Metropolis weekly gazette. (Metropolis, Ill.) 1???-19??, 1917-08-10

81 dare say you'll wonder how 1t
feels TO be under shell fire. This Is
how ii feels: You don't realize your
danger until you come to think about
1t afterward At the time its like play
ing cocoanut SHES at a negro's head.
only you're the head You take too
much interest In the sport of lodging
to be afraid"
Describes a Battlefield.
One Of the best passages in the en-
tire collection of letters is this descrip-
ton of a battlefield as 1t is In northern
France today:
well, I've seen my first modern bat
tlefeld and am quite dlsillusioned
about the splendor of war. The splen-
dor Is all in the souls of the men who
creep through the squalor like vermin
its In nothing external. s's
"a modern battlefield is the abomi-
nation of denominations. Imagine a
vast stretch of dead country. pitted
with shell holes as though 1t had been
mutilated with smallpox. There's not
a leaf or blade of. grass In sight. Ey-
cry house has either been leyeled or Is
in ruins. No bird sings. Nothing stirs.
The only live sound is at night-the
scurry Of rats.
"You enter kind OF ditch, called a
trench. 1t leads ON to another and
another In an unjoyful maze. From
the sides feet stick out. aud arms and
faces-the dead of previous encounters.
One of our chaps you say casually,
recognizing him by his boots or khaki,
or Poor blighter-a Hum One can
afford to forget enmity IN the pres
ence of the dead.
1T is horribly difficult sometimes to
distinguish between the living and the
slaughtered both lie so silently
In their little kennels in the earthen
bank You push on. especially IL you
are doing observation work, till you
are past your own front line and out
In No Mans Land. You have to crouch
and move warily now.
"Zing! A bullet from a German sni-
per. You laugh and whisper, a near
one, that
my first trip to the trenches was
up to No Mans Land. / went in the
early dawn and came to Nine. Tus-
saud's show OF the dead, frozen into
immobility in the most extraordinary
attitudes. Some of them were part
way out of the ground. one hand
mr. m ha Ia I'll st.t
ing. the head sunken and the hair
plastered over the forehead by repeat
ed rains. | kept ON wondering what
my companions would look like had
they been three weeks dead My i'm
agination became ingeniously and WV
idly morbid. When | had to step over
them to pass 1t seemed as though they
must clutch at my trench coat and ask
me to help
Poor, lonely people. so brave and so
anonymous in their DEATH Somewhere
there is a woman who loved each one
of them and would give her life for
my opportunity TO touch the poor clay
that had been kind TO her. It's like
walking through the day OF resurrec-
ton to visit No Mans Land
Then the Huns see you. and the
shrapnel begins to fall. You crouch
like dog and run for It,"
Soon after that terrifying adven-
ture befell the novelist. of which he
makes light In a letter to his mother:
To-day had the funniest experience
of my life-got caught In a Hun cur
tain of fire and had to lie on my tum-
my for two hours in a trench with the
shells bursting five yards from me
and never scratch. You know how |
used TO wonder what I'd do under such
circumstances. Well. laughed All
/ could think of was the sleek people
walking down Fifth avenue and the
equally sleek crowds taking tea at the
Waldorf. 1t struck me as ludicrous
that /. who had been one Of them.
should be living there lunchless."