The Mena weekly star., 1918-02-28
| @la7 eY tAR1huR tuY EfipfY

was 0h VAu SCiecuutf WHO uiTeCteu that we line ourselves along both rails of the ship. Then he ordered us to take life belts from the racks overhead and put them on. have crossed the ocean several times and knew I was not sea- sick, but when l buckled on that life belt l had sensation of sickness.
 After we got out into the stream all l could think of was that there were a million German submarines with tor pedo on each across the warhead of which was inscribed my name and ad- dress.
 After i've hours we came alongside pier and disembarked. had at- tained another one of my ambitions. was somewhere in France.r We slept in the open that night on the side of the road. About six the next morn ing We were ordered to entrain. I looked around for the passenger coaches, but all 1 could see on the sid ing were cattle cars. We climbed into these. On the side of each car was sign reading "Hommes 40, Cheveaux B." When we got inside of the cars, we thought that perhaps the sign painter had reversed the order of things. After AS hours in these trucks we detrained at Rouen. At this place we went through an intensive training for ten days.
 The training consisted of the rudi- ments of trench warfare. Trenches had been dug. with barbed wire en- tanglements, bombing saps, dugouts, observation posts and machine gun em- placements. We were given smat- tering of trench cooking, sanitation. bomb throwing, reconnoitering, listen ing posts, constructing and repairing barbed wire, "carrying in" parties. methods used in attack and defense, wiring parties. mass formation, and the procedure for poison-gas attacks.
 On the tenth day we again met our friends "Hommes 40 Cheveaux g." Thirty-six hours more of misery, and we arrived at the town of F---.
 After unloading our rations and equipment, we lined up on the road In columns of fours waiting for the order to march.
 A dull rumbling could be heard. The sun was shining. I turned to the man on my left and asked, "What's the noise, BillT" He did not know, but his face was of pea-green color. Jim, on my right, also did not know; but suggested that I "awsk" the sergeant.
 Coming towards us was an old griz- zled sergeant, properly fed up with the war. so 'awsked" him.
 "Think it's going to rain, sergeantT
 He looked at me in contempt, and grunted. "Ow's 1t a-goin' ter rain with the bloomin' sun a-shinin'T looked guilty.
 "Them's the guns up the line, me lad, and you'll get enough of 'em be- fore you gets back to Blighty."
 My knees seemed to wilt, and I squeaked out weak "OhI"
 Then we started our march up to the line in ten-kilo treks. After the first days march we arrived at our rest billets. In France they call them rest biIlets, because while in them Tommy works seven days week and on the eighth day of the week he is given twenty-four hours lon his own."
 Our billet was a spacious affair, a large barn on the left side of the road. which had one hundred entrances. nInety-nine for shells, rats, wind and rain, and the hundredth one for Tom r nd af VnU shrapnel-proof helmet tshrapnel proof nntil piece of shrapnel hits it), or tin hat, for pillow, lay down in the straw. and was soon fast asleep. must have slept about two hours, when I awoke with a prickling sensation hil over me As thought. the straw had worked through my uniform. I woke up the fellow lying on my left. who had been np the line before, and asked him:
 aDoes the straw bother you, matef It's worked through my uniform and I can't sleep"
 In a sleepy voice he answered, 'That aint straw. them's cooties."
 From that time on my friends the "cooties" were constantly with me.
 'tCooties." or body lice. are the bane of Tommy's existence.
 The aristocracy of the trenches very seldom call them ''cooties." they speak of them as fleas.
 To an American flea means a small insect armed with bayonet, who is wont to jab 1t Into you and then hop skip and jump to the next place to be attacked. There Is an advantage in having fieas on you Instead of ''cooties" in that in one of his extended jumps said flea is liable to land on the fel- low next to you; he has the typical energy and push of the American. while the "cootie" has the bulldog tenacity of the Englishman; he holds on and consolidates or digs in until his meal is finished.
 There is no way to get rid of them permanently. No matter how often you bathe, and that Is not very often, or how many times you change your underwear, your friends the "eeoties" are always in evidence. The biliets are infested with them. especially so if there Is straw on the floor.
 have taken a bath and put on brand-new underwear: in fact, com pIete change of uniform, and then turned in for the night. The next morn ing my shirt would be full of them. It is common sight to see eight or ten