Mexico Missouri message., 1918-09-26
CHAPTER IV-continued.


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In the communication trench you
have to keep your distance from the
man ahead of you. This is done so
that you will have plenty of room to
fall down In, and because If shell
should find the trench, there would be
fewer casualties in an open formation
than in a closed. The German artil-
lery is keen on communication
trenches, and whenever they spot one
they stay with it a long time. Most
of them are camoufaged along the top
and sides, so that enemy aviators can
not see anything but the earth or
bushes, when they throw an eye down
on our lines,
We took over our section of the
front line trenches from a French line
regiment that had been on the job for
"a days. That was the longest time
i have heard of any troops remaining
on the firing line.
Conditions at the front and ways of
fighting are changing all the time, as
each side inventS new methods of
,butchering, so when try to describe
the Dixmude trenches, you must real
ize that 1t is probably just history by
now. II they are still using trenches
there they probably look entirely diff
ferent.
But when was at Dixmude they
were something like this:
Behind the series of front-line
trenches are the reserve trenches; in
this case five to seven miles away, and
still farther back are the billets. These
may be houses or barns or ruined
churches-any place that can possibly
be used for quarterng troops when
off duty.
Troops were usually in the front
line trenches six to eight days, and
fourteen to sixteen days In the reserve
trenches. Then back to the billets for
six or eight days.
We were not allowed to change our
clothing in the front-llne trenches
not even to remove socks, unless for
inspection. Nor would they let you
as much as unbutton your shirt, unless
there was an inspection of identified
ton disks. We wore a disk at the
wrist and another around the neck.
You know the gag about the disks, of
course: If your arm is blown off they
can tell who you are by the neck disk
II your head is blown off, they do not
care who you are.
In the reserve trenches you car
make yourself more comfortable, but
you cannot go to such extreme lengths
of luxury as changing your clothes en-
tirely. That Is for billets, where yoy
spend most of your time bathing
changing clothes, sleeping and eating
Believe me, billet is great stuff; Il
Is like q sort of temporary heaven.
OF course you know what the wort
"cooties" means. Let US hope yol
will never know what the cootiel
themselves mean. When you get ii
or near the trenches, you take cours,
in the natural history of bugs, lice
rats and every kind of pest that ha
ever been invented.
II is funny to see some of the new
comers when they first discover |
cootie on them. Some Of them cry
II they really knew what 1t was goln
W OC LhC NhCy NOulu uO WOTS0 lldl
that, maybe.
Then they start hunting all over eacl
other, just like monkeys. They team
up for this purpose, and many times
is in this way that couple Of men ge
to be trench partners and come to b
pals for life-which may not be lon
time at that.
In the front-line trenches 1t is NOR
comfortable to fall asleep on the para
pet fire-step than in the dugouts, be
cause the coolies are thicker dow
below, and they simply will not Civ
you a minutes rest. They certainl
are active little pests. We used t
make back scratchers out OF certai
weapons that had flexible handles, bu
never had time to use them when W
needed them most.
We were given bottles Of a liqui
which smeiled like lysol and were sur
posed 10 soak our clothes In It. II wa
thought that the coolies would objec
TO the smell and quit work. Vel
a coofie that could stand our CLONE
without the dope on them would no
be bothered by a little thing like thi
stuff. Also, our clothes got so sou
and horrible smelling that they hur