The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-01-23
ENGLISH TOMMIES BATHF,
 IN SERVIAN ICE WATER

there was no firewood. The hills were bare of trees, and such cold as they endured could not be fought with green tWlSs. It was not the brisk, invigorat- Ing cold that invites you out of doors
 It had no cheery, healthful appeal to skates, toboggans and the dangling of bells of cutter. It was the damp clammy penetrating cold of dungeon of an un- ventilated ice chest of a morgue Your clothes did not warm you, the heat of your body had to warm your clothes And warm, also, all of the surrounding hills
 KILLING DUCKS WITH SLINGS
 Between the road and the margin of the lake were bamboo reeds as tall as lances and at the edge of these were gathered myriads of ducks The fsher- men were engaged in bombarding the ducks with rocks. They went about it in a inethodical fashion. All around the lake, concealed in the reeds and lifted a few feet above the water, they had raised nuts on piles. These huts had a ledge or balcony in front and looked like over- grown bird houses on stilts
 One fisherman waited in boat to nick up the dead ducks. and the other hurled stones from a sling. It was the same Kind Of sling as the one with which David slew Goliath. In Athens. I saw, ] small boys using it to throw stones at an electric light pole. The one the fish erman used was about eight feet long. TO get the momentum he whirled it sWiluy about his head, as a cowboy swings his lariat and then let one end fly loose, and the stone, escaping. sma shed into the mass of ducks If it stunned or Killed duck, the human water spaniel Tn the boat would row out and retrieve IL. To duck hunters at home the sport would chiefly recommend itself through the cheapness of the ammunition,
 
 ter wagons that had been up the hills With food for the gunners at the front ana engineers were at work repair- ing the stone bridges or digging de- tours to avoid those that had disan peared. They were built to support no greater burden than a flock of sheen. an oXcart, or what a donkey can carry on his back and the assault of the British motor trucks and French six inch guns had driven them deep into the mud.
 AN ADVANCED BASE
 After 10 miles we came to what a staff officer would call an "advanced base" but which was locally desig- mated the Dump At the side of the roao' much Of 1t uncovered to the snow, were stores of ammunition. bully beef" and barb wire. The camp pore all the signs of a temporary halt ing place. It was just what the Tom mics called it, dump
 We had not been told then that the allies were withdrawing, but one did not have to be military expert to see that there was excellent reason why they should. They were so few. whatever the force was against them. me force I saw was not strong enough to hold the ground, not that it coy- cred, but over which it was sprinkled There were outposts without supports support without reserves. squad was expected 10 perform the duties of a company. Where a brigade was need ed, there was less than battalion Against the white masses of the moun- tains and the desolate landscape with out trees, houses, huts, without any sign of human habitation, the scattered groups of khaki only accented the bleak loneliness.
 At the dump we had exchanged for the impromptu motor truck automobiles of the French staff and as "Jimmie' Hare and I were alone in one of them. We could stop where we liked. So we halted where an English battery was going into action. It had dug itself into the side of a hill and covered it. self with snow and pine branches Somewhere on one of the neighboring hills the "spotter' was telephoning the range. The gunners could not see at what they were firing. They could see only the HlSh nllI or rOck and snow at the base of which they stood sould- CT high in their mud cellars. Ten yards to the rear of them was what looked like a newly made grave rev. erently covered with pine boughs. Through these rat faced young man. with the receivers of telephone clamped to his ears, pushed his head.
 Flight degrees to the left, sir" he parked. -four thousand yards"
 MEN EXTREMELY YOUNG
 The men behind the guns were ex- trenlely young. but like most artillery men, alert, sinewy, springing to their appointed tasks with swift, cat-like certainty. The sight of the two strang- CTS seemed to surprise them as much as the man in the grave had startled us.
 There were two boy officers in com mand, one certainly not yet IS, his superior officer still under 20
 'T suppose you're all right" said the ounger one. You couldn't have go, this far if you weren't all right"
 He tried to scowl upon us, but he was not successful. He was too lone ly, too honestly glad to see anyone from beyond the mountains that h h in