The Hawaiian gazette., 1918-08-13
First Night In
Trenches One
To Be Remembered
Experience Is Epoch Marking and
Even { Nothing Happens
Leaves Youth Older For Re-
sponsibility He Has Felt

. LONDON, July 30 - Associated
Press) s)7-7What will the first night in
the trenches be, is a question that
thousands Of American soldiers, have
faced perhaps with some misgivings,
certainly with lively anticipation. The
experience Of many Of them must be
like that Of a British plough boy soldier
described BY Lord. Dunsany, Captain of
the Inniskilling Fusiliers. =
IA mans first night in the front
line Is an epoch making experience, !"
he writes. ait is like mans first
vote, or his twenty. first birthday-it
is milestone in his life, marking the
change from the mimic warfare behind
the lines to the grim realities of actual
conflict.
Perhaps can best explain how this
experience affects a soldier by telling
you the story Of recruit Is first night
in the trenches. Dick Cheeser, one
Of my men, was a ploughboy just past
eighteen when he enlisted, and not yet
nineteen when he went on his first
sentry Ego" in the front lie.
Takes sentry Post #$-.
d "It was a quiet night, and dawn
was only an hour or so distant when
Cheeser took his post. The Corporal
told him where to stand, warned him
to keep q good lookout, and left him.
"There was Dick Cheeser, alone in
the dark, with an army in front Of
him, eighty yards away, resourceful,
crafty and desperate enemy. The still
ness Of The night only added to Chee-
ser's feeling of responsibility. The
stiffness awed him. There had not
been shell all night. He put his
head over the parapet gingerly and
waitedI et Nobody fred at him. He
felt somehow that the night was wait
ing for him, that something uncanny
and unexpected would happen soon. He
heard voices In a communication trench
somewhere behind him; there were a
few sentences Of gruff, unintelligiblc
conversation; the voices died away.
There was long silence. Cheeser fell
to wondering whether the night was
black or grey; he stared hard at the
night to study its exact color; the night
stared back at him, and seemed to be
threatening him; it was gray, gray
and artful, like eat or a fox.
Quiet oppresses
at was uncanny, thought Chees,!
If shells would come, or Germans, OF
anything at all, you would know how
to take it; but this deathly quiet, like
mist over huge valleysl Anything
might happen. Cheeser waited and
waited, and the night waited too. He
felt that they were watching each
other, the night and he, both crouch
ing, both ready, to spring.
Ellis mind grew so active that his
head throbbed with the physical ex
ertion of thinking. He was watching
with eyes and ears and imagination
hoping to anticipate by second OF
two the dread Something that he felt
was sure to happen soon in the omi
nous mist of NoMan's Land. He
thought Of throwing a stone out intt
/ the blackness, just to see what would
happen. Then he began to wish fol
| his boyhood slingshot, so that he
could catapult a nice round stone right
across the blackness into the German
line. -
| "a little wind blew in the night
too cold for the time of year. Il
made for a moment lane in the mis-
over No-Man's Land. Cheeser peere,
into it, but the mist closed rounc
again. NO, Night seemed to say
You can't guess my secret. And thu
awesome hush intensified. What ar,
they up to nowH thought the sentry
What are those crafty enemies plan
ming in all those miles of silencef
Given the very lights were few an
far between. When one went up, fla
hills and shadowns seemed to sit anc
brood over the valley; black shape
grew up and vanished in the shadow
The rocket faded and the hills wen
back into mystery again, and Cheese
4 still peered level over the ominOus val
ley.
weird Experience
"An the dangers and sinister shape
and evil destinies that the sentr
faced that night cannot be picture
or described in mere words. 1t wa
only two hours that he stood there
and not shell fell in all that time
not a German stirred.
at is weird and awful experl
ence, that first night in the trenche'
The next time it is an easy matter.