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Throwing the Mills Bomb

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SHELLPROOF MACK

An American* s
fighting story

BY ■ : •

ARTHUR^ MACK

LATB OF THE 23 D BATTALION, LONDON REGIMENT,
H. M. IMPERIAL ARMY

ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS

BOSTON
SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

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By small, MAYNARD & COMPANY
(Incorporated)

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. 8. A.

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TO
MRS. ROSE ESCOTT NORTH

East Leake, Nottingham, England

Who adopted me as a friendless soldier and wrote me the

letters of a mother to a son, letters which cheered

and made endurable many a cheerless day and

night upon the battle fields of France,

This J^ttle "Book is T>edicated

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FOREWORD

The things that are set down here are written
from the standpoint of the plain private soldier,
— one who went as a volunteer, it is true, but
who hated the whole vile business of war as
any private soldier must, and who was glad
when his work was done.

If this book has any value it is because it is
a true telling of the things that are, over there,
and because it is without what the British
Tommy calls "camouflage."

This book lacks, no doubt, everything that
would be put into such a story by a professional
writer, — the brilliancy of expression and the
vividness of narrative; but if it is without those
things it is because it is the tale of a soldier
and not of a war correspondent.

A. M.

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CONTENTS

Chapter Page

I. Boyhood 3

n. College Life 8

in. On the Stage 13

IV. Training 19

V. First Night in the Trenches ... 26

VI. Over the Top on the First of July 40

Vn. Mascots 49

Vin. Wounds 56

rx. My Nickname and How I Got It 67

X. Rehearsal 89

XI. Messines Ridge 113

XII. Discipline 136

XTTT. HOLLEBEKE I42

XIV. Rest i6o

XV. Back to the Front 167

XVI. Taking the Pill-Boxes 178

XVn. Gassed 187

XVin. Shells and Slang 209

XIX. Back to Blighty 216

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Throwing the Mills Bomb FrotUispiece

Identification Discs Worn by the Author dur-
ing His Service i6

Throwing a Bomb from the Prone Position . . 46
A Duplicate of the German Trenches was laid
out in a Mile-Square Field, with every De-
tail exactly as We would find It when We

went "Over the Top" 96

Open Fitting at Messines Ridge 120

German Translation of President Wilson's War

Message of April 2, 1917 138

Rest. That was It. The Only Thing Lacking

was a Chance to Sleep in a Bed 166

A Short Rest in an Advance 184

Here are the Trophies — a German Bomb and a

German Hehnet 212

The Author's Certificate of Discharge .... 222

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SHELLPROOF MACK

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SHELLPROOF MACK

CHAPTER I
Boyhood

Once, when I was in training in England, a
Cockney sergeant came up to me and said:

"Hi sye, rook, wot's yer nimiber?'^

Mine was a high one and I started to give it
to him slow, "One — seven — four — " like
that. He evidently thought I was tr3dng to
have him on and got very shirty over it.

"Ow," says he, "so yer one o' them blinkin',
swankin' Yanks, are yer?''

That riled me and I came back.

"That's what I am and I can back it up."

"Can, can yer? Let's see yer," he invited.

With that I poked him on the nose. That
was a crime of course and I was on the mat with

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SHELLPROOF MACK

the company commander the next day. I
might have got a lot of wholesome pmiishment
for it and ought to have; but I did n't. The
officer was a decent fellow.
"What are you?'' he asked. "Irish?"
" Partly/' I answered. "But mostly Scotch."
"Ah," he said, "that accounts for it. The
Scotch are half argument and half fight. I'm
part Scotch myself." And with that he gave me
a light pmiishment.

I have thought since that that officer knew
what he was talking about. It's the little bit
of Scotch in me that has influenced me many a
time through life.

I was bom in New York and was christened
Arthur James McKay. I retained that name
until I went into the theatrical profession in
1906, when I took the name of Arthur Mack, the
label I wore when I enlisted in the British
Army. But I am getting ahead of my story.

When I was a small boy my people moved
to Northampton, Massachusetts, which was

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BOYHOOD

home until I struck out into the world for
myself.

My boyhood was pretty much like that of
any other American youngster. I was fond
of all outdoor sports except swimming and I
would drown to-day in six feet of water, — or
less.

In spite of my athletic tendencies I was
supposed to be not very strong and the fact
that I was always small added to the impression.
So it happened that my family had it all planned
that I was to have a very elaborate education
and go into the priesthood.

Right there the Scotch in me asserted itself.
Because somebody wanted me to be one thing
I straightway decided that I wanted to be the
opposite. I settled it in my own mind that I
was going to be a soldier. I fancy that if the
folks had wanted me to go to West Point I
would have insisted upon a profession.

Anyhow, I flatly refused to study in the
high school and left. The year following I did

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SHELLPROOF MACK

consent to go to Williston Academy, where I
devoted more time to athletics than to anything
else and made a fair reputation as a runner. I
ran fast enough to get beaten against such men
as Schick, Hubbard, Piper Donovan and Bart
Sullivan.

I did fairly well in my studies at Williston
and after one year took the examinations for
Holy Cross and Norwich University, both of
which I passed. I took the exams for Holy
Cross to please my parents; but I knew where
i was going. Norwich had, and I think still
has, the reputation of being one of the finest
military schools in the country. I still had
soldiering on the brain.

During the summer before entering Norwich
I became a professional runner under an as-
sumed name and was a member of the W. A.
Bailey Hose Team which made a world's record
for the 300 yards. Hose-team running in those
days was a very popular sport in the western
part of the State. I competed a good many

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BOYHOOD

times on this team that summer and was speedy
on my feet.

More than once during the two years I was
in France I looked back upon those footracing
days and wished that I could nm as fast with
ninety pounds of equipment on my back.

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CHAPTER n

College Life

In the fall of 1903 I entered Norwich Uni-
versity, On arrival at Northfield I happened
to run on to an old chum, one Biddy Burnett,
a sophomore. He put me up to all the hazmg
dodges that I might expect and as a consequence
I got oflF easy on that score. The hazmg at
Norwich was as bad in those days as it was at
West Point and the first year men sure were
disciplined by the upper classmen. I was
fortxmate in looking very much like a former
student named Skinny Eaton who had been
extremely popular. I was nicknamed Skinny
Eaton No, 2 and afterward became Skinny
McKay.

Life at Norwich was one of stiff discipline.
We had to wear a uniform all the time. The

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COLLEGE LIFE

life was as regular as that in the British Army.
I took to it like a duck to water. I fancy the
principal reason that I liked discipline was
that it was so much fun to break the rules
without getting caught. I got to be a past
master in the art.

I was the smallest man in the college, but
my athletic reputation had preceded me and
I was elected manager and coach of the Fresh-
man basket ball team. I put out a cracker-
jack of a team and defeated the varsity so badly
that we finished the varsity schedule.

Along in the spring we had some diphtheria
in the college and about fifty men were quaran-
tined on the upper floor of the barracks. The
poor fellows were suffering for beer or thought
they were. They couldn't get out, so they
sent for me and told me their troubles from the
window. I got a suit-case and went to town,
filled it with beer, hired a rig, drove back and
tied the load to the end of the fire-escape rope
that had been lowered from the barracks

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SHELLPROOF MACK

The cdebration led to an investigation and
of course I was convicted, I was barred from
athletics for a year.

This was a good thing, for I dug in on study
and learned a lot that came in handy afterward
in the British Army, I learned to take care of
myself physically, a thing that is essential to a
good soldier and that so few soldiers ever do
learn thoroughly. Every man had to care for
his own room and make his own bed, besides
keeping his equipment dean and well polished.

On Saturday we had to wash the windows
and scrub the floors and paiat, for Sunday in-
spection by the commandant, a United States
Army oflScer. At the time I remember that I
used to hate that scrubbing and would try
every possible way to get out of it; but it was
no go. Everybody had to do his bit.

Our military duties consisted of theoretical
artillery work, practical infantry and cavalry
training and military sdence. I became pretty
solidly grounded in disdphne and infantry work

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COLLEGE LIFE

in general and was on the way to becoming a
real soldier. In fact I thought seriously of try-
ing for a West Point appointment.

In my third year in college I was reinstated
in athletics and was manager of the baseball
team. I got into more trouble, incidentally,
though nothing very serious, and gradually
began to get the notion that I was fed up on
soldiering. It is a notion that comes to a man
in the army often. And it almost alwajrs gets
a boy in a military school. The difference is
that he can^t get out of the army when he gets
temperamental, — that is, not without desert-
ing and he does n't want to take any chances
of getting shot. He can get out of a military
school and he frequently does. I did. .

The thing that finally decided me to leave
college was this. I had become a member of
the Town Dramatic Club and liked it. The
fact is that about four times on the stage as
an amateur made me think I was cut out for
another Henry Irving. I was stage-struck for

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SHELLPROOF MACK

further orders. And so at the end of my third
year I let the military life go a-glimmering. I
qiiit cold and came to Boston where I studied
for a while at the Colonial Dramatic School.

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CHAPTER m
On the Stage

My first professional appearance on the stage
was with the old Castle Square Company.
Howard Hansell and Lillian Kemble were in
the leads. Mary Young and John Craig were
also in the company and the piece was ^' Soldiers
of Fortxme." I finished out the season there
and the next fall was out on the road with a
second-rate stock company playing the South.
At least we started to play the South.

The show blew up in Norfolk, Virginia. We
had known it was coming and a fellow named
Bean and m3rself had been dickering with
Charles E. Blaney by mail. The day we closed
we had a letter from Blaney with the offer of
the necessary job. Bean and I were to join
one of the Blaney road companies at Richmond
two weeks later.

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SHELLPROOF MACK

In the meantime Richmond was a long, long
way from Norfolk and we were nearly broke.
I had just fifty cents; Bean had an old silver
watch and no cash whatever. We talked it over
and decided that the only thing to do was to
jump a freight.

Hoboing was considerably out of our line
.but we had heard that it was easy enough. So
we shipped the trunks by express and sneaked
down to the railroad yards. Along in the
evening we stowed on a flat car of Imnber and
some time along towards morning she pulled
out. We travelled on that freight, I suppose,
about ten miles. When it got pretty light a
hostile brakeman came along and routed us
out.

"Hit the grit, you *boes," says he. "Hit the
grit and be quick about it."

"Wait xmtil we make the next stop," I sug-
gested.

"Stop me eye," said he. "Hit the grit and
do it now." He had a coupling-pin in his hand

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ON THE STAGE

and looked like using it, so we jumped. I did n't
get the cinders out of my hide for a month.

After that we walked a while and then took
to the road. A farmer came along and gave us
a ride and we told him om: story. He was a
good fellow and when we hit a little town he
took us aroxmd to a little packing-box hotel
and introduced us to the proprietor, who was
a friend of his.

The hotel man gave us a feed and let us sleep
in the stable that night. Next morning he
brought around the local station-agent and he
heard om: tale of woe, too. I fancy they must
have wanted to get us out of town, because the
agent took us down that night and walked out
to a water-tank about a mile down the line and
helped to get us aboard an empty box-car. We
made Richmond all right but we were fright-
fully empty. Bean pawned his watch and we
ate. Then we hunted jobs.

It would be two weeks before the Blaney
Company showed up and in the meantime we

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SHELLPROOF MACK

had to eat. It is a habit that grows on one, I
notice, and both Bean and myself looked for-
ward to a fortnight of emptiness with scant
pleasure. It was one thing to hxmt for a job in
Richmond and another to find one.

There seemed to be no market for a pair of
actors on the bimi. So when the watch money
was gone we joined the Salvation Army. For
the next ten nights we poxmded the big bass
drum and sung hymns and incidentally acquired
a large respect for the Army. They pulled us
through. We ate and we slept. And when the
Blaney Company showed up we deserted from
the Army!

I was with Blaney for two seasons after that,
playing with Fiske O'Hara and afterwards with
Lottie Williams in "The Tomboy Girl.'' About
this time the moving pictures were crowding
things pretty hard and so many companies were
going to the wall and so many houses dark that
I jumped into vaudeville.

I opened an office as a producer in New
i6

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Identification Discs Worn by the Author during His Service
These discs are worn around the neck. The one shown on the left is
green; the other is red. The green disc is removed in case of death and sent
to the War Office

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ON THE STAGE

York and succeeded for a while but eventually
went broke. After that I went back on the
stage again and stayed there until I. decided
to go over to France.

At the time the LusUania was sunk I was
playing in stock in New Bedford. I was
talking with the manager when I heard the
news and said to him,

"Well, here's my chance to be a soldier
again. We [can't get out of declaring war on
Germany."

He laughed at me and said I was crazy and
that we never would get into the war. After
a few days I began to think he was right. I
read the papers eagerly — read of the German
cruelties and the atrodties in Belgimn and of
the endless call for men in England. Eventu-
ally I saw there was no chance of the United
States getting in. So I made a quick decision
for myself, quit the stage tiien and tiiereand
declared war on Germany. I was going over
and I was going quick. The memories of the

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SHELLPROOF MACK

military life at Norwich came back and I
wanted to get into uniform as soon as possible.
So I jxmiped the train for Boston and the next
day was hxmting transportation to England.

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CHAPTER IV
Training

When I started hunting a way to get across
I was, of course, broke as per usual. So I de-
cided to work the horse boats as so many others
had done. I shipped without any trouble on
the Cambrian and sailed June 24, 1915, arriv-
ing in London on July 7 after a mildly ezdting
voyage.

I had shipped for the round trip and was
given five dollars cash and board and room at
the Sailors' Home on Lemon Street. I batted
aroxmd a bit and spent the five dollars and then
hit the trail for the nearest recruiting office. I
had had enough of horses, and anyhow I had
come over to enlist so I wanted to get in as soon
as possible.

London at the time was full of recruiting
stations and there were red arrows all over

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SHELLPROOF MACK

the shop pointing the way to tiie chance to
give up life and liberty for King and Country
or for the fun of it as the case might be. I fol-
lowed the arrows to Shoreditch Town Hall and
went through the formalities and the examina-
tions. They refused me flatly on accoimt of
poor eyesight. My right eye was all right but
the left was no good at all. I had always sup-
posed that both of them were good.

I tackled another office in Whitechapel and
went thorugh the same thing. Next day I
went to an office at 32 St. Paulas Churchyard
and told my troubles to the sergeant there. I
said I was going to get into the army if I had
to use a jimmy and that it was going to take
a lot of refusing to keep me out. We went in
to the officer and he heard the story without
any reservations. He was a good chap, that
officer. He put me through the examinations
up to the eye test and said I was right enough
except that I was light, weighing just under a
hundred poxmds.

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TRAINING

When it came to the eyes he said,
"Now, my lad, on this test of the left eye
you cover up your right eye with your hand in-
stead of a card."

I did that little thing and was able to see
fine between my fingers. I enlisted xmder my
stage name, Arthur Mack. Three days later

1 was at Mill Hill Barracks, a member of the

2 2d Middlesex Regiment, an outfit of bantams.
We were a fimny-looking crowd. Early in the
war the experiment of bantam regiments was
well tried out. There wasn't a man in our
regiment that was over five feet four and from
that down. On the whole, though, the bantams
never were a success: it turned out that a
small man is a good deal more likely than a
big one to have other disqualifying troubles.
Eventually all the bantam units were distrib-
uted to other regiments.

I had been in uniform only three days when
a drill sergeant spotted me as one who had had
previous military training. He asked me and

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SHELLPROOF MACK

I told him all about my three years at Nor-
wich. About six weeks later the sergeant-
major sent for me and said:

"Private Mack, I understand that you have
had military training before and that you
know the duties of a corporal. Do you realize
the responsibilities?"

"Yes, sir,^' I said, "I do."

"Very well," he said, "you are to go up for
your stripes."

Now I knew too much about the military
game to want to be a non-com and I said so.
I told the sergeant-major that I did n't think
I should like to assume the responsibility of
even a low non-com much less seek pro-
motion. I wished, I told him, to remain a
private.

The sergeant got pretty savage over that
and made me feel that I had insulted him, the
British Army and the King. But I knew what
I wanted and what I didn't want and was
content to remain just a private. I would n't

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TRAINING

have gone higher and have often been glad
that I did n't.

Two weeks later I was recommended to
Brigade Officers' Staff and reported there as
orderly. I hated to leave the bunch of pals I
had come to like so well but the job was the
cushiest in the army. It let a man out of all
training and gave him better grub and a bed to
sleep in.

My regiment was shifted about constantly
diuing the five months I was at headquarters,
and I saw Aldershot, Borden, Pirbright and
several other places.

Then I heard that my regiment was going
to France. I asked for transfer back to active
service. I got it. But I foimd that I had
missed a lot of training. A short time after
my return the men were all examined by the
Medical Board for Overseas and I failed to
pass.

That was discouraging as I had by this time
fully made up my mind that I was going to

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SHELLPROOF MACK

see fighting by hook or by crook. I was sent
to Harwich in a reserve batt. I had been there
just one week when the commanding officer
asked for men who had passed their medical
examinations and their course of firing. He
wanted them as volxmteers for the London 23d.
I promptly hopped out of the ranks and
volunteered, though I was n't up on either of
the requirements.

Somebody must have had an eye shut be-
cause I got away with it. Next day I was in
Winchester and a week later I sailed for France.

Before sailing I had a new equipment which
weighed complete ninety pounds. I weighed
myself stripped the day I received it and I
tipped the beam at just ninety-nine poimds.
Some load!

Landed in France at Le Havre, I had nine
days more of strenuous drill in specialized lines
and then was ready for the front. Incidentally
I saw the sights in Le Havre, the Red Light dis-
trict and the white lights too. That is part of

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TRAINING

a soldier's education over there, you know. If
he does n't learn to keep his head and behave
himself on leave he's a poor soldier.

The little more than a week of drill in Le
Havre ended too soon. Within a few days after
that we were within sound of the rumble of the
big guns.

«S

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CHAPTER V

First Night in the Trenches

We cannot fight,
We cannot die,
Wot bloody good are we?
And when we get to Berlin,
The Kaiser he will say,
Mein Gott, mein Gott,
Wot a very fine lot
To send to Germanee.

I WAS lying on the floor of a bell tent at the
base in Le Havre on a hot day in August. The
hoarse voice of the singer floated in on the still
air very dismally. He had the tune wrong and
he did n't have the words exactly right, and he
bore down on the "Wot bloody good are we,"
as if he relished it.

I got up and peeped through the tent flap.
The singer was sitting on an upturned bucket
peeling potatoes. His face was about eighteen

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FIRST NIGHT IN THE TRENCHES

inches long and he slewed his mouth aroundi

rolled his eyes and shifted off into another

song.

Take me over the sea
Where the Allemand can't get me,
Oh, myl I don't wamier die.
I wanner go 'ome.

That finished me. I had heard both songs
before sung better, but they never got imder my
vest Uke that, and I knew there wasn't any
answer to the "Wot bloody good are we?'*, at
least as far as I was concerned, and I knew
right well that I wanted to go 'ome.

I ducked out and hoofed it for the C. O.,
and shoved in an application for discharge from
the British Army on the grounds that I was an
American citizen.

I was just down from seven weeks in the
hospital after being woxmded in three places on
the same day by shell fragments. I was still
shaky and had a silver plate in the top of my
head and could feel my brains wobble aroxmd,
but I had been examined by the Medical Board

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SHELLPROOF MACK

the day before and told that I was fit and that
I was to be sent back to the batt in less than a
week.

This was in 1916. In those days you could n't
get a discharge from the British Army for any-
thing less than a leg off; and if you happened
to be a good shoemaker or accoimtant or some-
thing you did n't need a leg for, I don't believe
they'd let you go at that. It was possible for
an American citizen to beg off. I had had a
little more than three months in the trenches
and was fed up. I had had enough. I wanted,
like the fellow in the song, to go home.

I suppose that every rookie goes through the
same experience. He strikes a period in his
service when he would give anything to get
away. He has had enough fighting to be
thoroughly scared and not enough to have be-
come a seasoned veteran. It is this period of
depression that produces the many songs like
the ones quoted above. There was another, of
which I can recall only the last three lines.

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FIRST NIGHT IN THE TRENCHES

They were a supplication to the war office and

went:

Send your father, send your brother,
Send your sister, send your mother.
But for Gawd's sake don't send me.

These songs were all sung in a spirit of josh,
but we meant 'em too. Say what you will,
there is a time in the life of any soldier when he
wishes he had n't come.

I am mighty glad to read that the American
troops are being broken in and given theur bap-
tisms gently, so to speak. Back in the old days
of 1915, and half way through 1916, the British
were so short of men that they had to take raw
rookies and shove them in to get used to things
as best they could. That spoiled a lot of sol-
diers. It came near spoiling me.

As a fine lexample of the way the thing should
not be done if it can be avoided it may do no
harm to tell something about those first three
months in the service.

Probably no chap ever forgets his first night
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in the trendies. I'll bet a dinner there isn't
one man in a thousand that had one like mine.
I had been about ten months in training in
England before being sent over to France.
That was about twice what most of them were
getting at the time. I had been in uniform so
long that I'd heard the war talked over from
every angle, and had heard scores of men who
had come back tell of their experiences and
had got so I thought the big show was more or
less of a dnch.

When I finally did go over they had me right
up at the front without delay, and the batt
landed in a place called Fonquevillers, better
known to the Cockney as Fimky Village. We
were dimiped down out of a train of toy freight
cars five miles behind the lines, late in the after-
noon, and marched up to the front. We got
into the coromunication trenches at dark and
aroimd ten in the evening I was standing on
the fire-step in the front line looking over the
top. Coming up there had been a booming of

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FIRST NIGHT IN THE TRENCHES

guns at a distance in both directions, north
and south, but we had n't seen a shell burst.
A mate of mine named Higgins and I were
shown a traverse about thirty feet long and
told to stand on, the fire-step xmtil relieved, and
there we were.

The place was as stiU as the middle of
somebody's melon patch along towards morn-
ing. There wasn't a gun of any sort, big
or little, going off for miles aroxmd. We
stood a while on the step and "Hig" whispered
tome:

"What do we do next, Mack?"

