The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1918-05-18
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lARInR GUY

49, ENAN "a Ut u ~ nv 6ONS "
the orderly room" before the captain,
who either Furnishes him with &C. B."
or sends him before the o. G. (officer
commanding battalion). The captain
of the company can only award &C. b."
Tommy many a time has thanked
the king for making that provision in
his regulations.
Tommy has to keep clear of the crime
sheet, and you have to be darned smart
to do 1t.
/ have been on 1t a few times, most
~ for Yankee impudence."
During u stay of two weeks in
rest billets our captain put us through
a course of machine-gun drills, trying
out new stunts and theories.
After parades were over, our guns
crews got together and also tried out
some theories of their own In reference
% handling guns. These courses ha6
Nothing to do with the advancement of
he war. consisted mostly of causing
tricky jams in the gun. and then the
est of the crew would endeavor to To-
ate as quickly as possible the cause
# the stoppage. This amused them
or a few days and then things came to
| %standstill.
One of the boys on my gun claimed
hat he could play a tune while the
sun was actually firing, n demon
Strated this fact n day on the target
ange. We were very enthusiastic and
'ecided to become musicians.
After constant practice I became
quite expert in the tune entitled "All
Conductors Have Big Feet"
When l had mastered this tune, our
NO weeks rest came to an end, and
nee again we went up the line and
ook over the sector In front of c.
wood.
AT this point the German trenches
AN around the base of a hill, on the
OPP of which was a dense wood. This
wood vas infested with machine guns.
which used TO raverse our lines at
win, and sweep the streets of a little
village, where we were billeted while
n reserve.
There was n gun In particular
which used to get our goats, Il had the
Axaet range of our elephant" dugout
sntrance, and every morning. about the
ime rations were being brought up, its
pullets would knock up the dust ON the
Dad; than one Tommy went
Vest or 70 Blighty by running into
hem.
This gun got our nerves on edge,
nd Fritz seemed to know 1t, because
re never gave us an hours rest. Our
equation as machine gunners was at
'take; we tried various ruses to locate
md put this gun out of action, but
each n proved to be a failure, and
fritz became a worse nuisance than
ever. He was getting fresher and more
careless every day, took all kinds of
LIBERTIES with us-thought he was in
vincible.
Then one of our crew got a brilliant
idea and we were all enthusiastic to
put 1t to the test.
Here was his schemes:
When firing my gun. 1 was to play
tune, and Fritz. no doubt, would
fall for it, try to initiate me as an
added insult. This gunner and two
others would try, by the sound, to To-
cate Fritz and his gun. After having
rot the location. they would mount
two machine guns in trees, In a little
elump of woods to the left of our Gene
terry. and while Fritz was in the middle
of his lesson, would open up and trust
to luck. BY our calculations, 1t would
take at least a week to pull off the
stunt.
If Fritz refused to swallow u bait,
ii would be impossible TO locate his
special gun, and that's the one we were
after, because they all sound alike, q
slow pup-pup-pup.
Our prestige was hanging by a
thread. In the battalion we had TO en-
lure all kinds of insults and fresh re-
marks as to our ability In silencing
ritz. Even TO the battalion that Ger
nan gun was a sore spot.
Next day. Fritz opened up as usual.
| let him fire away for a while aud
hen butted in with my ''pup-pup-pup-
aup-pup-pup." l kept this up quite a
While. used two belts of ammunition.
had stopped firing TO listen. Then
he started in sure enough, he had
allen for our game. his gun was trying
to initiate mine, but, at first he made a
horrible mess of that tune. Again l
putted In with a few bars and stopped.
Then he tried to copy what l had
He was a good sport all right,
because his bullets were going away
lver our heads, must have been firing
nto the air. / commenced to feel
friendly towardshim.
This duet went on for Ave days.
was a good pupil and learned
In fact, got better than his
'acher. l commenced TO feel Jealous.
When he had completely mastered the
fune, he started sweeping the road
gain and we clicked 1t worse than