Mountain Home Republican. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1915-1946, 1918-08-17
small dltcIIes... They in intercept me-
at s$ 1. hea Ha Dill U Il p ss mes

small bitches. They Intercepted me-
lat Iefsrs hhlf fpps pr SAL sonetimes
more frequently. rhe canals And the
big rivers T couid swim. OF course, 1
. got .soaked L. the skin every time
did II, but was becoming hardened
to that.
These little bitches, however. were
too narrow to swim and too wide To
jump. They had perhaps two feet Of
water In them and three feet OF mudl
and 1t was almost invariably II case Of
wading. through. Some of them, no
doubt, could have jumped If had
been In decent shape, but with bad
ankle and In the weakened Condition
in which was. 1t was almost out of
the question.
One night came to ditch about
eight or nine feet wide. / thought I
was strong enough to jump 1t and IL
was worth trying as the discomfort I
suffered after wading these bitches
was considerable. Taking long run,
/ Jumped as hard as / could, but I
landed in about two feet OF water and
three of mud. Getting out Of that
mess was quite job. The water was
too dirty and too scanty to enable me
to wash or the mud with which was
covered and 1t was too wet 10 scrape
of. Just had to walt until 1t dried
and scrape 1t off then.
In many sections Of Belgium through
which had TO pass encountered
large areas of swamp and marshy
ground and rather than waste the
time involved In looking for better
underfootlng / might not have
found anyway used to pole right
through the mud. Apart from the
discomfort Of this method OF travel
ing and the slow time / made. there
was an added danger to me In the fact
that the squash. squash noise which
| made might easily be overheard by
Belgians and Germans and give my
position away. Nobody would cross
a swamp or marsh In that part of the
country unless he was trying to get
away from somebody, and 1 realized
my danger but could not get around 1t.
It was a common sight In Belgium
| to see small donkey and q common
| ordinary milch COW hitched together.
pulling q wagon. When | first OBJ
served the unusual combination, I
thought 1t was donkey and OK or
bull, but closer inspection revealed to
me that cows were being used for the
purpose.
From that | was able te observe
there must be very few horses left In
Belgium except those owned by the
Germans. Cows and donkeys are now
horses and mules. Altogether | spent
nearly eight weeks wandering through
Belgium, and In all that time / don't
believe saw more than half dozen
horses In the possession Of the native
population.
One OF the scarcest things In Ger
many, apparently, is rubber, for /
noticed that their motor trucks, or lor-
ries, unlike our own, had no rubber
tires. Instead heavy iron bands were
employed. / could hear them come
rumbling along the stone roads for
miles before they reached the spot
where happened to be In hiding.
When saw these military roads In
Belgium for the FIRST time. with their
heavy cobblestones that looked Az if
they would last for centuries, / real
lied at once why 1t was that the Ger
mans had been able to make such a
rapid advance into Belgium at the
start Of the war. 4
/ noticed that the Belgians used
dogs to a considerable extent to pull
| their carts, and thought many times