davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
Arizona republican., 1918-09-22
FINDING FRITZ OBSERVERS LOB
BY CLARENCE BuDINGToN IRELAND

Up at the front with the American army ara two jobs closely related they arc one-the artillery mans and the observers. The first delivers the goods the second tells him what doorstep to leave it on, and corrects any misapprehensons he may have as to where he is leaving it. During the night there had been tremendous bar rage. Hundreds of guns of all sizes and voices had made it exceedingly uncomfortable for Fritzie who is perched on 6 famous mountain which seems only stones throw away The guns had fired for two hours and our fellows had gone the top and come back with prisoners and captured machine guns In the morning went back to the nearest bat tery to ask how they went about 1t. The battery consisted of French nneties and seventyfves. They were hidden away in bomb proof empacements of interesting construction The construction had to be interesting tecause Fritz knew the battery was there, and paid it consider. able attention Every once in while he would drop a shell near by.
 A general showed us his wall map of the vicinity on which marked every German trench and post, every stone and blade of grass it seemed and then explained the barrage.
 PURPOSES OF eARRAeE
 The theory was to wall in that section of trenches" he said Part of the guns enclosed the locality in a barrage while others of us played the communicating trenches to keep endorsements from coming up The idea is to keep in the area all the men who there and to let nobody come in to help them"
 But you can't see those trenches How do you know you are hitting them?"
 Observers" the curt answer. We know the
 location of the trench and then register upon it. The observers correct our fire until we have the range exactly, and then we wait for the time Orders that there will be such and such barrage "J" | day and zero hour. And we are ready" | The thing that tapped one on the shoulder about these boys their attitude toward the guns They | seemed to feel toward them as person might feel toward splendid fighting bull dog. | The seventyhves called out the highest esteem.
 The ninetes were good they. did the business but 1 the seventyhves. Now there were guns. "They won't let us fire but six times minute" !"
 a sergeant said with the air of man who had been
 personally offended.
 1 TORN BY HUN SMELLS | All around the emplacements the ground was torn
 and upheaved by Hun shells which had been sent
 over as . compliment to this battery. Out in the
 field two great craters sharply visible the l rest.
 Hey" called man from the other end of the line | of bomb proofs, "here comes Y. M C. A. man with eats"
 Boys oozed out of caves and bomb proofs wiih their tongues fairly hanging out Their station is with
 their guns, and their mess Is on the spot so they
 have little chance to get over to the canteen The
 "Y" man. being competent to nll his job, knew this and made frequent trips over with . pack of hia
Arizona republican., 1918-09-22
WITHOUT 4 WHIMPER.

Yet all that is borne without c whimper. The sailors read, now and then. a stray home paper and see the accounts of cheering crowds bid ding Godspeed to this or that depart Ing regiment: they feel that all the public's heart is going out to the army. They don't at all realize their own devotion. and their attitude is almost that of apology for not more spectacularly serving their country. They will tell you that they are glad they jumped to the guns" but every mail brinA news of friends that stayed behind and have won commis- sions at the Reserve Officers Train ing Camps.
 And then the ship comes back to port, and there are liberty parties going ashore.
 The British sailor is given his drink ration; the British '. NJ. c. A. serves light beer It isn't thus with our men. At sea there obtains only the taut rule of fat virtue, and the man that goes ashore Is his owr master.
 Do you begin to see now the prob lem that our '. M. c. A. has to faceI
 Any American sailor man will gel homesick after a week here. and it'l just homesickness that's the matte with most of these kids: if the, can't be cured of it, they'll DO some thing to forget il"
 To be homesick-and, if you rs member your first boarding schoc asy, after your mother'd kissed yo
Arizona republican., 1918-09-22

bringing are formed, under maternal chaperonage, to meet sailors of their own sort that have some knowledge of the French language. It is at these gatherings that the sailor talks most freely, and most lightly, of his work.
 Looking for subs?" I heard one say to his newly met companion. T am going blind doing it! There is the sub that makes up to look like sail ing vessel, and the one that hides it's periscope behind an imitation shark fin, and now they've got one that spouts water like a whale. The DOT poises drive us crazy: something came dashing at our boat the other day; it's track was exactly like tor pedo's. Humphrey saw it first. He pointed it out to me. We're gone this time!' he yelled. Then it jumped, and we saw it was a porpoise. We call porpoises Humphrey torpedoes' now"
 The French girl wanted to know about rescues at sea.
Arizona republican., 1918-09-22

at our navy's ports in France, the Y. M. c. A. has to deal, is all sorts. They are of the two extremes and every grade between, but once they are in Uncle Sans navy there is no distinction. Each man is offering all he has to his country; that makes them kin. Let me exemplify:
 l was just coming in from my first cruise with the Mosquito Fleet. The
Arizona republican., 1918-09-22

