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"OVER THERE" l'he Thrill and the Hell of the Trenches, Described hu an American Boy SERGEANT McCUNTOCK Sergeant Alexander McCllntock of Lexlnnfon ir? Arm Has Gripping Tale That fcveru American Will Km* * * M*nad,an the Tacts? Unadorned. Wounded, a Distinguished i . Tf Us He Wat; invalided Home. But Is OolnJ "C There"' ,Man' For Uncle Sam and His Allies. An Inspiring intarJth? v P,flhl Narrative. Full of the Spirit aud Atmosphere of tui, T^ofc SoUdl No. 1 In T raining fiU Sergeant Alexander McCllntock, D G. M., 8 7th Overseas Batt. Canadian Grco. Guards Copyright, 1917, by the yell Syndicate. Inc. FOREWORD. Here is a literary product which is at once an admirable example of the force of simple realism in the descrip tijn of things which are difficult of ordinary comprehension, and a hand book and guide for every prospective soldier of our armies. Sergeant McClintook has not writ ten stones about the war. He has written the war itself, reducing it, one might almost say, to words I of one syllable, yet bringing to the reader's view, clearly and vividly, the various aspects of the great struggle, hidden to all except the man who is actually o part of it. His contribution to the history of the war must be classed as one u hich shines with a new light. It is fascinating in its simplicity, yet thrilling in its convincing detail. It leads one, uith evergrowing and com pelling interest, frrvm a casual conver sation in a hotel in Nero York through scenes of strife and blood and thrill ing conflict to the moment when the king and queen of England came to the bedside of a Kentucky youth in a London hospital to thank him in the name of their nation for his services in the cause ichich we have now come to recognize as that of world humanity. Sergeant McClintock received the Distinguished Conduct medal before leaving England for home on leave. He ts returning to accept a commis sion in the Canadian overseas forces. The stf/ry is told in McClintvck's own unadorned icay. I DON'T lay claim to being much of it writer, and up till now I have never felt the call to write any thing a I "Hit my experiences with the Canadian troops In Belgium and Frau<v. because I have realized that a rri-iit many other men srtw quite as much its I did and could*beat me tell ing iibdiit it. Of course I believed that ray experience was worth relating, and I thought that the matter published In the newspapers by professional writ ers sort of missed the essentials and lacked the spirit of the "ditches" In a good many ways In jsplte of Its excel lent literary style, but I didn't see any reason why it was up to me to make an effort as a war historian until now. Now there Is a reason, as I look at It. I believe I can show the two or three millions df my fellow countrymen who will he "out there" before this war Is over what they are going to be up against and what they ought to pre pare for personally and Individually. That is as far as I am going to go in the way of excuse, explanation or com Impatient If nothing very Important Heema to come off ?t first. I felt a lit tle ennui myself ut the getaway. But that was certainly one thing that didn't annoy me later. In the latter part of October, 1015, I decided that the United States ought to ho fighting along with England and France on account of the way Belgium had been treated, If for no other reason. As there seemed to be a considerable division of opinion on this point among the people at home, I came to the con clusion that any man who was free, white and twenty-one and felt as I did ought to go over and get Into It single handed on the side where his convic tions led him if there wasn't some par ticular reason, why he couldn't. There fore I said goodby to my parents and friends In Lexington and started for New York with the idea of sailing for France and Joined the Foreign legion of the French army. Decides to Qo to Canada. A couple of nights after I got to New York I fell Into conversation In the Knickerbocker bar with a chnp who was In the re-enforcement company of Princess Pat's regiment of the Cana dian forces. After my talk with him I decided to go up to' Canada and look thinks over. I arrived at the Windsor hotel, in Montreal, at 8 o'clock in the morning a couple of days later, and at 10 o'clock that morning I was sworn In as a private In the Canadian Grena dier guards, Eighty-seventh overseas battalion, Lieutenant Colonel F. 8. Melghten commanding. They were just getting under way, making soldiers out of the troops I enlisted with, and dis cipline was quite lax. They at once gave me a week's