The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1917-12-20

u heads that l feel like ducking, Just
as n does going under Z doorway
that Is actually high enough to walk
through upright, but which looks too
low.
suddenly they begin to spray us
with machine gun fire. Two of my
men are hit, and the decks are flyin.
Into splinters. All l have on board l.,
a couple Of 5000 rifles, and l begin
firing with one, while my first Off >eI
uses the other. The three poundcl
can't be elevated enough to use it as
an air gun.
can shoot rapidly, but nothing
like the fire Of that cursed spcw o
lead spraying from those machine
guns.
"Once they drive straight over us
and now they are coming back. If We
don stop them this time we are rone
l squint along the sights of my rifle
l take a deep breath. I let part of II
out anu hold the rest, SO that my shout
der will not be moving as l squeeze
the trigger.
II am sighting right for the pilots
chest. fire. He veers off like a
wounded bird. His plane wabbles. 1t
looks as If 1t was going to fall, but he
gets 1t strengthened out and flies away.
Both OF us begin to fire at the other
machine. 1t rises. The pilot does not
dare to fly straight into the rifle fire.
From aloft lie contents himself with
dropping more bombs, but he must be
within range of our rifles, for presently
he flies away and does not bother us
any more.
IF he had been a German air ma
the end of the story might have been
different"
Sea slugs Are Fighters.
The crews which officer and man
the submarine chasers are not trained
navy men. They don't know overmuch
OF the kings regulations, and the
discipline they maintain is most Ger
tainly not that to which one is accus.
toned Oh board ship.
But-and | want to emphasize this
, strongly-they are ]scrappers. They
fight in their W way. They may
not know how to do it according to
the book. bHt they are among the gam
est men all0at. Many of them are
wealthy and formerly owned and up-
Grated their own boats. They are a
hard fightil!G, hard riding crew, and
the devil himself cant scare them.
Before they are assigned to boats
the men are given about a ten day
course in navigation, for they must
sometimes cruise out Of sight of land
and at night. Many amusing and some
times almost tragic incidents arise
from their ineXpericnce.
l was out once in an NJ. L. command
ed by a suhaltern named G. All he
knew about navigation had been taught
him in ten days. lie got lost, WAS
ashamed to say 50 and admit that he
didn't know how to set his location.
He figured for two days trying to find
out where he was. He'd get his sun
observations, and by the time he had
the readings calculated he'd be so far
away that he had to do it all over
again.
He figured for two days, and all the
time he was getting shorter in provi-
sions and fuel. For the last half day
he followed a destroyer, thinking she
was running into port. He wouldn't
signal her and ask for Instructions or
for his location, SO he just trailed along
after her as though he knew where he
was going. He was too proud to ask
the road home.
The SUN was under clouds, but it
came out just before sunset, and he
discovered that he had been running
right away from England. We go,
back off Portsmouth at night. But u
signal box had been lost oversize, and
we couldn't reply to the signal at the
entrance to the harbor, which came
within inches of costing us our lives,
as u " batteries fired a couple Of
ATS at us, and We had to run out and
cruise around the rest Of the night to
save our skins. However, we hung
in sight OF the harbor so as not to
get lost again.
This same chap, though he was short
on the science of navigation, vas long
on fight. When cruising at night the
NJ. LIS, Of course, show no lights, and
it is very hard to maintain an absolute
~ even speed and keep just the prop
er distance from the other craft
Steam engines can be controlled right
down to the inch, but the gas engines
which drive the NJ. LIS are not SO read
lily regulated. A single rotch increase
or decrease on the throttle may make
a difference of a whole knot in speed.
Well, G. lost track Of the other chas-
ers in his squadron n night, and he
didn't dare signal to them. They were
out searching for submarines, and to
show lights would only give the whole
thing away. He couldn't take a chance
on sending up a rocket or footing his
whistle, for secrecy is everything. So
be just laid a course the way he
thought he ought to steer and kept it
up hell bent all night.
Just after daylight he discovered that
he was of the Belgian coast, having
crossed the channel. As the early