quartermaster leaned against the starboard rail.
 That boy,' he said, as he nodded to blsckened, barefoot lad emerging from a hatchway, got honors in French at Harvard last spring"
 And he's here as a common sea- mani" I wondered.
 'As a coal heaver," the quarter master corrected me. We've got a
Arizona republican., 1918-09-22

goodbye and cried a little and told you to send home all your socks for mendins, and your fatherd shaken hands with you and cleared his throat and said you'd be coming back to put him out of business, and you'd held your head high and joked-if you remember that, you will agree with me that to be homesick is t, be as miserable as it is possible for the human being to become. But be homesick and yet to give a home to the homeless is to be something very nearly heroic. Of that I saw, in this port, a recent instance:
 l came across three little children -boys-standing in a doorway on a quiet street, the eldest perhaps twelve years old, the youngest not a day over five. They would have been remarkable among the other children of this somewhat rowdy port if only for their cleanliness and for the cleanliness of the elderly woman that was manifestly caring for them. They were the more remarkable be- cause each wore a sailors cap, on the band of which was inscribed the name of certain boat in the Mos quito Fleet, and because they were all dressed in an infantile replica of the uniform of able seamen in the United States Navy.
 They were shy little boys, but the woman in charge of them explained their habiliments:
Arizona republican., 1918-09-22

lot of college men aboard. They're volunteers. Of course, they've all had yachting experience, but the bred-to-theservice fellows laughed at them till certain litle thing hap pened on the voyage over.
 "A fire started in our port coal bunkers when we were three days out of the port we were bound for A hatch d been left open and there 'd
Arizona republican., 1918-09-22
WHY SAILORS ARE WORTHY.

But, yes, monsieur. They were all that was left of a family. The father was killed at Verdun, the mother died in an accident at a fac. tory of munitions; so that good sail ors upon one of your country's little ships have adopted them, and arc keeping them, and will educate them They have rented for them rooms ir this house, and they have employed me to keep them, and, whenever their ship is in port, these sailors, they fai not to come here and receive word of their wards, and they give them chocolates till the litle ones are ill.'
 What do the chocolates matter There is something worth doing fo, men who will take upon themselve. such obligations as this.
 Something worth doing-and the Y. M. c. A. is trying to do it. There are a headquarters and other build. ings in every French port that is used by our navy-ffty buildings in all-conducted by workers whose pa ' does not quite meet their expenses and whose tasks continue from sun to sun,
Arizona republican., 1918-09-22
WHERE TO GET GOOD MEAL

His auditor happened to be satis- factorily fresh from another sort of restaurant. T just now had good dinner at the Y. NJ. c. A. he ven tured.
 "Oh. therel" said Astor. "Of course you did. The Y. NJ. c. As the best eating place in town.'
 Mir. Astor ought to know, because that eating place is of his wife's making. She bought and turned over to the association the one really good restaurant that could be found, and she has ever since been personally active in it's arrangements.
 "You get real food there." sailor recently told me. Real food. You know what I ham an eggs an steak an fried onions"
 It is said that Mrs. Astor used to help wait on table when the service wae shorthanded. and that one of the first persons upon whom she waited was a newly enlisted man in the United States Navy who, until a month previous, had been the dining room steward on Mrs. Astor's own yacht.
 Gee" the steward is reported te have commented," ""when used tt wait on her, I had to wear evening clothes"
 The sort of men, then. with which
Arizona republican., 1918-09-22
MANY DIFFICULTIES.

At no one place are there often more than three hundred men ashore at a time, and so it is easier to establish the personal relationship between the association worker and the sailor than between worken and soldier in the soldier huts at the American camp. But the ports are cities, whereas the camp stretches among mere villages, so that the forces against which the naval branch of the Y. NJ. c. A. has to contend are the stronger.
 l went to an evening entertain ment given by the British Y. NJ. c. A. for the American Y. M c. As patrons in the rooms of the French equivalent of the association. There was a reading room full of magazines and growing library, free writing materials, piano around which was grouped a day-long chorus of sailor men. moving picture shows, hall for basket ball, 8 baseball grounds. fifty clean beds at a franc apiece a night-and clean bed is a luxury as we'll as a moral force-an apart ment house for seventeen petty officers permanently employed ashore. a photograph over which I've seen a lonely lad sit all afternoon running of songs reminiscent of his child hood, canteen that sold chewing gum. and candy. These may sound like triles to Americans at home. but to the American sailor abroad. to whom only the Y. NJ. c. A. provides them. they become something large and vital. They become America. There's good grub on our tub. but not enough that's sweet. Gimme some more of those gum-drops."
 What's this? Lemonade? Yes, but what's it made of? Citron- syrup and seltzer! And you call that lemondde7 Oh. well. give us another glass of it: it's as close as a fellow can come to it over here. When are you goin' to be able to afford a soda -fountain?"
 MEETING FRENCH GIRLS. If I heard those comments once during an afternoon that I passed in naval Y. NJ. C. A.. I heard them a dozen times. Unbelievable quantities of chocolate are sold in a form that may be easily heated and drunk during night-watches at sea, and the millionaire that wants to do effective work against alcoholism could dr none more effective than to donatt soda fountains and hot chocolate ma
 chimes to the association in these ports.
 One innovation introduced recently
 is thus far working well; parties 0 young French women of the best up
Arizona republican., 1918-09-22

