| n+ go —— —— yp oP ———p————— (Continued from last week.) SYNOFSIS. CHAPTER I—Fired by the news of the sinking of the Lusitania by a German submarine, Arthur Guy Empey, an Ameri- can, leaves his office in Jersey City and goes to England where he enlists in the British army. CHAPTER II—After a period of train- ing, Empey volunteers for immediate serv- jce and soon finds himself in rest billets “somewhere in France,” where he first makes the acquaintance of the ever-pres- ent ‘‘cooties.” CHAPTER IIT—Empey attends his first church services at the front while a Ger- man Fokker circles over the congregation. CHAPTER IV—Empey’s command goes into the front-line trenches and is under fire for the first time. CHAPTER V—Empey learns to adopt the motto of the Brtish Tommy, “If you are going to get it, you'll get it, so never worry.” CHAPTER VI—Back in rest billets, Em- | pey gets his first experience as a mess | orderly. CHAPTER VII—Empey learns how the British soldiers are fed. CHAPTER VIII—-Back in the front-line trench, Empey sees his first friend of the trenches ‘‘go West.” When the body was lowered into the grave the flag having been removed, we clicked our heels together and ‘came to the salute. I left before the grave was filled in. 1 could not bear to see the dirt thrown on the blanket-covered face of my com- rade. On the western front there are no coffins, and you are lucky to get a blanket to protect you from the wet, and the worms. Several of the sec- tion stayed and decorated the grave with white stones. That night, in the light of a lonely candle in the machine gunner’s dugout of the front-line trench I wrote two letters. One to Pete’s mother, the WE NONE AN AMERICAN SOLDIR ge WHO WINT ANTTHUR GUY EMPEY MACHINE GUNNER SERVINGIN FRANCE—"" 60) ® Wn ARTHUR GUY EMPEY each nail hung a miscellaneous assort- ment of equipment. The lighting ar- rangements were superb—one candle in a reflector made from an ammuni- tion tin. My teeth were chattering from the cold, and the drip from the | airshaft did not help matters much. While I was sitting bemoaning my fate and wishing for the fireside at home, the fellow next to me, who was writing a letter, looked up and inno- cently asked, “Say, Yank, how do you spell ‘conflagration’?” : I looked at him in contempt and an- swered that I did not know. From the darkness in one of the cor- ners came a thin, piping voice singing one of the popular trench ditties en- titled: “Pack up your Troubles in your Old Kit! Bag, and Smile, Smile, Smile.” Every now and then the singer would stop to cough, cough, cough, but it was a good illustration of Tommy's cheerfulness under such conditions. A machine-gun officer entered the dugout and gave me a hard look. I sneaked past him, sliding and slipping, and reached my section of the front- line trench, where I was greeted by the sergeant, who asked me, “Where in ‘ave you been?” I made no answer, but sat on the muddy fire step, shivering with the cold and with the rain beating in my face. About half an hour later I teamed up with another fellow and went on guard with my head sticking over the top. At ten o'clock I was relieved and resumed my sitting posi- tion on the fire step. The rain sud- denly stopped and we all breathed a sigh of relief. We prayed for the morn- Taking Provisions to the Front. ‘other to his sweetheart. While doing ‘this 1 cursed the Prussian war god with all my heart, and I think that St. Peter noted same. The mactine gunners in the dugout were laughing and joking. To them ‘Pete was unknown. Pretty soon, in the ‘warmth of their merriment, my blues ‘disappeared. One soon forgets on the izvestern front. CHAPTER IX. Suicide Annex. 1 was in my first dugout and looked around curiously. Over the door of ‘same was a little sign reading “Sui- ‘cide Annex.” One of the boys told ‘me that this particular front trench was called “Suicide Ditch.” Later on ‘I learned that machine gunners and ‘bombers are known as the “Suicide Club.” That dugout was muddy. The men slept in mud, washed in mud, ate mud, and dreamed mud. I had never before realized that so much discomfort and misery could be contained in those three little letters, M U D. The floor of the dugout was an inch deep in water. Outside it was raining cats and dogs, and thin rivulets were trickling down the steps. From the air shaft immediately above me came a drip, drip, drip. Suicide Annex was a hole eight feet wide, ten feet long and six feet high. It was about twenty feet below the fire trench; at least there were twenty steps leading down to it, These steps were cut into the earth, but at that time were muddy and slip- pery. A man had to be very careful or else he would “shoot. the chutes.” The air was foul, and you could cut the smoke from Tommy's fags with a knife. It was cold. The walls and roof were supported with heavy square- cut timbers, while the entrance was strengthened with sandbags. Nails had been driven into these timbers. On ing and the rum issue. . CHAPTER X. “The Day's Work.” I was fast learning that there is a regular routine about the work of the trenches, although it is badly upset at times by the Germans. The real work in the fire trench comniences at sundown. Tommy is like a burglar, he works at night. Just as it begins to get dark the