His whisper sounded like an umpire talking
through a megaphone.

"Shut up, you fool," I hissed. "They 'U
hear you."

That was how little we knew about what to
do and how to do it. We stood there without
moving until my foot went to sleep and the
sweat was rolling down my back.

Then the rats began to come. We had kept
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so still that I fancy they thought this bay was
theirs. Anyhow, as many as a dozen big ones
came scuttling along the trench and along the
step. We did n't bother them until two of the
biggest got in a row over a bit. of garbage or
something and squealed enough to make your
blood run cold.

"Hig" stood up on the step, whispering,
"Shoo, shoo,'' at the rats, but they didn't
pay any attention and had it out. I was afraid
the Heinies would hear and come over to stop
the fight. But nothing happened. After the
rat row we loosened a little. I got down a
sandbag to stand on to look over and stared
out into the dark. There were a lot of old
stmnps out there, and after a while one of
them moved. Then it did n't move. Then it
looked like a horse, and moved again. My
throat got dry and the hair crawled on the
back of my neck and I itched in seventeen
separate places.

"Hig" pussyfooted down next to me and
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said, in a trembly voice, "See 'em move,
mytie? Le 's give it to 'em."

I held up my hand to him and he sneaked
back, but before he went I heard him mutter:

"Cripes, I wish they'd be some noise."

I wished so too, but there wasn't. Not a
shot of any kind was fired all night long. I
nearly went mad half a dozen times, and when
it began to get light I was a nervous wreck.

Just as it was graying a little a couple of
men came through lugging a dixie of stew and
we filled up the tins. I was so glad to see some-
body that I could talk to that I was nearly
ready to hug the two of them. They growled
and said some tea would be along shortly, and
went. The tea never arrived.

Before we had a chance to tackle the stew
Fritz began to shell us. We 'd been wishing for
less silence, and, by heck, we got more noise.
Out of a clear sky they gave it to us for twenty
minutes, — whiz-bangs mostly, and they hit
everywhere but in our traverse. One hit in

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the next bay and we heard a man yelling in
there. We dropped our rifles and crouched
under the parapet with our teeth chattering,
praying for the end.

When it was all over I foxind that I'd got
my foot into my stew. I didn't care par-
ticularly, because I was so sick I couldn't
have eaten it, anyway. After the strafing was
well over we were relieved. I did n't get over
that nerve-shattering first night and morn-
ing for days. It was a poor way to start a
rookie in.

The Fimky Village sector was supposed to
be a hoKday part of the line. It was, in a way.
Frequently there would be no shelling at all,
day or night, for days, except the regular
strafing at breakfast. We got that without
fail. After a week or ten days we got used to
it and were on the way to becoming veterans.

In the matter of the hardships of trench life
Fimky Village was a fine prep school for any-
thing they could offer us anywhere else. For a
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so-called trench system it was a disgrace to an
army that had been in the field learning for
nearly two years. When the trenches had been
dug they had been reasonably good, but they
had been bashed in and there had never been
any attempt at repairs. The nature of the
groxmd made the traverses catch all the water
there was in that part of the world and hold
it. We were up to our knees all the time and
up to the middle part of the time. It is a
wonder we didn't grow flippers and tails.
Hip-boots had not been issued at that time
and we just wallowed. We used to cut sand-
bags in two and wrap oiu: legs, but all that did
was to parboil the skin.

The coEomunication trenches were so deep
in water that two men were actually drowned
in them. It was impossible to get up hot
rations with any pretence of regularity. For
the most part we lived on cold stuff with stew
and tea when we got it, which was seldom.
Water was scarce, except imder foot. Drink-

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ing water was brought up in petrol tins and
would be blue with oil. A good part of the
time we drank the stuff out of the trenches,
thick as pea soup with little zoos in it. Some
humorist stuck up a sign, reading:

DonH Drink the Water You Sleep In

But most of us did it rather than try to
worry down the gasolene mixture. It was a
queer thing that the bad water did n't seem to
make anyone sick. I fancy that we all got
kind of amphibious after a bit, healthy like
sea lions, and that we could have lived in an
aquariiun.

You will imderstand that this was along
towards the fag end of the extremely bad con-
ditions on the British front. From the fall of
1916 on, things got better, but it did take the
English a long time to learn.

I think it may be fairly said that the su-
periority of trench construction by the Ger-
mans from the beginning was the great reason

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FIRST NIGHT IN THE TRENCHES

why the Hxins had it on the British in net
military results in the early days.

From the time they dug in the Germans
were thorough and careful in their trench
building. They went down deep with their
trenches and with their dugouts. They were
safer all the time than we were. They were
dry and comfortable in their sleeping quarters.
Their communication trenches were good and
they were able to feed their men well at all
times. It stands to reason that a man who has
slept well and eaten well is worth, setting aside
the consideration of personal bravery, as much
as two or three men who have slept in muck-
holes and who have had cold rations.

Whenever criticism was offered on the sub-
ject of bad British trenches and the lack of
dugouts the answer always was that they did n't
expect to stay in their positions long enough
to make elaborate workings worth while.
That was not the answer at all. The fact was
that the British did stop in bad trenches with-
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out going forward for a year, and for two
years at some points. The reasons were two.
First, the fact that England was not ready
when the war started, and that her ofl&cers,
drawn mostly from civilian life, had to learn.
The second reason was that the Englishman is
naturally conservative and slow to grasp a
new idea, and is satisfied to muddle through.

I can look back on those trenches at Funky
Village and see how even a little pick and
shovel work in the quiet days when we had
absolutely nothing to do would have given us
dry dugouts, good drainage, safe traverses and
coEomunications, and would have increased our
efl&dency one hundred per cent if we hadn^t
been lazy or stupid, whichever it was.

Well, that 's all gone by. And I, for one, can
rejoice that the American rookie has not to
face the bad conditions of breaking in that I
had to go against. What we had at Funky was
heaven compared with what the Canadians
endured at Ypres a year earlier, but it was so

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FIRST NIGHT IN THE TRENCHES

bad that no new troops going in now wiU ever
have to stand up to anything like it.

After that first night, and on up to the first
of July, 1916, we were in and out at Funky,
having our "rest" at a place called St. Amand,
an ex-village consisting of two pubs where they
sold slushy beer and vin blanc, and about six
whole houses. It was discouraging work.

Sometimes we would have as many as fifteen
or sixteen days in the trenches without relief
and then, maybe, two days in billets. Over a
week in the trenches at one stretch is ruinous
to the nerves. At the end of one week a man's
nerves get strung up so he gets to seeing things
at night, whether he is a hardened vet or not.
There was another place the Fritzies had it on
us. According to all accounts they made out
from the beginning to give the men a regular
system of six days in the front line, six days in
support and six days in billets. They came
back fresh. We did n't.

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CHAPTER VI

Over the Top on the First of July

Well, we worried along this way until the
first of July, and on that day they pulled off
what was supposed to be the big spring at-
tack. AU the rookies who had come up with
me were on the ragged edge of nervous pros-
tration and the chaps who had been there when
we came were nearly as bad.

Our morale was bad. We had got some used
to being shelled — just enough so we were able
to figure out the mathematical chances of being
hit by the next one — and that's a bad state
to be in. Most of us had never been under
rifle fire in the open or under machine guns,
and we were so shaken that we dreaded it.
And that's the shape we were in when we went
over the top on the morning of the first of

July.

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OVER THE TOP

We had a fair artillery preparation — enough
to batter down their wire and that was all. We
went over early in the morning. There was
no barrage — and we simply climbed out and
went forward on the double. There was no
smoke screen in front of us and we were open
to the sight of the strongly emplaced German
machines.

Besides that we had very few grenades. The
Mills bombs had come in only a short time be-
fore and had not yet reached us. We had
some of the old-fashioned hairbrush and jam-
tin grenades, but they were worse than noth-
ing, as the men did n't trust them. Those old
jam-tin bombs were sure suicide tools. They
were made, as the name implies, of old jam and
marmalade cans. You'd light the fuse and
then had a matter of four seconds to throw the
thing. Once a fellow in my section was get-
ting ready to throw one and a bluebottle fly
kept settling down on the grenade to get some
•f the jam scrapings. The chap kept shaking

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SHELLPROOF MACK

the fly off and finally he got the fuse lighted
and the fly settled again, and he waited to
give the bomb another shake and it went off.
He never threw another bomb. The fly got
away.

So that's the way we went into the July first
attack, without barrage and without bombs.
Nothing but rifles and the bayonets. It was
eight hundred 5^rds to the German trenches.
We crossed it on the double with two rests of
about a minute each to catch our breath. The
whole attack as far as our sector was concerned
was a washout. The division on our left had
a mix-up on orders and didn't go over with
the rest of us. The result was that we were
enfiladed and raked fore and aft.

I was so scared that I was petrified. I re-
member that all the way across I was praying
that I wouldn't have to use the bayonet or
to face the bayonet.

I have read a good deal of tommy-rot from
time to time about the German being afraid of
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OVER THE TOP

the cold steel. The fact is that any Anglo-
Saxon hates it. The Scotch and the Irish like
the bayonet. The Englishman hates it as
bad as any German. I dreaded it on my first
charge, and in all the many months of service
after that, and I hate the idea now.

I had that dread topside in my mind all
the way across. When we made the German
trenches we found no Fritzies there. The Hun
was playing it low down and foxy on us. He
had raked us all the way across and had quietly
abandoned his front line when we arrived. I
dropped into a bay and waited there for as
much as half an hour. The suspense was just
what was needed to give me a let-down and
knock out what faked-up courage I had left
in me.

I stood there alone, shaking all over, and
very badly nauseated, xmtil an officer came
along and told me to join some of the men two
traverses further down. I moved down and
joined them. Tliere was little shellfire and we

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were fairly safe from the typewriters. I was
just getting a little courage back when a com-
motion started around the comer in a com-
mxmication trench, and a second later around
the comer came crowding about twenty Heinies.
They had come out of a dugout.

They were on top of us in an instant. A big
fellow made a thmst at me. I parried per-
fectly. He dropped his rifle. I made a thmst
at his chest. He caught the rifle with both
hands and seemed to pull the bayonet into his
throat.

And then a strange thing happened. When
the steel went into him my head cleared. The
limap went out of my throat. My solar plexus
stopped squirming. My knees were solid. I
let go a glad yell and kicked him off the pin.
It broke at the butt, but I didn't care. I
clubbed old Sarah Jane and went after the
next Fritz, knowing I was just twice as good
a man as he.

We polished off that gang in less time than
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OVER THE TOP

it takes to tell it. About five minutes after-
wards the Germans began to shell us. Lord,
how they gave it to us! They had the range,
naturally, having just left those trenches, and
laid down the shells just where they would do
the most good.

Our orders had been to go it on our own
and to return to our lines if the oflGicers judged
it was getting too hot. The oflGicer in command
of our platoon gave us the word and we went
back. They enfiladed us on the return. But I
never felt another pang of fear through that
day.

Out of the eight hxmdred of our batt that
went over that morning just ninety-two re-
sponded to roUcall in our trenches that even-
ing. Another hundred straggled in through the
night. The attack was one grand washout,
but it did one thing for me. It gave me back
part of the courage that had been squeezed out
of me by my unf ortimate early experience.

Three weeks later, on the 21st of July, I was

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badly smashed up while standing in a trench.
Shells bursting overhead — this was before I
became known as/*Shellproof" — got me in
the head and shoulder and the hand, — of
which more later.

They had me in the hospital for repairs,
and at the beach for recuperation, and finally,
as I have said, I brought up at Le Havre
at the base, ready for shipment back to the
front.

During the days at the hospital and the
beach I had time to think over the weeks in
the trenches. And I came to resent keenly the
things that had happened to me there. I was
disgusted with the British Army. I was dis-
gusted with war. I was fed up on mud and
blood and cooties and bad food and the whole
blooming show. I wanted to go home.

So, as I have told, I went down to the C. 0.

and applied for a discharge as an American

citizen. The oflScer was agreeable and filled

out the papers and told me I'd have to see

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OVER THE TOP

the Camp commander. I found him in his
quarters.

He was a middle-aged man with a ready but
kind of frosty smile. He heard my case.

"Surely," said he, "you shall have your dis-
charge. But don't you care for the British
Army?"

With that little encouragement I opened up
and told him all my troubles. I was fed up
and said so.

The oflScer twinkled his eyes.

"Would n't you fed a little better with a bit
more rest?" he asked.

I shook my head kind of stubbom.

"Have you killed a German yet?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," I said, and I loosened up again
and told him all about it.

"Do you remember how you felt when you
gothun?"

I thought a minute and then looked the
officer in the eye. He smiled, and I smiled.

He picked up my filled-out application
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blank and held it out. I took it and tore
it up.

" Go back and get another German," he said;
and he shook hands with me.

Two days later I was on the way up to the
Somme to rejoin the batt for thirteen months
more of it.

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CHAPTER Vn

Mascots

The British Tommy has a lot of qualities
that are xmattractive and a lot more that
endear him to the heart of anybody but a
German. He is apt to be rough and xmcouth.
He grouses a good deal and is suspicious and
unapproachable until he knows you. But he is
always good-natured underneath and he sure
is human.

He has n't the cold intellectual eflGiciency of
the 'orrible 'Un and he therefore insists upon
keeping a variety of pets and mascots even if
the live stock eats his rations and takes no
active part in winning the war.

Any soldier is more or less of a kid, usually
more. No matter how old the Tonmay is or
what he was in peace times he sheds his re-
sponsibility when he gets in imiform; he looks

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upon his officers as parents or schoolmasters^ or
bothy and spends a good deal of his time trying
to get around the entirely wholesome regula-
tions laid down for him by those in command.

One of these rules is the one that mascots
diall not be carried. As a general thing the
officers shut their eyes at the small animals. If
Tommy had free hand a battalion would carry
a menagerie with everjrthing in it up to an
elephant. Large animals eat a lot of grub and
are in the way, which is probably the reason
why they are banned. So the soldier has to
worry along and bestow his aflFection on cats
and small dogs with an occasional rabbit or
guinea pig — anything that will cuddle up and
let itself be petted and loved.

As a rule it is hard to keep dogs. The dog
is supposed to be man's faithful friend. But
it was our experience that the trench pups
lived up to the reputation of the house cat.
They went where they got the most grub.
Another tradition gone blooey through the war!

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MASCOTS

My crowd never did have but one dog that
stuck. He was a tough little fox terrier named
Kitchener and he loved rats. We used to get
German shells loaded with lyddite, which gave
oflf an awful stink, and smoke out rats for
Kitchener. We would put some of the lyddite
on pieces of paper and Kght them and slip them
into ratholes. Pretty soon the other holes
down the trench would spout rats and Kitchener
would have the time of his young life. He got
hit by shrapnel at last and went west.

When we were at the support tunnel behind
the Bluflf Sector at Messines Ridge there was
a grand old tomcat whose name was Bill —
Old Bill to be exact. Bill was the mascot of
the tunnel, not of any particular imit, and he
was the first thing thought of or asked for when
we came out of the trenches for a rest.

Bill was a tough cat. He was built heavy
forward, like a lion, with wide jowls and
battered ears where he had fought many a
valiant fight with rats and such, and he had a

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chronic scowl. He swaggered and did n't care
a damn for anyone. So we liked him. Yet Old
Bill was as human as any Tommy. He loved
to have his belly rubbed, and would rumble a
hoarse piur like a whiskey tenor trying to sing
bass.

There were cook-houses outside the tiumel
at the various entrances. Bill used to make
the roimds two or three times a day for his
rations and he kept fat. For a long time Bill
liked to take a ramble out into the field when
it was good and siumy. But one day a shell
burst within fifty yards or so of Bill and he lit
out for home with a tail as big as a toffee apple.
After that he never did go out. We always
remembered Bill kindly because he clawed the
leg of a war correspondent — a famous one at
that — who came down to report the battle
of Messines Ridge for a London daily. Bill
was undoubtedly an intelligent cat and used
good judgment in the case of the newspaper
man who, as we foimd out when we saw the

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MASCOTS

papers, reported as an eye-witness things that
happened seventeen miles away from where he
was when they happened. R. I. P. — Bill, not
the war correspondent.

Another cat my platoon had was a little
she-one, very soft and cuddlesome, that would
ride on the top of anybody's pack and make
herself at home in any trench or dugout and
never groused about the rations. Her name was
Vic. Vic got very thick with a chap named
Bott and used to follow him around. One night
Bott went out on patrol and Vic went along
and got lost. Along towards morning we heard
her crying out there in the dark and three men
risked their lives — it was just before dawn
and the Boche shelling was nearly due — going
out after her. If that cat had gone west I think
Bott would have been shot at sunrise.

Another time we had a goat named Hinden-
burg. He was allowed by the officers because
he didn't require any rations. Hindenburg
could butt like blazes. He was that kind of a

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goat. And while he was n't the sort of animal
you'd care to take to bed with you, he was
popular because he was rough and could take
care of himself. When we were on the hike he
would hop on the top of a limber and ride
standing up, taking in the scenery, very inter-
ested and independent. Hindenburg got on the
crime-sheet when he ate the first leftenant's
other shirt. After that the orders were to keep
him tied up. He did n't like that and one day
he chewed the rope apart and butted the
C.S.M., a dignified old swab who was hoping
for a commission that he couldn't afford.
Hindenburg was turned over to the quarter-
master and appeared later as mutton at the
sergeants' mess. We all hoped he'd poison
the cannibals, but he did n't and was said by
those who had some of him to be good eating.

There was a Blackpool Cockney in my
platoon for a while that swore he had a tame
cooty, but I think he was a liar.

I thiok the strangest pet that I ever heard
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of in the trenches was a tame starling. The
English starling is about as common in northern
France as he is across the Channel. Sometimes
they get up pretty close to the lines, but on the
whole they don't like gimfire and keep clear,
the same as most of the other birds. Down
aroimd Fmiky, though, there was a starling
that himg aroimd the trenches regularly and
got so tame he would come down and hop along
the fire-step in the second line trench. Nobody
ever bothered him and he lived well.

Soldiers are kind to animals and birds. They
are boimd to be, as they take out aU their hating
on the Boche. And, anyway, a dog or a cat is
human in comparison.

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CHAPTER Vm
Wounds

When I was first in France, before going up
to the front and before I had ever heard a shot
fired in actual battle, I was sitting one day in a
little estaminet when in came a British soldier
on crutches. He was qmte evidently a veteran
and I hailed him and asked him to have a drink.
He was ready enough. A Tommy never refuses
hospitality, particularly if it is hquid.

I wanted some inside information on trench
conditions and the sort of thing I was likely to
go up against in the next few weeks and I
started in asking questions at once.

My first one was that blamed fool query
that I came later to hate so and that makes
every soldier that hears it want to murder the
questioner.

" Have you been wounded?"
S6

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WOUNDS

Any fool could see that this man had been
wounded but I asked just the same. Tommy
looked at me with contempt and I hastily
ordered another drink for him. Just then
another soldier entered. My chap didn't
know the newcomer who had his arm in a sling
but that did n't matter. He hailed him.

"Wot 'o, m)rtie. 'Ave a go. The bloomin'
rook 'ere's standin' treat."

I ordered "veesky-soda" for the new man,
who sized me up with almost as much scorn
as the first one. To cover my confusion I asked
another question.

"How does it feel to be woimded?"

This seemed to be in perfectly good form
and I got my answer from him of the crutch.

"Hit feels," says he, "like gettin' bashed wiv
a bally cricket baU."

"Yer're a liar," said he of the smashed
arm, speaking without heat. "Feels like
some blighter was stickin' a red 'ot needle in
yer."

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Hiere followed an argument on the sensa-
tions of various wounds. Each man had been
hit only once and each was right as to the feel-
ing that he individually registered.

Later on I copped a few myseU and would
have been able to give a new recruit a whole lot
of information on how it feels to get hit with
either bullet or shrapnel or to get gassed or to
be buried and jammed about with sandbags,
which usually counts for a wound; and I could
have told him something of the sensations of
shellshock, although I don't really qualify on
that last, being shellproof apparently, and
never was able in my whole seventeen months'
experience in the trenches to work up anything
more than faint symptoms of shock.

I remember my first woimd. Everybody is
boimd to if it doesn't knock him cold. My
first one was more painful than any hurt that
I received except, of course, being gassed.

My first three woimds were received all on
one day and they were not come by in battle.

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I never, in fact, was hit by anything in action,
— that is, in a charge or a raid.

We were in a front trench one morning when
Fritz commenced his regular bef ore-breakfast
strafing. I had become pretty well accustomed
to this sort of thing at the time and was more or
less indifferent to it. I was himched up under
the parapet, along with my mate Higgins. I
had my tin kelly pushed back on my head,
which was a careless thing to do — but you do
get careless over there. A big boy burst in the
next traverse and a lot of muck and stones
came over and Hig sung out to me,
"Pull yer 'at up on yer napper, yer fool."
Well, I laughed at him but I took his advice;
and just as I took hold of the rim of the helmet
and pulled it forward a big chxmk of shell
caught me right on the fingers. Woow! It
pinched my trigger finger against the rim of the
tin hat and smashed it — smashed it plenty —
and jammed the second finger almost as bad.
Did you ever get yoxir finger shut in a door or

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caught in one of the old-fashioned patent
rockers? This was the same thing, only more so.
Hig got a first-aid bandage on the hurt, and
when the blood began to come back into it
she fairly jxmiped and I howled. It was hurting
so that I thought I would find some kind of a
dugout and crawl in and nurse it there.