been showcr-watcr causes such tres, you know-and now, away a. the bottom of the pile, that coal wa, white hot. All we could do at first was to play the steam hose on it and hold 1t from gaining for twenty. four hours.
 T was on the bridge at 2:3o next morning-had the midnirht to 4 A. M. watch-when the starboard bunker blew out. The fire had crossed the ship. We did our best but before 4 o'clock there were tbree explosions on the port side. and then we knew that it was time for dn,. perate measures.
 The captain called for volunteer. lie said he wanted men that would go down into that furnace bulp:no With fatal gas-fellows that would walk straight into those lung. If death and shovel away the ton cosj 70 as to uncover the burning cor. , That was the only way to save tho eHiP'
Arizona republican., 1918-09-22
LETTERS, THE DEMAND

Sure; but Id rather had letter than a hundred cigarette cases. Of course I'm glad I enlisted but, gee, If the people at home knew how bad us fellows wanted letters, they'd write every day, even if they didn't have nothin' to say except Yours truly If they only knew"
 That sailor was a fair example of our young seamen in France: unfal- tering in his determination to do his duty, but unremittingly homesick. The room in which he revealed his aeart was one of many such rooms where, daily, many of our enlisted men are moved to similar confessions their one healthy substitute for home, the Y. NJ. c. A. headquarters at a French port.
 These boys are the keepers-up of commerce., the ood-bringers, the sleepless guides and guardians of our troops that cross the sea.
 The work of the Mosquito Fleet is nothing short of wonderful" a French admiral recently declared.  "In the last report of two hundred and fifty ships conveyed, only three losses were reported; since the Mos quito Fleet came here, the s. O. s. calls due to mines and submarine at tacks have decreased fifty per cent"
 These results are achieved only by labor that is hard, dangerous, and ,~ftho,,f rarordad yroias Thera ora days when men have to stand on watch for fourteen hours without re- lief; whole voyages when the gun crews have never moved more than five feet from their guns. snatching sleep on the rain-washed decks :; cruises when the men in the fire room and before the engines have never once been able to come up for a breath of fresh air.
Arizona republican., 1918-09-22
A MISS AND A HIT.

Please don't" said the secretary.
 The big fist shot forward
 It didn't hit anything. It was shunted aside as little twist of the slim switch shunts . train of coal cars. It dragged the boatswain's mate after it into vacant space--and, as the boatsmain's mate went by, something caught something uncommonly like an express engine on the point of the jaw, and sent him smashing to the floor.
 Then the quiet secretary picked tho giant up in his arms and carried him to back room. of which the two were the only occupants.
 T hope I haven't hurt you" said the secretary. q tried not to-
 The secretary was a Presbyterian minister. He was also a Colorado rancher And also he had been the best boxer in Princeton during his day there his name is o. F. Gardner.
 He nursed that boatswain's mate back to sobriety and got him on his ship in time to escape reprimard. The next night the sailor turned up again at the Y. M. C. A. building
 Eve come here to apologize" hs said.
 That's all right said the secre- tary.
 "No, it ain't," the sailor persisted. q made a nuisance of myself befo,s all this crowd, and it's before the whole crowd that I've got to apolo- gize. Here, you swipes!" he bel. lowed.
Arizona republican., 1918-09-22

Boys of Mosquito Fleet, Who Find French Ports Dreary and Full of "HomesiCkness Germs," Go Back to Their Ships Cheerful and Ready for Anything after Meeting the Women Workers Who have Gone "Over There" to Make France Look as Much Like Home as Possible.
Arizona republican., 1918-09-22

