The Washington herald., 1918-08-22
DIES
ION HIS GUN;
| GETS 80 HUNS
| 54Year-O Old Yank, Best
Machine Gunner in Regi-
'ment, a Good Kid"


imSnt and his colonel thinks he was
the youngest man in all the A. z. +.
ID the regiment they are talking
theee days OF all the good pals they
lost in the fierce. unforgettable chase
they gave the Germans in the great
retreat from the Marne. But most OF
ALA little oftener and a bit more
fondly-they talk Of Scotty.
He was a good Kid" they say, "and
he died on his gun"
Seotty was only Is and still going to
high school back in Brookline when
war came to America and he held up
his right hand. Though he stood no
more than five feet six. though his
fair hair was curly and very boyish.
though his mother probably wondered
how even an over-worked recruiting
officer could ever have mistaken him
for a grown-up. he was husky enough
to Pass for the IS years he boldly
claimed.
Eager to Go, and He Went.
Afterwards. there was some worried
suggestion that he'd better stay home
with his folks, but there were so many
men in the outfit who knew the fam
lily, so many officers his father knew,
above all he himself was so pleading
ly eager to go, that when, one fine
day, in September. the regiment sailed
away, Scotty. barrack bag, rife. mess
kit and all were slowed away In the
hold with the rest.
In. all his soldering. Scotty never
appeared on sick report. was never
late at formations. never hid from
dirty details. 1t was only once in a
while that the older heads in the com.
"a k,~
he was.
They could not help thinking of It
when they found that the birthday he
was celebrating one bleak November
day in the monotonous training area
somewhere in France was only hiS
sixteenth. Nor when they realized he
never knew the pride OF using that
shiny razor which had been thought
lessly doled out to him along with his
housewife and shoe brush in the camp
back home. Nor when Christmas
came and brought with II for Scotty
some kid games from his Down FAST
aunts, who had forgotten it wGs a
soldier they had in France.
Never Was a Better "I<id."
On such occasions the company COM
mander was worried over his rcspon-
sibility. and one day he formally ap-
pointed the supply sergeant as
Scotty's guardian. The sergeant saw
to 1t that he wrote home regularly,
went to mass every Sunday AID gave
every buvette a wide. wide path. ~:
that he needed watching. for. as the
supply sergeant said, there never was
a better kid" than Scotty.
1t Is true that once he was absent
for some unaccountable hours in tie
majors automobile. That was why
they reduced him to a buck private.
But they restored him to his origral
rank the first day they saw him with
a sho-sho gun.
The French officers who came to
instruct in the use of that light au-
tomato machine gun which fires
eighteen shots in a twinkling found
1t was the younGster Of the regiment
who mastered it first and who, be-
fore many weeks had passed, be-
came the best shot of them all. He
was such a wonderful gunner that
older soldiers were proud to be his
feeders. because they knew their gun
would do the most damage with
Scotty at the sights.
Deadly Quiet and Cool
And cool. He was always a quiet
one, but under shell-fire he became
deadly quiet and cool as a cucumber.
They found that out back in April,
when n shell struck the edge of the
parapet, throwing the gun into the
trench and burying it, the boy and
his feeders in an avalanche of dirt.
Scotty wriggled out, eXtricated his
! beloved sho-sho. took 1t in his arms,
and with never a word to anyone.
marched 80 feet along the trench,
set the gun up again and went on
, firing
But his great chance came when, on
! that historic 18th of July. his regi-
| ment got the order for which, through
| many a month of dreams. it had
! longed-the order to advance. 1t went
eighteen kilometers without stopping.
chasing the boche up hill and down
dale. fighting its way through patch
after patch of inviting woods that
would prove treacherous with hidden
machine guns.
Scotty would have told you that he
belonged to what the general proudly
called his iron battalion, and that in
that battalion, the men of his COM
pany-Company H-were known as
| the Indians. They got that name
! sAiC "aiu wal "IOOpS Will WHICH
they went rip-roaring into battle
strange. unintelligible savage cries
that were echoes. perhaps. of the ones
that sounded long ago around the
huts and stockades of primative
America.
Good Soldiers and Catholics.
But the men of Company II had
another character. They were good
Catholics, most Of them. No one
knows where they got the idea or who
| first suggested it. but had you been
! watching at dawn on the morning of
the 18th. you would have found that
when they went over the top, each
one of the Indians wore something
that is no part of the issue reGula-
| tions looped around the left shoulder
| strap of his blouse. 1t was a rosary.
In the first days OF that battle the
| movement was so swift that more
than. once a small German rear guard
| and an advance Hank platoon would
meet in the forest and fight ont then
and there a complete and separate
battle all their own. So 1t was with
the Indians one afternoon, as hey
were making their way past the Bit
| terly-won town OF Epieds.
At crossroad they saw troops ap-
| yFn nr1 IN, t.. 20 n