New Britain herald., 1918-08-07
HIS FIRST NIGHT
 IN THE TRENCHES
Weird and Spooky Place k
 No Mans Land

London, June 80, Correspondents of the Associated Press) What will the first night in the trenches be. is a question that thousands of American soldiers have faced perhaps with some misgivtngs certainly with live, " anticipation. The experience Oi many Of them must be like that of British ploughboy-soldier described by Lord Dunsany, Captain of the In- installing Fusilicrs
 A mans first night in the front line is an epoch-maI1ing experience" he writes. Tt is like mans first vote, or his twenty-ftrs birthday,-it Is milestone in his life marking the change from the mimic warfare be- hind the lines to the grim realities of actual conflict.
 Perhaps I can best explain how thiE experience affects a soldier by telling you the story of recruits first night in the trenches. Dick Cheeser. one of my men, was a ploughboy just past Is when he enlisted, and not vet Ia when he went on his first sentry "go" in the front line
 Tt was a quiet night, and dawn was only an hour or so distant when Cheeser took his post. The Corporal told him where to stand, warned him to keep a good lookout, and left him,
 There was Dick Cheeser, alone in the dark, with an army in front of him, eighty yards away, a resource%F ful, crafty and desperate enemy. The stiffness of the night only added to Cheeser's feeling of responsibility, The stiffness awed him. There had not been a shell all night. He put his ha rr;r- 5 waited. Nobody fired at him. He felt somehow that the night was waiting for him. that something un- canny and unexpected would happen soon. He heard voices in a commun- ication trench somewhere behind him; there were a. few sentences of gruff, unintelligible conversation; the voices died away. There was a. long silence. Cheeser fell to wondering whether the night was black or gray; he stared hard at the night to study it's exact color; the night stared back at him, and seemed to be threatening him; it was gray gray and artful, like a cat or a fox.
 Tt was uncanny, thought Cheeser. If shells would come, or Germans, or anything at all, you would know how to take it. but this deathly quiet, like a mist over huge valleys! Anything might happen. C"heeser waited and waited, and the night waited too. He felt that they were watching each other the night and he, both crouch ing, both ready to spring.
 His mind grew so active that his head throbbed with the physical ex- ertion of thinking. He was watching with eyes and ears and imaginations +o h1v r two the dread Something that he felt was sure to happen soon in the omin- ous mist of No Mans Land Ha thought of throwing a stone out into the blackness, just to see what would happen. Then he began to wish for his boyhood's slingshot, so that ha could catapult d nice round stone right across the blackness into tha German line.
 "A little wind blew in the night, too cold for the time of year. It made for moment a lane in the mist over No Mans Land. Cheeser peered into it. but the mist closed round again. No Night seemed to say.e You cant guess my secret. And the awesome hush intensified. What are they LID to now? thought the sentry.. What are those crafty enemies plan- ming in all those miles of silence?
 Even the VERY lights were few and far between. When one went up. far hills of shadow seemed to sit and brood over the valley; black shapes grew up and vanished in the shadow. The rocket faded and the hills went back into mystery again. and .Cheeser still peered level over the ominous valley.
 "An the dangers and sinister shapes and evil destinies that the sentry faced that night cannot be pictured or described in mere words. It was only two hours that he stood there, and not a shell fell in all that time, not a German stirred.
 Tt is a weird and awful expert ence, that first night in the trenches. The next time it Is easy matter ANALYSIS OF WATER