about the situation over seas than the war lords themselves. They can tell you more about the Hin- aenourg line than rnndenburg himseli. They can tell you more about the city of Berlin than the Kaiser and his as sociates. They must have a wireless station direct- to the Kaiser's office as they give out news that never reaches the North Carolina dailies. A number of our boys have crossed -over the Atlantic to face the most barbarous set" of fiends God ever let live. They are gone. over to keep that gang of dirty, stinking, piratical, mur derering, cut-throats from coming over here and ravishing end tearing up this country. Yet there are men in this community that won't as much as speak one word for the boys that are going over to spill Chair blood for them, and their country. How can any man be in -sympathy with such a low j .-. . : V .. jt : . o Fpi uuwu uui-v uuiicii ux uiiatc& ; xiiere are only twd classes of people today. You are either a patriot or a traitor. Any person that is not supporting our country is endorsing the murderous acts of the brutish foe that our boys are gone over to crush There was but one choice for us to make. We made the choice of going to war atrainst the dirtiest crowd that ever defiled God's 'green earth or let' them trample on us, on our rights, our liberties, on all things we hold sacred. And we have a man that God picked out to lead us in this struggle. And if we fail to stand behind him it will bo because we are for he Kftiser and his gang. , , We have srot an army that is f::mK to make the Kaiser and Hindenburg and all the rest of that God-forsaken bunch go to their knees with their tongues hanging out We are not go ing to be defeated and don t you bull- hetkds and traitors that love the Kaiser so well doubt that I know it's going to be a very serious day for you fel lows that have been knocking-your country when the boys come marching home. You will feel like going to the woods, and I trust you will be sent over to spend your last days with te German ecrap-pile. we are going to nave many montns of sacrifice, but when UncleSam gets through with that dirty bunch of thieves Old Glory will float over Ber lin. Then a new day will dawn for America. - CORRESPONDENT. Pinson, N. C, June 20, 1918. Four Recent Candidates for President Look at Them Noiv In the last two Presidential elec tions there wefe four outstanding .can didates. 1 One was Woodrow Wilson. One was William H. Taft. One. was Theodore Roosvelt. . One was Chaiies E. Hughes. What are these men now doing ? Woodrow Wilson is administering the affairs of state, efficiently, coura- geoualy, and with the universal con fidence and- applause of LU country men. I William H. Taft is devoting all his. time and strength and abilities to up-, holding tho President and to helping the nation tor win its war. .' Charles E. Hughes is giving all his timo and abilities to supporting the lTesident and to herping tho nation to win its war. And what is Theodore Roosevelt do-! Why, ho Is busy, by day and by. night, snarling at tho President, find ing fault with all tho government does,' belittling our. war preparations, rag- nnrat everybody and at everything. vThe nation has bean at war with oermany ior mora than a year, and ln I ill . AWW T I Jp-LA nUilLJ II I DavRiM ""Wins eos" Start the. withaCviporTvro ox Luzianne HAM -AND -EGGS and a cup of steaming, stimulating Luzianne. What better start could anybody have' for the day's work I The sanitary, air-tight tin locks the flavor in! Buy a can of Luzianne today. If you don't agree it's the best hot beverage that ever passed your lips, your grocer will give you back what you paid for it, and aslf no questions. So, there. 'When It Poms, It Reigns" EB! r m THS SOUIKERI 5 An Ambition and a Record : 'J1 HE needs of the South are identical with the needt ! tbe opballdinf of tbe other. Tit Southern HiUwiy makt no fm isu tpedil pfirikre not accorded to other. Tbe Jnbltiori of tbe Sotabera kUllwar Coomiit Ii to tee tbat unity- of Interest tbat Is born of co-operation betweea tbe public and I tbe railroads i to tee perfected tbat fair and I nm icy in tbe asuiare ment of railroad which Inrhes tbe confidence of ewern mental arendeai to realize tba t liberality of treatment wale will enable It to obtain tbe additional capital needed for tbe aoqnlalrion of better and enlarg-ed facilities Incident to tbe aVrmand for Ukcrcaaed and better service f and. finally To take to niche In the body politic of tbe Sovtb aloaftlde of other treat Industries, with no mora, btt rtrhu and equal opportunities. I with equal libertiea, equal " The Southern Serves ths South." JQ""" ire WHyayaiia Authorized Ford Agency Standardized Ford N ' v- service and repairs, v Firestone and United States Tires and Tubes. N ' Asneboro Motor Car Company " "Service That Satisfes.w- .11 that tima not one single UIng that JiEHS SSSSSSISSnSSSSSS 11211222 SZfliJjffi a. uvvuvi w wwwvhsv M-s- m awv va wire Itsssi tisna m V1a a k. MM.MMM.ft ( to ths naUon's prestige or to. its wsr-l VVVA 4 While ths other men who recently. contested for tho , Presidency -loyally' re the fall measure of devoted serv-: s to tho country -and its cause, all that Theodora Itooeevelt docs is to scold and snarL .--.. It is a citable spectacle! Atlanta. Georgian. ' - s . ,. . I J tni iHoca i esii! let Scot t'i Em VsJTzi :Cf ttMcii iLs co!J sn4 EU CCLD3 nma itrtc;! ilf eoctradel Your Pressing Troubles will soon be over if yoi send your clothes. to mei; V I specialize on women's suits and give every job : The Asieicro Pressing tiiMimz Company. : W. P. Roystcr, Prop.'': , Phone 137 i i
The Courier (Asheboro, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
June 27, 1918, edition 1
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