word “stand to” is passed from trav- erse to traverse, and the men get busy. The first relief, consisting of two men to a traverse, mount the fire step, one man looking over the top, while the other sits at his feet, ready to carry messages or to inform the platoon offi- cer of any report made by the sentry as to his observations in No Man's Land. The sentry is not allowed to relax his watch for a second. If he is questioned from the trench or asked his orders, he replies without turning around or taking his eyes from the ex- panse of dirt in front of him. The re- mainder of the occupants of his trav- erse either sit on the fire step, with bayonets fixed, ready for any emer- gency, or if lucky, and a dugout hap- pens to be in the near vicinity of the traverse, and if the night is quiet, they are permitted to go to same and try and snatch a few winks of sleep. Little sleeping is done; generally the men sit around, smoking fags and seeing who can tell the biggest lie. Some of them, perhaps with their feet in water, would write home sympathizing with the “governor” because he was laid up ‘with a cold, contracted by getting his feet wet on his way to work in Wool- wich arsenal. If a man should manage to doze off, likely as not he would wake with a start as the clammy, cold feet of a rat passed over his face, or the next relief stepped on his stomach while stumbling on their way to relieve the sentries in the trench. pw <Q 4 9 [1 : i { Just try to sleep with a belt full of ammunition around you, your rifle bolt biting into your ribs, intrenching tool handle sticking into the small of your back, with a tin hat for a pillow and feeling very damp and cold, with “oooties” boring for oil in your arm- pits, the air foul from the stench of grimy human bodies and smoke from a juicy pipe being whiffed into your nos- trils, then you will not wonder why Tommy occasionally takes a tarn in the trench for a rest. While in a front-line trench orders forbid Tommy from removing his boots, puttees, clothing or equipment. The “cooties” take advantage of this order and mobilize their forces, and | Tommy swears vengeance on them and | mutters to himself, “Just wait until I hit rest billets and am able to get my own back.” Just before daylight the men “turn to” and tumble out of the dugouts, man the fire step until it gets light, or the welcome order “stand down” is given. | Sometimes before “stand down” is or- dered, the command “five rounds rap- | id” is passed along the trench. This means that each man must rest his rifle on the top and fire as rapidly as possible five shots aimed toward the German trenches, and then duck (with the emphasis on the “duck”). There is | a great rivalry between the opposing | forces to get their rapid fire all off | first, because the early bird, in this in- stance, catches the worm—sort of gets | the jump on the other fellow, catching him unawares. We had a sergeant in our battalion | home, saying that in the morning they | named Warren. He was on duty with is platoon in the fire trench one after- noon when orders came up from the rear that he had been granted seven days’ leave for Blighty, and would be | relieved at five o'clock to proceed to England. He was tickled to death at these welcome tidings and regaled his more oor less envious mates beside him on the fire step with the good times in store for him. He figured it out that in two days’ time he would arrive at "Waterloo station, London, and then— seven days’ bliss! At about five minutes to five he started to fidget with his rifle, and then suddenly springing up on the fire step with a muttered, “I'll send over a couple of souvenirs to Fritz so that he'll miss me when I leave,” he stuck his rifle over the top and fired two shots when “crack” went a bullet and he 5 5 Sods Ea Lewis Gun in Action. tumbled off the step, fell into the mud at the bottom of the trench, and lay still in a huddled heap with a bullet hole in his forehead. At about the time he expected to ar- rive at Waterloo station he was laid to rest in a little cemetery behind the lines. He had gone to Blighty. In the trenches one can never tell— it is not safe to plan very far ahead. After “stand down” the men sit on the fire step or repair to their respec- tive dugouts and wait for the “rum is- sue” to materialize. Immediately fol- lowing the rum comes breakfast, brought up from the rear. Sleeping is then in order unless some special work turns up. Around 12:30 dinner shows up. When this is eaten the men try to amuse themselves until “tea” appears at about four o'clock, then “stand to” and they carry on as before. While in rest billets Tommy gets up about six in the morning, washes up, answers roll call, is inspected by his platoon officer, and has breakfast. At 8:45 he parades (drills) with, his com- pany or goes on fatigue according to the orders which have been read out by the orderly sergeant the might pre- vious. Between 11:30 and noon he is dis- missed, has his dinner and is “on his own” for the remainder of the day, unless he has clicked for a digging or working party, and so it goes on from day to day, always “looping the loop” and looking forward to peace and Blighty. Sometimes, while engaged in a “cootie” hunt, you think. Strange to, say, but it is a