New-York tribune., 1918-05-17
The Game
To the Editor of T,

10 lhe Editor of The Tribune.
or' l append an account fconta;nes
ie'eer from my sony of weird foo,sa,,
game somewhere in France" Trn,v
grows used to anything even r. n,
hesVy STUFF exploding near by.
read the other day of noi,, :.
on ieave from the trenches, who c.u,a -.
go 10 sleep the first night because it ws.
so quiet the should try New York, u.
lay awake until 1880, when a gacba -
raid started; the noise of the bon,s -.
him to sleep at once, and he did not 49,
until $3.50 a. m. awake
Now for the game:
This game was interesting On acco,r.
OF the nature Of the Interruptions wa
were playing team from an Archie k..
terry close to the guns. and the first ston
was on account of the sudden apnearan..
OF Hun observing plane, at which s;,hs
our opponents left the field with . ru.h
to man the 75's, a few yards away. RI,
he turned tail and allied before tbev -,
decent pot at him. SO the game rn.
resumed. 1t went on until halftime su
right, and it was when we were sittn,
around one Of the guns that there cama
too familiar Whee-ee-ee-ee-e-e BANc,ti
and a column of earth, smoke and no;ss
(sic) shot up about 100 yards awav,
Everybody went fat, and then looked un
with sort of surprised, indignant, nervou.
look. There was nowhere to go in the natnya
of dugout, so we separated into it'll.
groups and prepared to duck. It seemed
at first as though they were shooting a.
US (you see, the Hun plane might have
reported unusual activities at such and
such place., but as there was munition
dump down our road about 200 yards, and
all the shells fell between US and the
dump, around it, it was finally decided
that the Boche was taking pots at the
dump. Also, could hear the gun 90 of
and the she'll come all the way to US; 50
! that suggested the idea that it was spe-
| cial gun, run up on tracks close to tho
lines, to spend an hour or two .strafng
the dump, which programme could not have
been arranged for an innocent soccer
match spotted only ten minutes before.
"That put US, more or less, at ease again,
so the game went on, with everybody cock.
ing suspicious eye and ear when the gun
sounded-about every two minutes.
"They sent in fifteen, all heavy stuff, and
what caused US to abandon the business
was a couple of wild ones,' one of which
came much too close, eighty yards or so;
the other nearly got our car on the road.
$50 we agreed to call the game off, and
We made a quick getaway in the bus. We
had to pass near the dump, and as we did
so one landed behind US, which was the
last we had to do with.
"FunHily enough, it was the only game
we had won for months!
"The division next to ours is being re-
lieved by slow stages, and this evening, as
lot of troops were passing our billet on
their way up, two of Fritz's planes came
to see what was going on.
"They were both up pretty high, about
10000 feet, it seemed, and the Arches
got after them 'toute- -de-suite,' but they
kept circling around and the shrapnel kept
bursting and banging around them, until,
just as they turned and headed for Ger
many. shell burst right in front of one,
with an awful crack, and he wabbled and
started to drop
sThe pilot seemed to make a game at
tempt to struggle home, but piece must
have caught him square, for soon he went
down just like a piece of paper dropped
from housetop.
"It was quite sight, it is not often
that the Arches bring any one down;
their usefulness generally being in keeping
inquisitive planes on the other side of the
line"
MAXWELL GRIERS0N.
New York, May a. 1918.