University of South Carolina Libraries
?y,lUic'ttte' Ina> nUMtOCk 0,1 A meriCOn who has sem CS *?> .<??<"?<"?"' 'o: a"*:!'*'"1"' """'i "ij * ; <? acw " comm^ ?<???? *? f: f*'L up to ttm faint *""!**& the front Uno took our jiohiiioii in the [, iiiw trenchf* in Helglum ftneved flic Tsvcnfy-8lxth ^dlfuliou. Seoul h from thut go (Uiue buck to (ho village# | ju^li Mild Kcniliiigljolst to r glad tlwy wvro to uve u? in' u? (be ?ny id. Ah we Otffland, before reach! ug t(inlcutio" ticncJics nt the L jcootf paid us die hoa fallen due st rangers ? thut j/ thorn, leading a platoon, Lt ijUO yards in machine gun [ (tp quiet, don't run and be drop quick if you are K|| one scout to each platoon, Kjioned hlni single filo, most K? along roads or well worn ItiometliaeN through thickets Ej fields. Every now and then ? would yell ut us to drop, ? wei] go on our stomachs, Kgj off in the distance we Kr the "pot-put" of machine ? first sound of hostile tiring ?ever reached our ears. Bjigbt," said the scout. "They Keen in or got track' of us. Kit firiug on suspicion." ?fiJrvs, when our various pla ?j.tll got into the front reserve F it about two hours after ? we learned that the first ?oar battalion had been spilled, ?o had been wounded, though ?fatally. Our own stretcher ?took our wounded hack to the Bpltal at Dlnklebusch. TlSe men ?Twenty-sixth battalion spent ? of the night Instructing us lleft us to hold the position, leas nervous as n lot of cats, ?coed to ine that the Germans ?rtatoly know that they could ?er and walk right through us, Mt of a Jew casualties from I such as the on** that- befell irteenth platoon num. which I. Id about, nothing very alarm pene<l the lirst day and night, that time \\>- had got steady job. We held tire position for i, which is the longest period j Canadian < >r British organ has ever remained in a front Itocfl. fee of the stories I've read have W'D trench lighting us it was on in Belgium adequately de Vou see, you can't get much yea about a thing like that f a quick tour of the trenches official direction and escort a? rspaper and magazine writers couldn't undertake to tell any forth while about the big issues *ar. but I can describe how ! have to learn to fight in the and I think a good many of ong fellows have that to learn "Over, there"' they don't talk of or even of tomorrow. They Bit bd take it. always held the lire trench as as possible, because It Is Q strated fact that the front ditch be successfully defended in a lined uttuck. The thing we did ie thing to do is to be ready to on to the enemy hh soon as he >t Into your front trench and Is K on ground that you know and ?n't and knock so many kinds I out of him that he'll have to lis load for a spot that Isn't so } That system worked first rate ling the day we had only a very Ben in the fire trench. If ah at ?- coming in daylight there's at* ? plenty of time to get ready^fqr | ?t night we kept prepared for Be ail the time. We had a night m on each tiring step and a man m ?t his feet to watch him to see ?ro't secretly sniped. Then wo ? sentry in each "bay" of the i to take messages. . - r kto didn't permit the man on the. ?tep or the man watching him post (in any excuse whatever I their two hour "spell" of duty. on a string, at the elbow of sentry on the Are step wal a whistle or an empty shell case 'hit of iron with which to ham It This, whichever It. mlflit u for the purpose of spreading ^nn tn case of a gas attack. Also sentries In "listening posts," tfous points from 20 to 60 yardi n "No Man's Land." These men tened their faces before they went r the top" and then lay in shell 1 or natural hollows. There was I* two of them, a bayonet man 1 bomber. From the listening ? wire ran back to the fire trench 1 wed in signaling. In the trench sat with this wire wrapped his hand. One pull meant **A11 two pulls, 'Tm coming in," i Wlls, "Enemy In eight,** and four * "Sound gas alarm.