Arizona republican., 1918-08-30
Sixth lnstailment Chapter Ut


 Sixth lnstallment
 Chapter III
 In Which We Encounter Bombs Burst
 ing in the Air
 There is something, though Heaven knows not much, 10 be said for war as var And the little to be said is said when one declares that it refreshes life hy taking US out of our ruts. Routine Kills men and nations and races; 1t is stagnation. But war shakes up society ruts men into strange environments, Gives them new diversions, news aims, changed ideals. In the faint breath of war that came to Henry and me, as we vent about our daily task inspecting hospitals and first aid posts and am hUlance units for the Red Cross, there vas tremendous whiff of the biz change that must come to lives that really get into war as soldiers. Even ve were for ever pinching ourselves tC sec if we were dreaming, as we rode through the strange land, filled with Varlike impedimenta. and devoted ex- Ciusively to the science of slaughter. By rights We should have been sitting in our offices in Wichita and Empora editing two country newspapers. urangling mildly with the pirates of tho paper mills to whom our miserable little forty or fifty carloads of white laper year was trifle, dickering with foreign advertisers who desired tc spread before Wichita and Emporia tho virtues of their chewing gum or talking machines. or discussing the ever changing situation with the local n ffx-a n'Dln 1Txt should be on his way to the Wichita Colf course to reduce his figure. and the sullen roar of the muffler cut t-out on the family car should be warning me that we were going to picnic that night out on the Osage hills in the sunset, where it would be up to me 10 cat gluten bread and avoid sugars starChes and fats to preserve the girl ish lines of my figure.
 Fish Out of Water
 But instead, here we were puffing up a hill in France. through under brush. across shell holes to a hidden trench choked with telephone cables that should lead underground to ar observation post where a part of the staff of the French army sat overlook ing the battle of the Champagne As we puffed and huffed up the hill, we recalled to each other that we had been in our offices but a few weeks before when the Associated Press re- port had brought us the news of the Champagne drive for hill POS. Among ether things the report had declare, 'a number of French soldiers were or dcred into their own barrage, and sev- eral were shot for refusing to go into action thereafter" And now here wt in, i1< camouflage at the battlefield! We were half way up the hill; below us lay [ veedy piece of bottom land, al kncaded and pockmarked by shells stretching away to another range O hills perhaps five miles. perhaps ter miles away, as the valley widened ol narrowed. The white clay of the soi crupting under shell fire glimmereC nakedly and indecently through the weeds. It was hard to realize tha three years before the valley before u. had been one of the greatest fertile valleys in France, dotted with little grey towns with glowing red roofs For as we looked it seemed to be "tha ominous tract, which all agree hide the Dark Tower." There it all lay: tn, ragged thistle stalk,' with it's heat chopped off; the docks harsh swar leaves bruised as to balk all hope O greenness." AS for the grass, it grey scantier than hair in leprosy; thin dr. leaves pricked the mud, which under meath looked kneaded up with blood!
 Where Roland Was
 It was the self-same field tha Roland crossed, In the midst of tn waste zigzagged two lines-two whit gashes in the soil, with a scab of hor 4,l1- t.&r them-the French and German trenche and the barbed wire entanglements At some places the trenches ran clos together, a few hundred feet or a fey hundred yards marked their distanc apart At other times they backe fearfully away from one another wit the gashed. stark, weed smeared cart gaping between them. We paused | rest in our climb at little shrine b the wayside. A communication trenc slipped deviously up to it. and throug this trench were brought the wounded for the shrine. a dugout in the hillsd had been converted into a first ali station. A doctor and two stretche bearers and two ambulance men wer waiting there. Yet the little shrine rather than the trenches that crept u to it. dominated the scene and the wa seemed far away. Occasionally W heard a distant boom and saw a ta cone of dirt rise in the bottom Ian among the trenches. and we felt tha some poor creature might be in hi coath agony.
 Inviting Disaster
 But that was remote, too, and Maio Murphy of our party climbed to th roof of the dugout and begun turnin his glasses toward the German lines Then the trenches about suddenly gre, alive. The Frenchmen were wavin their hands and running about excited ly. Major Murphy was a Major regular United States Army Major i regular United States army uniforr so grand that compared with our chea cotton khaki it looked like five thous and dollar outfit. The highest office near us was a French second -1euten ant. who had no right to boss q Major But something had to be done. So tn second lieutenant did it. He calle down the Major; showed him that h was in direct range of the Germa guns. and made it clear that a bi six-foot American in uniform standin silhouetted against the sky line woul bring down a whole wagon load ( German hardware on our part of tn line. The fact that the German trenche were two miles away did not mak the situation any less dangerous. After wards we left the shrine and th trenches and went on up the hill