The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-02-13


 know what the order meant.
 Men only lived six weeks in a tank he said. He had the statistics of tank life at his fingers ends. He reeled OH the names of men who had lived day, a week, month, two months The average was but six weeks. lie had already outrun the average
 He made rather a fool of himself his friends thought, when he went away, talked at random, and threw away his money and quarreled with the girl he was to marry-"so she would not worry about me-" His friends excused it all.
 You know.9 they said to each oth- CT, "he is going back to the tanks.
 The Girl Forgave Him
 Albert has written in to say that he has been lucky. His wound is a very small one-just smashed a leg and the doctor thinks he will not lose it, though he will always be lame. And so he is out of the tank for ever.
 His lettres are almost incoherent with sheer joy, for, after all, the girl did worry about him and refused to keep on quarreling, and the recon ciliation had been effected before the wound came, and they will love each | other very dearly.
 | Albert is especially glad of that. If he had been wounded before the girl forgave him, he would always have feared that she had been moved by pity.
 Just to set Alberts case straight, il I ho hn was worth second palm on his cross l Although his tank looked like noth- ing so much as a rusty tin can that had been run owed by wagon after the German shell hit it, he managed somehow to unlock the mitrailleuse and crawl out with it-there was nc other living man in the tank then, ant the blood with which he was smeareC was not his own-and fight off { wave of Germans until the French came.
 It was while fighting the mitrail leuse that his thigh was smashed. Al bert himself says he is not a coward
 "I did not want to die," is his req soning. q was half mad at tn thought of being taken from this goot world by German beast, but I wa not coward. was frightened man, times, of course, but I never was coward
 Called Him the Coffee Man
 The coffee man is dead, now w heard last night He was never friend of ours, recisely-just a poo little devil of a French soldier, wh had never heard from his father O mothers or sisters or sweetheart fror the day the Germans swept int Northern France.
 Rather quiet chap, with a friend ly smile under his little blond mus tache. We called him the coffee ma because he always rose at o'cloc in the caserne in which he was spend , ing his conValescence to make cot |, fee for a roomful of 40. We met hi1 through one of the 40, who is friend.
 You see, he has shell shock" tn , friend explained. casually. "So he car v not sleep at night. While it is dark h , on the blanket and waits. At 5 o'cloc t he, makes the coffee. He likes to q
 it. It is something to look forwar g to during the night
 t By day he slept little, when tt v sun shone or when the cook was = good humor, so that he could co
 down in a corner of the caserne Xxi e chen, where the electric lights shor 5 reassuringly all day long. But he could not endure the exis
 ence in the caserne. The surgeon I told him that he was not yet cure
 but he nodded his head understan, il ingly. There was a little glint of h1 . nor in his blue eyes and in the smi r under his blond mustache. .. e He preferred the front, he sai g Yesterday the cook at the caserne 2 n a letter from the coffee mans SC e geant:
 He said that he wanted you " know," the sergeant wrote He sa ir that he wanted you to know" the SC l., geant wrote. "He said that you h; ,- been so kind-'
 e It was only last week that we hea J. they were betrothed. Every one kne ,r they were in love with each othe d That was not secret, even to the pas ,e CT on the street. But they had pla
 sends to be very firm and very bra
 
 y- war was over. There should be ,c agement-"only an understan if. ing" ...., id So that five days ago the capta CT left for the front. He had been asst le ed of a "cushy' job-one quite c lk of danger at the base. He had earn
 it by three years at the front CT The day he reached the front a stepped into a pill box to rest after I hard tramp through the clinging m ed of Flanders. It was well back of t
 line, this pillbox. The Germans we ng hardly shelling at all that day. Or ht now and then a shell came over e. One struck the pill box and t li- captain was killed. Not another m
 was hurt. At the very moment wh
 she was telling us how happy she he
 ed to be, and that they felt they col at safely become engaged, now that as was to have this "cushy'' job, he v
 being lowered into a wet hole in ca Flanders mud, his arms crossed ke his breast, a girls lace handkerch h. pressed to his firm lips.
 is His father came to see her vest of day. He could not stay long, he sa Ik, He had to hurry back to mother, all REFUSE SACCHARINE SUGAR )r-
 IT, Rome, Feb. 13-Italy's supply ne sugar mixed with saccharine finally been consumed not iheca