fact, while Tommy is. searching his shirt serious thoughts’ come to him. Many a time, when per- forming this 'operation, I have tried to figure out the outcome of the war, and what will happen to me. My thoughts generally ran in this channel : Will I emerge safely from the next attack? If I do will I skin through the following one, and so on? While your, mind is wandering into the future it is likely to be rudely brought to earth | by a Tommy interrupting with, “What's good for rheumatism?” Then you have something else to think of. Will you come out of this | war crippled and tied into knots with | rheumatism, caused by the wet and | mud of trenches and dugouts? You | give it up as a bad job and generally saunter over to the nearest estaminet to drown your moody forebodings in a glass of sickening French beer or to game of “house.” sing-song voice of a Tommy droning I glanced again at my wrist watch. We all wore them and you could hardly call us “sissies” for doing so. It was a minute to four. I could see the hand | move to the twelve, then a dead si- You can hear the out the numbers as he extracts the | little squares of cardboard from the ! } | | jy your luck at the always present i | | bag between his feet. CHAPTER XI. | Over the Top. {| On my second trip to the treuches | our officer was making his rounds of | inspection, and we received the cheer- ful news that at four in the morning | we were to go over the top and take | the German front-line trench. My heart | turned to lead. Then the officer car- | ried on with his instructions. To the | best of my memory I recall them as | follows : “At eleven a wiring party will | go out in front and cut lanes through | our barbed wire for the passage of troops in the morning. At two o'clock { our artillery will open up with an in- | i til four. Upon the lifting of the bar- rage the first of the three waves will go over.” Then he left. Tommies, first getting permission from | the sergeant, went into the machine | gunners’ dugout and wrote lettera were going over the top, and also that if the letters reached their destination it would mean that the writer had heen killed. 1 These letters were turned oven to ' the captain with instructions to mail ' same in the event of the writer's being killed. Some of the men made out ' their wills in their pay books, under the caption, “Will and Last Testa- ment.” Then the nerve-racking wait com- menced. Every now and then I would glance at the dial of my wrist watch and was surprised to see how fast the minutes passed by. About five minutes to two I got nervous waiting for our guns to open up. I could not take my eyes from my watch. I crouched against the parapet and strained my muscles in a deathlike grip upon my rifle. As the hands on my watch showed two o'clock a blinding red flare lighted up the sky in our rear, then thunder, intermixed with a sharp, whis- tling sound in the air over our heads. The shells from our guns were speed- ing on their way toward the German lines. With one accord the men sprang up on the fire step and looked over the top in the direction of the German trenches. A line of bursting shells lighted up No Man's Land. The din was terrific and the ground trem- bled. Then, high above our heads we could hear a sighing moan. Our big boys behind the line had opened up i and 0.2’s and 15-inch shells commenced { dropping into the German lines. The | flash of the guns behind the lines, the | scream of the shells through the air, { and the flare of them, bursting, was a | spectacle that put Pain’s greatest dis- | play into the shade. The constant | pup, pup, of German machine guns and an occasional rattle of rifle firing gave me the impression of a huge audience applauding the work of the batteries. Our 18-pounders were destroying the German barbed wire, while the heavier stuff was demolishing their trenches and bashing in dugouts or funk holes. Then Fritz got busy. Their shells went screaming over- | head, aimed in the direction of the flares from our batteries. Trench mor- tars started dropping “Minnies” in our front line. We clicked several cas- ualties. Then they suddenly ceased. Our artillery had taped or silenced them. 5 During the bombardment you could almost read a newspaper in our trench. Sometimes in the flare of a shell-burst a man’s body would be silhouetted against the parados of the trench and it appeared like a huge monster. You could hardly hear yourself think. When ‘an order was to be passed down the trench you had to yell it, using your .hands as a funnel into the ear of the man sitting next to you on the fire step. In about twenty minutes a generous rum issue was doled out. After drink- ing the rum, which tasted like varnish and sent a shudder through your frame, you wondered why they made you wait until the lifting of the bar- rage before going over. At ten mins utes to four word was passed down, «Pen minutes to go!” Ten minutes to live! We were shivering all over. My legs felt as if they were asleep. Then word was passed down: “Pirst wave get on and near the scaling lad- ders.” These were small wooden ladders which we had placed against the para- pet to enable us to go over the top on the lifting of the barrage. “Ladders of: death” we called them, and veritably they were. Before