Trench and camp. [volume] (Augusta, Ga.) 1917-1919, 1917-11-28
WILLIAMSPORT BOY
AMID BURSTING SHELLS
Ralph Lamade Has Thrilling Time Driving Truck Loaded
With Exposives-sees Huge Tanks.

| go where we usually went in two hours
at the most
While we were seated in our machine
awaiting the return of the cars. a few
Boche shells came in. We heard the
first one whistle, and the second one,
and we decided that they were passing
landed somewhere to our left, we
jumped out of the car and started a
hunt for an "abri'' or dugout. At last
we went down to the corner and found
the road guard. He is the same as a
traffic cop" and took us to old house
near by. There we soon had nice fire
going by which we warmed ourselves
and tried to dry out, as was pretty wet
from lying on the mud guard so long.
The guard told us that the Boches were
trying to shell the bridge at the end of
! town, but that the shells were going eV-
erywhere but toward the bridge. We
counted twenty-four shells come in in
about twenty minutes.
Big Tanks Passed.
Pretty soon we heard some Pierce
Arrow trucks so we beat it back to our
car, but they were not from our section.
We can easily tell the sound of a Pierce
Arrow from the Fiat and French cars.
Things died down and at about 1890
two large tanks passed by us. They are
very huge affairs and look just like the
photos we used to see in the papers at
/ home.
We got out to stretch our legs and
saw a light. When we reached it we
found that it was cook stove and the
/ take us long to get some of it, and then
the cars started to come down from the
park, SO we had to get back to our car.
We waited and waited until about 3
o'clock, when our sergeant came along
and said that we would have to stay
where were until morning, when he would
send another car up for us, and at that
he left
Can you imagine how we felt? There
we We're, with car full of big shells,
in place where a boche shell might
come in at any time, a broken radiator,
adm orders to stay there until some one
came for US. We soon decided that be-
ing with the fire back in the road guard S
house was better than being in the car.
We were pretty sleepy and it didn't
take long to lie down on the dirt floor
before the fire and go to sleep. At about
AIS O'Clock some French soldiers who
lived in another part of the house came
in, Weakened us and asked us if we want
ed some breakfast We went into an
other room and had a French soldier
breakfast, consisting OF coffee and bread.
| 1t went very well, fof YOU know how
hungry one gets after beng out fishing
for many hours, and that is the way we
Ifelt.
Guard Duty Tns:r Luxury.
After breakfast we started out to see
how our truck was, then the boches
started to send in some more shells.
When they stopped, we had counted q
more shells. OF course, we were inside
when these came in, but afterwards we
went out and looked around. We went
down to an ambulance station about s
o clock and had some toast and jam
with several fellows who, it just hap
pened, had come over the same boat
that we did After that we went back
to the fire to wait until aid came. Help
came about 10 o'clock, but up to that
time we had jumped up from the. fire
about every three minutes to see if the
machine we heard was Tor us. We finally
got back to camp about 1870 o'clock and
we were pretty tired, believe me.
Things would have been all right even
them but we were kept busy all after
noon, and then put on guard that night:
"Cy'' had the / to o'clock watch and 1
had the to o'clock watch. The thing
we did get that we enjoyed was per-
mission to go to town. We went early
and got in the public bath house and
had a real hot bath. 1t was the first
bath ain hot water that had had since
Left home, and it certainly did feel
wonderful. Then we went down town
and had supper. After SUPPER we paid
seven francs SO centimes, for three CT
gars, which means about Sc cents apiece,
and they were only ten-cent cigars in
the States. But as we always say, &c est
la guerre. va cts on account of the
lwar')