** The lire Z?1 trench is a shelf ^>n which ?f** stand to look out and shoot the sand bags on top. In trijdttUNi to theee mw, wt M int(?olH apd *COUt* OUt la "No Man's Lund" the greater part of the night, with orders to gain uuy information possible which might bo of value to Initiation, brigade, division or general headquarters. They reported on the condition of the Germans' barbed wire, the locatlou of inuchlilo g una and oth er little things like thut which might be of Interest to some commanding officer UO mlleH back. AIho they were ordered to make every effort to cap ture any of the enemy'* scouts or pa trols, ao thut we couhl get Information from them. One or the interesting momenta In tlila work came when a atarNshoil,. caught you out In an open spot., If you moved you were gone. I've Been men stand on one foot for the 80 aeconda during which a star ahell will burn. Then when scouts or patrols me* In MNo Man's Land" tlmy always had to fight tt out with bayo nets. -'..Uno alngle shot would be the algnul for artillery lire und would mean the almost Instant annihilation of the men on both sides of the light. Under the knecesaitles of thia war many of our men have been kilted by our own ahell lire. t The Daylight Hour. At a little bofore/ daybreak came "atand-to," when everybody got but toned up and reudy for business be cause at that hour most attacks begin, and also that waa the regular time for a dose of "morning and evening hate," otherwise u good, lively 15 inlnutea of ahell fire. We had some casualties every morning and evening, and the stretcher bearers used to get ready for them as a regular matter of course. For 15 minutes at dawn and dusk the Germana uaed to send over "whlz bangs," "coal boxes" and "mlnenwer fer" (shells from trench mortars) In such a generous way that it looked as if thpy liked to shoot 'em off, whether they hit anything or not. You could always hear the "heavy atuff" coming, and we piftid little attention to It, as it was used in efforts to reach the bat teries back of our lines. The poor old town of Dinklebusch got the full ben efit of it. When a shell would shriek Its way over, some one would say, "There goes the express for DInkle Tftat System Worked First Rate With Us. busch," and a couple of seconds Inter, when some prominent lundmnrk of Dlnkiebusch would disintegrate with a loud detonation, some one else would remark : "Train's arrived !" About the only amusement we had during our long stay In the front trenches was to sit wiHi our backs against the rear wail and ^hoot at the rats running along the parapet. Poor Macfarlane, with a flash of the old humor which la? had b<;foro the war, told a "rookie" that the trench rats Were so big that he saw one of them trying 011 Ids greatcoat. They used to run over our faces when we were sleeping In our dugouts, and I've seen them in 1 ravenous swarms burrowing Into the shallow graves of the dead. Moat of the soldiers' legs are scarred to the knees with bkes. Thb one thing of which we constant ly lived lu fear was a gas attack. I used to wake in the middle of the night In a eold sweat dreaming that I heard the clatter and whistle blowing all along the line, which meant that the gas was coming. And Anally I really did hear the terrifying sound, just at a moment when it couldn't have, sounded worse. I was in charge of the daily ration detail, sent back about ten allies to the point of near est approach of the transport lorries to carry in rations, ammunition and sand bags to the front trenches. We bad a lot of trouble returning with our loads. Passing a point which was called Shrapnel Corner, because the Germans had precise range of It, we were caught in machine gufa Are and had to lie on our stomachs for 20 min utes, during which we lost one man, wbunded. I sent him back and went on with my party, only to run lntd another machine gun shower ' a half mile Xarther on. While we were lying down to escape this, a concealed Brit ish battery of five-inch guns, about which we knew nothing, opened up right over our heads. It shook us up and scared us so that some of our fcarty were now worse off than the man who had been hit and carried to the rear. We finally got together and went on. ; When we were about a mile behind the reserve trench, stumbling la the uark through the last and most dangerous path overland, we beard a lone sireh whistle, followed by a wave of metallic hammering and wild toot ing vthlch deemed to spread over all of Belgtam a mile ahead of us. All jtaef ot us could say was : & "Gas!" All you could see in the dark was a collection of white and frightened faces. Every trembling finger seemed awkward as a thumb as we got out our gas masks and helmets and put them on, following directions as nearly as we could. I ordered the men to sit attll and sent two