I was going down the trench hunting for
shelter when I got my second crack. Zizzz*
Whang! Down comes a whiz-bang, which is
a choice variety of shell that soimds like that
and that you don't hear until it goes off. This
.one hit so near that it slammed me up against
the parapet and I felt a smash on the shoulder
about like what the fellow said about the
cricket ball. It was just a shocking jolt, niunb-
ing but not painful at first. Then after a bit
it began to hurt, too; but not anywhere as
bad as the hand. That shoulder woimd was
serious. A big chunk of shrapnel had gone in
and ripped a big hole. An officer came up and
told me that I'd better get along back to an

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aid station as the shoulder ou^t to be looked
after right away. There weren't any com-
munication trenches at that point and it was
up to me to go over the top, — that is, to
dimb over the parados and go to the rear
across lots* I didn't fancy it and said so.
I could walk all right and did n't see any need
of taking any such risk, at least imtil the
shelling was over. However, the hand was
hurting so that my judgment was kind of
hazy and it was an order really from the officer
to go back. Anyhow, I went.

I remember I had gone about a himdred
yards and' was breaking all records for cross-
country running when there was a blinding,
stimning crash. For an instant I had a sink-
ing sensation, without any pain and then I
did n't know any more.

This last one was a big piece of shell and it
pretty near lifted the top of my head oflF. I
never did wake up after that whack until I was
miles back of the line in a hospital. Then the

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old napper did n't hurt much; but the shoulder
was throbbing some and the hand was hurt-
ing worse than ever. They operated on the
head and put in a nice sflver lid, and that
didn't bother me any more, although, of
course, it was the serious woimd of the three.
The shoulder got well after some weeks and
the hand kept on being bad for months. For
that matter I have never had the use of that
trigger finger since.

My second time woimded and my fourth hit
was with a bullet, and it reminded me of the
fellow who maintained so stoutly that a
wound was like a hot needle.

This took place one night while on a ration
party. About six of us were going back to
bring up the grub. We had loads, depend
upon that. Tommy is made a pack-horse
whenever he goes to the rear. There is always
something to go back. We each had buckets
in one hand and a case of Mills bombs on
the other shoulder. There was one incom-

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petent, clumsy beggar in the party who kept
shifting his bucket and his case of bombs.
Now when a Very light goes up, the thing to
do is to stand absolutely still until the light
has died down. K you stand still Fritz does n't
see you. If you move, he fans you with a
typewriter and fills you full of bullets. We
kept telling this chap to freeze when a light
went up, but he kept taking occasion to shift
his load when a Very was floating overhead,
and the Boche spotted us.

The first burst of bullets drilled me clean
through the thigh. It didn't hit the bone;
and it did fed exactly like a hot needle. I
kept on walking for about three steps. Then
I dropped the bucket and dragged a little.
Then down went the Millses and I dragged
some more. Then I went down myself.

That cute little hole in the leg did n't pain
me any to speak of, after the first "bum";
and it only kept me in the hospital two weeks.

The human body sure will stand a lot of
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punishment at times. Of course where there
are so many men being hit every day things
happen that anyone would have said before
the war could n't happen.

We had in our batt a negro. Blacks were
not common in the British Army — that is,
outside of native units. I used to josh the
Tommies and fill them up with fairy tales
about this and that; and I instructed them
on that old tradition about a negro's head
being harder than a white man's. Only I
stretched it and told them that a bullet would
boimce off the black man's skull.

Well, it happened that this coon got creased
along the scalp two or three times without
getting hurt enough to send to the rear and the
men had got so they believed his napper would
tiun anything. After a while he got one
straight through the top of the head. The
bullet went in at the top of his forehead and
came out of the back. It must have pierced
his brain, if he had any. And he lived. That

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is, he lived for three days; and I think if he
hadn't got filled out of an ambulance he
would have pulled through to convalescence.

Another queer thing in the way of war
hurts is shell-shock. Some men seem to be
shell proof — like myself. I have seen a man
lifted and thrown over into the next traverse
and half his clothes taken off by a shell which
must have burst right beside him; and there
was nothing the matter with the fellow. On
the other hand some are so sensitive to the
jar of shells that they get shell-shock if one
bursts within a hundred yards.

Shell-shock is, of course, merely a form of
paralysis. In the early days of the war it
used to be the custom to execute any man
who deserted imder fire or, rather, who showed
cowardice and ran, disobeying orders. For
that matter, it is the custom now, only they
are more careful to prove the case, because
it was foimd that a good many men with
slight shell-shock and apparently all rights

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really had no control over themselves. Their
legs would work all right but the brain did n't,
and they were as apt to start running to the
rear as anything else. They were n't cowards.
It was simply that the telegraph sjrstem of
the nerves had been shocked out of commis-
sion and they could n't make their feet behave.

After all, when you figure it all out, mere
wounds are the smallest part of war. I would
rather be in the front trench taking my chance
with the whiz-bangs any time than ten miles
to the rear, making roads or lugging ammo.

The percentage of chances of being hit is
small. If you are hit it is likely to be a cushy
one that you can swing Blighty on. Or it
may be a quick one that will snuflf you out
like a candle and send you west without your
knowing it. Either one is good. The per-
centage of woimds that are painful and crip-
pling is very, very small.

Anyhow, it is the chance you have to take.
It's a great life and you can't weaken.

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CHAPTER DC
My Nickname and How I Got It

Last Christmas Eve, just after I got home
to America, I was sitting with a bmich of fellows
and one of them said,

"Come on, Mack. Tell us a nice cheerful
Christmas Eve story about the trenches."

It was a large order and it couldn't be
done; for Christmas eve in the trenches is
rarely a pleasant occasion. Fritz sends over
too many Christmas presents. To the rear
there may be good food and merriment and
rejoicing of a sort, but not up there in the
front line.

I have spent one Christmas on the firing
line and it was not pleasant. There is very
little Christian spirit in the trenches at any
time, and rather less on Christmas Eve than
at any other season.

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Still and all, the British Tommy is cheerful
alwa3rs. He finds the heart to make light of
his troubles when they are the heaviest. So
I am going to set down the thing that hap-
pened to me Christmas Eve, 19 16; and if it
reads like the story of a railroad wreck it has
at least the merit of being true and absolutely
without camouflage. And I am glad that I
was able on that night to accept the happening
in the spirit of irrepressible good nature that
is the outstanding characteristic of the London
Cockney.

Without wanting to get over-personal I
think I may say that I am a true Cockney.
When I left the United States I was an Ameri-
can, bom and bred here. When I enlisted in
London they told me that I was an Irishman.
After two years with the 23d Battalion of
the London Regiment I found I was a Cockney
of Cockneys; and I suppose I shall remain
so until American life remodels me again.

Well, to resume. When I began, all hands
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insisted that there must have been something
happen to me on Christmas Day or on the
night before and that I ought to tell it. Which
I did. And I am setting down here the yam
that I told then of how I came by my nick-
name in the batt where I was known to officers
and men as " Old Shellproof ."

December, 1916, our batt was lying up at
Dominion Camp, near Popperinghe, about eight
miles behind the lines and about six miles
from Ypres. We had been on this sector ever
since October, when we had been moved up
after the Big Push (that's the battle of the
Somme, you know). During those months we
had been in and out from the trenches at Hill
60, taking over for a week and then coming out
to the Dominion Camp billets for a week of
rest.

Along about the nineteenth or the twentieth
of December rumors began going around
that we were to go in for Christmas. We had
been in billets for only five days and there

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was the usual grousing. There is no place like
the army for rumors. The average battalion
has got the average sewing circle beat seven
ways for gossip. You can hear anything that
you want to listen to; so when the bad news
came we all hoped for the best and trusted to
luck that there might be nothing in it. This
time it happened to be right and rumor pedlers
had the real story. On the morning of the
twenty-first we got orders to take over Hill
60 for ten days, to be followed by ten more
days in support.

The weather was just like spring in New
England, warm and sticky, especially sticky,
with mud up to the knees in most places and
up to the ankles everywhere. We spent the
whole day cleaning equipment and grousing.
We had one old fellow in my platoon named
Tuffnell who had been in the service from the
beginning, and who had never had a leave.
I call Tuflfnell old. He was forty; and that
is well along for a soldier. He had just had

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bad news from home, and thought sure that
he would get a furlough for Christmas. But
he didn't and was well discouraged. It's the
way of things in the army. There is a lot
that seems like injustice, but it is all for the
great cause, and a chap has to take it with a
grin. Old Tuff found it hard, and he could n't
help showing it.

The rest of us kept more cheerful than we
had any right to be, and there was a lot of
joking and horse play when we fell in at six
o'clock for the eight-mile hike. It is a queer
thing about Tommy that he smothers his
grouch and starts joshing the minute he gets
in action, no matter how cross he had seemed
a little while before. There was a lot of talk
among us about the turkey dinner we would
have in the trenches, and some cheerful betting
that some of us would never eat another
Christmas dinner in the line or out.

According to custom we got away by com-
panies at about fifteen-minute intervals. We

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marched this way until we got to the outskirts
of what had been the city of Ypres, where we
broke up into platoons and went along that
way xintil we hit the duck walls, about two
miles from the front line, where we went single
file.

I have been through Ypres many times and
never got entirely hardened to the frightful-
ness of war as shown by the desolation there.
Here was a town of at least 30,000 or 40,000
people one great hopeless ruin. Judging from
the remains of the old Cloth Hall and the
Cathedral and of the many churches it must
have been very beautiful; and here in two
short years the labor and art work of centuries
was reduced to broken junk.

After passing Ypres and getting on the
duck boards on this particular night we were
supposed to go quietly, as Fritz was busy and
the shells whistled overhead all the time, and
the typewriters were sending over plenty of
bullets; we were still in a mood for kidding,

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however, in spite of the danger, and every
few minutes somebody would fall off the boards
with a clatter of eqmpment and all hands
would holler, "Hurroo! There goes Clubfoot
Dean."

Clubfoot was one of those fellows that faU
over their own shadows in the daytime and
can't keep their footing at all at night. He
was a nuisance. Nobody wanted to march
behind him, because every time he went down
the fellow behind would pile up too. It was
worse to march in front, because he always
made out to thump the man ahead when he
took his header.

We used to threaten to shoot Clubfoot and
wished him all kinds of bad luck; but he was
dangerproof and piever seemed to get hurt by
bullets or anything else.

Well, in spite of old Clubfoot, we got up to
the front trench and relieved the other batt.
We tried to pump them as usual, as we wanted
to know who were in front of us — the Prussians,

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the Bavarians or the Saxons. As usual we
got mighty little information beyond saying
that it had been very quiet and to look out
for the snipers. It was always the way. When
you are being relieved you are in a hurry to
go. If the Germans get on to the fact that a
change is taking place, they wiU make it a
point to shell blazes out of the approaches and
the fellows going out get it good. So they
want to go quick and they have n^t any time
to swap lies with the relief.

Still and all, the chaps taking over are
entitled to some information as to the particu-
lar enemy they are going to fight. It makes a
great difference. The Prussians are nasty
fighters. I mean by that that they keep at
it night and day and don't seem to have any
sense of tr3dng to make things easy for both
sides.

There's no reason why a fellow shouldn't
be reasonable even if he is at war. I have
heard it said that the Prussians are the best

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fighters in the German axmy. I, personally,
don't think so. When tiiey come to close
quarters they wiU fight xmtil there is no hope,
then they quit.

Now the Bavarian is sort of a decent, gentle-
manly bird, with some sense; but he'll go a
step further than the Prussian when he is at
close quarters, and will keep on scrapping when
there is no hope — like a Frenchman or an
Englishman or a Jock or a Canadian. He's
just that much better than the advertised
Prussian.

Your^Saxon, now, he's another breed of cats.
He is a big, good-natured, blond beggar, and
he is perfectly willing to lay oflE the sniping
and the nasty work any time and be friendly.
We were in one sector several times where
the trenches were only thirty yards apart.

When the Saxons came in they would let
us know it, and all hands would start doing
the brother act. They knew they could trust
us and we knew we could trust them. A lot

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of them could speak English^ and they would
hop up on the parapets unarmed and shout
across to know if we had any fags. Then both
sides would start joshing.

There would always be some of the Saxons
who knew more about London than the men
did who came from there, and they would
swap yams about the places they both knew.
Once I remember all of us got so interested
over an argument as to how long the war would
last and which side was going to win that we
almost came to blows.

One of the ofl&cers put a stop to it by going
out between the lines — this, in broad day-
light, mind you — and telling the Saxons that
if they did n^t get down he would order them
fired on. On the whole, they were good,
friendly fellows, and we liked them.

I remember about the time that Rmnania
entered the war; they had it before we did
and told us all about it. When Bucharest fell
they shouted the news across to us and we

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called them bloody liars. There was a little
bad feeling for a day or two and we did n't let
them put their heads up. So they began to
stick up signs telling us what boobs we were.
We all had a shot at the signs.

One night some of us sneaked over with a
piece of old wire cable we had found and
hitched it on to the Saxon barbed wire. Then
about fifty of us got hold and gave a heave
all together. We puUed up a section of the
wire and it made an awful noise, and the
Saxons cut loose with everything they had in
the way of machine gun and rifle fiire. I fancy
they must have thought there was half a
battalion or more out their fussing with their
wire. Next monung they saw what had made
the disturbance and we joked them some
more. They took it in good part.

One time someone over m the Saxon trench
got an old comet and started playing toot —
a toot — toot, toot. After a while he just
played the first part and the Saxons finished

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ofif the last two toots vocally. Then we joined
in and tooted, too. We kept it up all one day
like a lot of kids, until the officers came around
and put a stop to it.

Well, this time I'm telling about there were
no good-natured Saxonis against us — there
were Prussians. The fellows we were taking
over from told us to be careful of the snipers.
We did n't need to be told that, as we had been
on this sector before and knew just how bad
the snipers would be if they were Prussians.

I have to hand it to the Prussian snipers
for bravery. They were as bold as brass, and
as a common thing would get out between
the lines at night and stop there in the da3rtime
concealed behind dead bodies or in shell-holes
or wherever there was cover and then put
at us. As a rule I think that these snipers
were officers.

On several occasions they even got through
our lines and hid to our rear and sniped at
us. Think what nerve a man must have had

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to do a stunt like that! He was nearly sure
to get caught and not a chance for life if he
was taken.

Another nervy thing they pulled quite often
was this: A German ofl&cer would dress in
an English officer's imiform and deliberately
come over and drop into oiur trenches and
stroll along asking questions of the men.
Usually he would wear the R. E. uniform, and
would be some man who had been educated
in England, and who was more English than
the English themselves in manner and speech.

The very boldness of it made the scheme
successful. They got away with it as a rule,
too. I have known of at least six cases of the
sort in my sector, although I never actually
saw but one. I remember one chap who was
caught. He was taken before a lieutenant
named Barrett. He greeted Barrett cordially
with "Ah, Lieutenant Barrett, I believe. I
had a shot at you a night or two ago and came
jolly near doing you in."

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"How do you know my name?" asked
Barrett.

The German laughed.

"Really, old chap, you mustn^t ask," he
said. "That^s my business, you know."

Then he went on to tell about killing two
ofl5cers some' time before, giving their names
and the time when they were killed. It all
checked up. This oflScer was taken to the rear
and probably shot, although I don^t know
about that. His courage and coolness cer-
tainly merited something better. The bravery
and willingness for sacrifice is not all on one
side in this war.

When we got into our front trench and
tried to get settled down for the ten daiys of
discomfort we foxmd things bad. The trench
was knee-deep in mud and water, and the
water was cold. The dugouts were better
than most in that part of the line. It was a
farce to call them dugouts, at that. They
were only head and shoulder shelters. I am

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fortunate in being short, for I could almost
always find an extra-size shelter that I could
get into, legs and all, and be fairly comfortable.

Things were quiet for the next three days,
with only a shell or two coming at intervals.
We spent the time writing letters to the folks
at home, telling them what a fine Christmas
we were having and all about the big feed
that was planned. As a matter of fact we
were in for bully beef and bread and tea, but
there was no harm in letting the people who
were worrying about us think that we were
due for turkey and plum pudding.

My platoon was on duty in the front line
from 7 A. M. to 8 p. m. No xmion hours over
there, you see. The rest of the time we spent
in the shelters.

It was pretty quiet, as I have said, but we
felt a little bit leary of Fritz. We expected
him to send over his Christmas presents before
the holiday was past. It is a habit of the beastly
Boche to select special occasionis for his con-

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tributions of explosive hardware. I never
knew it to fail but once.

On the Elaiser's birthday in 1917 we had it
all doped out that the Heinies would celebrate
by strafing us with all they had. We got
ready by building special parapets and sand-
bagging everything that could be protected
in that way. The Prussians were against us
andVe had it figured that they could n't resist
the temptation. They fooled us, and for the
whole day and one before and one after they
did n't send over a shell.

On this Christmas Eve Fritz didn't dis-
appoint us at all. He was right there, living
up to his reputation. For about four o'clock
in the afternoon he started his show. There
were five of us sitting on the fire-step in] the
bay talking when Captain Trembard came
along on inspection of rounds. Mr. Trembard
had only been out a few weeks and was due
to become a very popular officer. He was a
Idndi cordial chap who seemed to take a

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personal interest in the men, and was nowhere
near as far away as the average captain.

He came along and passed a few remarks,
asking if we were tr3dng to make ourselves
comfortable, and then he wished ns a Merry
Christmas and moved down the traverse. He
had hardly turned the comer of the bay when
the first shell burst directly over the trench.
It did Captain Trembard in. I ran down and
found that he had gone west, hit fair in the
stomach with a big fragment

I ran back and got up on the fire-step and
hugged the parapet along with the others.
Other shells came over and they had the range
right. We humped oiurselves up with our
heads doT/n and our arms over our abdomens,
tr3dng tj make ourselves small. You will
understand that when a bombardment is on
the men simply have to stand by and take it.
There is not a thing to do but hope and wish
them away.

After giving us a ten minutes' strafing they
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let up a bit We, too, loosened up and moved
about some. A mate of mine named Livins
and I were sitting on the fire-step. Howard
was standing on the step and TuSnell and
Court were standing in the trench when the
shell came over that fixed our clocks. It must
have been a big boy, because there was a
terrible crash and the whole parapet for the
space of at least twenty feet lifted and came in
on us. I foimd myself buried up to the neck,
but I had raised my hands and they were sticking
up in front of my face, although my arms were
xmder. I was packed in as neat as you please.

Now getting buried by a shell-burst is not
an imusual thing. It happens to thousands
of soldiers. Nearly everybody that comes
out of the big show alive has been buried
wholly or partly. I was not imcomfortably
crushed and naturally began to claw about
and try to get my arms free. I*d have got
completely out only I was saved the trouble.

I may have been digging for two or three
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minutes when I heaxd another shell coming.
You can hear them go overhead with a long
thin "sque-e-e-e-e-e." You instinctively duck
your head, though you know it's not going to
do any good. I ducked this time, sticking
my nose into the mud.

And then she smashed. I don't know
whether it hit in front or behind; how near
it was, or how big. All I knew was that there
was another crash, which somehow seemed to
come from below, and I oozed up, up, up out
of the groimd. "Oozed" is the only way I
can express it. I could feel myself trickling
up through the mud and then suddenly I
fetched loose and flew. I must have gone up
ten feet and I came down all spraddled out
but on my feet. I promptly sat down.

I was a little dazed but not much and began
to laugh. Must have been a little hysterical,
I suppose. I sat for not more than a few
seconds and then deliberately got up. I did n't
have a scratch.

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I didn't have a sign or a symptom of a
shell-shock. I said to myself , ^^Mack, old top,
you ought to get Blighty on this/' And I tried
to imagine that I was dimib or paralyzed or
something. No use! I was as good as new.

It was a case of in again, out again. I had
been buried imder by a shell, which should by
all rules of the game have done me in, and
had been boosted out again by another that
should have pulverized me.

And no harm done. I took a look around
and saw the trench all bashed in and legs and
arms sticking out here and there, and then I
shook the reefs out of my legs and fairly flew
to the aid post in the rear. I got a couple of
stretcher bearers and some shovels and went
back. The shells by this time were going'over
to the second line and we worked like beavers.

Livins, who had been close beside me, was
alive but blinded and badly shell-shocked.
Poor old Tuffnell, who should have been on
his way to Blighty by rights, had gone west

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without a scratch or a mark on him, killed
by the concussion. Court and Howard were
both gone, too. I was the only man left in
my section.

Out of the forty-two men in my platoon
there were only two left xmtouched besides
myself. My experience attracted a lot of
attention and various medical officers said
that the impossible had happened. I was
christened right then and there "Old Shell-
proof," and I suppose I have lived up to the
name; what with the sflver skylight in the
top of my head, the numerous holes in various
parts of my body and considerable excess
weight in the way of shrapnel fragments, to
say nothing of having been filled up — as I
shall tell you later — with the latest and
most fashionable thing in the way of German
kultur, mustard gas — and I am alive.

I am no bloomin' Hercules, but with any
kind of luck I hope to get into good enough
shape with a little rest to go back over there

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and help finish up the job that I have helped
start.

So there you have the cheerful tale of a
Christmas Eve. I had my head between the
jaws of death and pulled it out just in time.
Our batt was so badly cut up that they pxilled
us out, what was left of us, and sent the 24th
in to relieve us, much to their disgust, as they
had planned their Christmas dinner in the
safety of the support trenchesl

That was where I had mine. It consisted of
bully beef and suet pudding, and it tasted
jolly good. There was plenty of it, as there
were only three of us left to eat what had been
provided for forty-two.

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CHAPTER X

Rehearsal

In Sq)tember, 1917, when I was in a hos-
pital in England recovering from an overdose
of German mustard gas which I had inhaled
before Passchendaele, someone was good enough
to send me a copy of the Boston Post. That
paper was sure fine reading, although it was
nearly three months old. It was dated June
8 and spread across the front page in big
letters was the announcement of the begin-
ning of the battle of Messines Ridge and the
blowing up of Hill 60 with a million poimds of
explosive.

Perhaps I read the accoimt of the HiU 60
episode with more interest because I had been
concerned in the preparations for the battle of
which it was the opening gun.

There had never been, I suppose, up to that
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time, and, of course, there has not been since,
such elaborate preparation for a battle. For
more than two years, or ever since the spring
of 1915, the Germans and the British had been
facing each other along the Hill 60 sector and
neither side had gained a yard.

