The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1915-03-13
SOLDIERS TELL
VIVID STORIES
Give Personal Touches Impossi-
Bile to War Correspondent in
These Days.
JoKERs EVEN IN TRENCHES
irish Spirit Proves Ir%repressible In
Face Of Grave Danger-Sea Fight
as Seen From the En-
CINE Room.

London.-The war mailbag is Just
now a prolific our of interest.
Vivid letters from soldiers at the
front or in hospital bases and scrappy
notes from the tars with the silent
feet" mirror the actualities of war
with a wealth of intimate detail and
picturesque personal touches impossi-
BILE to the harshly censored val cor
respondent.
The following is written from the
front by Corp. T. Trainor:
I'VE have had German cavalry
thrown at US six times in the last four
hours, and each time it has been a
different body, 80 that they must
have plenty to spare. There is no
eight hours for work, eight hours for
sleep and eight hours for play with
US, whatever the Germans may do.
"The strain is beginning to tell on
them more than OF us, and you can
see by the weary faces and trembling
hands that they are beginning to
break down.
"One prisoner taken by the French
near Courtrai sobbed for an hour as
though his heart were broken, his
nerves were so much shaken by what
he had been through. The French
are fighting hard all round us with
a grit and go that will carry them
through.
Have you eyer seen a little man
| nUht{nU a opoof hiu httIlfp1 Giant
who keeps on forcing the little chap
about the place until the giant tires
himself out, and then the. little one,
who has kept his wind, knocks him
over? That's how the fighting here
strikes me.
I'VE are dancing about round the big
German army, but our turn will
come. Our commanders know their
business, and we shall come out on
top all right"
Sergeant Major McDermott does not
write under ideal literary conditions,
but his style is none the worse for
the inspiration furnished by the
shrieking shell:
Il am writing to you with the en-.
emy's shells bursting and screaming
overhead; but God knows when II
will be posted, II at all.
I'VE are waiting for something to
turn up to be shot at, but up to now
though their artillery has been max
ing a fiendish row all along our front
we haven't seen as much as a mos
quito's eyelash to shoot at. That!
why am able to write, and some o
the others keep dick
There is a fine German airshiI
hanging around like a great blue
bottle up in the sky, and now and
then our gunners are trying to bring
It down, but they haven't done it yet
TITS the quantity, not the quality Of
the German shells that is having eff
feet on US, and it's not so much the
actual damage to life as the nerve
racking row that counts for so much
"Townsmen who are used to the
noise and roar of streets can stanC
it better than the countrymen, and
think you will find that by far the
fttest men are those of regiments
mainly recruited in the big cities.
"a London lad near me says it's nc
worse than the roar Of the motol
buses and other traffic in the city OF
a busy day"
Gaelic Spirit IrrepressibIe.
The Gaelic spirit has not deserted
Sergt. T. Cahill under fire. He writes;
THE Red Cross girleens with theil
purity faces and their sweet ways art
as good men as most of us, and bet
ter than some of US. They are no
supposed to venture into the firms
line at all, but they get there all the
same. and devil a one of US burst turf
them away.
Mike Clancy is that drolT with hi.
larking and b~amboozling the Germans
that he makes US nearly split oul
sides laughing at him and his ways
Yesterday he got a stick n pu.
a cap on it, so that it peepe9 VI
above the trench just like a man, anC
then the Germans kept shooting away
at it until they must have used VI
tons of ammunition"
But Mike Clancy was not the only
practical joker in the trenches, as tn,
following from a wounded soldie
shows:
Our men have Just had their pa
pers from home, and have noted
among other things, that Business a
Usual is the motto of patriotic shop
keepers.
In last weeks hard fighting tn
Wiltshires, holding an exposed pos
lion, al out of ammunition, and ha
to suspend firing until a party brough
fresh supplies across the open vi
der a heavy fire.
Then the wag of the regiment.
Cockney. produced a biscuit tin will
Business as Usual crudely printed OF
1t, and set 1t up before the trenche
as a hint to the Germans that tn,
fight could now be resumed on NOR
equal terms.
Finally the tin had to be taken Il
because it was proving such a goo,