The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1915-03-04
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-hges
Of Experience Crowded Into
His One Short Tour Of
Trench Duty.

Berlin.-Until a certain day last
summer Paul Oskar Hooker, one OF
| Germany's leading best seller" writ
ers, divided his time between writing
novels and plays and admiring the
roses In his little garden close to Ber-
lin. Then, with the suddenness OF a
lightning stroke, he realized, as did
hundreds of thousands of others, what
"a nation in arms" means. Paul Oskar
Hooker, novelist, playwright and lover
Of flowers. became overnight Captain
Hooker at the head Of company in
the first reserve, giving orders to other
men, clothed all alike in the famous
German field gray, men who the day
before had been, one a painter, anoth'
er cook, another a sculptor, another
a gravedgger
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 young girl APP
face at one OF the last German stations
where the troop train stopped and
blu0hingly 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
accused of shipping" A few weeks
later he and the painter and the sculp-
tor and the grayedigger got their hap.
| tism OF fire near Lille Then II was
! that Hooker had the narrowest posi-
! BILE escape from death. Shortly after
that he narrowed into 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
/ writing TO come out of the war He
/ wrote its various chapters in the hell
/ Of Belgium and northern France. send
| Ing them back 10 be published az fast
/ as they were completed
] lockers company was one Of hum
dreds upon hundreds that marched
/ through Belgium In the wake OF that
German army that almost smashed It's
way into Paris last September He and
his men passed through Wise, near
liege, while It was stu burning. Soon
after amid clouds OF suffocating smoke
that blinded them and hid their roads
they trampcd over the streets In the
outskirts OF another burning town --
Louyain
One night the captain was quartered
in n flthy stable; on another he sat
comfortably with the young vicar OF a
Belgian village on whom he was quar-.
tered and talked not of war and It's
atrocities, but OF "Prcraphaelites
Turkish dialects and new kinds OF
roses," After that came more uncom
Portable night lodgings; then, just as
a spice Of variety, night in a magni
iicent villa a sleep I'm "A bed used in
former years by King Leopold OF Bel
GUM One woman, obliged to give the
captain lodging for the night in her
house pleasantly remarked 10 him:
Anything can do for you? Anything
can get for you? Would you Ike me
70 send you a barber"