My division had been holding the Hill 60
and the Bluff Sector to the right of the hill
since October, 19 16. We had been in and out
during all that time, taking over for ten days,
or, sometimes, a week, and then for a like time
in supports and after that in billets to the rear.
We had got to know the place pretty well. Too
well! I fancy that the General Staff had come
to hate the sight and name of Hill 60. Any-
how, when the big attack, known as the battle
of Messines Ridge, was planned, the most im-
portant point in the line to be taken was Hill 60.

The situation at the hiU was xmique. The
German and British trenches paralleled each
other, with British front line cutting into the
west side of the hill.

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The sxirroiinding terrain close-up was fairly
level and the hill stuck up like a giant wart
perhaps a himdred feet high, nearly round, and
perhaps five hxindred yards across. The hill
was, then, in No Man's Land, with the Hun
trenches on the other side. But strangely
enough the hill was occupied by the Germans,
— that is to say, they did not occupy it on the
siurface of the groxind; but they had run tuimels
into the side of the hill and had fairly honey-
combed the whole place with galleries and
shafts. Thousands of their soldiers lived in
these tuimels. On the top of the hill there had
been a forest, but all the trees had been stripped
of branches and were now merely splintered
posts and stumps. The German snipers used
to crawl up on the side of the hill and hide in
the long grass and behind the wreckage that
had been the wood and pick us off. This was
one of the things that made the sector especially
dangerous.

Just to the right of the hill the lines bent to-
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gether, and at one point were no more than
thirty yards apart. Something more than a
mile to the right the Yser Canal crossed both
lines and No Man's Land at right angles.
Along the bank of the canal ran a low ridge,
also at right angles to the trenches. This ridge
had been tmmelled lengthwise by our forces
and was used as a support trench and for sleep-
ing quarters. It accommodated three thou-
sand men.

Now, here was the situation. As much as a
year previous to the battle of Messines Ridge
our sappers had begim to nm tiumels xmder
Hill 60. The preparation for blowing it up
had begun as far back as that. But on the
other hand the Germans had sunk deep shafts
and had nm xmder the lines to the long timnel
which we were using as a support, and the time
was approaching in June when they would be
ready to touch us off and send us up in the air.
These mining operations were the most ex-
tensive in the history of warfare.

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The rehearsals of the men began in March
and they were as elaborate as the mining.

About thirty miles to the rear there had been
prepared a great field which was an exact rep-
lica of the German front. Also a large num-
ber of photographs had been collected by our
airmen, showing every detail of the German
positions

Dming April and May our division had two
goes at this rehearsal business. I remember
that when we went out for the first one there
was a good deal of excitement among the men,
as it was clear to anyone that something big
was coming off.

We were marched for fifteen miles back of
the lines and were there loaded on the match-
box cars — f imny little freight cars about half
as big as ours — and after a bit we brought up
in a little town in northern France, where the
traniing field was located. This field of ours
was only one of I don^t know how many.
When you consider that the Messines Ridge

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battle extended over a ten-mile front, perhaps
more, and that every man on that front was
as carefuUy rehearsed as he would have been
as an actor in a drama, it will be tmderstood
that there must have been some scores of these
fields. There must have been thousands of
carefuUy instructed officers as teachers.

I know that we were duly impressed with
the importance of what was coming off before
we began. The biUets at X. were better than
usual. As a rule the billets of a batt are selected
by advance agents, the quartermaster ser-
geants, who go ahead when the troops are on
the march and secure the quarters necessary.
There is always keen rivalry for the best
quarters to be had in any town, as it is neces-
sary to use farm buildings and someone alwa3rs
has to put up in old chicken coops and some-
times in a lately used stable. At X. our whole
batt was extra comfortable. We had our
sleeping quarters in big, clean bams, fuU of
hay. Most of us made a practice of going into

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the mows and burying ourselves for the night.
The roofs were tight and we slept dry and clean
and there did n't seem to be as many cooties
as usual. The cootie, as everybody knows by
now, is the common body louse, the soldier's
worst enemy.

There were a good many orchards all over
the place and we spent a good deal of the time
when we were on oiu: own, loafing in the shade.
On warm, dry nights it was a common thing
for whole companies to sleep under the apple
trees, sheltered only by little tents made of our
waterproof sheets.

On the whole we had it cushy on that ten
days' training. Each morning reveille was at
6:30, breakfast at 7, and at 8 parade in fuU
fighting order to the training field two miles
away. Here they put us over the jimips by
battalions. The duplicate of the German
trenches was laid out on a mile-square field,
with every detail exactly as we would find it
when we went over. A platform ^ jroimded

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the field and here and there were wooden
towers from which every detail could be seen.
We would spend the entire morning up to one
c^clock, going through extended formations
and the study of objectives of each company.

Getting through at one o'clock made it a
short, cushy day, but we made up for that by
the care with which we learned every move.
The first thing in the morning we would line
up and study the terrain. An officer would
point out each strong point, each spot where
machine gims would be likely to be emplaced,
each separate traverse and every extra dan-
gerous bit of ground.

Then the companies would be put over the
groimd examining every inch of it. After that
we went over again in exactly the order we
would go in the attack. On certain days we
had afternoon rehearsals. This consisted of
studying photographs. We would gather by
platoons in a big bam, and the officers who xm-
derstood the airplane pictiures would go over

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1 Rrifish Offin,r! Phofo^^raph . Copyrii^ht. Internatumal Film Service.

A Duplicate of the German Trenches

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REHEARSAL

them for us. These photographs were about
two feet square. They would hold them up
agamst the waU and point out this, that, and
the other point and cross-examine the men.
Shortly we had that terrain down so fine that
every man could go to his own place with his
eyes shut.

Every man knew his objective, how he was
to reach it, how fast he was to go, what he had
to go through to get there, what he was to do
at each stage of the advance. He knew just
how things were going to look when he went
over. Almost, it is no exaggeration to say, he
knew just where his feet were to be set down
on each step from the beginning to the end of
the show. The only thing that could not be
reckoned with was shot and shell.

Like rehearsing anything else most of the
men got letter perfect in a few days; but there
were some, as there always are, who were stupid
and who needed an awful lot of work to get
the things into their heads. Two or three such
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men in a platoon may queer the whole game and
are dangerous. The blockheads in a rehearsal
of this sort nearly drive the officers mad.

On the whole, however, the rehearsals went
smoothly enough. And I think that the ex-
citement and interest, and the afternoons on
our own, conditioned the men to a point of
keenness that proved valuable when the time
came for the big attack.

We played football or cricket almost every
afternoon. At least the other men did. Per-
sonally I never c6uld get up an appetite for
cricket. British football I never could get
used to. They always put me in as goal tender.
When I saw the ball coming I would grab it
and start on an end run. Then there would
be a row. I used to try to get the gang to
play baseball, but they could n't see it any more
than I could see cricket.

I was the only American in my batt and I
continued to be a good deal of a curiosity to
the Tommies throughout my service. The
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opinion is solidly grounded in the British mind,
it seems to me, that Americans are all swank.
They think that we are bluffers, braggers and
hot-air merchants.

They use^ to delight to get me started on the
size of things over here.

"Sye, Shellproof,^^ somebody would call out,
"'ow big is the blooming Stytes?"

Then I would start in and tell them how you
could drop England down in the middle of
Texas and lose it, and they would look at each
other and grin.

Then somebody would say, '*^0w abaht %h
^ouses, Mackie?'^

Whereupon I would tell all about the Wool-
worth Building.

This always brought the same frank com-
ment.

"Shellproof, yer a blinkin' liar. Couldn't
never be no buildin' fifty-one stories *igh.''

You could n't beat them. Tell 'em the plain
unvarnished God's truth and they'd swear it

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was swank. At that they were good lads and
true, and honest comrades, brave and kind-
Americans, as I have said, were a curiosity
in our batt. And that was odd, as there were
said to be so many in the army. I remember
running across one that proves the truth of the
often-repeated statement that "it's a small
world.'*

When we were marching back to the front
after our first rehearsal, we had halted by the
roadside for the regular ten-minutes-in-the-
hour rest. Another batt passed us going the
other way.

A yoimg lieutenant eyed me as he passed at
the rear of his men and then came back.

"Is n't your name MacKay?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," I said, saluting and standing at
attention. "It used to be."

"Did n't you," he went on, "used to live in
Northampton, Massachusetts?"

"I did sir," said I. "And who, may I ask,
are you?"

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He laughed and said: "I am Clyde Baxter." ^
You could have knocked me down with a
feather. When Baxter was a two-year-old
baby I had lived on the same street with him,
I was ten and they used to give me a dime to
wheel Clyde out for the afternoon. Later,
when I was fifteen or sixteen, I remember him
as a yoimgster of about eight, and that was
the last I ever saw of him until he hailed me
by the roadside in Flanders.

For old times^ sake Baxter tried to get me
transferred to his regiment and promised to
get it cushy for me; but it never came oflF.
Baxter was afterwards reported missing and
so far as I know is either dead or perhaps a
prisoner in Germany. I don't know which is
worse.

^ I have given this man's name as Baxter, which is n't it at all,
for this reason: any American who fought with the Allied forces
was regarded as a franc-Urewr, that is, as an unauthorized fighter,
and to be regarded as a spy and executed as such. This would
not be the case now. But at the time Baxter enlisted he was a
neutral, and if he were a prisoner now in Germany and it be-
came known that he was with the British before the United
States entered the war he would probably be shot.

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In May the batt had twenty days in tlje
trenches and in support, before coming out
for the second rehearsal. The greater part of
that twenty days was spent in trench raids
and patrol work, as there was need of all the
information that could be had as the time
came on for the big attack.

I did not take part in any of the raids. As
a matter of fact I never took part in but one
trench raid in all my seventeen months of ser-
vice in the trenches. Right here I want to
say something about trench raids and such
stxmts and volimteers for them. Every now
and then I read something about some fellow
who volimteers for special and dangerous duty
as a habit. I never saw one of those men my-
self. The man who says he volimteers more
than once for trench raids and that sort of
thing either misses the truth or is a most ex-
traordinary person. I think that nearly every-
body does volxmteer once; and then he finds
that once is enough. After that he does his

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duty as it comes to him^ and unless he is a
fool for fighting he does n't go about hunting
trouble. I know that this is contrary to the
accepted ideas of gallantry and heroism; but
it is the truth.

All the trench raids that I have ever read
about have been large successes. The only one
that I was ever in was a flat failure. I am go-
ing back and tell you about it. It will only
take a minute and it does illustrate a point of
British discipline that shows very clearly what
makes the British Army great.

This raid took place away back in the early
days of 1916. The lines were about five him-
dred yards apart. The customary orders
were given out to cross over into the German
trenches and take prisoners and do all the .
damage possible. We sneaked across with
twelve men and one officer, a lieutenant. The
Fritzies had three lines of wire outside of their
trench, narrow lines not more than six feet
wide and perhaps ten yards apart. There had
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been no artillery preparation and it was up to
us to get through the wire without making
any noise and to get back if we could. We
managed to get beyond the first two lines of
wire and would have got through the other
but through some miscarraige of orders our
own machine guns and hght artillery opened
up on us.

We hugged the groimd, but not quick
enough, and three of our men clicked. Worse
than that, the lieutenant, who was just get-
ting through the wire, got tangled up with one
leg caught in a loop or something; anyhow he
couldn't get loose and we couldn't pry him
out, try as we would. The Germans had got
"windy" by this time and were sending up
lights. So it was plain enough that the raid
was all oflF. The officer ordered us to go it on
our own and to get back as best we could. He
was to be left behind. After the custom the
non-com detailed a man to stop with the officer
on the chance that he might do some good and
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get the Keutenant loose before dayUght. This
is always done when an officer gets in a posi-
tion where he cannot move. He mustn't be
left alone. A man has to stay, no matter how
hopeless the situation. It is rough on the man,
but it is part of the game.

Well, we quit the lieutenant and the man,
and worked back across No Man's Land, and
made it into our own trenches without any
further casualties. About an hour later, just
before dawn, the man who had been left came
crawling in. He had deserted the officer. The
lieutenant never was heard from, and was
probably either killed or taken prisoner. The
man who deserted him was promptly executed.

But to get back to the trenches. After ten
days spent in the front line and ten more in
supports, we were moved back again to the
little town thirty miles to the rear where the
rehearsal field was. They gave it to us good
on this dose of getting ready. It was hard
work all the time, morning, noon and night.
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It got so we could do every move in our sleep.
Besides which they gave us the regular
"physical jerks," that is, the setting-up exer-
cises without rifles, in extra sessions.

The word went aroimd that the big attack
was to come off the tenth of Jime. There was
the regular amoimt of gossip and a thousand
different rumors as to what was to happen and
on how wide a front the offensive was to be
made. It was always the same way. The rank
and file knew as much as old Haig when any-
thing was to come off. The only difference
between headquarters and the men was that
the men knew so many things that weren't
so. In general, though, pretty nearly every-
thing of consequence seeped down to the men
in one form or another. The trouble was to
sort out the true from the false.

On the Messines Ridge attack the powers

at the head of things fooled us pxuposely.

They drilled the idea into us that the attack

was to come off the tenth of June and every

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man had that notion firmly imbedded in his
mind. There was a good reason for this. The
German secret service was very active. They,
no doubt, had spies behind our lines and per-
haps in the very army.

Now the mining situation was, as I have
said, peculiar. Both sides were playing awfully
close. Hill 60 was full of high explosive placed
by our sappers. And lower down in the hill
the Germans had mined and had no doubt
placed more or less dynamite.

Also, as I have said, they had come across
imder our support tunnel. These mining op-
erations cannot be kept secret by either side
for long. The Royal Engineer officers are
listening all the time. They have an instru-
ment of the nature of a microphone, a jigger
that is stuck down in the groxmd and a kind
of stethoscope affair to put to the ears. With
this they can hear the slightest tap or scrape.
After a good deal of practice they get so they
can tell whether digging is going on and how
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far advanced the mining processes are. When
the enemy begins bringing in boxes of explosive
that is betrayed, too, by the changed sound.
If the enemy is nearly ready to set off his
mines and the R. E. oflScers detect it, why, of
course, our men are ordered from the vicinity.
The trick is to wait until the last possible mo-
ment. It is shivery business trying to out-
guess the Heinies on this sort of thing.

WeU, on this Hill 60 business we were going
dose to the limit. The engineers had been
listening to the digging under our support tim-
nel and they knew that the Germans had
nearly finished bringing in the boxes of high
explosive — that they were almost ready to
touch her off. Which would have been a
disaster.

This support tunnel which I have men-
tioned was an interesting piece of work and
one of the neatest ever constructed in the
British lines. In fact it Was worthy of the best
efforts of the Germans in construction for the
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comfort of the men. The timnel ran back
from the front line right in the heart of the
ridge for about six himdred yards, a hole four
feet wide and high enough to let a man stand
up. Then for about four himdred yards it was
nine feet wide and eight feet high, and on each
side there were tiers of double-decked beds,
leaving a little alley between about a yaxd
wide. Running down at each side were short
galleries, also fiunished with the double-
decked beds. The whole place was lighted
with electricity. It had been built by Cana-
dian and Australian engineers and was per-
fectly safe from shell-fire except aroxmd the
edges, where a shell would come through now
and then, but not enough to worry about.
The place held three thousand men and kept
them dry and comfortable and safe and ready
for an instant charge when the time came for
that charge. The delicate part of the situa-
tion was that the Germans could send up that
timnel with its three thousand soldiers any
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time they thought best. We learned after the
battle of Messines Ridge that they had planned
to touch us oflF on the night of the ninth. You
see the widely spread information that we were
to blow up Hill 60 and start the attack on
Jtme 10 had by some mysterious method
reached the Germans; and they were planning
to beat us to it by one day. It was xmcom-
fortably close figuring either way.

But we outguessed them. On the night of
June 6 my batt was brought up from the rear
and quartered in the timnel, and about eleven
o'clock the order went arotmd that the attack
was to come oflF the next morning at exactly
3:10. We had fooled Fritzie by putting the
show forward three days from the time origi-
nally given out.

The artillery preparation had begim in a
mild but continuous way ten days before, and
had been gradually increased, until on the night
of the sixth, when we came up, it was one
gigantic throb of soimd after another, riding
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down the wind. Although we knew that the
attack was slated for 3:10, I think that most
of us slept well. I know that I did.

At three o'clock somebody waked me. All
hands were sitting roimd waiting, waiting and
wondering how much of a crash the million
poxmds of ammonal xmder Hill 60 would make.
It will be remembered that Lloyd George
heard the explosion one hxmdred and thirty
miles away in London. We were only a mile
and a half away, and we were n't at all sure
that it would n't stim us, even sheltered as we
were.

We all held our breaths as 3:10 approached
and kept our eyes on the wrist watches. On
the tick the hill went ofiF. There were just two
very heavy rumbles and the timnel and the
ridge over it rocked like a boat. A man who
had been standing in the alley in front of my
bed tottered and grabbed as a man will on a
rocking elevated train. I felt the cot move
under me as much as two or three inches. It
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was all over in a matter of seconds and was
disappointing. And then the order passed and
out we all crowded to the exits to be ready to
go over in the charge at 3:15, which was zero.

After the battle of the Ridge it was found
that the Germans had completed the mining
imder om: quarters and had their ammonal in
and connected up. It will always be a mystery
why they did n't set us oflF. I am fully satis-
fied that they didn't, for when I go west I
want it to be in the open with the blue sky
overhead. I was sorry for the thousands of
Fritzies who had been pulverized in the blow-
ing up of Hill 6o.

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CHAPTER XI

Messines Ridge

The big explosion that destroyed Hill 60 on
the morning of June 7 broke the tension and
brought us all up on our toes. As the last
nunble and quiver died away and the world
stopped rocking under our feet we all picked up
om: rifles and trooped out of the support tunnel
and into the newly made trench called Rennie
Street, which had lately been dug; it was about
three feet deep, parallel to the front line trench
and about a third of a mile behind it. The end
of Rennie Street touched the support timnel.

It was just light when we got out and into
the trench. It was one of those misty mornings
so coiomon in Flanders, with promise of fair
weather overhead, but with a thin haze over
everything. StiU and all, we could see to almost
any distance well enough. Away off there to
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the left and in front, where Hill 60 had been the
night before, there was a yawning pit. The
hill was gone. It seems unbelievable, but that
great hill was, so far as we could tell from where
we were, completely gone.

Out in front and between us and the front
trench the groimd was reasonably smooth but
sloping upward a little. The artillery prepara-
tion had been going on for ten days and was now
at its height. Shells by the thousand were
squealing overhead from our gims in the rear.
The Fritzies were sending back a lot, and the
open field we had to cover was getting most of
them, or that's the way it looked from Rennie
Street.

Everybody was looking back over the terrain
toward Ypres, expecting the tanks to come up.
It had been rumored all along that the tanks
were to take part in the attack, and a good many
of the men who had never seen them in action
were curious. Once on the rehearsals we had
run across a squadron of the land ships coming
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up to the front. I had gone into the battle of
High Wood on the Somme with the first of the
tanks and recalled how easy they had made
things there, and sure hoped that we were to
have the mechanical monsters with us at Mes-
sines. But it was n't to be. The tanks did go
into this battle, but farther down the line. It
was said afterwards that the groxmd was too
rough at Messines and beyond, and that there
was too much mined area to make it worth
while to take the chance with the big crawlers.

We squatted in the three-foot ditch and
waited for zero and the whistle that would take
us out and over, and hoped that nothing would
get us before we started.

That's one of the things that I noticed over
there. When I was going over in an attack my
mind seemed to run tc^^hopes that I would n't
get it in the early stages of the game. I was n't
wishing for anything later on, either, but I
somehow seemed to have the idea that it would
be a waste of my time if I got hit at the begin-
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ning of the show. Same way about the other
fellows. I pitied a man a good deal more if he
was hit when we first went over than I did some
chap that went west late in the day. It sort of
felt as though the chap that got his early had n't
had a chance to do his bit. Fimny how a man's
mind runs on things like that.

I think perhaps I 'd better put in a little map
with this story. I am not much of an artist, but
a rough sketch will serve to show where we went
on that day of the opening of Messines Ridge.
This is the description of a hard day's work
that we had been getting ready for for months,
and the locations will be clearer to the reader
with a map. The distances shown in the sketch
are not in the correct proportion — not drawn
to scale, that is — but they do show general
directions.

My company occupied the part of Rennie

Street near the support timnel. We weren't

there long, but it was time enough to work up a

cordial dread for the slow march we had to

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MESSINES RIDGE

make across the shell-swept open to the trenches.
It is the horrible part of any prepared long ad-
vance that it goes so slow. There is so much

OBJ£CTIVe

Sketch-map drawn by the author, showing the relative positions
in the advance from Hill 60 at the Battle of Messines Ridge. The
dotted line shows the course covered by the author's company.

waiting under fire and so little chance to get at
the enemy and have it over with.

We saw the smoke barrage begin in front of
our front line at about a minute of zero. This
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was a curtain of shells that shook out great
lumpy clouds of sooty black smoke in front of
our men and eflfectually screened them from
rifle fire and machine guns. That is, it con-
cealed them from the enemy, but as the smoke
barrage works out the enemy only had to pump
his lead into the cloud low down to be effective
enough.

At zero, that is at 3:15, we saw the front
waves, two of them, go over from the front
trench and follow the barrage. About three
minutes later we got our orders and out we
went.

We had left our packs behind and were flying
light. We had each two bandoliers slung across
our shoulders, a haversack with two days'
rations, a water-bottle and the rifle slxmg across
the back. We carried six bombs each in our
pockets.

