The Elbert County tribune., 1915-03-05
WARR|OR-WR|TER
GIVES TO WORLD
HIS GRIM STORY
Makes Lightning Change From
Novel Writer to Leader of
Men in Battle.
STRAIN WHITENs HIS HAIR
Wars Wild Drama Holds No Further
Thrills for Oskar Hocker-Ages
OF Experience Crowded Into
His One Short Tour of
Trench Duty.

Berlin.-Until a certain day last
summer Paul Oskar Hooker, one of
Germany's leading best seller writ
ers. divided his time between writing
novels and plays and admiring the
roses in his little garden close to Ber-
lin. Then, with the suddenness of a
lightning stroke. he realized, as did
hundreds of thousands of others, what
"a nation in arms" means. Paul Oskar
Hooker, novelist, playwright and lover
of flowers, became overnight Captain
Hooker at the head of a company in
the first reserve. giving orders to other
men, clothed all alike in the famous
German field gray. men who the day
before had been, one a painter. anoth-
er a cook, another a sculptor. another
gravedigger.
With hundreds of others they piled
into troop train and headed for Bel
GUM. Exactly once more. the last
time for many months, was Hooker re-
minded OF the life he had left behind
him. That was when young girl ap-
preached him as he was washing his
face at one OF the last German stations
where the troop train stopped and
bluahingly asked:
'They-they tell me you are Hook
er, the famous novelist? Is 1t true?"
Left His Autograph.
Captain Hooker nodded.
Then, will you please give me your
autograph"
While the warning whistle of the
train announced its speedy departure,
Paul Oskar Hooker novelist. wrote
down his autograph and received the
girls smiling words of gratitude. A
couple Of days later Captain Hooker
of the reserve was giving the order to
firing party to shoe. down Belgian
accused OF "sniping." A few weeks
later he and the painter and the sculp-
tor and the gravedigger got their bap-
tism of fire near Lille. Then 1t was
that Hooker had the narrowest possi-
BILE escape from death. Shortly after
that he burrowed into a trench and
remained there for weeks without
room to stand up or lie down. while
countless shells screamed overhead
and racked his nerves to the breaking
point
Writes In Rain Of Fire.
All this Hooker has set down in a
little book of his war experience called
AT the Head of My Company" which
has Just appeared In Berlin, one of the
most graphic and convincing pieces of
writing to come out of the war. He
wrote its various chapters in the hell
of Belgium and northern France, send
ing them back to be published as fast
as they were completed
Hocker's company was one Of hun
dreds upon hundreds that marched
through Belgium in the wake OF that
German army that almost smashed its
way into Paris last September. He and
his men passed through Wise. near
Liege. while 1t was still burning. Soon
after amid clouds of suffocating smoke
that blinded them and hid their roads.
they tramped over the streets in the
outskirts of another burning town -
Iouvain.
One night the captain was quartered
in filthy stable: on another he sat
comfortably with the young vicar of a
Belgian village on whom he was quar-
tered and talked not of war and its
atrocities, but of "Preraphaelites
Turkish dialects and new kindu OF
,roses!" After that came more uncom-
Portable night lodgings; then. just as
a spice of variety. a night in magni-
ficent villa. sleep in bed used in
former years by King Leopold OF Bel
GUM. One woman, Obliged to give the
captain lodging for the night in her
house pleasantly remarked 10 him:
Anything can do for you? Anything
I can get for you? Would you like me
TO send you = barber?"