forward to notify* we from headquarters when the gas alarm wus over.5 They lust their way and were not found for two daya. W5 eat there for an* hour, and then 1 ven ture^ to tuko my mask off. Ah nothing happened, I ordered thr men to do the ?jUne. When we got In the t Touches with our pucka we found that the gas alarm hud bden oue of Fritzs Jokes. The first ?lr?'U?y hud heen sounded lu the Herman linen, and there hadn't been any gas. Our ineu evened thing* up with the Germans, however, the uext night. Soiue of our scouts crawled clear up to the German barhed wire, ten yards lu front of the enemy tiro trench, tied empty Jam tlna to the barricade and then, after attaching small telephone wires to t,Ue burbed strands, crawled back to our trenches. When they start ed pulling the telephone wires the empty tlna uuule a clutter right under Fritz's nose. Immediately the Gei> nmns opened up with ull their ma chine gun und rltle tire, begun bomb* lug the apot from which the noise came und sent up "S O S" signals for artillery tire along a mile of their line. They Aired a $10,000 salute aud lost a night's sleep over the noise made by the discarded containers of five shil lings' worth of Jam. It was u good tonic for the Tommies. The Prlnco of Wale?. A few days after this a very young officer passed iue In a trench while 1 was sitting on a tire step writing u letter. 1 noticed that he had the red tabs of a staff ofllcer on his uniform, but I paid no mofe attention to him than that. No compliments, such as salutes to ofllcers, are paid la the trenches. After he had passed one* of the men asked die If I didn't know who he was. I said I didn't. "Why, you d? fool," he said, "that's the Prince of Wales!" When the little prince cume back I stood to salute him. He returned the sulute with a grave smile and passed on. Ho was quite alono; and I was told afterward that he mAde these trips through the trenches Just to show the men that he did not consider him self better than any other soldter. The heir of England was certainly staking nearly the same chance of losing his inheritance that we were. After we had been on the front line 15 days we received orders to make a bombing raid. Sixty volunteers were asked for, and the whole battalion of fered. I was lucky ? or unlucky ? enough to be among the 00 who were chosen. 1 wan*, to tell you In detail about this bombing raid, so that you can understand what a thing may really amount to that gets only three lines or perhaps nothing at all In the official dispatches, and, besides that, it may help some of the young men who rend this to know something a little later about bombing. The GO of us chosen to execute the raid were taken 20 miles to the rear for a week's Instruction practice. Hav ing only a slight idea of what we were going to try to do, we felt very Jolly about the whole enterprise starting off. We were camped In an old barn, with several special Instruction ofllcers in charge. We had oral instruction the first day, while sappers dug and built an exact duplicate of the section of trie German trenches which we were to* raid ? that Is, It Was exact except for n few details. Certain "skeleton trenches" In the practice section were dug simply to fool the German avia tors. If a photograph taken back to Q^j-rnon beadquar,'<>''s h?d shown nil exact duplicate of a German trench section suspicion might have- been aroused and our plans revealed. We were constantly warned about the skel eton trenches and told to remember that they did not exist In the German section where we were to operate. Meanwhile our practice section _ was changed a little several times because aerial photographs showed that the Germans had been renovating nnd making some additions to the trenches In which we were to have our frolic with them. ' We had oral Instruction, mostly dur ing the day, because we didn't dare let the German aviators see us practicing When the Little Prince Came Back I Stood to 8alute Him. * bomb raid. AJl night long, some times until 2 or ?f o'clock In the morn ing, we rehearsed ' that raid, J art as carefully as a company of star actors would rehearse a play. At first there was a disposition to have sport out of It. "Well," some chap would say, rolling Into the hay all tired out, "1 got killed six times tonight S'pose it'll be eight times tomorrow night." One man insisted that