Just before we went over I lit my pipe and
started the march forward with my hands in my
pockets about the way I would if I was strolling
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across Boston Common on a bright Sunday
morning. This attitude of xmconcem wasn't
swank — it was n't what the papers call bra-
vado. I lit the pipe because I never smoke
cigarettes, and I put my hands in my pockets
because there wasn't any other place to put
them. As a matter of fact I was scared stiff and
didn't think for a mijiute that I would get
across the first two htmdred yards of the ad-
vance. I said so between my teeth to a mate
of mine named Baggot, who was keeping touch
with me at my left. "Baggsie" was another
bantam. He had enlisted with me and was
smaller than I, being only five feet two inches.
Baggot was so short in the legs that he never
could get pants to fit. The smallest size would
kind of ooze out over his putties and slop arotmd
in wrinkles down near his ankles. He was
always hitching them up. Baggot was a pipe
smoker, too, and when I started to growl he
grinned at me and puffed bis little black day
and says:

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"Cheerio, Macksie! T ^eU wif th' shells. So
I keeps th' cutty alight and th' trousies up, wot
do I care?^^

And that shows that it's a fine thing in times
of action to have something to keep your mind
off the danger.

We paddled out across those five hxmdred
yards that lay between us and No Man's Land,
and I'll swear that we did n't go more than a
mile an hour. We reached our trenches and
stopped there a while, unsltmg the rifles, fixed
bayonets, and then went along over. In the
German trenches we foxmd nothing but dead
Fritzies and several squads of prisoners, each
twenty or thirty guarded by a lone Tommy.
On from there we slewed aroimd on a right
incline as per the instructions learned in re-
hearsals and hit the canal.

This was about fifty feet wide and there was

no bridge. We hesitated for a bit on the near

side because we didn't know how deep the

water was and there was a lot of bodies in it.

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There was an argument of a few seconds among
the officers as to whether the place was f ordable.
And then in we went.

Colonel Kemble went down at this point, hit
in the stomach by a shell fragment. Two
stretcher-bearers carried him off to the rear and
along with him two more officers who had gone
down. The colonel was very popular with both
officers and men. He was much more demo-
cratic than most English officers. Perhaps this
was because he had been before the war the
principal of one of the largest private schools in
England. I am inclined to think that he knew
soldiers because he knew boys, for the Toromy
is only a grown-up kid when you come right
down to facts.

We sloshed into the canal, and I thought be-
fore I reached the far side that I would n^t make
it. The water was up to my armpits, and when
I was in the middle I began to wish that I was
more than five feet three. We made it across
all right, and as we clambered up the bank we

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ran slam-bang into a galling machine gim fire.
OflF a few hundred yards to the right and up a
slight rise were the remains of an old wood.
There was a lot of fairly big stumps and some
piled-up wreckage of smashed trees, and every
spot in this tangle had a typewriter, and they
were simply spewing bullets at us. For some
reason the British troops from the right of our
line, who were supposed to have come up and
silenced this btmch of Htms in the wood, had
not arrived, and the Heinies were free to give it
to us good and plenty.

We started to charge the wood, but our offi-
cers chased us back, and along we went on the
route that had been laid out for us in the battle
plans. You see, we couldn't vary from the
schedule, no matter what came up; and we
walked through that rain of bullets with our
heads down, cursing the luck and the orders
that would n't let us strike back.

The activity of those guns in the wood cost
us a good deal before the day was over. Just

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beyond the wood we met a lot of our wounded
going back. They had to go through the ma-
chine gun fire, too. At the top of the canal bank
they were perfect marks^ and as the barrage
smoke was lifted the Germans simply took their
time and slaughtered the returning woimded.
There must be htmdreds of reported missing
men resting in ,the bottom of the Yser Canal at
the point where our batt crossed.

Beyond the wood we ran into a heavy Ger-
man shell-fire. There was supposed to be a
double line of German trenches here, and it was
in the orders that we should rest in them for a
short time before going on. Baggot and an-
other chap and I had fallen behind oiu: com-
pany, and when we hit the trench we tumbled
in. There were a good many dead and woimded
Germans there, and some of our men, also dead.
The first wave had evidently had a good deal
of a job in taking this place.

The three of us himted up a dugout that was
serviceable and crawled into it. There were
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three dead Gennans in there and we shoved
them out and fell on the floor exhausted. None
of us was able to talk. We had come not more
than three-quarters of a mfle and had n^t run a
step, and yet I was panting and wheezing. But
I was hanging on to the old pipe. Baggot had
his, too — ^^the stem of it. A bullet or some-
thing had carried away the bowl. I remember
his taking the bit of clay stem out of his mouth
and looking at it very silly and saying over and
over to himself, "Gawd limime. She^s gone.
She's gone." And then he M giggle.

We lay there in the dugout quite a while — I
don't know how long — and after a bit pulled
oxirselves together some and had a drag out of
the water-bottles. There was an awful din of
smashing shells and the scream of others going
over, and there was a woimded German out in
the bay that kept hollering from time to time.
As we got our wind back and worked aroimd
into a little more sane frame of mind we began
to talk about getting on. We all of us knew we
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had n't any business stopping where we were,
but we did n't want to get out of the shelter.
We were tr3dng to convince ourselves that we
had a good right to stay when a couple of shells
hit right near us — judging from the sound, in
the same traverse — and a lot of mud came
down the stairs. With that we crawled out and
started to himt up the rest of the company.

Out of the trench we ran into another hail
of bullets. They were knocking up the dirt all
about and I 'U swear that I felt several graze my
legs. We could n't see a single German any-
where to shoot at, and could n't make out where
the fire was coming from. Probably the bulk of
it was from the wood which was now behind us
and to the right.

We fell into a shell-hole after a very few
steps and lay low. Then some woimded came
along and told us that our company was in a
stretch of trench about sixty yards ahead. We
got out and legged it. Baggot never got there.
He went down hit in three or foxir places, the

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worst in the shoulder. We dragged him into a
shell-hole and left him. I never saw him again,
but afterwards heard that he came through and
got Blighty on the wotmds.

My other mate, Cowles, and I made the
trench and foimd oxir company there. They
told us that the casualties had been light so far.
That didn't seem reasonable after what we
had been through, and I asked a sergeant what
was meant by light. He said we had lost about
twenty per cent.

Wehad still eight hundredyards to go to make
our objective and we soon were ordered out to
start again. This time we got a sheU-fire that
was worse than anything else I saw over there.
At least half a dozen shells struck so close to me
that I was staggered by the shock and yet
wasn't scratched. Men seemed to be going
down by scores. Two more ofl&cers fell, leaving
the company in command of a second lieutenant.
StiU we kept on and soon f oimd ourselves ap^
proaching the White Chateau.
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The White Chateau was a country place sur-
rounded by a little park which still had some of
the trees standing. The house was a big one
painted white and over it flew the Red Cross
flag. In rehearsals we had been told that this
place was a Red Cross station and that we were
to let it strictly alone. A detail from the last
wave was to take it over and guard it. As we
came up to the Chateau we split and were going
by on each side when the house began to belch
machuie gun fire.

How anybody managed to live through that
fire I don't know. It was at short range and
there was a lot of guns. Right here we dis-
obeyed orders. We did n't pass the Chateau as
we had the wood back by the canal. Not we.
Led by the little officer man, who was a gallant
lad, we tumed as one man and made for the
Chateau. We charged without orders right up
through the remains of the little park and up to
the house, and began heaving bombs through
the windows.

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I came up on one side along with six or seven
other chaps. I remember chucking two bombs
through a window, and when the explosions
came off, another window, which had been
closed and unbroken before, heaved out and
came away from the casement bodily. Then a
sergeant yelled to let up on the bombs and
hollered: "Now, then, up with you two little
fellers. Pitch 'em in, lads." Themen grabbed
me and one other and heaved us up and
into the window. With my hundred poimds'
weight, and a boost by a pair of big hus-
kies, I simply floated up and lit on the broad
window-sill.

The inside of the room I landed in was a
mess. There was a machine gun upset near the
window and a lot of bodies all about. I stood
there staring through the smoke for a minute,
and then stepped into the room carefully and
easy, right up on my toes, with the rifle poised
all ready to stick the trusty little old pin into
anything that moved. A Him over there in the
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comer rolled over and held up a good arm and
slobbered out, "Mercy, kamarad."

Then I yelled, " Come out of that. Come out,
ye blankety blank Boches." I cussed real cor-
dial for a minute or so, and then a door opened
slowly and out sneaked three Germans, whining
"Kamarad," with their hands up.

Well, we cleaned that Chateau. They did n't
make a tap of resistance after we got inside,
and we harvested forty-odd men and four or five
officers. The officers were all in the cellar, and
they had a perfect telephone system to other
parts of the line. Upstairs in the tower there
was a regimental sergeant-major with tele-
phones leading down from his lookout to the cel-
lar. There were two huge red crosses painted on
the white roof to keep ofif the airplanes, and the
cross was painted on all four sides of the house.
There cannot be any doubt that the Hims had
used this place for observation imder the pro-
tection of the Red Cross for a long time. There
was nothing about the Chateau to show that it
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had ever been used for a hospital. It was a
clear case of treachery and the use of the Red
Cross for a military blind. We left a hundred
dead in the Chd^teau besides the prisoners, but
their loss could n't have been a tenth part of
what they had inflicted on us through their dirty
work. It's this kind of thing that will win the
war for the Hun — if the rest of the world lets
him win. If he does win, here's one American
citizen and believer in world democracy that
will go away to the head waters of the Amazon
or some such place and bury himself in the
jimgle to associate with the decent beasts.

After cleaning out the Chiteau we might have
stayed there without danger, as the German bat-
teries evidently had orders not to shell the place
and nothing was coming down within a himdred
yards. They had the range perfect, as was
shown by the way the shells fell all aroimd the
Ch&teau and didn't land on it. Well, we
couldn't stop there, as we had to make our
objective, which was stiQ about three hxmdred
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yards away. So we got out and went for it.
Half that distance was under heavy shell-fire.
I made it in approximately thirty seconds.
Nobody timed me, but I am confident that I
broke all records for the three himdred yards,
either professional or amateur.

I fell into the trench and sat on the fire-step
pujQSing at the old pipe Uke a steam engine. She
was out, but that did n't make any difference.
Somebody ran up and said:

" Mack, you 're hit. Get that tunic off.''

I looked and f oimd that I was covered with
blood all down the left side. I began to get
faint and imagined that my shoulder pained me.
After a while I peeled out of the jacket slow
and easy and there was n't a scratch on me. I
never did know where that blood came from.

After a short rest we all turned to and began
to consolidate the trench and to turn it arotmd.
The traverses were in good shape and wide, and
about all we had to do was to transfer the sand-
bags and put in a new fire-step. The shell and
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machine gun fire was still heavy, and there were
scores of airplanes flying very low. Some came
down so near that we waved to the pilots and
yelled to them and they answered.

After we had the trench tidied up we had
breakfast. We were all as himgry as wolves. I
had a tin of cold bully beef and a chimk of
rooty — that^s trench Hngo for bread — and
f oimd an onion snuggled down in the comer of
the haversack, and, believe me, that meal tasted
good.

We had to stand to all day for the expected
coxmter-attack, but it didn't come. Along
aroimd dusk a fxumy stimt came off and I had
the pleasure of seeing the only German I was
ever sorry for. We were weU consolidated and
were keeping a sharp lookout over the parapet
when suddenly out of a sheU-hole about twenty
yards in front there jumped a German soldier
who started to leg it for the German lines. He
had a sandbag over his shoulder. Our one
officer shouted to the feUow to stop, but he
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kept going and about twenty of us cut loose at
him. He went down in a heap and, still hanging
on to his precious sack, crawled into a shallow
shell-hole. The lieutenant was a good deal
worried about that bag and rather thought that
it must contain papers of some kind.

After dark we sent two men out and brought
the Fritzie back. He had more holes in him than
a colander, but he was still alive and he still
himg to the bag. We had to pry him away from
it. The lieutenant opened the sack with large
expectations of valuable documents and pulled
out — you wouldn't guess it in a thousand
years — just two bottles of seltzer water.

It happened that our officer spoke German
and he cross-examined the Fritz. The fellow
said that he was an officer's servant and had
been told to save that soda water, and he had
done his best to obey orders. We could n't help
being sorry for the simple-mindedness of the poor
beggar, and we could n't help admiring his nerve
in trying to do his duty as he saw it. He may
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have been one of those men whose minds are
just big enough to hold one idea at a time.
There 's a lot of them that way.

For that matter almost everybody does queer
things in the excitement of battle. And nearly
everyone has the experience of seeming to lose
sense of time and proportion.

In this day's work at Messines Ridge that I
have just told, one thing comes back to me as
a profoimd mystery.

We started on our advance at 3 :i5, as I have
told. We went forward about a mile and a half.
We stopped perhaps ten minutes at the front
trench, ten more in the German trench, maybe
half an hour in the German dugout and about
an hour at the White Chateau. We arrived at
oiu: objective at nine o'clock. In other words,
it had taken us four hours' actual marching to
traverse a mile and a half.

As I look back on that day it seems to me
that nearly every move is clear. I can remem-
ber many trifling details; but to save my life I
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cannot account for that four hours. It might
weU have taken an hour to make the mile and
a half march. But what about the other three
hours? What was I doing? How were those
hours occupied? I don't know.

Another thing that puzzles me is that when
the day was over I had not fired one single shot
from my rifle. But my bombs were gone, and
I know that at the White Chiteau I got enough
Germans for a mess.

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CHAPTER XII
Discipline

In the British axmy the discipline is probably
as strict or stricter than in any army in the
world. The French have nothing like it.
Possibly the old French Foreign Legion held
its men with a harder hand. Discipline is
safely seventy-five per cent of an army's
effectiveness. Men who obey without question
stay put and don't give groimd when they
are licked. Give them intelligent officers and
there can be none better. Discipline is what
makes the British Tommy great.

The punishments for a military crime are
very severe. Any violation of military orders
or regulations is called a crime; and a careful
list of these is kept which is called a crime-
sheet. I am proud to say that I was discharged
with a dean sheet. Of course I violated rules
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DISCIPLINE

many times, but was lucky and didn't get
caught. I have abready told of one crime I
committed; but that was under provocation,
and while I might have been given Field
Pimishment No. i the officer was a good fellow
and let me off with three days C. B. (Confined
to Barracks.)

On active service a man is liable to get
extreme punishment for what seem littie
things. In fact it does n't take such a lot to
get him shot. Field Punishment No. i is bad
enough and is dished out frequentiy. This
consists of being confined to the guard-room
and, for two hours each day, being tied to the
wheel of a limber, — spread-eagled. This is
called crucifixion.

In the early day^ of the war the death
sjentence was common, as a general thing being
inflicted for disobeying orders. In a good
many cases officers used bad judgment and
thus actually murdered their men. That is
what it amounted to. I recall one case when
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SHELLPROOF MACK

we were being shelled and our wires were
being knocked to pieces. It was broad day-
light. An officer came along and ordered a
man to go out to repair the wire. If the officer
had known anything at all he would never have
given the order. The man came back at him.

"It is sure death to go out there now, sir.
I don't think I ought to go."

The man was put under arrest and a few
weeks later was shot.

I knew of one case of a man in the York and
Lancaster Regiment who had deserted and
made his way to England. How he got across
was a mystery. The man's own wife gave him
up to the police and he was returned to the
regiment for court-martial. He had no defense
whatever except that he had been a good
soldier with a clean record before that and
he was found guilty and sentenced to death.

One of the firing-squad told me of what
happened when they took this man out to
shoot him. As he was being marched out from
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German Translation of President Wilson's War Message

OF April 2, 1917

Taken from the body of a German soldier at Messines Ridge

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DISCIPLINE

the guard-house to the brick wall in the rear
the Colonel appeared on the scene. The man
was placed and they pinned a piece of paper
over his heart. Just then the Colonel stepped
out and ordered the squad to order arms. Then
he had the man marched up to him and said^

"Private Blank, tell me how you got back
to England and I will give you a reprieve and
try to get you a commutation.'^

The man thought for a moment and said,

"I can't do it, sir. It will get some other
chap into trouble."

The Colonel ordered him back to the wall.
And after the man had been shot he said to
the firing-squad,

" Men, look well on this poor fellow. He was
a soldier and a man. It is heart-breaking to
lose him in this way. But remember, this is
discipline."

There was a man in my batt who had gone
out at the beginning and who had served right
through to the Battle of Messines Ridge. He
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SHELLPROOF MACK

was as brave as they make them. But just
before Messines, while we were on rehearsals,
he deserted. He had been shell-shocked and
was not responsible. After deserting he went
directly within a day or two and gave himself
up. He was placed under arrest and was under
guard during Messines Ridge. The batt did
so well in that fight that out of consideration
for the other men and to avoid the disgrace
that would attach to the batt he was let down
light with Field Punishment No. i. As soon
as he had served that out he went straight off
and deserted again. Now anybody should
have known that there was something the
matter with him; but they tried him and
sentenced him to death. Before the execution
he got a rifle from the sentry at the guard-
house and committed suicide.

Discipline! It is the greatest thing in the

world for the soldier. It means that het-has

to shine his buttons when there is no need of

it except that it makes him think of obeying

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DISCIPLINE

orders and keeping up morale. He shaves
under difficulties for the same reason. And he
does a hundred other things for no reason that
is apparent but that make him obey instinc-
tively.

Discipline and morale win battles and stave
off defeat.

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CHAPTER Xni

HOLLEBEKE

I WONDER how many people who have been
reading war books in general have noticed
that writers usually tell the stories of victory,
rarely of defeat. And yet when you come right
down to cases, there is nothing more ithrilling
than hanging on and putting up a losing fight
against odds. There is nothing that the
British soldier does so well or that he likes
so well. It is the thing that makes him great.
And it is a thing that he has had to do of tener
than ever appears in the official communiques.

Looking back on my own experience, I
think that the hammering that the Fritzies
gave our batt — and several others — in the
coimter-attacks after the Battle of Messines
Ridge would have made the average rookie
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think that war was hell with a few man-made
trimmings and no glory whatever.

We had a good long rest after Messines; and
God knows we needed it. When we were
ordered back into the line there was the custom-
ary grousing, as we had expected to be trans-
ferred to an easier sector. Tommy always
thinks that the particular place he happens to
be in at the time is the hardest on the whole
front; and he always expects to be shifted after
a rest; and if he isn't he grouses to his own
satisfaction and to the amusement of his offi-
cers, who know that he would kick, anyhow.

This time we were ordered up to the town
of HoUebeke, or what had been the town.
The first night we moved up to within about
two miles of the lines and then lay in shell-
holes. That night it rained cats and dogs.
We had no shelter whatever, but wrapped
ourselves up in the overcoats and the water-
proof sheets and just settled down in the soft
mud. Waterproof sheets as issued in the
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British Army are waterproof until they wet
through, which is in about an hour of good,
hard rain. After that they serve splendidly to
keq) the moisture in. We were saturated
when day broke. It was bright and clear
after the downpour and we began to steam.
Pretty soon everybody was parboiled. And
the cooties were nibbling. I don't think a
soldier is ever as uncomfortable as when he
is moist and warm. His hide seems to soften
up so the cootie can get his hooks in. We found
we were likely to stop in those holes for the
greater part of the day, so most of us stripped
to the waist and had shirt-hunts and got dried
out some. It was here that I introduced the
anti-cootie method that for a while was popular
with oiu: fellows. It was simply to turn the
garment inside out after the cleaning out of the
seams during the shirt-hunt. The theory was
that the animal would walk himself tired getting
from the outside to the inside. Most of the
chaps said, however, that the cootie had such
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an appetite after his long trip that he bit all
the harder.

It was interesting to look over the surround-
ing country that day from the shell-holes. This
was the same ground that we had fought over
on the seventh of June. When we had last
passed over it, shot and shell had been falling
thick and fast and most of us had never ex-
pected to pass that way again. It looked
different now. During our little rest to the
rear the engineers had been busy and roads
had been constructed and reconstructed. On
any advance the bringing up of good roads
is of the utmost importance, as supplies and
ammo and the big guns have to be got up
immediately or it is impossible to hold against
counter-attacks.

We could see the White Chiteau away off
there in front and to the right — the place
where we had cleaned out the treacherous
Htm from his hiding-place behind the Red
Cross flag. A wide and very good road led
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up to the Chateau. The remains of an old
German light raiboad led away from where
we were to this new road. Just after sundown
we started for the front, following this old
rail and eventually hitting the main road.
It was bright moonlight. Things were com-
paratively quiet aU along the line. On the way
up we passed several fatigues cleaning up,
and several carrying parties going out after
grub or anuno.

They told us that Fritz had been very
meek for some days and that it was nearly
time for a savage coimter-attack. In fact
such an attack was expected at any moment.
Just our luck to run into a jam like that!
We had been in the thick at Messines and
here we were coming back to take the pimish-
ment on the counter.

"It's good weVe got a navy," says one
fellow.

"Wot th' blinkin' 'eU's the use," says
somebody else. "We got to fight the whole
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bloomin' war, that's plain." And then some-
one struck up "Pack up your Troubles in
Your Old Kit Bag.'' An officer stopped that,
and the rest of the trip we just groused under
our breaths.

Not a shell came over until we were nearly
up to the ChS^teau. Then at Oak Dimip they
came, good and plenty. The first one burst
near me and killed two men who were elbow
to elbow with me. We tried to get into artillery
formation and scattered. Shortly we were
all over the place and had lost touch with aU
oiu: officers. But nearly all of us knew the
way up to the front, and all through the night
we straggled in by threes and fours.

The front line was in the town of HoUebeke.
This had been a considerable place before
the war but it had been battered into powder.
No semblance of a wall was standing. Even
the cellars had been filled in and levelled off
with fine crushed d6bris. It was possible to
make out the outlines of the streets and some
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of the larger bmldings, but that was all. HoUe-
beke, when we found it, was a name — a sign-
board.

The trench was a good one, new and dry.
For a bloomin' wonder someone had done a
good job of trench-building. There was no
parapet of sandbags, but the ditch was deep
and well drained and the fire-step was solid
and at the right height.

There was the customary lack of dugouts
— nothing you could really call more than a
head-and-shoulder shelter.

The rumor went around that first night
that there was almost certain to be a German
coimter-attack within a few hours. There
was some reason for expecting this, for, al-
though Fritz had been somewhat tame, he
had a victory to his credit that heartened him
a lot.