leave to come down to New York and settle up some personal affairs, and I over stayed it five days. All that my com pany commander said to me wtien I got back was that I seemed to have picked up Canadian habit*; very quick ly. At a review one day in our train ing camp I heard a major say: "Boys, for God's sake don't call me Harry or spit in the ranks. Here comes the general !" We found out eventually that there was a reason for the slackness of dis cipline. The trouble was that men would enlist to get $1.10 a day with out working for it and would desert as soon as any one made It unpleasant for them. Our officers knew what they were about. Conditions changed in stantly we went on shipboard. Disci pline tightened up on us like a tie rope on a colt. We trained In a sort of casual, easy way In Canada from Nov. 4 to the fol lowing April. We had a good deal of trouble keeping our battalion up to strength, and I was sent out several times with other "noncoms" on a re cruiting detail. While we were in the training camp at St. John's I made the acquaintance of a young Canadian who became my "pal." He was Campbell McFarlapd. nephew of George McFar land, the actor, who is f*o well known on the American musical stage. He was a sergeant. When I first knew him he was one of the most delightful and amusing young fellows you could Imagine. ' B?y?, for God's Sake Don't Call Ms Harry. Here Comes the Qenerall" * r'\ ?eQt, call it what yon wlllr The reft "* my story is a simple relation of *ac's and occurrences in the order in *hloh tln-y came to my notice atid hap T^nnj to i,),? may st%rt off a little *i?m-ty Hn(| jerkily, jofft a? we did. not knowing what was coming to us. V? to add that it got quite hot enough xult mo later several times. There 'f>re. as eff0rt is going to be to Crrry y< ?i right aloir with me In this *"'? nnt of mj experiences, _j|on*t be The war changed him entirely. He became extremely quiet and seemed to be borne down with the sense of the terrible things which he saw. He nev er lost the good fellowship which was Inherent In him and was always ready to do anything to oblige me, but he formed the habit of sitting, alone and silent, for hours at a time. Just think ing. It seemed as if he had a premoni tion about himself, though he never showed fear and never spoke of the dangers we were going into, as the other fellows did. He wns killed in the Somme action In which I was wounded. I also had beep made a sergeant on account of the fact that I had been at school In the Virginia Military in stitute ? that is, I was an acting ser geant It was explained to me that my appointment would have - to be confirmed In England and then recon firmed after three months' service in France. Under the regulations of the Canadian forces a noncommissioned officer, after final confirmation in his grade, can be reduced to the ranks only by a general courtmartlal, though he can escape a courtmartlal, when confirmed with charges, by reverting to the ranks at his own request. Forty-two hundred of us sailed for England on the Errlpress of Britain, sister ship to the Empress of Ireland, which was sunk in the St. Lawrence river. The steamer wns, of course, very crowded and uncomfortable, and the eight-day trip across was most un pleasant. We had tripe to eat until we wer? sick of the sight of it. A sergeant reported one morning, "Eight men and twenty-two breakfast* ab sent.** There were two other troop ships In our convoy, the Baltic and the lietagama. . > "*** '?>!> cruiser escorted VBVutnf \}llerf off the coast of Ireland. Then each ship picked up h destroyer which had come out to meet her. At ttmt time a notice wiin posted iu the pursers ofllco informing us that we were iu tho war isone ami that tht* ship would not stop for any thing. even !'???* a man overboard. That day a soldier fell otY the Motagama with $7<H) la his pocket, and the ship never even hesitated. They left him where he hmUuo chance In the world to spend lils money, "Make a Break!" Through my training In tho V. M. I., 1 was able to read semaphore sig nals, and 1 caught the message from the destroyer which escorted us. li read : "Knelt ship for herself now. Make a break !" We heat the other steamers of our convoy eight hours In getting to the j dock In Liverpool, and, according to \ what seemed to he the regular system of our operations at that time we . were the last to disembark. The majority of our fellows had nov er been in Kngland before, and they looked on our travels at that time us u tine lark. Everybody cheered and I laughed when they dusted off one of J those little toy trains and brought it ! up to take us