The Jasper news. [volume] (Jasper, Missouri) 1898-1924, 1918-08-15
CHATTER v.
with the "7B,a.r

My pal Brown, Of whom spoke be-
fore, had been put In the infantry
when he enlisted in the Legion, be-
cause he had served in the United
States infantry. He soon became
sergeant, which had been his rating
In the American service. never saw
him In the trenches, because our out
fits were nowhere near each other, but
whenever we were In billets Mt the
same time, we were together as much
as possible.
Brown was funny card and never
saw anyone else much like him. A
big, tall, red-headed, dopey-looking fell
low, never saying much and slow In
everything he did or said-you would
never think he amounted to much or
was worth his salt. The boys used to
call him "Ginger" Brown, both on &C
count of his red hair and his slow
movements. But he would pull sur
prise on you every once In while.
like this one that he fooled me with.
One morning about dawn we started
out for walk through what used to
be Dixmude-piles of stone and brick
and mortar. There were no civvies to
be seen; only mules and horses bring
ing up casks of water, bags of beans,
chloride of lime, barbed wire, ammu-
milton. ETC. 1t was good thing we
were not superstitious. At that, the
shadows along the walls made me feel
shaky sometimes.
Finally Brown said: "Come on
down; let's see the '75's.'" At this
time had not seen "75," except on
train going to the front, so took
him up right away, but was surprised
that he should know where they were.
After going half way around Dix.
nude Brown said, Here we are" and
started right into what was left of
big house. kept wondering how he
would know so much about 1t, but fol-
lowed him. Inside the house was
passageway under the ruins. It was
about seven feet wide and fifty feet
long, I should judge.
At. the other end was the great old
49," poking its nose out Of hole In
the wall. The gun captain and the
crew were sitting around waiting the
word for action, and they seemed to
know Brown well. was surprised at
that, but still more so when he told
me could examine the gun II I
wanted to, just as If he owned 1t.
So l sat In the seat and trained the
cross wires on an object, opened and
closed the breech and examined the
recoil.
Then Brown said: swell, Chink,
you'll see some. real gunnery now" and
they passed the word and took sta
tons. My eyes bulged out when l
saw Brown take his station with them !!
"Silence" is about the first COM
mand gun crew gets when 1t Is going
into action, but forgot all about IT.,
and shouted out and asked Brown how
he got to be a gunner. But he only
grlnned and looked dopey, as usual.
Then came to and expected to get a
call down from the officer. but he only
grinned and so did the crew. It
seems they had 1t all framed to spring
on me, and they expected would be
surprised.
So we put cotton In our ears and
the captain called the observation
tower a short distance away and they
gave i'm the range. Then the captain
"calleL A128 meters" to Brown. They
placed the nose Of a shell in a fuse
adjuster and turned the handle until
1t reached scaie 4129. This set the
fuse to explode at the range given.
Then they slammed the shell into the
breech, locked 1t shut and Brown sent
his best to Fritz.
The barrel slipped back, threw out
the shell case at our feet ard returned
over cushion of grease. Then we
received the results by telephone from
the observation tower. After he had
fred twelve shots the captain said to
Brown, "You should never waste your
self In infantry, son." And old dopey
Brown just stood there and grlnned
That was Brown every time. He
knew about more things than you could
think of. He had read about gunnery
and fooled around at Dixmude until
they let him play with the "75's." ant
finally here he was, giving his kindes
to old Fritz with the rest of them.
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