It had happened in this way. During the
time that our batt was out resting the British
had tried an attack in front of HoUebeke that
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had been a complete washout. Not only had
it been a failure but it had been terribly costly.

The Germans seemed to know every move
that our troops were about to make, their
objectives, the number to come to each point,
and so on; and they had met the British at
every point with perfect preparation.

The reason for this was disclosed to the men
officially, — that is, each batt was paraded
and a statement was read as issued from head-
quarters. This was it.

Two days before the attack a sergeant named
Phillips from a Welsh regiment had been taken
prisoner by the Germans. When the attack
came off a German officer was taken prisoner,
and on him were found documents giving
every detail of the proposed attack and the
statement that the information had been
furnished by the man Phillips who had dis-
appeared. Now it was not known whether or
not Phillips was a deserter or whether he had
given up the information irnder torture, or
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what. It was enough that he had given the
information. And the story was read out to
us as a warning.

I do not mention this occurrence to give
the impression that it was a common thing
for inside plans to be betrayed by men in our
ranks. It was not. As a rule a British soldier
will suffer the worst kind of third degree before
he will give up. It simply shows how easy it is
for a man to ruin the plans of his superiors
and play into the hands of the enemy.

It can readily be seen what a disastrous
thing it might tum out to have alien enemies
in oiu: army. I personally believe that in a
great nation like ours, which is really a con-
glomerate of many nationalities, we should
examine very carefully the record, the ancestry
and the sympathies of every soldier, high and
low.

Our first night up at HoUebeke we were
under a heavy bombardment which continued
through the next day. Chu: casualties were
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quite heavy. It was clear that the attack
might come off at any minute, and all hands
had to stand to all the time. We had to keep
a sharp lookout all the time for gas, too, and
the officers were watching the wind every
moment. In preparation for the attack an
extra large number of machine guns had been
brought up and were emplaced both on the
parapets of the front trench and in the sup-
ports. The artillery to the rear had the range
marked down and were ready for the signal to
begin to pepper Fritz when he started to come
over.

We felt sure enough that we could stop him,
but the waiting, hmnped up on the fire-step
imder the parapet, was wearing. Along about
half-past four the bombardment increased to
a terrible fury and held so for half an horn:;
then the shells began dropping to the rear and
in the supports and we saw the Germans
coming over.

It really was a magnificent sight. They

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were Bavarians, big, husky, heavy-set lads,
and they came in mass formation, four deep.
Our rockets went up and before they were
well on their way we were dropping shells
into them and over them. They came forward
in a great gray wave at a double, heads down,
rifles at the hip.

We cut loose with a hellish machine gun
fire and every man was on the fire-step, going
through the "mad minute" — that is, a rapid
fire of all the cartridges your rifle will hold;
and some of the men were so excited that
they jiunped up on the parapet yelling,

"Come on, you blighters, come on!"

They came. We had no wire up and it
looked as though they might come right on
through. But the shell-fire got them early.
Great gaps opened up in the close-packed
line. These filled and they came on again.
The machines ripped into them and laid out
windrows of dead.

Our officers walked up and down the crowded
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trench — we had every available man on the
fire-step — calling,

"Stick to it, boys! Hold 'em and give 'em
heU."

I think that as the Fritzies came nearer we
almost wished that some of them would get
to US. The strain of waiting and watching
that advance was so great that a fight hand
to hand would be a reUef . Very few got to us.
Their lines were so broken when they were
nearly up to us that the greater part of those
still on their feet either turned and ran or
dropped into shell-holes.

The few that did reach us were smothered
as soon as they dropped into the trench. The
men jimiped on them like terriers on a rat and
hacked them to pieces. The only damage
they did was with the few bombs they managed
to lob over just before they got to us.

When the attack was over the ground out
in front was strewn thick with the dead and
wounded From then up to dark we amused
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ourselves picking off anything that moved.
Our own casualties for the day were eighty-six.

During the next five days we had to stop
six of these attacks. Twice they got into
our trench and there was some brisk hand-
to-hand fighting. Personally I was fortunate
enough to avoid this. I hated the bayonet
then as always, and had no relish whatever for
mixing it with a big Bavarian weighing two
or three hundred pounds.

On the whole we held them better than we
had any right to expect during those five days;
for they did sure hammer us with big shells
night and day. When we were not standing to,
waiting for an attack, we were repairing the
bashed-in parapets and cleaning out the
traverses. There was no rest. The rations
could n't be got up with any regularity. Casual-
ties were heavy every day. They were wearing
us out.

But we held on imtil the artillery went
back on us. On the last night, about eight
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o^clock, they came over again. It was very
misty and nearly dark, anyway. We could
just see them as they surged up out of the
murk of fog. We sent up our rockets for the
artillery fire, but none came; and the Huns
came plunging across, unhindered except by
our machine gun and rifle fire.

They did n't seem to mind that, and they
came with a cheer, a hoarse, guttural, all-
together "Hoch!" or whatever the word was,
that sounded like the lions in the Zoo at feeding
time. It must have been plain to our officers
that we were not able to hold that trench
against that charge. In any event we did
something that the British seldom do.

While the Germans were still halfway across
No Man's Land, the order came to fall back
into the support trenches. A few picked men
who had had their emergency orders before
stayed to cover the retreat, and showered the
Germans with hand-grenades as they came
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Back in the supports we got the machine-
guns set up in the communication trenches and
rested snug. We had fallen back a hundred
yards. The Hims had what they had been
trying for, for nearly a week. And they were
satisfied and happy. All that night we could hear
them cheering and singing; but they were n't
ready to make the attempt to come any farther.

When we fell back I had foimd a good-sized
shelter, and as I was off sentry-go I crawled
into it and slept. Along about four I crawled
out and it was raining hard — a cold, wet
rain that soaked right through. An officer
came up a few minutes later with a corporal
and the rum ration.

"Bojrs," he said, "we are going to be re-
lieved tonight."

A glad growl went aroimd.

"But," he said, "before we go to the rear
we are going over and take that trench back.
We start at five. The artillery will open at
25ero minus five. Pass the order."
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Well, there was another growl not so glad;
but it sort of trailed off into an interested
cheer, not very loud, but sincere. We hated
the first thought of going back to the attack;
but we hated worse to have the relief come
up and find that we had been unable to
hold.

We had a triple rum issue all aroimd and
at five sharp we went over and up the com-
mimication trenches. The Hims stayed and
fought well for a few moments; but our shelling
had been well directed and effective. When
we attacked, our guns threw a barrage across
behind the Germans about forty yards out in
No Man's Land. They had to stop and fight,
whether they wanted to or not.

For a few minutes after we piled into the
trench, it was a regular Donnybrook Fair.
There was no room to use a bayonet. At one
point Germans and British were packed in
so close that they were biting each other. I
happened to be behind a taU fellow named
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Blake. My head came about up to his middle
and he made a nice defense for me. I remember
sticking my rifle between his legs and prodding
at a pair of high boots that looked German.
Then I fell down and someone trod on me and
pushed my face in the mud. I thought I
was in for slow death by smothering but I got
free after a bit, and when I came up for air it
was all over.

The German resistance had been keen for
a little while, but it had stopped very suddenly.
We took a lot of prisoners; but our own casual-
ties were heavy. The batt lost, as nearly as
I can remember, about thirty per cent of its
effectiveness in those six days. The Germans
must have lost four times as many as we did.
And when it was all done we were right back
where we had started from. Neither side had
gained an inch.

As we went out that night after the relief
had come up I couldn't help thinking how
foolish and useless and expensive it all was.
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Going out I heard a fellow named Scribner
grousing to his pal. He said a whole lot.

"Wot's th' bloody use?" says Scrib. "We
comes up an* we gits killed and we falls back,
and we comes up and gits killed some more,
and 'ere we are in th' same old plyce wif nothin'
done. Wot's th' blinkin' use?"

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CHAPTER XIV

Rest

I SUPPOSE that the thing that the soldier in
active service over there looks forward to most
and relishes most when he gets it, is rest, —
REST, spelled all in capitals. The reason
Tommy likes rest so well is that he never gets
any. As a rule, when they move you out of the
trenches and send you back for a spell of re-
cuperation they find a few light chores to do
in the way of making roads or breaking stone
or lugging ammo. When you are in the front
line there isn't much to do but wait to get
killed and wish you were in the rear. At the
rear you think you'd rather die quick than
work yourself to death. There's no real rest
in either place.

Once in a trench-rat's age, though, some-
body somewhere gets careless or gets the orders
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balled up, and a batt is pulled out and put on
its own for a week or two.

That happened to my batt along toward the
end of last July. We had had nearly fourteen
months in the Flanders mud — some of it in
the French mud, which tasted just the same
and stuck just as close — and there was tiunul-
tuous cheering when the word went around
that we were going back to a place called St.
Omar for six whole weeks. Nobody believed
it, but we were glad just the same. And it
came true.

This St. Omar burg must have been named
after this Omar Khayyam chap that wrote the
dinky little four-lme verses about wine, women
and song. Anyhow, it was that kind of a place.

Our billets were at a suburb called St.
Martin, about fifteen minutes^ walk to the
town. We were almost entirely on our own,
having only two hours* parade in the morning,
and then being free until 9 p. m.

St. Omar had been a town of perhaps 20,000
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people in peace times, and was 30,000 now,
with soldiers and war workers of various kinds.
It had a pretty park in the middle of the town
with the Hotel de Ville and the Cathedral on
two sides, and any nimiber of caffe, estaminets,
theatres and movie houses. Everything was
wide — wide open up to eight o'clock. After
that everything was shut up tighter than
Boston at three in the morning. During the
open hours the main idea of St. Omar seemed
to be to entertain soldiers. The military au-
thorities approved, and even tried to get an
order from the French, keeping the caf6s open
until nine o'clock. We were given unlimited
money — within reason — and were allowed to
draw three months in advance. They showed
us the town and told us to fly to it. We flew.

I don't mean by this that we indulged in any
wild orgies. There was nothing in the world to
prevent a man from getting as drunk as a lord
if he wanted to, or to plimge into the ^dest
dissipation. But it did n't work out that way.
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This is as good a time as any to say some-
thing about the much-advertised vice and
corruption that the soldier is saturated with —
according to some well-meaning but badly in-
formed investigators. The red light district
of St. Omar was wide open and free to the
soldiers of all the nations. There was noth-
ing in the world to keep the soldiers out of
the houses of prostitution, and yet the mmi-
ber of men in xmif orm who went into the
restricted districts was smaller than anyone
would suppose.

This was due to the admirably organized
French supervision. The women of the town
were kept in their own places and were for-
bidden to solicit. If a soldier went into the
district he did it in cold blood and usually with
a sober head on his shoulders.

I have heard since I retiuned to the United

States a good deal of irresponsible talk of the

prevalence of disease in the armies. In all

my experience of nearly two years at the actual

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front, going in and out of French towns with
large bodies of men, I have known of very few
cases of carelessly contracted disease. I would
venture to say that the diseases of promiscuity
are less prevalent in the British Army at the
front than in civilian life. Soldiers are n*t any
little tin angels, but they are taught to be
clean; discipline reaches them in their conduct
while on their own, and as a rule they are tem-
perate, either through inclination or because
they have to be. In either case the result is
the same. They are in no danger of falling
into any wild degeneracy.

St. Omar did n*t really have much that we
did n't get close up behind the front. Up there
we had our beer in the canteens, and vaude-
ville at the Divisional Follies, and games and
movies and music at the Y. M. C* A. The
grub, too, was as good as it was in town.

The difference was this: Bacon and eggs
tasted better if you could sit down to a table
and eat with a knife and fork, and did n't have
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to clean up the dishes afterwards. It was
luxury to come out of a movie show and sprawl
around on a bench in the park with no place to
go and nothing to do but watch the people go
by; or to sit at one of the little iron tables at a
sidewalk caf 6 and sop up citron and soda and
just loaf.

REST. That was it. The only thing lack-
ing was a chance to sleep in a bed. After you
get out of the trenches there *s nothing quite
like getting between clean sheets and stretch-
ing out and wiggling your toes. It's almost
worth being sent to the hospital for. Well, we
did n't get any beds at St. Omar. We kipped
on stone floors. But we sure did loaf to the
last limit.

Of course this could n't last the promised six
weeks. No such luck. At the end of a fort-
night [we had orders to pack up and hike. It
was back to Belgium — worse luck. We never
wanted to see Belgimn again, and wished it
had never been on the map. The grousing over
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that move back into Flanders was near mutiny;
but it did n't do us any good.

We marched five miles, took a train, marched
some more and fetched up outside Ypres, where
we spent the night. Next morning the officers
came aroimd and spilled the bad news. We
were to go in reserve at Swan Chateau, behind
a Scottish division which was to go over the
top at Passchendaele. If they were success-
ful we were to go back to St. Omar. If not, we
were to take their places and carry on.

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CHAPTER XV
Back to the Front

We left for Swan Chateau about nine that
night, and after about an hour on the road ran
smack into a new form of strafing — an air
raid! I don't know whether it was because it
was new to me or what, but it certainly got
me windy. It was dark, and before we knew
it there was a flock of planes right down on top
of us. We could n't see them, but they were
so low that we could hear the engines humming
like bees, and the anti-aircraft gims began to
go off. We had just passed a niunber of am-
munition dmnps, and we knew that was what
they were after. Also we knew that if they
hit the ammo we would go with it.

Led by the oflGicers we left the road and beat
it across the open fields. Then the first bomb
landed a couple of hundred yards back toward
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the dumps. It must have lifted out a chimk
of Flanders as big as a freight car, because
mud and stones showered down aroimd us,
I had seen one of these bombs, imexploded, in
another place, and did n't want any dropping
near me. They are pear-shaped, with an iron
tail like the feather of an arrow, to make them
fall straight, and they weigh sixty to seventy
pounds.

We scattered across the open, running at
top speed — away from the ammo dumps.
A minute later another bomb went off on the
road which we had just left. I happened to
be looking over my shoulder and saw it go
up with a great red flare and a groimd-shaking
"boom."

Then they commenced dropping all over the
shop. The noise was terrif)dng. The anti-
aircraft guns were barking — yap, yap, yap,
yap, yap, BOOM — that would be a bomb —
yap, yap, BOOM — and over it all the vicious
heavy hum of the low-fl)dng planes. It may
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BACK TO THE FRONT

be because it was new, but everybody had
the sensation that each bomb was hunting for
him individually.

When the rumpus was over — it lasted
maybe ten minutes — the batt was scattered
all over the landscape. It took two hours for
the oflGicers to round us up and get on.

We made the Chateau about three in the
morning. Our quarters here were good. The
dugouts — if you would call them that —
were above ground, built out of corrugated
iron against old ruins, and sandbagged on top.
We were there four days with nothing to do.
It wasn't safe to go about much, as a few
shells dropped near every day. There was a
lot of our heavy artillery there, and we used to
lie in" the sim watching the big boys send
over their messages, but mostly we stuck to
the dugouts.

On the fifth day news came back that the
Scotch attack had been a washout, and that
we were to go up that night and take over in
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a new sector in front of Westhoek near the
foot of Passchendaele Ridge; two days later
we were to go over the top and take the ob-
jective where others had failed.

We spent the days putting all our unneces-
sary stuff in our packs, which were to be left
behind. I had a lot of souvenirs, some of
them things I had been packiag aroimd for a
year, and I little thought that I should never
see them agaui.

We sent an oflGicer and two men ahead in
the morning to pick the best way to Railway
Wood, but they never returned, as all three
were killed by a shell. We started out at nine
in the evening, without knowing exactly where
we were going.

Going up the road we could see shells burst-
ing ahead of us in large numbers, but we hurried,
because we wanted it over. And we walked
right into it. I was plugging along with six
other men, one a mate of mine named Higgins,
who had been my pal for nearly two years,
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and another chap named Bott, that I thought
a good deal of — both of whom I have akeady
spoken of — and four stretcher-bearers that I
did n't know by name. A shell burst right in
the middle of us. I was thrown down and
rolled into the ditch and half knocked out.

Just as I was getting 'up — shellproof still,
for I was n't marked and not badly shaken —
another smashed in the same place. I saw
two of the stretcher-bearers who were just
getting to their feet go down, and I lay low a
while longer. Then I got out and looked.
Poor old Hig had gone west, smashed to bits.
Bott had an arm off and both legs smashed and
looked to be dead. The four stretcher-bearers
were all dead. Strangely enough, I after-
wards ran across Bott in England. He still
had the arm and one leg missing, but he was
otherwise able-bodied. So you see a man
takes a lot of killing.

Well, after I had coimted what I supposed
were the dead I lit out across lots towards
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where I could see some old tree stumps. I
wanted cover and wanted it bad. I was going
at top speed when I went into an old trench.
I tumed upside down, spim like a pinwheel, hit
the water head first and started to try to swim.
I got my feet under after a bit, and my head
was still a yard or so from the top and water
up to my armpits. So I knew it was an old
German trench. No Britisher would ever dig
so deep. I fished up the rifle and tried to
climb out.

No gol Too slippery. So I started to
floimder along the trench. I had only gone a
little way when I ran into a man who covered
me with an automatic and called to me to
halt. I did. It was my company platoon
officer. He didn't say how he came there,
but I suppose the same way I did. We got
out of the trench and found what was left of
the company. The shells were flying over by
now, and we plodded along without further
trouble imtil we found our place in the line.
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That front line! It was a throwback to the
old days at "Wipers," when the Canadians
were living like muskrats, or even to the days
of 19 16 at Funky Village, when our own batt
was wishing that they were mud turtles.
However, there was no kick coming, because
there was an excuse for it this time.

During 19 17 the British had been, poimding
on pretty fast and there hadn't been much
chance to dig in; but nobody cared. We were
on the way to Berlin.

The Boche had discarded trenches in this
part of the line, too, but he only did it because
he had something better — the pill-boxes. I 'U
tell about them in just a minute.

Our line was a narrow trench about four feet
deep and two wide, with only a thin parapet of
sandbags and no communication trenches.
We tiunbled in and wedged ourselves down
into the bottom of this crack in the earth.
We were some surprised when we were told
that we were not to occupy this trench, but
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were to move out into some shell-holes a few
yards in front.

It was still dark when we took over the
holes. From four to eight men were assigned
to a hole. Our orders were about like this:
"There is a hole out there with four men in
it. Ten yards out. Take your rations and run
for it at the word. All ready now. Cany on."

Carry on we did. The hole I drew had the
prescribed four men in it, and they left without
waiting to argue the toss or even for a lull in
the machine gun fire, which was awful. The
bullets were cracking and squealing overhead
in a torrent that let up for a few seconds now
and then, but on the whole might be called
continuous. We had ducked across in one of
the quiet spells. When day broke it was easy
to see why the men we had relieved had been
in such a hurry.

Those holes were absolutely the most pestif er-
our spots that I ever saw. The new pill-boxes
were established in a row at a point about
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three hundred yards away, and were raking
us. In the daytime if you stuck a finger up
they would take the top off. I lay in my first
shell-hole two days and saw only the gray,
wet sky overhead, and once during a short
lull in the fire I peeped and had a glimpse of
a torn and tortured terrain of mud, with here
and there black stiunps, and over there in the
mist the low yellow wafers that we knew were
the piQ-boxes.

The smell in these holes was dreadful. There
were hundreds of bodies all about, lying im-
buried in the muggy August warmth. Blue-
bottle flies by the million settled over every-
thing and bit like Jersey mosquitoes.

When we went into the holes we took with
us rations for two days. Each man had two
rashers of bacon, about two pounds of cold
roast beef and a half loaf of bread. For each
four men there was a tin of jam, a tin of con-
densed milk, two cans of baked beans, plenty of
tea and sugar, and a Tommy's cooker. We
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had our water-bottles filled and took along a
petrol can with two gallons of water. The
cooker was a spirit-lamp affair for making tea
and frying bacon.

We had no overcoats, and while the da3rs
were warm and sticky and sickening, the
nights got awfully cold. Two days were as
much as any man could stand in these places.
Lying there aU day looking up at a gray sky
and breathing the foul air, soaking in the
filthy mud and xmable to move about at all,
was enough to put the huskiest Tommy nearly
out of business.

When we were relieved, at the end of two
days, and went back into the support trenches,
about ninety per cent of the men had tempera-
tures of over a hundred and were out and
out sick. Scores wanted to report sick, but the
M. O. was at Railway Wood, and it would
have been impossible to get back there, so we
had to stick it out and go into the holes again
a day later.

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We were to go over the top on the morning
of August 21, and we did, four battaKons of
men, more than half of whom were fit subjects
for the hospital.

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CHAPTER XVI

Taking the Pill-Boxes

This was not a big battle. There were, as I
have said, only four battalions engaged on
our side. The affair was more or less of an
experiment. The pill-boxes were a new Ger-
man defensive and had never been thoroughly-
tried out. We were the goats. The little forts
were to be given a chance to rake us and see
how we stood it.

It had been proved pretty clearly already that
the boxes were the most effective defence ever
devised. They were simply fortified shell-holes.

Now, for some strange reason, shells rarely
strike twice in the same place. We had foimd
that out when we were lying in the holes.
Shells would burst all about us, but only once
in a himdred times would there be a direct hit
over an old hole.

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It follows that if you fortify an old hole so
that it takes two or more hits to dislodge the
machine gun that you have placed there, why,
your machine is going to be in commission and
dangerous even imder an extraordinary heavy
and well-directed shell-fire, and is going to be a
hard thing to take.

Well, on this attack, our orders were very
simple. They were to go over and take those
pill-boxes. That was all. The boxes were in a
row about three himdred yards away. They
were in groups of five, about ten or fifteen
yards apart, and then a gap of perhaps fifty
yards with a section of sap or trench.

Our artillery commenced slamming them the
night before and kept it up hard and fast up to
7:30 in the morning, when we were to go over.
About seven I took a look through the peri-
scope and studied the terrain out in front. It
was level and muddy and pitted with shell-
holes, and away off there the white steeples of
Passchendaele showed dim against the haze. To
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the rear and to the left and nearer, the jagged,
black ruins of "Wipers" broke the skyline.

