Tulsa daily world. [volume] (Tulsa, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1905-1919, 1917-09-23

up our camp a bit we took over the
posts served by the French section
which preceded U.S. was fortunate
enough to he the first car out, and
We were ordered out TO the second
| post. ! will call them A, Il and & for
convenience. as can't use real names
"A" is just behind the lines and is
reached only after nightfall except in
| cases OF dire emergency. for II Is
within eight hundred metres OF the
Boches Ca thousand yards: minus)
and in plain sight "B" Is about n
thousand metres back. in a woods.
and can be reached any time: &C. is
about five hundred metres further
back and can also be reached in com
parative safety.
AS l was saying, ! was ordered TO
! "B' at in the morning, with orders
| to go up to "A" at nightfall and get
| back before dawn. We arrived at
| b without mishap, after passing
| battery after battery of 75's (3-inch
! guns) and few big 27O's and 420's.
Funny Sounds.
We had just arrived when the
French opened up, and for an hour
| the shells went whistling over our
heads in style. The sound they made
can't quite be descrbed--it sounds al
most like car running fast in second,
quite distance away. After they lad
been going q while the Boche opened
| fire, and ii is positively fascinating to
listen to those devils come. They
sound like a street car slowing down
| on "a cold winter morning, funny
combination of scream and a
whistle. When the scream is long
| there Is no danger, but when they
come zim-n-n-g-g. BAN. down on your
stomach you go just as fast as the
law allows, for that means they're
darneI near, and the eclat (pieces)
| travel faster than the sound Only
some "brancardiers" (stretcher bear
ers) came down the road with
| ''blesse" (wounded mani and l got
back to snap picture of him. | got
my picture, and came up to see how
badly he was hurt. The medicine
| chef (doctor) came out and took
| look at him. and covered his face over
with his bloody coat-the man was
deadl
| Before noon three more came in
dead on the way back from the
| trenches, bloody, torn to pieces, COW
cred with mud and dirt. Old sport,
that is war! There isn't any glory to
that-there they were, four of them.
| one with half his face blown away and
an arm dangling-blood all over him.
dirt in his hair, his face the color of
| putty; another with a leg gone, and
| the stump hanging ragged and bloody.
over the side OF the ''braucard;" the
| third young boy, with pieces of
grenade in his face and chest--and
| the last a colonial negro; he might
have made a good Pullman porter
shot to pieces All mort pour In
l'rance"-on the field it's just plain
| hell. They took the poor devils away
in an hour and buried them, clothes
| and all, beside the little chapel down
| the road-the chapel with vases for
| flowers made of "75" shell cases, and
| a cross made of Boche bullets. l put
| off dinner as unnecessary and useless
| for a while, for ] could not forget that
boy with the pieces of grenade in his
| face. The "blesses' don't worry me
| | feel sorry for them; but those dead
men-their chance is gone-they have
done their bit and the price has been
high.
/ Too Close.
| So II goes, and we ioafed around all
| day in the States. We went clear on
proof once in d while when a Boche
| shell came too close. At 3:30 we
started for post At was just get
ting dark and as calm as a summers
| day / nthe states. We went clear on
| by "a for a road wasn't marked, and
| down thru a village which had been
1
tumbled down into the streets-a COM
mon picture in any paper at home.
| We were stopped finally by guard
| who informed us that the trenches
were only three hundred metres (320
yards) away, and perhaps We were a
bit too close. 1t didn't take US long
to agree. The shells were going over
head all the time now, but there was
little danger from that, for they were
after the Boche batteries.
We finally found "a and it was
nothing but hole in the ground, and
a deep "abri' thirty feet down, made
of concrete and several Shallower
''ahris" We went down into the deep
hole and asked a "sous-lieutenant'
who seemed to be boss, where We
were 10 sleep and he sweetly told US
in our car! And here he was buried
thirty feet deep, scared to come out,
and telling us to seepin car with
in machine gun range of the Boche.
and in plain sight every time a star
shell went UP. Humphreys, my part
ner, who shoots q good line of
| French, told him something to the
effect he was n boob and that he
could take n lorg run-we weren't
, going to sleep in the car out
there. Finally flunky found us n
place in a sweet little hcle, ten feet
under the ground, and good hundred
feet from he entrance, with about
| fifty Frenchmen. These Frenchmen
are opposed to baths so the smell
wasn't exactly agreeable. However,
we flopped down, clothes and all, and
dropped off to sleep. We had been
asleep about an hour when the flunky
called us and said there were two
badly wounded "blesses' to go in. So
we waded out over good Frenchmen
and all kinds Of impedimonts-and
here let me pause to say that am not
naturally coward, but when /
crawled out of that "abri.' ] was SO
scared that was weak.
| Terrible Noise.
Never in my life before had l heard
such noise. A boiler factory would
be peaceful compared with it. Guns
were going off without intermission,
and the whistling had become one
solid screech. l swear to you it was
a fearful and an awful racket. IT
was the French handing out one OF
those "barrage" fires you read about,
and it was some "barrage." OF course
the Boche were replying and here AMI
| there aMund the shells were landing
| and adding to the general confusion,