The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1918-08-06

they all told him their VOWS as soon
posed to be a sort of referee as to
whether they kept them or not.
During my second stunt In the front
lines things got pretty bad. The Ger
mans were five to our one and they
kept pushing back parts Of the line
and cleaning out others. And the
weather was as bad as II could be
and the food did not always come reg
ularly. Now, before they took their
vows, every last mar in the bunch
would have been kicking and growing
all the time, but, as it was, the only
time they growled vas when the Ger
mans pushed us back.
Things kept getting worse and you
could see that the men talked to the
chaplain more and quite a few of them
got real chummy with him.
One morning Fritz started in bright
and early to begin his strafe. The
lieutenant was walking up and down
the trench to see that the sentries
were properly posted and were on the
lOUs n SAlClA AlALGt OF1A AA0 h1OA
and landed just behind the parados
and the dirt spouted up like imagine
a Yellowstone geyser looks.
Another officer came up TO the lieu
tenant-a new one who had only
Joined the company about a week be-
fore. They had walked about ten
yards when another shell whizzed over
them. They laid TO and a third n
came. There were three in less than
five minutes, directly yer their heads.
Then a shell landed on the left side
OF the trench and a poilu yelled that
four men had got It They were all
wounded and three died later. The
lieutenant went over to them and just
after he passed me a lad got 1t square
not far from me and was knocked
over to where / a lying.
The lieutenant came back and
helped me with the f1rst-aid roll and
her the Germans began using shrap-
mel. The lieutenant was swearing
hard about the shrapnel and the Ger
mans and everything else.
Farther to the right a shell had just
struck near the parados and made a
big crater and across from 1t, against
the parapet, was a young chap with
a deep cash In his head, sitting on
the fire step and next to him a fellow
nursing the place where his arm had
been blown off. Our bread ration lay
all about the trench and some of the
poilus were fishing 1t out of the mud
and water and wiping the biscuits on
on their sleeves or eating as fast as
they could. Only some of the biscuits
had fallen I'm bloody water and they
did not eat these.
A young fellow. hardly more than a
boy, stumbled over the parados and
fell into the trench right near the
lieutenant and the lieutenant dressed
his wounds himself. i think he was
some relation of the boy.
The lieutenant asked him how he
felt, but the boy only asked for water
and smiled. But you could see he was
in great pain. Then the boy said:
"Oh, the pain Is awful. 1 am going
to die"
"You are all right, old man." the
lieutenant said. "You will be home
soon The stretcher bearers are COM
ing" So we passed the word for the
stretcher bearers.
Then he took the water bottle from
the boys side and sat him up and gave
him some water. He left h water
bottle with the chap and went TO
hurry the stretcher bearers along.
When he got around the corner of the
trench the boy was slipping back and
the water bottle had fallen down. So
j went over to him and propped him
up again and gave him some more
water.
The lieutenant came back with the
stretcher bearers and he asked one OF
them, so the boy could not hear him. IL
the how would live.