In the foreground the low boxes were spit-
ting fire regularly, unharmed after a night of
it. Shells burst all around them, tossing off
lumpy clouds of gray smoke with daubs of red
flame in the middle, and up above airplanes
circled ready to chase the Boche fliers if they
should come out to take a hand.

This was our first go at the pill-boxes, and in
oiu: sick and discouraged condition we fully
expected a washout. The four of us, in oiu:
hole, had no officer with us, but we arranged
our tactics ourselves. Two of us were to bomb
the box through the gun slots. And two — I was
one of these — were to go aroxmd to the rear,
where we assumed there would be a door, and
prod the outcoming Boche in his tenderest parts.

The fact is we did n't any of us expect to

get halfway across. About five minutes before

zero — starting time — oiu: artillery laid down

a smoke barrage in front of us. When we went

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over we couldn't see the boxes and they
could n't see us. It worked beautifully. They
raked the ground with the machine guns, but
they were shooting in the dark. The mud
was kicked up all aroimd us for a himdred and
fifty yards, but nobody was hit. We advanced
slowly behind the barrage. Halfway across,
Jackson, one of the bombers, copped his, a
piece of shell that took his head nearly off, and
he pitched forward beside me, face down.
We did n't stop.

Then the barrage raised and we foimd that
we were right on top of the boxes. I saw Green
throw a bomb, but it didn't go in the gun
slots, and boimced off. The third man and I
dropped on our bellies to get imder the gun
fire and crawled forward rapidly. Green threw
a couple more bombs which went over. By
this time I was right under the box and I'
pulled the pin out of a bomb with my teeth
and reached up and dropped it in. It seemed
to be the only way and it did for the Boches
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inside. We ran around to the rear and there
was a great groaning and yelling inside for a
few seconds. When we crawled in the door
there was one dead German and two badly
wounded. The two wounded died imme-
diately.

Now about the construction of the pill-
boxes. They were made of standardized con-
crete blocks of keystone shape, that is, wide at
one end and narrow at the other. These
blocks were grouted together with a rich ce-
ment mixture and the walls were about thirty-
six inches thick. The structure went down
under the groimd about five feet and stuck up
about two feet. They had three window slots
about four inches across, that is, up and down,
and ten inches long. These were on three
segments of the front, and behind each slot
was a machine gun on a tripod. The top was
flat reinforced concrete. There was a little
door in the rear and a communication trench
nmning right up to it.

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Experience showed later that it took two or
three direct hits from good-sized shells to put
one of these contraptions out of business. And,
as I have said, it takes uncommonly good gim-
ning to lay two shells down in one place, much
less three, so they were effective against any-
thing but main strength and awkwardness, a
charge with the bayonet and the bombs. We
had been unexpectedly successful in taking
these first ones. Later, I understand, when the
Germans got the knack of ranging their ma-
chine guns through the slots the slaughter in
taking the pill-boxes was terrible.

One advantage they had over trenches —
and it was a great one — was that the boxes
could not be turned around after they were
taken. In preparing a pill-box for a coimter
attack the only thing to do was to sandbag the
back door, which left only one fire-opening
over the top of the sandbags.

We held the positions we had taken xmtil ten
that night, when we were relieved. Dxiring the
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day we had a good chance to examine the pill-
boxes, and we made some startling discoveries.

There were two or three cement-mixers
aroxmd the place and a considerable number of
cement bags. These cement bags all bore the
marks of an English firm. A German officer
who was taken farther down the line in the
attack made the statement that the cement
which was used in the pill-boxes had been in
England less than three weeks previous to the
day we captured them.

An investigation was started in England im-
mediately. I heard later that this inquiry was
in progress in London not later than August
2$. It was proved that large shipments of
cement had been sent to Holland with the
alleged imderstanding that the material was to
be used in repairing the dykes.

The Dutch consignees admitted that the

material had been sent into Belgium for the

German Army. Moreover, it was common

gossip that the firms shipping the cem«it

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TAKING THE PILL-BOXES

either knew that the cement was destined for
the German Army or were in a position to know
that it might and probably would be. The in-
vestigation made it perfectly clear that there
were British firms who were so mad for war
profits that they were willing to furnish the
materials for death devices which would cer-
tainly be used for the slaughter of English
soldiers. This cement deal opened up phases
of profiteering that were appalling. Apparently
there are people in any country who will sell
their souls for a profit.

The amazing part of this transaction — to
me — was what happened later. Along in
October I was in England, having been gassed
and sent to Blighty to get well. I was con-
valescent and was wandering around London
seeing the sights. One day I was leaning over
a bridge across the Thames watching three
ships loading with cement. Natiurally the
thought of the pill-boxes popped into my head.
I called down to a sailor who was loafing on
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deck and asked him where he was bound.
Holland! Two months after the expos6 of the
pill-boxes England was stiU shipping the
material to Holland for the destruction of her
own soldiers! Oh, well! What's a Tommy
more or less?

As for me, I'm heartily glad that I never
had occasion to go against the pill-boxes again.
Relieved that night, we had no casualties going
back. The Boche was seemingly discouraged
and on his good behavior.

We reached Railway Wood at eleven o'clock,
had hot tea and three spoonfuls of rum, dropped
on the groimd in the dugouts, and in five
minutes every man was snoring.

I was so tired that I would have slept even
if I had known what was coming to me a week
later, when I was properly gassed.

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CHAPTER XVn

Gassed

After our stunt in cleaning out the pill-boxes
we were due for two days' rest at Railway
Wood. For a wonder we got it. Must have
been a mistake somewhere. The dugouts there
were good and dry and safe, being in a tunnel
under the embankment of the Ypres-Roulers
railroad, and were big enough to hold thirty
men each. They were connected by passages
to keep the men from going outside, as this
section was being shelled all the time. So all
we had to do was eat and sleep and play cards
and write letters by candle-light. I had re-
ceived a Boston paper a day or two before, and
read the thing through and back again and in-
side out, down to the ads and the death notices.
So did everybody else. Tommy is quite as in-
terested in American newspapers as in his own.
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He thiiiks we are a bit queer, but he likes to
read about us.

Rations at Railway Wood were still cold and
we had to do our own cooking, the same as in
the shell-holes. I got to be an expert at boiling
water. The forty-eight hoiurs' rest passed be-
fore we knew it, and at ten on the night of
August 24 we went up to the line again. It
was quiet this time, with only an occasional
shell coming over, and we made it without
casualties.

We expected to occupy the pill-boxes we had
taken, but foimd that the company that had
relieved us had fallen back to shell-holes about
fifty yards from the boxes. So we rolled into
the mud again and settled down for another
two dajrs of the horrors. The place smelled
worse than before.

The hole I drew was too small, and there
were four of us in it. We got busy that night
and dug some little saps so we could sit down
and stretch without lying on top of each other.
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About five the next morning Fritz started his
regulax daybreak strafing and we were glad of
the saps.

The next hole to ours was bashed in and a
chap named Lawton had his shoulder ripped
away. He lived through it and was carried out
that night.

During the day the wind was just right and
six times Fritz sent over gas waves. He gave
them to us every two hours on the tick. We had
the respirators on most of the time. TheBoche
was playing a game. He knew that we were in
a place where it would be impossible to get up
new helmets, and that the chemicals in any
gas mask will last only so long. No doubt he
drenched us with mustard gas that day in
the hope that by night many of us would be
wearing played-out respirators and would be
easy victims. It worked. He bagged quite a
number.

That night orders came up for a patrol of
twelve men to be sent out to have a "look-see"
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in front of the German lines. When we had
taken the pill-boxes the Boche had fallen back
to ordinary trenches several hundred yards
away. He had wires in front, and we wanted to
get some line on whether he was preparing for a
coimter-attack on the boxes. So we were told
to go out without rifles and armed only with
four bombs apiece and a persuader.

A persuader is a club with a loaded and nail-
studded head. You side-wipe a Boche imder
the chops with it and it crushes his nob like an
egg-shell. We did not blacken our faces as
usual, as it was very dark. We were to spy out
the German positions and take prisoners if we
could do it without making a noise.

We left at ten o'clock. We were really each
man on his own. Shells were falling here and
there, and for half an hour we lay in holes. We
wanted all the cover we could get. Then we
went forward.

I had been out maybe an hour and was a hun-
dred yards or so in front of the pill-boxes when
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I got a sniflf of gas. They were giving it to us
again after a day of it. I hurried into the res-
pirator. Soon I got a little dizzy. I knew what
was wrong. The chemical in my mask was worn
out. I was getting gassed and knew it was time
to light out for home. I headed back and my
bram began to spin. Immediately all sense of
direction went out of me. I fell over one body
and on top of another. I clawed him over, himt-
ing for his gas mask. There was n't any. The
mask on the next body was slit, and that on
another man had the tube broken. I gave it
up and staggered away, with no idea of where
I was going. Presently I fell into some wire
and hung there. The barbs clutched and clung
at my puttees and trousers. I foimd m3^self
too weak to get out and slid down into a crouch,
hopeless and waiting to die. My breath became
terribly labored. I fought for each inhalation,
dragging it up in great, rasping, gurgling gasps.
My eyes stung terribly, and the tears streamed
down my face and went salty into my mouth,
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I slobbered. I got the taste of mustard in my
nose and in the back of my throat, and my
palate stimg and swelled.

I weakened rapidly. But finally I summoned
the strength to drag off my helmet for air. No
use. It was worse in the open. I sickened and
tried to vomit, but could n't, retching and heav-
ing imtil I himg limp in the wire with my face
crushed down in the cruel barbs.

I did n't lose consciousness and was still fight-
ing for air when I heard a man say:

"Don't move, damn you. Who are you?"

I pulled together all the life that was left in
me and muttered in a voice that soimded
strangely loud and that made my eardrums
ache:

"British soldier.'^

Then I slid out of the world.

I came back to it as th^r were dragging me
out of the wires and heard them say that they
were from the Somersets and were out on patrol,
and that I was in German wire.
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" Lucky devil," I heard someone say. " He ^d
a' copped it in another hour when it got light."

"Lucky?" says another chap. "I'd say 'd
done better to go west wif a souvenir in 'is
napper. It'll be 'ell for 'im wif all that gas
in im.

It was. During the next few days I agreed
with, the second fellow and wished that I had
copped a bullet instead of the gas.

I fainted again. When I came out of that one
I was at a first-aid station and someone was
forcing a bitter drink through my teeth. I was
fighting for every breath. Two stretcher-
bearers loaded me on a stretcher and started
down the road towards Ypres to the field dress-
ing-station. This was the same road where we
had been shelled coming up, and as daylight
came on we caught it again. Two or three big
ones hit right in the road ahead of us, and they
lugged me over to an old trench, the same one
where I had met my platoon officer in the night.

While here I suffered so terribly that I wanted
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to die. I prayed for a shell to do me in. The
strangling, drowning sensation and the racking
effort for every burning lungful of oxygen was
simply tearing me to pieces. I tried to stop
breathing, but nature fought against my will,
and I kept on the painful gasping.

My eyes were burning and the water was
running from them and my nose. I begged
the bearers to take me down to the dressing-
station, and the brave f eUows finally lifted me
out and started down the road, disregarding
sheU-fire.

When they landed me at the dressing-station,
a good safe place in the basement of an old
building, they pumped me full of oxygen, and
after that I was able to breathe. My linings
stiU burned and smarted terribly, but with the
oxygen feeding the limgs the struggle for breath
was less hard.

The M. O. tagged me: "Gassed. Serious.
Lying." That meant I was a stretcher case.
After an hour they took me out and loaded me
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into an ambulance with three other stretcher
cases. Sometime along in the forenoon we
arrived at the C. C. S., outside of Popperringhe.

The Casualty Clearing Station is where th^r
sort out the woimded. A complete record is
made of each case and the Red Cro^ nurses at
these stations have it hard. There are, of
course, a good many deaths and a lot of tough
cases that cannot be moved for a considerable
time.

This station at Popperringhe had about a
himdred big marquee tents and some huts.
Thousands of casualties of aU sorts went through
every week, and all the wards were full, as a
rule. This was my fourth time under the Red
Cross flag and I had always felt safe there, but
this first night at Popperringhe gave me a new
experience that showed that there is no safety
anywhere from the Hun. About 9:30, when I
had become fairly comfortable with morphine
and oxygen, and was almost able to doze off I
heard the soft, punky "swish-pung" of the
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anti-aircraft guns and knew that there was a
raid on.

I remembered the bombing I had been imder
a few days before and was scared a-plenty. I
was lying here helpless and th^r were no doubt
getting ready to drop bombs on us. And yet it
didn't seem possible. It wasn't human. A
patient in the next cot called out to the nurse:

"Is it an air raid, Sister?"

And she very cooUy answered:

"It is. But don't get excited. They may
not hit us."

She hardly had the words out of her mouth
when — "whang-bang," two heavy explosions,
seemingly just outside the hut. The ground
shook and the canvas sides of the hut bellied in
with the shock. I was xmable to get up and see
the effects of the raid, but I heard aU about it
and a number of the wounded were brought
into my hut.

The Boche had deliberately bombed the sta-
tion, and those two explosions had killed twenty-
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six and wounded forty-five men. Of the twenty-
six killed fourteen were Germans who were
being treated by our Red Cross.

This crime was deliberate and no mistake, as
the C. C. S. had been on this spot for three years,
and the Red Cross flag was flying on all sides
and was painted on the top of every tent and
hut. A wounded German officer said it was
reprisal because the English had fired on a
German Red Cross train a few days before.
This was true. They had. But only after the
observers had discovered that the Hims were
using the train to bring up reserves. This
reprisal illustrates, I think, the German view
of fair play. An3rthing that is to their advan-
tage is fair. Anything that is to their disadvan-
tage is imfair. The will to win is so strong in
the Him that he loses all sense of honor, fair
play, decency, pity, reason, and everything
else that goes to make up a himian being.
They are a nation gone mad.

I was at the C. C. S. for nine days and had a
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hard time of it. I suffered with my limgs for
four or five days and then got a little better, but
the gas had nearly put my eyes out and all the
mucous surfaces were raw — nose, mouth, and,
the doctor said, Vay down inside me, lungs,
stomach, and so on. I had to wear blue goggles
and a shade and expected to go blind.

At the end of nine days I was coming along
pretty well and wanted to sit up. Judging from
former experience I expected to be sent back
into the line as soon as I got my feet under me,
but the M. 0. thought differently. He tagged
me: "Phthisis and debility. Serious. Lying."
And the next day I was carried on to a Red
Cross train which came right into the camp.
There were a thousand patients aboard. We
did n't know where we were going, nor did the
nurses.

Every man had a package of fags and an
orange, and the nurses made us all comfortable.
After a slow ride of five hours we brought up
at a place called Staples.
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There are a number of hospitals here, and I
landed m the British Hospital No. — . The Red
Cross people sure did make us comfortable at
Staples, as everywhere else. I got better very
fast and was feeling so good that I was more
than surprised one day when the M. O. came
around and said:

"Mack, I am going to send you on a little
trip."

"What kind of a trip?" I asked.

"BUghty," said he.

Well, say, I nearly had shell-shock. I was
glad enough to get Blighty, but was feeling so
good that it did n't seem possible. However, I
was worse than I thought, and the Doc knew it.

I was now a walking patient, but the tag on
my coat was the same. After another slow ride
we hit Calais and were loaded on a hospital ship
and got imder way immediately. On the way
across we were escorted by four torpedo boats —
another precaution against the hiraiane Him,
who loves to sink a thousand wounded as well as
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anything he knows about — and we all had to
wear life belts. We crossed in two hours and
spent the time cussing the Germans, eating one
large, luxurious Red Cross dinner and looking
for the coast of England.

The docks were crowded. So was the station.
So were the streets. It is one of the things that
the English seem never to lose enthusiasm over
— greeting the wounded when th^r come back.
It is one of the things the Germans can't imder-
stand. I have been told by people returning
from Germany that the wounded are kept away
from Berlin and the larger centres of population
because the sight of many casualties would dis-
courage the folks at home. It works the other
way with the British. When they read their
casualty lists or see their crippled men coming
back they get mad clean through. The sight
strikes no fear into their hearts. Every woimded
man they see puts a new determination into
their souls, and they are just so much more eager
to go out and win. The Englishman may be
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stupid and slow. But the harder you lick him
the stronger he comes back. He never knows
when he is beaten. As a New Orleans doctor
who took care of me at Chatham said:

"He's the fightingest fool in the world.''

The mob at Dover was roped off so they
could n't get at us; but how they did cheer! It
made me glad that I had been over and done
my bit. I had been away for seventeen months
and had been through hell and repeat, and
had n't expected to see Blighty again. It sure
made the limip come up in the throat and the
tears come into the eyes — that reception at
Dover.

Another short ride in a Red Cross train
landed us in Canterbiuy. Another reception
here. We were loaded into ambulances, and
on the way to the hospital people rushed into
the streets and threw flowers to us. The ambu-
lance I was in, a "Tin Lizzie," broke down and
I walked the last half mile to the hospital.

I was in Canterbury for six days and had a

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chance to visit the Cathedral, after which I was
shifted to Chatham. I was beginning to get fed
up on this moving aroimd. There was the same
red tape and formality of registration at each
new place. I imagine a weak patient would get
aU worn out. As it happened, this was my last
move.

At Chatham I fell into it cushy. When I
went into the Medical Office I saw the M. O. sit-
ting back to me at a desk. He had on an Ameri-
can service hat. I motioned to him and whis-
pered to the sister:

"Yankee?"

She said yes, and I whispered:

"I'm another."

She fairly shouted:

"Oh, Lieutenant Coleman, here's a Yankee!"

The lieutenant jumped up and grabbed me by
the hand and nearly pumped my arm off. He
had been there only ten days and I fancy he was
lonesome. He quartered me in the best hut on
the groimds in the flower garden near his office.
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I had been there only two days when I had a re-
lapse and was in bed for more than a week.
Doctor Coleman us6d to come in and sit on my
bed in his off hours and we would swap yams
about God's coimtry and talk about places we
both knew in Boston and in New Orleans, where
he came from.

While at Chatham I had several automobile
rides out in the country and was invited out to
tea quite often. There were concerts in the
auditoriimi twice a week, and life for the con-
valescents was pretty pleasant. For that matter
the men in bed had a better time than they had
ever expected to see again. It was almost worth
while getting woimded. We got the best of
everything in the way of fruit and tobacco and
the niu-ses were very kind.

Visitors did a good deal for us, too. Opinion
was about equally divided among the Tommies
as to whether visitor's day was a blessing or a
nuisance. Most of the men hated to be put on
exhibition and to have to answer questions.
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I myself thought it was a lot of fun. Some
of the answers that a woimded soldier shoots
back at an impertinent visitor are shaip and to
the point.

There was a little Cockney in the next bed to
me who had had the end of his nose nipped off
by a bullet. He had n't any too much to begin
withy and he was sore about it. His face was
aU plastered up. Also he had an abdominal
woimd that kept him on his back.

One day an old lady, one of those well-mean-
ing, inquisitive, aristocratic dames, came in.
She had a huge, high-bridged nose, one of those
beaks that are so common among the British
upper classes. She evidently liked to stick that
nose into other people's business. AnywsLy she
went up to Tonrnay and said:

"My good man, where are you wounded?'*

Tommy thought that the plaster on his face
was answer enough, and he grunted.

"Come, my good fellow," says the old lady.
"TeU me where your wotmd is."
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Tommy looked up with contempt in his eye.

"Lady,'* he says, "if the bullet 'it you where
it 'it me there would n' be nothing left of you."

Visitors always ask two question^, and we
always try to have an answer ready for them.

The first is: "Are you wounded?" which is
a fool question to ask a man who is in bed in a
hospital. The second is: "Did you ever kill a
German?" That is a natural enough question.
I have yet to meet a person that does n't ask it,
but it gets tiresome.

They told a story at Chatham about an Irish-
man who was approached by a lady visitor with
the customary question. She gushed, "Oh, my
poor man, are you wounded?"

"No, ma'am," said Pat. "I was kicked be a
cootie."

That did n't faze her a bit.

Back she came with, "Did you ever kill a
German?"

Pat shook his head.

" Shure lady," he said, " I don't know. But I
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kin tell ye this. Jist before I cops this crack on
the nob, Micky Flinn says to me, says he,
* Shake yer bay 'nit, Pat. YeVe a brace of
Boches hangin* to it.'"

She slammed the door on the outside.

The sick soldier is up to as many tricks as a
school boy, and he gets away with them because
you can't pimish him much. One that we used
to put over on our good sisters was a fair crime.
We ought to have been ashamed of it, but we
were not.

When the nurse was taking temperature at
tea-time somebody would sneak his thermom-
eter out, stick it in the hot tea and run up a
beautiful temperature and then slip the glass
back imder the tongue just before the sister
came back.

Then she would fuss arotmd the villain for
an hour or so and usually he'd get chicken for
supper.

One of our medical officers was a tall, yoimg
Englishman with an eyeglass, one of those stage
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Britishers that you don't often see in real
life.

One day he stuck the thermometer in the
mouth of a young Welshman. It happened that
the soldier was sucking on a piece of ice at the
time, but he did n't say anything and rolled the
glass around where it would get good and cold.

When the M. O. held the thermometer up to
the light he let out a surprised gasp.

"My word!" he said. "My word, me good
fellow ! If this bally glawss is right you Ve been
dead since the battle of the Mame."

And yet they say that Englishmen have no
sense of humor. To my mind it is what carries
them through. It is what will carry them
through. The Cockney private and the aristo-
cratic officer each has the good sense to take his
hardships Ughtly and to joke at danger. It helps
make the Englishman hard to beat.

As a comrade in arms the Englishman is good
enough for me; and, while I was as ready as
the next one to take my discharge after doing
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my bit in the war, I never in my life regretted
anything more than having to leave the British
service.

