The Carlisle independent., 1918-11-21

the spit snipers, deployed to the | front, almost.
 l As we went ashore, the lombard ment began, and we were not only
 under fire of spit, if you could call it
 that, but also of rocks and bottles and | sticks and most anything that could 1 be thrown.
 All this time, Hest you forget" we had no shoes, and no clothing-only
 what had once been our underwear.
 It is all right to be Coney Island .snowbird and pose around in your bathing suit in the drifts, because you
 are in good condition, and last but not
 least. because you do not have to do
 1t. Figure out the other side of it
 for yourself.
 They marched us. into a field where
 there was nothing much but guns and
 ammunition and snow. and set us up
 in something like skirmish formation
 We stood there for some time. and
 then We saw a lot of Huns with the
 new long rifles coming toward us,
 yelling just as they did in battle, and
 we thought sure we were being used
 for practice targets. It is good
 thing they halted and stopped yelling
 when they did, or We would have
 started for them to fight it out, for
 we were not the kind that likes to be
 butchered with hands in the air, and
 we would have been glad for a chance
 to get a few of them before they got
 us. But they did halt, and then sur rounded us, and drilled us away through swamps and woods and shal- low water or slush. The women fol- lowed. too, and there were plenty of bricks and spit left. Women as we'll as men are the same the world over. they say. I wonder? You can just picture the women of, say, Rockland, Me, following crowd of German prisoners that way, can't you? Not But of course the women of Rockland are pretty crude-no kultur at all- and Gott never commissioned Presi- | dent Wilson to take the lid off the l strafe pot for him.
 They drilled us along the docks, and l 1t looked as though the whole German | navy was tied up at Swinemunde. | We saw many Of the ships we had | heard about. among them being the | famous Vulcan. the mother-ship for | submarines. There were many sail l ors loafng along the docks, and they | gave the women hand with their | days work. They were no better with | brick, but they had more ammunition | when it came to splitting. One of them ripped q young boy by the name of | Kelly and as you would never doubt, | Kelly picked up a rdck and crashed | the sailor with it. He was then bay oneted twice in the left leg. We be- gan singing then. our popular favorite, Pack up your troubles" etc, and | when they heard us. how the swine stared
 Then they drilled us past the Ger man soldiers quarters. The men were at rifle practice, and I guess all of us thought how handy we would be as targets. But when we got near them, they quit praeticing and crowded | around us yelling: Raus, Zuruck '"
 Finally we got to the top of the hill, and were halted near the bar racks while an officer read the mar tial law of Germany to us At least we thought maybe that was it.
 Finally they let us into the bar racks, and the first thing we saw was a great pile of hay. That looked good to us, and We made a rush and dived into if. But the Huns told us to take the hay and. throw it in the middle of the road. They had to use force be- fore we would do it. Finally we gave in, however. and started to carry it out. Some of the young boys were crying, and I do not blame them much. s
 But one of the boys tried to hide some of the hay behind a box and was caught doing it, and two sentries clouted him from one end of the bar racks to the other. His nose was broken aud his face mashed to jelly. But there was nothing we could do, so we just wandered up and down the barracks, about as we did between decks on the Moewe, trying to keep warm.
 While this marathon was on we heard whistle blown very loudly. and when we looked out we saw a wagon piled up with old tin cans. Then We were tolds to form single file, walk out to the wagon and each get can for himself. Each man had to take the first can he laid his hands on, and many of us got rusty ones with holes in them. So that about half an hour later, when we received barley coffee, and all we had to drink 1t from was the cans, lots of the men had to drink theirs almost in one gulp or lose half of it.
 The barracks were very dirty and smelled horribly. and the men were still not even half clothed. We all looked filthy and smelled that way, and where the coal dust had rubbed on, we were very pale. And all of us were starved looking.
 About eleven o'clock that morning fhp Uhi Stip hipxr auain and ,,o oo,na