The Ekalaka eagle. [volume] (Ekalaka, Mont.) 1909-1920, 1915-05-07
All Is Not Death and DesoIation.
The Fighters Abroad Tell of
GreWsome Humorous Incidents,
and It's the Daredevi|s Who
Give Most Whimsical Twist to
Their Narratives.
TTUMOR, like hope, springs eter-
r nal in the human breast even

= nal in the human breast even
when it is serving as a target
for the enemy's bullets. One
Of the most interesting features of the
world war is the fact that it has actual
ly stimulated and increased the pro
duction of humor, amateur and pro.
f%essional.
4 keen sense OF humor is the dom
inant note in most of the soldiers let
ters from he front, while in %conyersa-
ton l have noticed that officers, as
we'll as men, instinctively tell you the
lighter incidents, passing up the horror
of the grim reality, and that the sense
of humor becomes keener and more
frequent the closer you get to the front
and the hotter the fire, as If this safety
valve of nature opened up automatical-
~. l noticed, says a correspondent on
the German front, that invariably the
men who had the most dangerous jobs
cavalry officers who had come back
alive from daring patrol rides, aviators
who had not made their last flight,
pioneers-were thus gifted, and if in
spite Of their modesty they could be
prevailed upon at all to talk about
themselves they would invariably give
a whimsical twist to the narrative.
The HeadIess Enemy.
Many good war stories are, Of course,
obviously a%pocryphal, as the famous
Irish bull attributed to the Bavarian
landsturm man who was asked by an
enemy officer to carry him to the field
hospital, as he was wounded in the
leg. The Bavarian packed his prisoner
and carried him pig-a-back, but on the
way a shell flying low carried off the
enemy's head without the Bavarian no
dcing 1t. He deposited his headless
burden before the astonished field sur
geon with the request to have the fell
lows leg attended to. The surgeon
says tart things about what he consid-
ers q "bum joke in being asked to
try his skill on a headless man. The
nonplused Bavarian finally sees a great
sight and explodes: "What liars some
people are! The fellow told me with
his W lips that he was wounded in
the leg. Not a word about his head
being gone"
Some of the best stories, however,
have the merit of being true. Gen
eral Won Heeringen. the venerable COM
mander In chief of the -th army. told
me a sprightly narrative of how they
had recently taken prisoners of an en-
tire French company, with its captain.
The company, cut off by the German
advance, had managed to maintain
themselves for two months in hiding
in a wood eight miles in the rear Of the
German lines. They were discovered,
said General o Herringen, only by a
luke, for the French captains boots
wore out, and he sent them into a
nearby village to be resoled. A sharp
witted landsturm man who noticed
the native shoemaker repairing foreign
looking boots reported the matter. and
the clew led to the discovery of the
French garrison in the woods at the
Germans rear.
THAT Frenchman was Il splendid,
competent officer to have been able to
keep his company together for two
months under such conditions" was
the generals adniring comment.
Zouaves Desert to Germans.
A German war correspondent vouches
for the truth Of the following story:
At n of the trenches between Rheims