A year before I had tried to get out. This
time they put me out. Lieutenant Coleman
looked over my record and said that he thought
I had done enough for the Allied cause, regard-
less of physical condition. Then he X-rayed me
and said I had to go whether I wanted to or not.
They gave me my discharge papers with pen-
sion on the 26th of October, 19 17.

Three days later I was in civilian clothes and
a month later was in the U. S. A. Well, I have
fooled them on the weak lungs. For some rea-
son the air of Boston has agreed with the old
bellows, and they have been getting stronger
every week.

If I get to feeling any better I am afraid I
shall get that darned fool longing for the
trenches and get into khaki again under the
Stars and Stripes.

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CHAPTER XVin

Shells and Slang

One of the first things a newcomer to the
British Army notices is the slang, or "lingo,"
as it is called. It really almost amounts to a
new language, especially to a Yank. A good
part of it is in common use among the English
lower classes, but it is Greek to an American.

In writing this book I have tried as much
as possible to avoid the use of trench vernacular
that would not be understood by the reader,
and for that reason I set down here some of
the commoner expressions and their meanings.

Tommy is particularly apt in his names of
the different kinds of shells. A whiz-bang,
for example, is just what its name implies.
It goes off with that kind of a noise. The
whiz-bang comes over without any noise what-
ever; but just before it hits it goes "whizzzz"
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and then, of course, "BANG." A "pip-
squeak" makes that kind of noise coming over,
with the same general kind of a bang at the
end. "Crumps" are ahnost any kind of high
explosive shell, and nearly all of them say
"crump" when they land. A "Minnie" or
minnenwerfer is a German trench-mortar. It
is about as big as a milk-can and comes over
on a high arc, tumbling over and over like a
football, and is plainly visible. It is not danger-
ous — that is, the flying pieces of the case are
not bad; but the minnie tears a huge hole in
the ground or in the parapet of a trench, and
it is imhealthy to be very near one when it
explodes. The minnie talks to you when it
comes. It starts saying very distinctly, "I'm
coming for you, for you, for you, for you."
At night it leaves a trail of sparks. Altogether
the minnie is the politest of the German shells.
One of the worst shells the Hun uses is the
5.9, or the five-point-nine, better known as a
"coal box." This emits a huge doud of black
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SHELLS AND SLANG

smoke and makes more noise than any other
shell. Almost any shell of any calibre can be
heard whistling as it comes. For that matter
they whistle as they go. We get so we can
distinguish between those arriving and those
going from our own gims.

The "toffee apple" is an English trench
mortar, a round ball with a piece of pipe
attached. I don't know how it looks when it
is arriving, having never been on the receiving
end. Our "flying pig" is similar to the minnie,
but weighs a hundred pounds and penetrates
the ground very deeply before exploding.

The Mills hand grenade is the latest and
most efl&cient of the new bombs. Formerly, in
the first stages of the war, the British grenades
were a hand-made affair, fabricated out of a
jam tin and some explosive, wired on to a
stick. They looked like a hairbrush and were
so called. The Mills is a lemon-shaped grenade
weighing about two and a half pounds. Its
case is cast iron, scored with deep creases so

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that it will break into about fifty pieces. It
has a lever running from the top down one
side. This is held in position by a pin with a
key ring at one end. When the bomber is
ready to throw the Mills he grasps the bomb,
holding down the lever with his fingers, and
pidls the pin either with his left hand or with
his teeth. When the bomb leaves the hand
the lever is thrown up by a spring and the
bomb is exploded after four seconds by a
mechanism released by the lever.

The rifle grenade is about the size of the
Mills but cylindrical and similarly creased.
It has a rod which sticks into the muzzle of a
rifle and is projected by a blank cartridge.
It will carry more than a hundred yards. For
some reason we f oimd that the German rifle
grenade was comparatively harmless. They
used to make a point of lobbing them over at
the latrines, which in some mysterious way they
knew the locations of. It was embarrassing to
be engaged in a shirt hunt and be driven out

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Here are the Trophies — a German Bomb and a
German Helmet

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SHELLS AND SLANG

by grenades. It is the German idea of a
joke.

Machine guns are called by Tommy "type-
writers." The German ones make a noise
like the typewriters used in a newspaper office.
The British machine guns are of two types
mainly, the Lewis and the Vickers. The
Lewis is light and is used from the front trench.
The Vickers is a heavier rapid firer and is
usually emplaced in the support trenches or
somewhere to the rear.

At dose quarters Tommy uses a persuader
or a knuckle knife to render the Fritz napoo-
fini. A persuader is a short dub with a studded
head. A knuckle knife is a short dagger with
a hilt that covers the hand serving for brass
knucks. Napoo-fini means finished — dead —
absent. When a Tommy is wounded he "cops
one." The one may be a "Blighty" one,
which is a woxmd that will take him to
England — Blighty. The British rifle is usually
termed by Tommy a "bamdook." Nobody
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SHELLPROOF MACK

knows why. A bayonet is a "pin/* for obvious
reasons. His helmet is a "tin hat," which he
wears on his "napper."

Flares or star-lights, commonly known as
"Verys," are a greenish-white light sent up
to illuminate No Man's Land. When one goes
aloft anyone who is out there stands stock
still, and can rarely be distinguished as a man
imless he moves.

Coming down to food, nearly ever3rthing
has its new name. Bread is "pan.'' Bacon
is "sow-belly," imless it is very lean, when it
is "lance corporal bacon." Tea is called
"char." A stew comes up under the name of
"scow," and the dessert, which is infrequent,
goes as "afters." The near hash of supper is
called "rissoles." Bacon fat is "gippo."

Tommy "kips" — that is, sleeps — in a
dugout or nms to a funk-hole to avoid "click-
ing it." You "click" or "go west" if you
die. You also click a hard job or you may
click a "souvenir," which is a bullet. After
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SHELLS AND SLANG

you die you are said to be "pushing up the
daisies/' or you are "a landowner in France,"
or you have "the wooden cross."

If Tommy goes to the hospital he is cared
for by a sister. All nurses are "sisters" and
all chaplains are "sky pilots" or "Holy Joes."
A staff officer is a "red cap" and the medical
officer is an M. O.

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CHAPTER XrX
Back to Bughty

When a soldier is in training his main am-
bition is to get over to France and to get into
the trenches. After he has been over there
twenty-four hours he thinks of nothing but
getting back to Blighty. Aside from the fact
that the trenches are the worst places in the
world and anything is preferable, the passionate
desire of the Englishman for England is based,
I should think, on the very human trait of
wanting the thing that is hard to get.

It is sure hard to swing Blighty once you
get across the Channel. A wound is the only
thing that takes a man back and sometimes
that doesn^t. Theoretically when a man has
served from eighteen months to three years
he is entitled to ten days' leave if he can be
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BACK TO BLIGHTY

spared. Usually he can't be spared* And so
Tommy spends the most of his time talking
about Blighty and how badly he wishes he
was there; and the pubs he will visit when
he gets the leave that never comes; and the
gels he will make love to; and the swagger
grub he will eat, and all that sort of thing. I
heard so much of it that I was almost as anxious
to see London as a native.

I had had only a day or two to look about
before I enlisted and hadn't seen much. So
when I was discharged from the hospital at
Chatham in October, 19 17, and had eighteen
days to wait for my discharge from the army,
I took the first train for London to take m this
much-talked-about heaven of the Tommy.

I got me a room near Tottenham Court Road
and started in to see the sights. London
under a camouflage of October fog is not a
city to impress the sightseer. I spent the
days going about and seeing the things that a
tourist thinks that he ought to see; and nights
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I did the theatres and music halls from one
end of the big town to the other.

After two weeks of watching the night life
of London I gatliered the impression that
England as represented by its capital is suffer-
ing terribly under the strain of the war.

I found that the places of amusement were
crowded every night. People were tr5dng to
forget; and in trying they drank too much,
spent their money recklessly, and were as a
whole dangerously near a breaking-point of
hysteria. Women smoked cigarettes publicly
and continuously. Men back from the front
plimged into dissipation in their brief holiday,
on the principle, perhaps, that this might be
the last time and that since life was to be short
it should be merry. People laughed easily
and at nothing, and felt silly and guilty after
they had laughed and took another drink.

No! London is not an attractive place in
war time. Well, you can't blame the Londoners
for anything they do or don't do. Late in
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October I experienced my first air raid, and
after it was over I felt that anyone that had
that sort of thing to look forward to as a daily
possibility was entitled to get as full of Haig
and Haig as he could hold, and good luck to
him.

I had been to a picture show, and as I came
out about nine o'clock I found the streets
full of people who were running here and there
and shouting a good deal. It was pretty dark
and the automobiles dashing aroimd tooting
their horns made a terrific din. I did n't know
what was up until I came across a policeman
under one of the few hooded street lights. He
had a sandwich board on him saying, "TAKE
COVER."

Down the road I saw a mass of people pouring
down into the Goodge Street imdergroimd
station and I lit out for that place fast. Just
before I got there I heard the anti-aircraft
guns begin to go off. I stopped for a minute
and listened.

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Yap — yap — yap — went the Archies. And
then away off there on the edge of the town,
BOO-0-O-OM! Just like that. A bomb of
oourse. I did n't waste any time. I ducked
down into that underground station like^ a
rabbit into a hole. I don't fancy air raids.
They give me the fantods. I have written
about being bombed from airplanes at the
front and in the hospital. I had the same
feeling here that each bomb was going to seek
me out as a personal victim; and the deeper I
got down in the ground the better I liked it.

On the platform, which was larger and deeper
under ground than in the American subways,
I found as many as two thousand people. They
were packed in and stood there patiently
waiting for the trouble to be over. I stayed
until eleven o'clock and then went up to the
street. The anti-aircraft guns had stoi^)edy
and I supposed that everything was all right.
I strolled aroimd for a while and was not far
from Piccadilly Circus about half-past eleven
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BACK TO BLIGHTY

when the anti-aircraft guns began barking
again, aad before I had a chance to hunt cover
two bombs fell in Piccadilly not three hundred
yards from where I stood. I '11 take that back.
I wasn't standing. I was hitting the high
places one-fifth of a second after the first ear-
splitting, earth-shaking crash. When the second
bomb lit I was making faster time thaa I ever
did in the old days on the Bailey Hose Team
or on the track. I did n't know where I was
going, but I was on my way; aad soon I found
another tube entrance and went down it on my
ear. I stayed there imtil the Boy Scouts
soimded "All Clear" on the bugles.

The first thing in the morning I visited
Piccadilly Circus to see what had happened.
It was a plenty. The bombs which had been
dropped from Zeps had hit the curbing. There
were two holes that you could have put a
street-car into. AIT windows had been smashed
for himdreds of yards around. It was reported
that foiuteai people were killed. As a matter

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of fact there must have been scores of dead.
I snooped around there all day, and that night
I found a woman who had been one of the first
on the scene who said that she knew that at
least thirty had died.

As showing the force of the explosion of one
of those sixty-pound pear-shaped bombs, here
is what happened to the front of a hotel which
was directly opposite the landing-place of
one. The revolving door was tom out of its
sockets and carried back a hundred feet along
a corridor, sweeping up seven people who were
in the way and killing them all. I can endorse
the statement of anybody that a Zep raid in
London is far from pleasant. I went through
six while I was in London.

On the day my discharge came I strofled^
into the Union Jack Club where I knew the
clerk and was known by him to be a Yank.

"Well," he said to me, "what do you think
of L<Midon?"

"I came here to see yom: sights,'* I told

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Army Form B. 2079.
Cerii^cate a rluplicate cannot be issued.

.•s;^

•SI
1^^

Certificate of dis^^eO^o. /^^7^^ (Rank)

(Regiment)-

23^!' !^':^^:^■-

who was enlisted at W j' /o^m^ CXv^..^,tX^4v.v^

on th. ' //T^ Sa^^^L^ 19 /r .

He is discharged in consequence ol

^ ygu^

after itrvirg ^ years ^0^ days with the Colottrs, and

_ years-

_ days in t]

(Place) i*^^^^^ Signature of 1

(Date) ^^'^(^tl.^&tC^.^,^rr"'liJa^U>^2R

F3R
COL

ccrl^tls

•Description of the above-named man on_
when he left the Colours.

Marks or Scars, whether on face

Age NO

Height-

Complexion S^:^-^-^^

Eyes '^^'-^

Hair '-h^^ov, C^r^-^^r^^h:^

or other parts of body.

^ * Should agree wOi Ou deseription on Chara^er Certificate^ Army Form B. S067

<A77tS) Wt. Wi«9«3/Mt838 WAMO gl7 04>.aL. Mk«<. PocmVBwn/"

The Author's Certificate of Discharge
After a service of two years and one hundred and nine days

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BACK TO iBLIGHTY

him. "Ever since I have been here the visi-
bility has been low. I went out to have a look
at the Nelson Column and can't see the top
half of it for the smoke. I have n't been able
to see across the Thames since I came. Nights
I can't see three feet ahead of me.

" Somebody told me that Petticoat Lane was
one of the sights of London. The day I was
there I saw three old Janes buying fish and a
guy selling plate polish. Nothing more exciting
than that. I've seen your Zoological Gardens,
and I find that the Bronx Park has them faded.
When you get your haircut you never shave
yoiu: neck and the hair hangs down your back.
Three minutes ofi the Strand and you can
hear the sparrows talking on the roof. No,
brother," says I, "I'll leave little old Lunnon
for those that love it. Me for Boston,
Mass."

And with that I went out and bought my
ticket for God's country. Blighty may be all
right for someone who is used to it. To me
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it was a way-station to the U. S. A., where I am
going to stop until I get the chance^ if they
will let me, to go over there and fight under
the STARS AND STRIPES.

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wants to know what to do and how to do it
will find the book a master-key to the sub-
ject of which it treats.

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Drama

Play-Makmg

A Mtmmd of CrafiMmanMhip
By WILLIAM ARCHER

'T MAKE bold to say/' says Brander Matthews,
X Prof essor of Dramatic Literature in Columbia
University, " that Mr. Archer's is the best book
that has yet been written in our language, or in
any other, on the art and science of play-making.
Ascoreof serried tomes on this scheme stand side
by side on my shelves, French and German, Ameri-
canandBrit^; and in no one of them do I discern
the clearness, the comprehensiveness, the insight,
and the understanding that I find in Mr^ Archer's
iUummating pages.

'^ He tells the ardent aspirant how to choose his
themes; how to master the difficult art of expo-
sition — that is, how to make his first act dear;
how to arouse curiosity for what is to follow ; how
to hang up the interrogation mark of expectancy;
how to combine, as he goes on, tension and sus-
pension; how to preserve probability and to
achieve logic for construction; how to attain
climax and to avoid anti-dimax; and how to
bring his play to a dose."

8to. Qotli. $2.00, fMt

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Educational

The Land We Live In

The Book of Contervation

Bjr

OVERTON W. PRICE

WUk an Introduction by
GIFFORD PINCHOT

''This book wiU have a very wide distribution, not only
in libraries, but also in the schools.'' Robert P. Bass

(Former Governor of New Hampshire, and President of
the American Forestry Association)

"It is the best primer on general conservation for older
people that I have ever seen, and the good it will do will
be measured only by the circulation it receives/'

J. B. White
(President of the National O>nservation 0>ngres8)

"I wish it were possible to have the volume made a
text book for every public school."

William Edward Coffin

(Vice-President and Chairman of the Onnmittee on (Same
Protective Legislation and Preserves,
Camp Fire Club of America)

WUh 136 iUustraUans selected from 50,000 photographs
8vo, 241 pages, $1,50 net

BOY SCOUT EDITION-JACKET IN COLORS

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Fiction

The Best Short Stories
of 1915, 1916, 1917

Edited by
EDWARD J. OWUEN

FROM every point of view — from
that of the actual probabilities of
reading enjoyment to be derived from
it by all sorts of readers; from that of
the vivid and varied, but always valid,
concernment with life that it maintains;
from that of technical literary interest
in American letters, and from that of
sheer esthetic response to artistic quality
—THE BEST SHORT STORIES
warrants an emphatic and unconditional
recommendation to aU. — Life,

Indispensable to every student of

American fiction, and will furnish each

successive year a critical and historical

survey of the art such as does not exist

. in any other form. — Boston Transcript,

Thrme VblmiM*
Gbf/L 12mo. SoUweparaiefy
9 Each vokmw, nmi, SI. SO

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War

Beyond the Mame

HENRIETTE CUVRU-MAGOT

Tt^ADEMOISELLE HENRIETTE is

-^^^-^ the Kttle friend and neighbor
of Miss Mildred Aldrich (author of
" A Hilltop on the Mame/' " On the
Edge of the War Zone," etc.), who
came to Miss Aldrich the day after
the Germans were driven away on
the other side of the Mame to sug-
gest that they visit the battlefield.
Her book might be called truly a
companion volxmie to " A Hilltop on
the Mame."

12mo. Cloth. lUnstrated. $1XX> n«e

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War

Coy«recl Widk Mud and
Glory

A Machine Gun Company in Action
Br

GEORGES LAFOND

Sogeuit-MAJor, Tenitorial HuaBUt, Fiench Axmjr; loteUi-
gsaoe OBka, MacUne Gun Sections, French Colonial Infaatiy.

Transiatedby
EDWIN GILE RICH

With am InbrodmcHtm by
BIAURICE BARRlS

of the French Academy

Hm Book with
GEORGES CLEMENCEAirS

*" Tffibato to tko SoMien of Fnuico "

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On th6 Edge of the War Zone

From the Batde of the Bfame

to the Entrance of the

Stars and Stripes

By MILDRED ALDRICH

The long-awaited continuation of " A HiUtop
on the Mame."

12mo. Portrait fionti^iece in photogravxire and
other illustrations. Cloth, bound uniformly with
the same author's " A Hilltop on the Mame " and
" Told in a French Garden." Net, $1.25

Miss Aldrich tells what has happened from the day when
the Germans were turned back almost at her very door, to
the never-to-be-forgotten moment when the news reached
France that the United States had entered the war.

Told in a French Garden:
August, 1914

By MILDRED ALDRICH

12mo. Cbth. With a portrait frontispiece in
photogravure from a sketch of the author by
Piene-Emile ComiUier. Net, $1.25

Unlike Miss Aldrich's other books, " Told in
a French Garden " is a venture in fiction.

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The White Flame of France

MAUDE RADFORD WARREN

Author of
** Potor Peter," ** Barbara's Marriages,** etc

THE front-line trenches at Rheims during
a bombardment when the shells were
whistling over, two Zeppelin raids in London,
the heroic services of devoted actors and
actresses when they placed for the soldiers
of Verdun,; the irony of the mad slaughter,
the indestructibility of human courage and
ideals, the spirit and soul of suffering France,
the real meaning of the war — all these things
are interpreted in this remarkable book by
a novelist with a brilliant record in the art
of writing, who spent more than half a year
" over there."

12mo. nhutrated, Nmt, Sl.SO

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War

You Wlio Can Help

Paris Letters of an American Army Officer's

Wife, from August, 1916, to

January, 1918

By
MARY SMITH CHURCHILL

THE writer of these letters is the wife
of Lieutenant-Colonel Marlborough
Churchill, who, the year before the entrance
of the United States into the war, was an
American military observer in France, and
later became a member of General Pershing's
staff. Mrs. Churchill volimteered her serv-
ices in Paris in connection with the American
Fund for the French Wounded — " the A. F.
F. W/' — and these are her letters home,
written with no thought of publication, but
simply to tell her family of the work in which
she was engaged.

12mo. Cloth, nbutratmd. Nmt, SJ.2S

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War Camps

CampDevens

Described and Photographed by

ROGER BATCHELDER

AtUhor of " Watching and Waiting an the Border "

'' An accurate and complete description by pen
and lens of Camp Devens." — Roger Merrill,
Major, A. G. R. C, 151st Infantry Brigade.

I21110. With 77 Ohistrmtioiis. 50 emto, iMf

Camp Upton

Described and Photogn^hed by

ROGER BATCHELDER

A companion volmne to '' Camp Devens/' and
like ity a book that fills a long-felt want.

12ino. Uhutrmted with photographs
50 contSyfief

OihrnrvobimM in ihm AMERICAN CAMPS SERiES

in pTBptMnMiion

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War Poetry

Buddy's Blighty
and other Verses from the Trenches

Lieutenant JACK TURNER, M. C

HERE is a volume of poems that move the
spirit to genuine emotion, because every
line pictures reality as the authbr knows it. The
range of subjects covers the many-sided life of
the men who are fighting in the Great War, — the
happenings, the emotions, the give and take, the
tragedy and the comedy of soldiering.

" I have read Robert Service's * Rhymes
of a Red Cross Man' — and aU the
verses written on the war — but in
my opmion 'Budd/s Blighty/ by
Jack Turner, is the best thing yet
written — because it's the truth."
Privaie Harold R. Peal

12mo. Cloth. $1.00 fiee

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The Welfare Series

The Field of Social Service

Edited Iv PHnJP DAVIS, in colkboratioB with Midda I

An invaluable text-book for those who ask, '* Just what
can I do in sodal work and how shall I go about it ? "
IZmo. Cloth. lUostrated, $1.50 nef

Street-Land

BjPHlUP DAVIS. aadstodbrGraMKraD

What shall we do with the 11,000,000 children of the dty
streets? A question of great national significance an-
swered by an expert.

IZmo. Cloth. lUiutratod, $135 iMf

Consumption

B J JOHN B. HAWES. 2d. IIJ>.

A book for laymen, by an eminent specialist, with partic-
ular consideration of the fact that the problem of tubercu-
losis is first of all a human problem.

12mo. Cloth, nittttratad, 75 cents nee

One More Chance

An Experiment in Human Salvage

Bj LEWIS E. MacBRAYNE and JAMES P. RAAISAY

Human'documents from the experiences of a Massachusetts
probation officer in the application of the probation system
to the problems of men and women who without it would
have been permanently lost to useful citizenship.
12II10. Cloth. $1.50 nef
Other vohtmeM in prep€xraHon

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