Tensas gazette. [volume] (St. Joseph, La.) 1886-current, 1915-03-26
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 o
Germany's leading best seller" writ
ers, divided his time besween writing
novels and plays and admiring thu
roses in his little garden close to Der
lin. Then, with the suddenness of {
lightning stroke, he realized, as die
hundreds of thousands of others, wha
a nation In arms" means. Paul Oskal
Hooker, novelist, playwright and lover
OF flowers, became overnight Captain
Hooker at the head of a company il
the first reserve. giving orders to Other
men, clothed all alike in the famous
German fed gray, men who the day
before had been, one a painter, anoth
er a cook, another a sculptor, another
a gravedigger.
With hundreds Of others they piled
into a 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 a young girl ap
preached him as he was washing his
face at one of the last German stations
where the troop train stopped and
blushingly asked:
"They-they tell me you are Hook.
er. the famous novelist? Is it 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 shoot down a 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 posi-
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
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
rs they were completed.
Hocker's company was one of hun
1reds upon hundreds that marched
through Belgium in the wake of that
German army that almost smashed its
way into Paris last September. He and
MS men passed through Wise, near
-iege, while 1t was still burning. Soon
liter amid clouds of suffocating smoke
hat blinded them and hid their roads,
hey tramped over the streets in the
Of another burning town -
.ouvain.
One night the captain was quartered
n a filthy stable; on another he sat
comfortably with the young vicar of a
'elgian village on whom he was quar-.
cred and talked not of war and its
ltrocities. but of "Preraphaelites,
turkish dialects and new kinds of
oses." After that came more uncom.
ortable night lodgings; then, just az
spice of variety. a night in a magri.
lcent villa. sleep in a bed used in
ormer years by King Leopold of Bel
ium. One woman. obliged to give the
aptain lodging for the night in her
ouse pleasantly remarked to him:
Anything can do for you? Anything
can get for you? Would you like me
send you barber?'