The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-01-24

minute later joined my friends on their
 way to the trenches. A house is a very unsafe place to be during a lombard ment
 The remainder of the night we spent underground. In the morning orders came to fire in such and such direction; every five minute shot. every 20 minutes a salvo. Otherwise the day passed quite uneventfully. At night, after dinner, we all sang, sometimes in chorus sometimes in solo, French, Russian, English, Amer ican and even Flemish songs One of the party performed parlor tricks. and the only thing lacking was good piano, or at pinch we would even have been satisfied with a gramophone. Lights out" at 1O:30.
 l think it must have been somewhere between and o'clock next morning when the officer of the guard rushed into our little house, shouting in French:
 ''The Germans are coming.''
 You should have seen the magic of those words The general scramble for boots! do not think that any of us got hls own. I discovered later that I had the doctors left on my right foot. Our sen tnel in front of the battery had chal- lenged patrol of six Belgian gendarmes, or at least, they appeared to be Bel gians. They had not replied, but con- tinued their way. Our sentinel fired and ran back to the battery. The officer heard several remarks in German, so the battery were quickly aroused.
 You could not have measured with a stopwatch the infinitesimally short time 1t took us to get fiat on our stomachs in the mud, at the same time trying to find as much cover as possible. We heard sev- eral French commands, some shouts In Flemish. and saw several black shadows running about. We heard a few excla- nations of 'Ach Gott," and shril voice in French, but with the rnmistakable Ger man accent crying, Pas tuer, pas tuer"
 Struggle a Short One
 The struggle evidently was short one, because soon We heard several French commands again, well indicating that our men were master of the situation. Then all was quiet except a groan or two. So we advanced, but we made ourselves heard and known so as not to be mistaken for more of the enemy.
 When he reached the spot where the German patrol had been ambushed, we found Belgian officer with eight of his men and 10 Germans in the uniform of Belgian gendarmes, under command of a lieutenant. Their uniforms partly ex- plained how they had been able to pen citrate our lines so far The Belgian gen darmes, who have done some very excel lent work-only the best men from each regiment are chosen for this corps-often go outside our lines for day or more As a rule their uniform has assured them a free passage anywhere within and with- out our lines.
 Two of the Germans had been killed outright. and two were wounded. The others had thrown their hands up and almost in chorus they had shouted, Pas tuer! pas tuer." This seems to be one of their favorite and first passwords after they are caught. The Belgian officer had permitted them to advance within about 50 feet of his men before giving the com- mand "Fire" Their horses were subse- quently found about two miles further on. The German officer had in his possession the identical maps which are used by the Belgian general staff, with marks on them indicating our position, as well as those of the French battery behind us, and several other strategical points
 I have been told. and also have noticed myself. that there Is another favorite password the Germans use after they have been taken prisoner. It Is the word Children" At the same time, while ut. tering, or, l should say, whispering the word, they, put up a varying number of fingers. For one fellow I felt sorry. He as badly wounded. One bullet had gone