away In It. After we were aboard of It we proceeded at the dlj&zy rate of about four miles an hour, aud our regular company humorist ? no company complete without one ? ; suggested that they were afraid, if they went any faster, they might run , off the island before they could stop. We were taken to Rramshott camp, in Hampshire, twelve miles from the ? JAldershot school of command. The .next day we were given "king's leave" : ? eight days, with free transportation I .anywhere In the British Isles. It is ? ? the invariable custom to give this sort ? of leuve to all colonial troops lmmedi- : .ately upon their arrival In Kngland. However, In our case Ireland was bar- ' red. Just at that time Ireland was no place for a newly arrived Canadian looking for sport. After that they really began to make soldiers of us. We thought our train- j Ing in Canada had amounted to some thing. We found out that we nilght I as well have been playing croquet. ; [ After That They Really Began to Make Soldiers of Ua. * We learned more the first week of our notual training in England than we did from November to April in Cana da. I make this statement without fear that any officer or man of the Canadian forces alive today will dls ? agree with me, and I submit it for the .thoughtful consideration of the gen tlemen who believe that our ov%n armies can be prepared for service here at home* ? ? ? In this war every man has got to be a specialist. He's got to know one thing better than anybody else except those who have had Intensive Instruc tion In the same branch. And, besides that, he's got to have effective general knowledge of all the specialties In which his fellow soldiers have been particularly trained. I can Illustrate this. Immediately upon our return from first leave In England we were divided Into sections for training In eight specialties. They were : Bombing, sniping, scouting, machine gun fight ing, signaling, trench mortar operation, bayonet fighting and stretcher bearing. I was selected tor special training In bombing, p rob, ably because I was sup posed, as an American and a baseball player, to be expert In throwing. With the other men picked for trailing in the same specialty, I was sent to Al dershot, and there for three weeks, twelve hours a dajf, I threw bombs, studied bombs, read about bombs, took bombs to pieces to see what made them tick and put them together again and did practically everything else that you could do with a bomb, except eat i(v Then I was ordered back along with the other men Who had gained this Intimate acquaintance with the entire bomb family, and we were put to work teaching the entire battalion all that we had learned. When we were not teaching we were under instruction ourselves by the men who had taken special tralnftig fn other branches. Also at certain periods of the day w? had physical training and rifle prac tice. ~fjp.ta the time of oar arrival in England Intensive trailing had been merely a fine phrase with as. Daring oar stay there It was a definite and overpowering fact. Day and night we trained, and day and night It rained. At 9 o'clock we would fall Into our banks In bats which held from a half to a whole platoon -frog thirty to aftx* > 0 men? .mid drop Into exhausted sleep, only to turn out at ft a. in. to give a guddeu and exact Imitation of whyt we would do to the Germans If the/ sneaked up on us before breakfast In six Inches of mud. Toward the last, when we thought we had been driven to tin- limit, they told us thai we were to lm\ea period of real. Intensive train ing to harden us tor actual lighting. They sent us four Imperial drill ser geants from the British grenadier guards, the senior foot regiment of tho UriiKti army and the one with which we were affiliated. It would he quite unavailing for me to attempt to describe those drill ser geants. The ltrltlsh drill sergeant l? an Institution which can be understood only through personal and close con tact and Is about as cordial as loose electricity. If be think? a major gen eral Is wrong he'll tell him so on tho spot In the most emphatic way. but without ever violating a single sacred tradition of the service. The sergeants who took us In charge to put on the real polish to our training had all seen from twenty to twenty-live years of service. They had all been through the battles of Mons and tho Maine, and they had all been wounded. They were perfect examples of a type. One of them ordered all of our commission ed officers, from the colonel down, to turn out for rltle drill one day and put them through the manual of arms while the soldiers of the battalion stood around