a charge Tommy is the po- litest of men. There is never any push- ing or crowding to be first up these ladders. We crouched around the base of the ladders waiting for the word to go over. I was sick and faint, and was puffing away at an unlighted fag, Then came the word, “Three minutes to go; upon the lifting of the barrage and on the blast of the whistles, ‘Over the top with the best o’ luck and give them hell” The famous phrase of the western front. The Jonah phrase of the western front. To Tommy it means if you are lucky enough te come back you will be minus an arm or a leg. Tommy hates to be wished the best of luck; so, when peace is de- clared, if it ever is, and you meet a Tommy on the street, just wish him the best of luck and duck the brick that follows. : Some of the |, hocsing rifle bullets. lence. It hurt. Everyone looked up to see what had happened, but not for long. Sharp whistle blasts rang out along the trench, and with a cheer the men scrambled up the ladders. The bullets were cracking overhead, and occasionally a machine gun would rip and tear the top of the sandbag para- pet. How I got up that ladder I will never know. The first ten feet out in front was agony. Then we passed through lanes in our barbed wire. I| new I was running, but could feel no motion below the waist. Patches on the ground seemed to float to the rear as if I were on a treadmill and scen- ery was rushing past me. The Ger- mans had put a barrage of shrapnel across No Man’s Land, and you could hear the pieces slap the ground about you. After I had passed our barbed wire and gotten into No Man's Land a | Tommy about fifteen feet to my right tense bombardment, which will last un- | | barbed wire came front turned around and looking in my direction, put his hand to his mouth and yelled something which I could not make out on account of the noise from the bursting shells. Then he coughed, stumbled, pitched forward and lay still. His body seemed to float to the rear of me. I could hear sharp cracks in the air about me. These were caused Frequently, “0 my right and left, little spurts of dirt would rise into the air and a rico- chet bullet would whine on its way. If a Tommy should see one of these little spurts in front of him, he would tell the nurse about it later. The crossing of No Man’s Land remains a blank to me. stumble and fall. Some would try to get up, while others remained huddled and motionless. Then smashed-up into view and seemed carried on a tide to the rear. Suddenly, in front of me loomed a bashed-in trench about frur feet wide. Queer-looking forms like mud ‘urtles were s..ambling up its wall. One of these forms seemed to slip and then rolled to the bottom of the trench. I leaped across this intervening space. The man to my left seemed to pause in midair, then pitched head down into the German trench. I laughed out loud in my delirium. Upon alighting on the other side of the trench I came to with a sudden jolt. Right in front of me loomed a giant form with a rifle which looked about ten feet long, on the end of which seemed seven bayonets. These flashed in the air in front of me. Then through my mind flashed the admoni- tion of our bayonet instructor back in Blighty. He had said, “whenever you get in a charge and run your bayonet up to the hilt intosa German the Fritz will fall. Perhaps your rifle will be wrenched from your grasp. Do not waste time, if the bayonet is fouled in his equipment, by putting your foot on his stomach and tugging at the rifle to extricate the bayonet. Simply press the trigger and the bullet will free it.” In my present situation this was the logic, but for the life of me I could not remember how he had told me to get my bayonet into the Ger- man. To me this was the paramount issue. I closed my eyes and lunged forward. My rifle was torn from my hands. I must have gotten the Ger- man About twenty feet to my left front was a huge Prussian nearly six feet four inches in height, a fine specimen of physical manhood. The bayonet from his rifle was missing, but he clutched the barrel in both hands and was swinging the butt around his head. I could almost hear the swish of the butt passing through the air. Three little Tommies were engaged with him. They looked like pigmies alongside of the Prussian. The Tommy on the left was gradually circling to the rear of his opponent. It was a funny sight to see them duck the swinging butt and try to jab him at the same time. The Tommy nearest me received the butt of the German’s rifle in a smashing blow below the right temple. It smashed his head like an eggshell. He pitched forward on his side and a con- vulsive shudder ran through his body. Meanwhile the other Tommy had gained the rear of the Prussian. Sud- denly about four inches of bayonet protruded from the throat of the Prus- sian soldier, who staggered forward and fell. I will never forget the look of blank astonishment that came over his face. Then something hit me in the left shoulder and my left side went numb. It felt as if a hot poker was being driven through me. I felt no pain— just a sort of nervous shock. A bay- onet had pierced me from the rear. I fell backward on the ground, but was not unconscious, because I could see dim objects moving around me. Then a flash of light