he had dls covered in 'one of our aerial photo* graphs a German burying money, and he carefully examined each new pic ture, so thht he could be sure, of find ing the dough and digging it up. The grave an>l serious manner of our ol!l> ?f* i ft ? Tp/* ? ''IS cers, howtver. the exhaustive care wttfc watch we were drilled uud. mere than nil, the approach of the time when we were Idj/fO over the top" drove all sport out of our minds, and 1 can nay for myself that the very thought of the undertaking aw tlu* fatal uitfht drew uear sent alii vera up uud down luy aplne. A bombing raid, something orlglnat* ed In warfare hy tho Canadians. Ih not lutended to# the purpoae ot holding ground; hut to gain Information, to do as much dumuKt' us possible and to keep the enemy in u state of nervous ness. In thla particular raid tho Chief object wus to khId information. Our high command wanted to know what troops were opposite us and what troops had been therov We were ex pected to get tills Information from prisoners and from buttons and papers off of the Germans we might kill. It was believed th?< troops were being Wo Rehearsed That Raid as Carefully aa a Company of Star Actora. . i relieved from the hig tent show up at the Somma and sent to our aide show In Belgium for rest. Also It was sus pected that artillery was being with drawn for the S omme. Especially we were anxious to bring back prisoners. In civilized war a prisoner can be compelled to tell only his name, rank and religion. Hut this Is no( a civil ized war, and there aro ways of mak ing prisoners talk. One of the most effective ways? quite hiftnaue ? Is to tie a prisoner fast, hend and foot, and then tickle his bare feet with a feath er. More severe measures have fre quently been used ? the water cure, for instance ? but I'm bound to say that nearly all the German prisoners I saw were quite loquacious and willing to talk, and the accuracy of their Infor mation, when later confirmed by raids, was surprising. The Iron discipline which turns them Into mere children in the presence of their officers seemed to make them subservient and obedient to the officers who commanded us. Ji mean, of course, the privates. In this way the system worked against the fatherland. Captured German officers, especially Prussians, were a nasty lot. We never tried to get Information from them, for we know they would lie, happily and very Intelligently ? well Instructed In the art. At last came the night when we were to go "over the top," across No Man's Land, and have a froHc with Fritz in his own happy home. I am endeavoring to be as accurate and truthful as possible in these stories of my soldiering, and I am therefore com pelled to say that there wasn't a man in the 00 who didn't show the strain in his pallor and nervousness. Under orders, we discarded oor trenCTi Helm ets and substituted knitted skullcaps or empt mess tins. Then we black-^ ened our hands and faces with ashes from a camp lire bo as to avoid being seen as long as possible. After this they loaded us Into motor trucks and took us up to "Shrapnel Corner," from which point we went in 011 foot. Just before we left a staff captain came along and gave us a little talk. ??This is the first time you men have been tested," he said. "You're Cana dians. I needn't say anything more to you. They're going to be popping them off at a great rate while you're on your way across. Remember that you'd better not stand up straight, because our shells will be going ovver just six and a half feet from the ground where it's level. If you stand up straight you're likely to be hit in the hend, but don't let that worry you, because if you do get hit in the head you won't know it. So why in h worry about it?" That was his farewell. He Jumped roa his horse and rode off. The Bomb Raid. The point- we were to attack had been selected long before by our . scouts. It was not, as you might sup pose, the weakest point in the German line. It was, on the contrary, the strongest, it was considered that the moral effect-ot cleaning upi a weak point ? would be comparatively small, whereas to br^pk in ft the . strongest point would be something really worth while. And if we were to take a chance it really wouldn't pay to hesi tate about degrees. The section ?re were to raid 'bad a frontage of iOO yards and a depth of 200 yards. It had been explained