looking on. "Gentlemen," suld he very politely In the midst of the drill, "when I see you handle your rifles I foel like fall ing on my knees and thanking God that we've got a navy." A Call for Volunteer#. On June 2, after tho third battle of Ypres, while McFarland and I were sitting wearily on our bunks during a strange hour in the afternoon when nobody had thought of anything for us to do, a soldier came In with a message from headquarters which put a sudden stop to the discussion we were having about 4the possibility of getting leave to go up to London. Ihe message was that the First, Second and Third divisions of the Canadians had lost 40 per cent of their men In the third tight at Ypres and thnt 800 volun teers were wanted from each of our battalions to fill up the gaps. "Forty per cent," said McFarland, getting up quickly. "My God, think of It I Well, I'm off to tell 'em I'll go." I told him I was with him, and we started for headquarters, expecting to be received with applause and pointed out as heroic examples. We couldn't oven get up to give In our names. The whole battalion had gone up ahead of us. They heard about It first. That was the spirit of the Canadians. It was about this time that a story went round concerning an English colonel who had boon called upon to furnish volunteers from his outfit to replace casualties. He backed Ills regiment up against a barrack wall and said: "Now, all who don't want to volun teer step three paces to the rear." In our battalion sergeants and even officers offered to go as privates. Mc Farland and I were not accepted; our volunteers went at once, and we were re-enforced up to strength by drafts from the Fifth Canadian division, which was then forming in England. In July, when we were being kept on the rifle ranges most of the time, all leave was stopped, and we were ordered to hold ourselves in readiness ,to go overseas. In the latter part of the month we started. We sailed from : Southampton to Havre on a big trans iport, escorted all the way by destroy ,ers. As we landed we got our first sight of the harvest of war. A big hos pital on the quay was filled with ? wounded men. We had twenty-four 'hours ip what they called a "rest camp." We slept on cobblestones In 'shacks which were so utterly comfort less- that It would be an Insult to a Kentucky thoroughbred to call them stables. Then we were on the way to 'the Belgian town of Poperlnghe, which is 150 miles from Havre and was at that time the rail head of the Ypres salient. We made the trip In box cars which were marked In French, "Eight horses or forty men," and we had to draw, straws to decide who should He down. In the Front Trenches. We got into Poperinghe at 7 a. m., and the scouts had led us into the front trenches at 2 the next morning. Our position was to the left of St. Eloi arid was known as "the island," be cause it had no support on either flank. On the left were the Yser canal and the bluff which forqis Its bank. On the rlpht were 300 j&rds of battered downjfitenches, which had been rebuilt twice and blown In again each time by the German guns. For some rea son, which I -never quite understood, the Germans were able to drop what seemed a tolerably large proportion of the output of the Krupp works on this particular spot whenever they wanted to. Our high command had concluded that It was untenable, and so we, on one side of it and the British, on the other, had to Jus* keep It scouted and protect our separate flanks. Another name they had for that position was the "bird cage." That was because the first fellows who moved into It made themselves nice and comfy and put up wire nettings to prevent any one from tossing bombs in on them. Thus, when the Germans stirred up the spot with an accurate shower of "whi* bangs" and "coal boxes," the same being thirteen pounders and six Inch shells, that wire netting presented a. spectacle of utter .Inadequacy which ?hasnt been equaled In tills war. They called the position which we were assigned to defend "the grave yard of Canada." That was because at the fearful losses of the Canadians here In the second battle of Ypres, firom April 21 to Jane 1, 1916, when tr?o first hun nttaek In the world's his tory was launched t>y the (jornuins, ii ml, although tho French on the loft and tho iii in.