The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1916-06-30
Trip Is Made Just to See An Old
Time Friend
HINT ABOUT AMY BASE
One Correspondent Who Accum'
uIated Quantities of Empty
Shells
from Wednesdays Daily.

From Wednesdays Daily.
London, June 18.-[By Mail]-The
British hold, at present, one-fourth of
the allies western front. That is to
say, their line is about ninety miles
long.
II shouldn't Think said CORES
pondent, lit would harly be possible
for any one man to keep track of
what'd doing along such tremen-
dous string of trenches"
you'd be surprised" said the
young oHlcer ne spoke to. Ito see
how sensitive a fighting line is.
For instance, the other day, a
chap said to me, Don't you know
Bill Smith,
Yes l said. He and l used
to be great pals but he went to Can
ada and l haven't seen him for
years.
Well said the chap, he's forty
five miles down this line now. Why
don't you get leave and go see him?'
Il did. | made that forty-fi five mile
trip, wading through trenches and
taking short cuts, travelling through
country I'd never seen before, meet
ing thousands and thousands and
thousands of men I'd never met, get
ting lost and asking directions, mix
ing up with conveys and ammunition
trains and having all sorts of eX
periences, until finally l came to a
jolly long tunnel leading down to a
laundering deep dugout in first line
trench.
II went down this hole and as
landed in the dugout, Bill Smith got
up and said, Pm mighty glad to see
you, old chap edf
"Just then telephone bell rang
in the dugout. One of the other fell
lows answered it and after min
ute, said, Yes, he's just got here
1T was the chap who told me
about Bill Smith, asking if I'd ar
rived safely"
A British army supply base is a
wonderful thing, of course, but to
appreciate it is merely matter of
multiplication.
Take any kind of an industrial or
commercial institution packing
house, bakery, wholesale grocery,
a shoeshop or a foundry, for instance
magnify it 100 times or so, and
you've got the particular detail of a
supply base.
A hospital ship is interesting like
wise, but after all, it's merely a
floating hospital and everybody know
what a hospital is like.
The hospital ship visited by the
three correspondents and the foreign
office official was chiefly remarkable
for wonderfully spickand- span di-
rector with a single barreled eye
glass so firmly fixed that it appeared
to be rooted in his eyesocket.
''He takes it out and puts it in
eyeball and ALL the captain men
toned.
One of the correspondents proved
to be a souvenir fiend. He accumu-
lated enormous quantities of empty
shells and cartridges, bayonets
pieces of broken glass from demol-
ished churches and other relics.
They were a fearful burden. The
correspondent lugged them faithfully
however, over fields and through
hedges, jumped trenches with them
and when they got too heavy for
him to manage alone, shifted the
| overflow onto other members of the
party.
At the French port of embarkation
for the trip back to England, the
Gallo authorities took every last
souvenir away from him under some
rule prohibiting the expectation OF
such junk.
On the homeward voyage across
the channel the foreign office official
didn't even bother to initiate his col
lapsible Waistcoat; so does constant
exposure to terrible danger blunt all
sense of peril