to ulsthat we were to be supported by e "box barrage," or curtain, fire, from oar artillery to' last exactly 26 minutes ? that is, for 28 minutes from the time when we start ed "over the top" our artillery, sev eral miles back, would drop a "curtain of shells all around the edges of that lfiO yard by 200 yard section. We were to hate 15 minutes in which to . do our work." Any man not outsat the [ end of the 15 minutes would nece* sarlly be caught in our own fire, as our artillery would then change from a "box" to poor a straight curtain fire covering all of the spot of our opern ' tions. , Our officers their watches vsfj carefully with those of the artillery officers before we went forward to the front tfenche*. We reached the front at 11 p. u?.t mill not uatil our umvui there wane we informed of the "sero hour" ? tlu< time when the attack whh to be much'. Tim hour of 1?:10 taut been bo loot Oct The waiting from U o'clock until that time wan simply nil agony. Some of our men ftrit stupid and Inert* Others kept talking con stantly about the moat Inconsequential matters. One man undertook to toll a tunny story. No one listened to It, and the laugh at the end was euiucluted and ghastly. The Inaction was driving us all into a state of funk. J could ae* tually feel my nerve oofcing out at iny linger tips, and If we had had to wait 15 minutes longer 1 wouldn't have been ahle to climb out of the trench. About half an hour before we wore to go over evofy man hud his eye up the trench, for we knew "the rum inles" were coming that way. The rum gang nerves out a stiff shot of Jamaica Just before an attack, and it would bo a real test of temperance (o see a man refuse. There were no prohibitionists In our set. Whether or not we got our full ration depended on whether the aergonnt in charge was drunk or sober. After the shot began to work one man next mo poumlod my leg aud hollered In my oar: "1 say, why all this red tape! loot's ! go over now." That noggin of rum is a life saver. J When the hour approached for us j to start, the Artillery tiro was so heavy that orders had to bo spouted Into ears from man to man. The bombardment was, of course, along a couple of miles of front so that" the Germans would not know where to expect us. At 12 o'clock exactly they began pulling down a section of the parapet so that we wouldn't have to climb over it and we were off. There are six articles in this re markable series by Sergeant McOlln tock. Two have already been printed, and the third will appear soon. It 1h tho most interesting one of the series thus far and Is entitled : "Over the Top and Give 'Em Helli" Tho Knglish Tommy's battlu cry as he breaks from his trench. Tho bomb raid and what happened. Of sixty that start ed forty-six failed to return because the Oermans had prepared a surprise for them, Graphic description of Sergeant MoCllntock's torrlblo experience. More eiiHik 200 yellowy pH?e manufac turer* met at Memphis Tuesday and pledged themselves increase sbip? ment of ^llow pint1 k)i 1 1> Umber from (JO to 100 curloads j?er day. 1 4ent. H. M. Malison In to bo tried by court. martial at 8pg rtanbur# for the killing of William Lands In a ritld of Mind tigers by the military police. Bom Tjr?d, "lie wufl bo'n too tih<d tor git outon his own wuy," said the 0T1I colored brother. "De only exercise he ever Kits Is fnllln' from grace, an* aU?r he falls, please God, he's too tired tor git nu! At lanta ('oust it uiion SWEET PEA SEED Our imported dowering bulb and sweet i?ea mmiI are just in, and as our supply is IhnltHi you had better K?*t what you need at once. Call or Phono No. 10 Zemp & DePass Prompt Attention Given FLOWER BULBS AND FLOWER SEEDS \ - -r . . _ W. Robin Zemp's Drug Store Telep hone 30. ' _ 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. WILL BUY AT MARKET PRICE HERMITAGE! COTTON MILL cAmden, s. g. The Fall Is Here and/The Winter Is Coming ? Noow gents for a heavier suit of clothes, would like for every fnan, young and old, to view our money sav ing new display of woolens and worsted patterns of cloth, ju*t before yoy purchase your new Fall and Winter suit and save money on same. Also artistic cleaning, pressing, repairing and dye ing. All clothes called for and delivered. Yours for service, RAST TAILORING COMPANY ' " ~.~t _ _-;f- JSv. i Jr ? 1 .x--- ? - ? - 611 Rutledge St. Pfoojne 300.