in front of my eyes and unconsciousness. Something had hit me on the head. I have never found out what it was. I dreamed I was being tossed about in an open boat on a heaving sea and opened my eyes. The moon was shin- ing. I was on a stretcher being car- ried down one of our communication trenches. At the advanced first-aid post my wounds were dressed, and then I was put into an ambulance and sent to one of the base hospitals. The. wounds in my shoulder and head were not serious and in six weeks I had re- joined my company for service in the front line. = CHAPTER XII. Bombing. The boys in the section welcomed me back, but there were many strange faces. Several of our men had gone West in that charge, and were lying | ¢gomewhere in France” with a little because he had disappeared. wooden cross at their heads. We were Throwing Haad Grenades. in rest billets. The next day our cap- tain asked for volunteers for bombers’ school. I gave my name and was ac- Men on my right and left would | cepted. I had joined the Suicide club, «ud my troubles coramenced. Thirty- wo men of the battalion, including my- ~elf., were sent to L———, where we went through a course in bombing. Here we were instructed in the uses, methods of throwing and manufacture of various kinds of hand grenades, | from the c¢ld “jam tin,” now obsolete, to the present Mills bomb, the standard of the British army. It all depends where you are as to what you are called. In France they call you a “bomber” and give you med- als, while in neutral countries they call you an anarchist and give you ! “life.” From the very start the Germans were well equipped with effective bombs and trained bomb throwers, but the English army was as little pre- pared in this important department of fighting as in many others. At bomb- ing school an old sergeant of the Gren- adier guards, whom I had the good fortune to meet, told me of the discour- agements this branch of the service suffered before they could meet the Germans on an equal footing. (Paci- fists and small army people in the U. S. please read with care.) The first English expeditionary forces had no bombs at all, but had clicked a lot of casualties from those thrown by the Boches. One bright morning someone higher up had an idea and issued an order detailing two men from each platoon to go to bombing school to learn the duties of a bomber and how to manufacture bombs. Noncommis- sioned officers were generally selected for this course. After about two weeks at school they returned to their units. in rest billets or I she fire trench, as the case might be, and got busy teaching their platoons how to make “jam tins.” Previously an order had been issued for all ranks to save empty jam tins for the manufacture of bombs. A pro- fessor of bombing would sit on the fire step in the front trench with the remainder of his section crowding around to see him work. On his left would be a pile of empty and rusty jam tins, while beside him on the fire step would be a miscella- neous assortment of material used in the manufacture of the “jam tins.” Tommy would stoop down, get an empty “jam tin,” take a handful of clayey mud from the parapet, and line the inside of the tin with this sub- stance. Then he would reach over, pick up his detonator and explosive, and insert them in the tin, fuse pro- truding. On the fire step would be a pile of fragments of shell, shrapnel balls, bits of iron, nails, ete.—anything that was hard enough to send over to Fritz; he would scoop up a handful of this junk and put it in the bomh. Per- haps one of the platoon would ask him what he did this for, and he would explain that when the bomb exploded these bits would fly about and kill or wound any German hit by same; the questioner would immediately pull a button off his tunic and hand it to the bomb maker with, “Well, blame me, send this over as a souvenir,” or another Tommy would volunteer an old rusty and broken jackknife; both would be accepted and inserted. Then the professor would take an- other handful of mud and fill the tin, after which he would punch a hole in the lid of the tin and put it over the top of the bomb, the fuse sticking out. Then perhaps he would tightly wrap wire around the outside of the tin, and the bomb was ready to send over to Fritz with Tommy’s compliments. A piece of wood about four inches wide had been issued. This was to be strapped on the left forearm by means of two leather straps and was like the side of a match box; it was called a “striker.” There was a tip like the head of a mateh on the fuse of the bomb. To ignite the fuse, you had to rub it on the “striker,” just the same as striking a match. The fuse was timed to five seconds or longer. Some of the fuses issued in those days would burn down in a second or two, while others would “sizz” for a week before exploding. Back in Blighty the muni- tion workers weren't quite up to snuff, the way they are now. If the fuse took .a notion to burn too quickly they gen- ferally buried the bomb maker next day. So making bombs could not be fealled a “cushy” or safe job. (Continued next week). Incredible. Gold is said to be so malleable that it can be beaten as thin as the ham in a war-time sandwich. ued
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers