Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1915-10-07
A Clown Who SiIenced A Rapid-Fire
finn

.. Williams was in trench somewhere in
The long French line, helping to keep the
Germans back from some mounds OF
broken brick that thad once been village.
Before he became soldier he had been
a famous clown and gyninast in French
circus. AGerman quickfirer, says T. P.'s
Journal of Great Deeds ofthe Great War,
had worked round to the French flank,
and was filling the trench with wounded
men by its enfilading fire. The little
whirring machine of death was hidden
very cunningly.
II was grave situation. The fire OF
the gun was accurate and ceaseless. The
French were unable to locate the mitrail-
leuse. In despair, the officer in charge
said aloud, "If we only had somebody
up there we might be able 10 deal with
Them" He pointed TO the top OF
shattered chimney stack that hung grog-
gily over the debris of the village. Its
summit was thirty feet from the ground,
but TO get to the top meant the probability
of a violent and painful death. The Ger
mans would shoot at the climber. and the
smokestack looked as if it would come
down at the slightest extra weight and
vibration.
Although there was double chance OF
death in the smokestack, Williams took
the risk. His officer shrugged his Shoul-
ders without refusing, when the clown
asked if he might try. Williams stripped
off his heavy coat, slung his rifle across
his shoulder, and went up the chimney
like cat. He clutched at the meanest
projections, jumping upward even as
those frail footholds and handholds
crumbled underhis weight. Tiny, ominous
cascades and rubble aud mortar fell down
as his nimble feet passed Scrambling up
the shaft. The men in the trenches
gasped every moment they expected to
hear the heavy fall of the brave mans
body on the earth. But he did not fall.
He came to the summit, and all the
country lay under his eyes, flat, and
marked out in lines like map. He hung
there looking about steadily, carefully !;
and the Germans, seeing him, loosed a
whistling wind of bullets at him. But he
paid not the slightest attention. Hefound
the machine gun, and shouted down the
precise position and the approximate dis
tance OF the piece.
Coolly he unslung his Lebel, pressed
the clip OF cartridges into the magazine
began sighting steadily, firing nonchalant-
ly. Each time his rifle ierked and spat,
the frail ruin that made his pedestal
quivered. Williams. as steady as rock,
went on firing. The voice of the mitrail-
leuse became jerky and unsteady.
Williams was as calm as possible, and
continued TO fire until the officer ordered
him to descend. BY his descent he start
led his comrades more even than by his
ascent.
Ii was an old circus trick, but there
were no nets ready for slip and no at
tendants standing by 10 catch him. A
slip meant death, and an ugly death
but Williams risked it with a laughing
imperturbability. He dropped his rifle
to the ground, then, while his fellows
gasped, dived straight at low, tiled roof
twenty feet below. The fall did not kill
him. He came off the roof like creature
OF India rubber, turned in the air, and
dropped swiftly and neatly TO his feet.
"My new hirn-the leap of death % he
cried, striking the grotesque attitude OF
the sawdust ring. Then he slipped into
his coat, and went back TO his place in the
trench.