The Arizona copper camp., 1918-08-17

buildings, and even then it Is rare. So,
enemy artillery or infantry, he must
depend on others to give him the range
and direction.
For this purpose there are balloons
and airplanes attached to each artil-
lery unit. The airplanes are equipped
with wireless, but also signal by
smoke and direction of flight, while
the balloons use telephones. The OBJ
servers have maps and powerful
glasses and cameras. Their maps are
marked off in zones to correspond with
the maps used by the artillery officers.
The observations are Signaled to q
receiving station on the ground and
are then telephoned to the batteries.
All our troops were equipped with
telephone signal corps detachments
and this was very important ann
of the service. The enemy position is
shelled before an attack, either en-
barrage or otherwise, and communica-
tiOn between the waves of attack and
| the artillery is absolutely necessary.
BombardmentS are directed toward
certain parts of the enemy position
almost as accurately as you would use
a searchlight. The field telephones are
very light and are portable to the last
degree. They can be rigged up or
knocked down in a very short time.
The wire is wound on drums or reels
and you would be surprised to see how
quickly our corps established COM
munication from newly won trench
Ito headquarters, for instance. They
were asking for our casualties before
we had finished having them, almost.
Artillery fire was directed by men
whose duty it was to dope out the
range from the information sent them
were stationed at the switchboard,
one man to receive the message and
the other to operate the board. AS
soon as the range was plotted out it
was telephoned to the gunners and
they did the rest.
The naval guns at Dixmude were
mounted on fiat cars and these were
drawn back and forth on the track by
little Belgian engines.
After had been at my gun for sew
eral days I was ordered back to my
regiment, which was again in the
front-line trenches. My course was
past both the British and French lines
but quite a distance behind the front
lines.
Everywhere there were ambulances
and wagons going backward and for
ward. met one French ambulance
that was long wagon full of poilus
from a field hospital near the firing
line and was driven by a man whose
left arm was bandaged to the shoul-
der. Two poilus who sat in the rear
on guard had each been wounded in
the leg and one had had big strip Of
his scalp torn off. There was not
sound man in the bunch. You can
imagine what their cargo was like, If
the convoy was as used up as these
chaps. But all who could were sing
ing and talking and full of pep. That
is the French for you: they used no
luOI0 uSIl lIldu lllGy COulu pOSSlDly
spare to take care of the wounded, but
they were all cheerful about it
always.
Just after I passed this ambulance
the Germans began shelling a section
of the road too near me to be comfort
able, so / beat it to a shell crater
about twenty yards off the road, to the
rear. A shrapnel shell exploded pretty
near me just as / jumped into this
hole-I did not look around to see how
close it was-and I remember now
how the old minstrel joke had heard
on board ship came to my mind at the
time-something about a fellow feel
ing so small he climbed into a, hole
and pulled it after him-and 1 wished
[ might do the same. / flattened my
self as close against the wall of the
crater as / could and then / noticed
that somebody had made a dugout in
the other wall of the crater and I
started for it.
The shells were exploding so fast
by that time that you could not listen
for each explosion separately, and just
as jumped into the dugout a regular