Manchester Democrat. [volume] (Manchester, Iowa) 1875-1930, 1918-06-12

Timber as punishment for his careless
ness"
Then he paused, waiting for me to
bite, / suppose.
I bit all right and asked him why the
sniper was punished for killing an
English general. With a smile he re-
piled:
swell, you see, If all the English gen.
erals were killed, there would be no
one left to make costly mistakes"
I shut him up, he was getting too
fresh for prisoner. After while he
Winked at me and winked back, then
the escort came to take the prisoners
to the rear. shook hands and wished
him "The best Of luck and safe jour-
ney to Blighty."
liked that prisoner, he was fine
fellow, had an Iron Cross, too. I ad-
vised him to keep it out Of sight, or
some Tommy would be sending 1t home
to his girl In Blighty as souvenir.
One dark and rainy night while on
guard we were looking over the top
from the fire step Of our front-line
trench, when we heard a noise imme-
diately In front Of our barbed wire.
The sentry next to me challenged,
Halt, who comes there" and brought
his rifle to the aim. His challenge was
| answered in German. A captain in the
next traverse climbed upon the sand
bagged parapet to investigated brave
but foolhardy deed-"Crack" went a
bullet and he tumbled back into the
trench with hole through his stomach
and died a few minutes later. A lance
corporal in the next platoon VS. so en-
ragged at the captains death that he
chucked Mills bomb in the direction
Of the noise with the shouted warning
to us: "Duck your nappers, my lucky
lads" A sharp dynamite report. flare
in front of us, and then silence.
We Immediately sent up two star
shells, and In their light could see two
dark forms lying on the ground close
to our wire. A sergeant and four
stretcher-bearers went out in front and
soon returned, carrying two limp
bodies. Down in the dugout, In the
Pickering light of three candles, we
saw that they were two German Off
GERS, one a captain and the other an
"unteroffizier," rank one grade higher
than sergeant general, but below the
grade Of lieutenant.
The captains face had been almost
completely torn away by the bombs
explosion. The unteroffizier was alive,
breathing with difficulty. In few min
utes he opened his eyes and blinked in
the glare Of the candles.
The pair had evidently been drink
ing heavily, for the alcohol fumes were
sickening and completely pervaded the
dugout. turned away in disgust,
hating to see man cross the Great Di-
vide full of booze.
One of our officers could speak Ger
man and he questioned the dying man.
In faint voice, interrupted by fire.
quent hiccoughs, the unteroffizier told
his story.
There had been a drinking bout
among the officers in one Of the Ger
man dugouts, the main beverage being
champagne. With a drunken leer he
informed us that champagne was plep-
tiful on their side and that 1t did not
cost them anything either. About seven
that night the conversation had turned
to the Contemplate" English, and the
captain had made a wager that he
would hang his cap on the English
barbed wire to show his contempt for
the English sentries. The wager was
accepted. At eight o'clock the captain
and he had crept out into No Mans
Land to carry out this wager.
They had gotten about halfway
across when the drink took effect and
the captain fell asleep. After about
two hours of vain attempts the unter-
offizier had at last succeeded in walk
ing the captain, reminded him Of his
bet, and warned him that he would be
the laughing stock of the officers mess
If he did not accomplish his object, but
the captain was trembling all over and
insisted on returning to the German
lines. In the darkness they lost their
bearings and crawled toward the Eng
fish trenches. They reached the barbed
wire and were suddenly challenged by
our sentry. Being too drunk to realize
that the challenge was in English the
captain refused to crawl back. Finally
the unteroffizier convinced his superior
that they were in front of the English
yiv~n nj In IN hn
tain drew his revolver and with a NUT
tered curse fired blindly toward our
trench. His bullet no doubt killed our
captain.
Then the bomb came over and there
he was, dying-and good job too, we
thought. The captain dead? Well, his
men wouldn't weep at the news.
Without giving us any further infor-
nation the unterofflgie1 died.
We searched the bodies for identifl-
cation disks but they rad left every
thing behind before starting on their
foolhardy errand.
Next afternoon we buried them in
our little cemetery apart from the
graves of the Tommies. If you ever
60 into that cemetery you will see two
little wooden crosses in the corner Of
the cemetery set away from the rest.
They read: ..l
Captain
German Army
Died - 1915
Unknown
r. /. P.