Semi-weekly herald., 1915-03-25

would be neglecting your duty. 1t is
our duty, for instance, to fire eight
bullets an hour when on guard.
IWatchful eyes of officers will discov-
er whether you are shooting into the
air, or whether you are firing with
your aim fixed on the enemy's
trenches, and good sentinel is sup
posed to raise his head above the
trench every ten minutes to see what
is going on outside.
Victor Chapman, a Harvard gradu-
ate, who was with me in the trenches,
was something OF a philosopher, and
he used to say "Ihe danger of being
shot is very small. The trail of a
bullet is very small, the space around
you, as compared with the trail of a
bullet, is as one million to one, so
the chances OF being hit are in that
same proportion"
But it didn't work with Chapman
at all. He was hit the very first day
in the arm.
In the trenches are an underground
city filled with unspeakably dirty citi-
zens. They are in tangle of sunken
streets, the houses are holes in the
earth, and the streets, in my district,
converged in one place, which Amer
leans called Long Acre Square" into
very exclusive triangle, where all
the officers lived. There are street
signs, too, telling how to reach this
OF that officers hole in the ground
and now and then there are danger
sirns, warning the passerby to keep
his head low. 1t was two-mile jour-
ney through the trenches from our
front to the rear trench, and on this
journey, one would meet and pass
many men. The soldiers always speak
tc each other at such meetings just
as two men pass the time of day on
a country road. The lieutenant is
practically the mayor of this under
ground city; the sergeants might be
likened to policemen.
There is trading under way, too
Tobacco is the money, and the store
keeper is the chap who, at any GER
tain time, has more of some one thing
than he wants and less of another
that he needs, so that every man is
village keeper at one time or an
other.
Do you want go to to music hall
that's sure to be a certain dugout
somewhere in the trenches where mu-
seal men gather. In our trench Geo.
uilard, negro, from Galveston, Tex,
played wonderfully on banjo with
une string, and in our mud hut there
was the music of mouth organs, an
accordion and Ullard's banjo every
night. The German trench was only
forty-fve feet away from US at this
point, and they used to listen to us
every evening and cheer us.
There are many little tasks with
which the citizens of the trench town
busy themselves. You'll see a man
cleaning his rifle, another will be re-
flooring his hut with straw, another
VIII be rigging bottle on a stock
! for the Germans to shoot at, two or
three may be preparing a dummy fig
ure for German target, another may
be marking his initials in the side of
the trench by sticking his empty car
triuee shells into the earth. There
are artists, too, in this strange col
ony Almost every day there was a
wooden tombstone with some sort of
design and Belgian named Durmino
always did the lettering. You might
find US almost any forenoon working
away with red hot poker, burning
names and decorations on a wooden
cross which we had constructed out
Of any pieces Of wood we could find.
There were three Americans in my
machine squad Of sixteen men-Eu-
gene Jacobs, who still owns butcher
shop at Pawtucket, X. l., Victor Chap
man, of New York, and myself, and
on Thanksgiving day we arranged a
feast in our hut. Jose Amens, an Ar
gentleman, heard that we had picked
up some stray chickens, and had shot
a goose, and that Jacobs was cooking
them for some sort of banquet, and
he invited himself saying, 81 know
what Thanksgiving day is, and Pm
South American, so think ought to
come"