Williston graphic., 1918-03-21
Continued from last week.

eighth day of the week he is given
twenty-four hours "on 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.
my. I was tired out, and using my
shrapnel-proof helmet (shrapnel proof
until a piece of shrapnel hits it), or
tin hat, for pillow, lay down in the
straw, and was soon fast asleep. l
must have slept about two hours, when
I awoke with a prickling sensation all
over me. AS 1 thought, the straw had
worked through my uniform. I woke
up the fellow lying on my left, who had
been up the line before, and asked
him:
"Does the straw bother you, mate?
It's worked through my uniform and
can't Sleep"
In a sleepy voice he answered,
'"That amt straw, them's cooties."
From that time on my friends the
"cooties'' were constantly with me.
"Cooties," 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 f1eas.
To an American flea means small
insect armed with a bayonet, who is
wont to jab it into you and then hop
skip and jump to the next place to be
attacked There is an advantage in
having fleas 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 "coOties"
are always in evidence. The billets are
infested with them, especially 20 Il
there is straw on the floor.
have taken bath and put on
brand-new underwear; in fact, COM
plete change of uniform. and then
turned in for the night. The next MORN
ing my shirt would be full of them. 1t
is common sight to see eight or ten
soldiers sitting under tree with their
shirts over their knees engaging in
''shirt hunt"
At night about half an hour before
Sights out" you can see the Tommies
grouped around a candle, trying, in it's
dim light, to rid their underwear of
the vermin. A popular and very quick
method is to take your shirt and draw
ers, and run the seams back and for
ward in the flame from candle and
burn them out. This practice is dam
gerous, because you are liable to burn
holes in the garments if you are not
careful.
Recruits generally sent to Blighty
for a brand of insect powder adver-
tised as ''Good for body lice" The ad-
vertisement is quite right; the powder
is good for "cooties;' they simply
thrive on 1T.
The older men of our battalion We're
wiser and made ScratcherS out of
wood. These were rubbed smooth with
q bit of stone or sand to prevent splin-
tiers. They were about eighteen inches
long, and Tommy guarantees that
scratcher of this length will reach
any part of the body which may be at
tackled. Some of the fellows were lazy
and only made their scratchers twelve
inches, but many night when on
guard, looking over the top from the
fire step of the front-line trench. they
would have given a thousand "Quid'
for the other six inches.
Once while we were in rest billets an
Irish Hussar regiment camped IN an
open field opposite our billet. After
they had picketed and fed their horses,
a general shirt hunt took place. The
troopers ignored the call Dinner up
and kept on with their search for big
game. They had curious method Of
procedure. They hung their shirts over
q hedge and beat them with their en-
trenching tool handles.
asked one of them why they didn't
pick them off by hand, and he an
swered. 1--WE haven't had a bath for
nine weeks or a change of clabber. II
[ tried to pick the 'cooties' off my shirt.
[ would be here for duration OF war;
After taking close look at his shirt,
agreed with him; it was alive.
The greatest shock recruit gets
when he arrives at his battalion IN
France is to see the men engaging in
"cootie" hunt. With an air of con-
tempt and disgust he avoids the COM
pny of the older men. until a couple
of days later, in a torment Of itching,
he also has to resort to g shirt hunt: