The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1915-09-23

"franCe at war on the Frontier OF
Civilization" describing the i'm.
pressions of visit to the fighting
line in France.
By RUDYARD kIPLlNG.
1Copyright, 1885, by the Sun Printing and
Publishing association
V VERY early in the morning 1 met
" Alan Breck with a half healed
bullet scrape across the bridge
Of his nose and an Alpine cap
over one ear. His people a few hun
dred years ago had been Scotch. He
bore a Scotch name and still recognize
ed the head Of his clan, but his French
occasionally ran into German words,
for he was Alsatian on one side.
"This," he explained, lis the very
best country in the world to fight In.
It is picturesque and full Of cover.
I'm a gunner. I've been here for
months. It's lovely"
It might have been the hills under
Mussoorie, and what our ears expect
ed to do in it could not understand,
but our demon driver, who had been a
road racer took the seventy horsepow-
er Mercedes and threaded the narrow
valleys as we'll as occasional half Swiss
villages full of Alpine troops at re-
strained thirty miles an hour. He shot
up new made road more like Mus
soorie than ever and did not fall down
the hillside even once. An ammun1-
ton mule Of a mountain battery met
him at a tight corner and began to
climb tree.
'"There isn't another place in France
where that could happen said Alan.
II tell you this is magnificent coun-
try"
The mule was hauled down by his
tail after he had reached the lower
branches and went ON through the
woods, his ammunition boxes linking
on his back for all the world as If he
were rejoining his battery at Jutogh.
One expected to meet the little hill
people bent under their loads under
the forest gloom. The light, the color,
the smell Of wood smoke, pine needles,
wet earth and warm mule were all
Himalayas. Only the Mercedes was
Near the German Positions.
"Halt!' said Alan at last, when she
had done everything except initiate the
mule ~
1.-THE road continues" said the demon
driver seductively.
eyes, but they will hear you if you
~
tain battery to look at"
They were not at work for mo-
ment, and the commander, a grim,
forceful man, showed me some details
of their construction. When we left
them in their bower it looked like a
hill priests wayside shrine. We heard
them singing through the steep, de-
scending pines. They, too, like the
"'75' men, seem to have no pet name
in service.
1t was poisonously blind country.
The woods blocked all sense of direc-
ton. Above and around the ground
was at any angle you please, and all
sounds were split up and muddled by
the tree trunks, which acted as 81
lencers. High above us the respecta-
BILE, all concealing forest had turned
into sparse, CHASTITY blue sticks of tim
ber-an assembly of leper trees around
a bald mountain top.
"That's where we're going,'' said
Alan. "1sn't it an adorable country?"
Shots Are Exchanged.
A machine gun loosed few shots in
the fumbling style of her kind when
they feel for an opening. A couple of
rifle shots answered. They might have
been half mile away or hundred
yards below.
An adorable country! We climbed
up till we found once again complete
tea garden; little sunk houses almost
Invisible in the brown pink recesses of
the thick forest. Here the trenches
began, and with them for the next few
hours life in two dimensions-length
and breadth.
You could have eaten your dinner
almost anywhere off the swept dry
ground, for steep slopes favored drain
Ing. There was no lack Of timber, and
there was unlimited labor. It had made
neat, double length dugouts, where the
wounded could be laid during their
passage down the mountainside; we'll
tended occasional latrines, properly
lined dugouts for sleeping and eating,
overhead projections and tool sheds
where needed and, as one came nearer
the working face, very clever cellars
to protect against trench sweepers.
Men passed on their business
squad with captured machine gun,
which they tested in a sheltered dip;
armorers at their benches busy with
sick rifles, fatigue parties for straw ra-
tons and ammunition, long professions
Of single blue figures turned sideways
between brown, sunless walls. One
understood after awhile the nightmare
that lays hold of trench stale men I'M
til the dreamer, watching seemingly
forever in those blind mazes, finds him
self after agonizing centuries out again
In the white blaze and horror Of the