The Carlisle independent., 1918-08-01

Frenchwoman, and with it, she was sneered at and insuited time and again before she finally managed to get over the border. She died about two months after she reached St. Ma zaire.
 Moreover. I heard the fate of my older brother. who had made his home in France with my grandmother. He had gone to the front at the outbreak of the war with the infantry from St. NaZaire and had been killed two or three weeks afterwards. This made 1t a sort of personal matter.
 But what put the finishing touches to me were the stories wounded Canadian lieutenant told me some months later in New York. He had been there and he knew. You could not help believing him; you can al ways Tell it when a man has been there and knows.
 There was not much racket around New York so 1 made up my mind all of a sudden to go over and get some for myself. Believe me, I got enough racket before I was through. Most Of the really important things I have done have happened isSe '.,4a.: 1 did them on the js.np, you might say. Many other Americans wanted a look, too: th1ie were five thousand Amer iccls in the Canadian army at one ,ime they say.
 l would not claim that I went over there to save democracy, or anything like that. 1 never did like Germans, and 1 never met Frenchman who was not kind to me, and what 1 heard about the way the Huns treated the Belgians made me sick. I used to get out of bed to go to an all-night picture show. 1 thought about it so much. But there was not much excitement about New York, and I figured the U. S. would not get into it for while, anyway, so I just wanted to go over and see what it was like. That is why lots of us went, 1 think
 There were five of us who went to Boston to ship for the other side: Sam Murray, Ed Brown. Tim Flynn, Mitchell and myself. Murray was an ex- garby-two hitches (enlistments), gun pointer rating, and about thirty-five years old. Brown was a Pennsylvania man about twenty-six years old, who had served two enlistments in the U. S. army and had quit with the rank of sergeant. Flynn and Mitchell were both ex-navy men. Mitchell was noted boxer. Of the five of us, I am the only one who went in, got through and came out Flynn and Mitchell did not go in; Murray and Brown never came back.
 The five of us shipped on the steam ship Virginian Of the American-Ha- waiian line. under American flag and registry. but chartered by the French government. 1 signed on as water tender-an engine room job-but the
 We left Boston for St. Nazaire with cargo of ammunition, bully beef, etc, and made the first trip without anything of interest happening.
 As we were tying to the dock at St. NaZaire. 1 saw German prisoner sit ting on pile of lumber. I thought probably he would be hungry, so Il went down into the oilers mess and got two slices of bread with a thick piece of beefsteak between them and handed it to Fritz. He would not take it. At first I thought he was afraid signs he managed to make me under stand that he was not hungry-had too much to eat, in fact.
 1 used to think of this fellow oeca- sionally when l was in a German pris- on camp, and a piece of moldy bread the size of safety-match box was the generous portion of food they forced on me, with true German hos pitality, once every forty-eight hours. 1 would not exactly have refused q beefsteak sandwich, I am afraid. But then 1 was not heaven-born German. I was only q common American garby. He was full of kultur and grub; 1 was not full of anything.
 There was large prison camp at St. Nazaire, and at one time or an other 1 saw all of it. Before the war il had been used as barracks by theI French army and consisted of we'll made, comfortable two-story stone buildings, ffoored with concrete, with auxiliary barracks of logs. The Ger man prisoners occupied the stone buildings, while the French guards were quartered in the log houses. h. side, the houses were divided into long rooms with whitewashed walls. There was gymnasium for the prisoners. canteen where they might buy most of the things you could buy anywhere else in the country, and studio for the painters among the prisoners. Of hcers were separated from privates- which was good thing for the pri- vates-and were Iept in houses sur rounded by stockades. Officers and privates received the same treatment. however, and all were given exactly the same rations and equipment as the regular French army before it went to tho fr0pr Tboir food consisted of