n over seVenteen-ne wore the
 uniform of a sailor in the United States Navy. He had come Into this little room, opening of the main street of the dreary French port, with just bit of a swagger
 "Des ci0Grettes," he said, and flung upon the counter a fifty-franc bill. What brand do you prefer?" asked the hind-the-counter.
 Instantly, that faint hint of bra vndo passed from the boyish face, leaving it clean and manly-glad, too, and yet wistful
 "Geew he cried. You're an American, aren't you? Great guns, but it's good to hear American talked in this town
 He drew out. as long as he dared the details of his purchase. He went away slowly, and presently returned and bought some more cigarettes. He hung about the room, and ther bought still more. He ostentatiously pulled out a shining cigarette cas, from a pocket, and filled it.
 mo clerk couldn't help smile You must smoke a great deal" sht said.
 The sailor blushed. Its not that he confessed, "but--well, just tt hear you talk is like home!" H. fumbled with the cigarette case.
 See that?" he said. q got 1t to day from my folks in Boston. That nonogram-they're my initials. guessed maybe they'd send me ciga rettes, but didn't expect the case As it was, the case came alone"
 Its very pretty" said the clerk.
 'It's the first word I've had iron home for three months" said the boy "They don't writer"
 He turned away. T guess tn, mails are all balled-up."
 "Still, you did get the case"
Arizona republican., 1918-09-22
COLLEGE BOYS FIRST.

Well, sir, the first to voluntee, were the college kids~and Four stripes gave them the iob I By squads of four. with a nst,v omser to each, they jumped into that nell. shovel! You ought to ba1s seen them! Three minutes .h;.t they were to work, but they wsrs sased so quickly that eleven Lid. @ were earned out, one right after the other, on the backs of their shin. mates. n Sawbones stood oa deck with .he puimotor and pumped them through, but a lot were caucht sneaking out of their bunk, to co pack and fight the gas again. Jt vs. as tough job as I've ever seen as sea, but those boys did it; they con. aaered the fire and saved the ship Since then, you don't hear much iauRhlng 1t the College Kids''
 somehow that quartermaster had gwen me hint about himself whats your colleee!' I asked
 Yale. ninety four" he said "Rr+ ! m an old hand. It was these kid, l was talking about. Don't mention my being college man to anybody aboard. l don't want to seem to h- putting on side"
 other: ""
 To an orderly entertainment at q !. NJ. c. A. building came one nicht brilliantly illuminated boatswain's mate lie was splendid specimen Of physical manhood. six feet three inches. and as hard as nails. But he was intent on starting something" He stopped, with one believing command, the singer on the stage He knocked down two of his protest. ing friends, spilled a crowded bench and swaggered up to the secretary in charge with the majesty of breaker sweeping toward the beach.
 I'm going to break up this show" he said.
 It looked very much as if ne would, too.
 Now, the secretary in charge was quiet and unassuming man. He had done wonders in his work among our fleet in French waters, but he spoke in small voice and moved gently.
 If l were you" said the secrc- tarv. q wouldn't interfere
 The hell you wouldn't" said tn, boatswain's mate and shook mighty fist.
Arizona republican., 1918-09-22
PICK UP SURVIVORS

Hast trip" she was informed, Eve picked up three small boats with fifty-nine men in them. About half of those men were from a ship that had been torpedoed the day before. They got away and were taken on 8 passing steamer, and they hadn't been aboard her for twelve hours be- fore she was torpedoed, too. We got those fellows into the drum-room and laid them over the boilers. When ever we sight a life boat the com missary steward starts supplies of soup and coffee, so we had plenty of the warm stuff ready for them, and we lent them our clothes while their own were drying"
 His companion laughed.
 "Why don't you tell the restP he asked.
 "Oh, what's the use." grumbled the first sailor.
 "Then I'll tell it." persisted the second. "Our crews clothes were 60 much better than the slops the rescued men had come aboard in that some of the rescued forgot to change back to their own duds before they went ashore. If you see any stray uniforms walking around this town, they're ours"
 However, if good company is a moral force not to be neglected. so is good food, and in that particular the Y. NJ. C. A. has thus far been fortunate. There is a story told in one port. where Vincent Astor has been staying when on shore leave. to the effect that he was complaining of the restaurant in his hotel.
 "You can't get really good meal there" said Astor.-
Arizona republican., 1918-09-22
BoATsWAIN's APOLOGY.

Every man in the room fell silent. The boatswain's mate addressed them:
 "I want to tell you fellows" he said. "that I was a fool last night, and got what was comin to me; but I'm not such | fool but what I can learn | lesson. I'm cuttin' out the booze. That man there treated me square, and saved me from trouble aboard ship, and after tonight if any slob tries to get fresh around this place. why any such guys got to tackle the two of us." Some college men and some men that have hardly been to school at all. group of millionaires and a scattering of rough-necks, but every one sound Fat heart and brave in action-these make up the Mosquito Fleet The worst aren't bad, they are only lonely. The best are enduring dangerous and. what is more, hideously monotonous, life afoat and one beset with the temptation of emotional reaction ashore. For both sorts the choice lies solely between the sordidness of foreign port and the Y. M. c. A.
 Which are you for-the Y. M. c. A. ] or the porti
Arizona republican., 1918-09-22
BY REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFMAN

bIHOUGH he was mere goodbye and cried little told ladhe didn't look home all your soks for
 sevenenhe the mendins,