- ii on the 1 1 r 1 1 1 it'll Imek. die Canadians stayed where tiny ?vero put. Hlght hero I can mention something whleh will Klve you an Idea \nIi> de scriptions of this war don't describe It. I>urlnj{ the first gun attack the (Cana dians, i-hokliiK to death unit falling over eaeli oilier in a tight against a new and unlu'ard of terror In warfare, found a way tho Lord only knows who first discovered It and how he happened to do It- to stay through a As Dawn Broke We Made Out a Big Painted Sign Above the German Front Trench. gas cloud and come out alive. It Isn't pretty to think of, and It's like many other things in this war which you can't even tell of In print, because the simple description would violate the nice ethics about reading matter for the public eye which have grown up ip long years of peace and traditional de cency. But this thing which you can't describe meant Just the difference be tween life and death to many of the Canadians that first day of the gas. Official orders now tell every soldier what he is to do with his handker* chief or a piece of his shirt If he Is caught in a gas attack without his mask. The nearest I can come In print to tolling you what the soldier Is ordered to do In tills emergency Is to remind you that ammonia fumes oppose chlo rine gas as a neutralizing agent and that Certain emanations of the body throw off ammonia fumes. Now that I've told you how we got from the Knickerbocker bar and other places to a situation which was Just 350 yards from the intrenched front) of the German army in Belgium I ( might as well add a couple of details i about things which straightway put fear of God Into our hearts. At day break one of our Fourteenth platoon men, standlug on the firing step, push ed hack hlK tronch hehuct and remark ed that he thought it wan about time for coffee. He didn't get any. A Oor man sharpshooter, tiring the tlrxt time thdi iluy. K?it hltu under the rim of Ills helmet, it lid Ills career wHtli the funa diuu forces was over right there. Ami then, ns the dawn hroke, we made out a ( ? i k pa luted sign ra^'d ahove the (ieriiinii I'lniit trench. W rend: WELCOME, EIGHTY SEVENTH CANADIANS We wore u new battalion. We hud boon les# than seventy-two hours on tho Continent of Europe, and t !?*? CJer inttns were not supposed to know any tiling t hit t whs going on behind our 11 n oh ! Wo learned afterward that concealed telephones In tho houses of the Bel gian burgomasters of tho villages of Dlnklebusch and licnnlnghelst, near our position, khvo communication with the Gorman headquarters opposite us. One of the duties of a dotal! of our men noon after that wa? to stand these two burgomasters up against a wall and shoot them. In concluding this flrnt article I want to say frankly that any man who claims he Is not afraid when for tho first time he goes Into that hell of lire on the western front Is a liar, and I'll tell lil 111 so to his face. Later we be came impervious, but thut flrst day I prayed, and 1 would have bent tlpwn and prayed only my knees shook so. Tho five remaining articles in this remarkable series will appear one each week. They are as follows: No. 2 ? The Bomb Raid. The great preparations and rehearsing for this attack. Volunteers for the Job taken behind the line whero tho German trenches are exactly reproduced. The days of preparation. Heretofore unwrit ten detail of modern trench raids. This article concludes with the men going out to their Job. No. 3 ? "Over the Top and Qlvo 'Em Hell/' The English Tommy's battle cry as he breaks from his trench. The bomb raid and what happened. Of sixty that start ed forty-six failed to return because the Germans had prepared and mined the trench. Graphlo description of Sergeant McClihtock'a terrible experience. No. 4 ? Shifted to the 8omme. Sergeant McClintock takes part in the greatest of all battles and tells of the hell of it. "The front in Belgium was really a rest sector in comparison with it," he says. The extensive preparations or the allies for open warfare afterward abandoned because of the failure of ex pected developments. No. fc-^-Wounded In Action. This article describes the terrible flght, the dead and dying, the loss of a pal and the final falling of McClintock in No .Man's l>and. 8imply told, It 1h one of the most remarkable descriptions of a. battle by a participant ever put together. No. 6 ? Decorated For Bravery; Horn? and Uncle Sam. This concluding article of the Beries re lates In detail how England cares for the wounded. How tho king and queen came to the bed of an. American boy and dec orated him In a iLondon hospital for gal lantry. Interesting. Intimate and amus ing Incidents told by and of the wounded Tommies. Trying to fight for Uncle 8am. JUST RECEIVED A Car Load of Fresh Mules That Are Over Shipping. Also Two Car Loads of Hackney Wagons GEO. T. LITTLE, Camden, S. C. WANTED! 50 or 75 Cords of Pine Wood * at Once. 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