The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1915-03-29
First Impression is Satisfac-
ton, But After Thought Is
Not so Comforting to the
New Recruit.
RAIDERS LAST STORY
In the Heat of Battle When Enemy 10
Charging, the Machine Gun
Man Has No Con-
science.


/ lBy Phil RAIDER, written for the United
/ Press.1
:! copyright 1915 by the United Press.]
/ LONDON, March How 1t feels
to kill a man is something cannot
adequately describe. There are some
millions Of men in Europe who have
had this feeling during the past half
year, but I venture to say that not
one of them could faithfully detail his
emotions upon first taking q human
life.
After you see your victim drop, you
first feel sense OF triumph.
| Then the ages OF training in the
Ten Commandments come to the front
and you feel like murderer. Then
you want to run around among your
mates and tell them the circum-
stances OF the killing and get them
to tell you that you did the right
thing.
| Ny experience was like that l was
standing beside my lieutenant one
day. He had fastened a small mirror
to a twig and was looking at the Ger
man trenches, when suddenly he ex-
claimed:
Get your gun! A Boche has come
out Of his trench"
ran down the trench. got my gun
and came back to the loop-hole. l
! was so excited I could hardly aim.
Through the hole saw German
/ standing on the edge of his trench.
!! He had been carrying huge board
and had rested 1t against his back
while he tried to light his pipe.
! Get him! Get him." said the lieu
tenant
I fred and missed. The German
struck another match and merely
looked CONTEMPORARY at the spot In
space where the bullet had whistled
past him. He was only forty-five feet
! away from me, but, through the loop
| hole could see only part of his
body and wanted to hit him low II
possible. I aimed again. He wheeled
around and backed in a circle, like a
| drunken man. trying to keep his bal
aace Then he threw up both hands
and fell forward on his face.
| / turned around to look at the leu
tenant. He had moved away was
| proud. Then a wave OF remorse came
over me; it was the Thou shalt not
kill'' that is buried deep in every sane
mans mind and heart.
ST got German" I shoutef to
soldier nearby. / told him how the
man had been standing there, holding
! a board.
Ibid he have a riaeg" asked the
soldier.
"why, no." said
| "And you shot an unarmed man."
| 81 had direct orders" I answered.
I felt like dog. It seemed to me
that T must find some human being
who would say that had done right.
| / told another soldier about IT.
Served him right" said the sol
der. HE would have done the same
thing to you."
These were splendid words for me.
| / had slouched along the trench be-
| fore I met him. After that l held up
my head But the two feelings, the
! pride and the remorse, fought in my
mind.
At last told it all to an old legion
soldier.
MY boy" he said. its war. Could
You have refused to shoot under the
eye Of the lieutenant? War is killing
/ and that's all there Is to 1t. Suppose
| 4
to obey his own instincts about killing.
None of the enemy would die. The
French have brought you here to kill.
/ You are ordered to kill and you must
kill. whenever you can"
| Technically / had done wrong be-
cause all war Is terribly wrong. sat
ibehind.a machine gun, one day soon
after that, and killed eleven Germans
1 ~ Il hull hor ric a n
nearby trees. They were shooting at
us and / felt much better about kill
| ing them than / did about the single
German.
! And then later again in the bicycle
seat of the machine gun and, at the
rate of 700 shots minute, / fred at
advancing columns of Germans in
close formation and watched them
drop and squirm. They were coming
to kill US, II they could. 1t was only
! fair to kill them, under the rules OF
the war game. A terrific sense Of
! power filed me: the rattle Of that
gun was sweeter and grander to me
than the halleluiah chorus. I knew
what 1t meant to be drunk with kill
ing. Other machine guns were going
too. but 7 felt at the time as IL mine
were the only one. The Germans
turned and ran, their formation
smashed; their dead and wounded
strewiag the hillside.
i But that night after ] had crawled
into my mud hole hut to sleep, did
not dare to think of all the women
and children whose hearts had been
hit by that machine gun fire.
| ! had joined the French foreign
tlegion expecting to be made mem
Der of the flying corps Instead. had
found my way to the trenches, where
killing was our only job, brutal out
and-out killing, with little science and
less chivalry.
When my chance came ] got out.
OF the I.500 men I had started out
with, only 3s5 remained and we had