The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1918-07-23

1AA a ~ EANC N11
sneered at and insulted time and
again before she finally managed to
get owe the border. She died about
two months after she reached st. Ma
zaire.
Moreover, / 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 a 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 / made up my mind all
of a sudden to go over and get some
for myself. Believe me, / got enough
racket before / was through. Most
of the really important things l have
done have happened like that: / did
them on the jump, you might say.
Many other Americans wanted a look,
too; there were five thousand Amer
leans in the Canadian army at one
time they say.
1 would not claim that / went over
there to save democracy, or anything
like that. l never did like Germans,
and l never me- a Frenchman who was
not kind to me, and what L heard
about the way the Huns treated the
Bergians made me sick. l used to get
out of bed to 90 to an all-night picture
show, l thought about it so much.
But there was not much excitement
about New York, and L figured the
q. S. would not get into it for a while,
anyway, so l just wanted to go owe
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 vas an e
garby-two bitches (enlistments), gun
pointer rating, and about thirty-fve
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 a
noted boxer. OF the five of us, / am
the only one who went in, got
through and came out. Flynn and
Mitchell did not go in; Murray and
Brown never anne 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. l signed on as water
tender-an engine room job-but the
others were on deck-that is, seamen
We left Boston for st. Nazaire viii
a cargo of ammunition, bully beef
etc, and made the first trip withou
anything of interest happening.
As we were tying to the dock at ST
Nazaire, l saw a German prisoner sit
ting on a pile of lumber. l though
probably he would be hungry, so
went down into the oilers mess ant
got two slices of bread with a thicl
piece of beefsteak between them anC
handed 1t to Fritz. He would not take
it. At irse I thought he was afrait
TO, but by using several languages anl
signs he managed to make me under
stand that he was not hungry-had
too much to eat, in fact.
l used to think of this fellow ocea
sionally when I was in a German pris
on camp, and a piece of mOldy breat
the size of a safety-match box wa,
the generous portion of food thes
forced on me, with true German hos
pitality, once every forty-eight hours
l would not exactly have refused {
beefsteak sandwich, 1 am afraid. Blu
then I was not a heaven-born German
1 was only a common American garby
He was full of kultur and grub
was not full of anything.
There was a large prison camp g.
st. Nazaire, and at one time or an
other 1 saw all of it. Before the wal
it had been used as a barracks by the
French army and consisted of we'll
made, comfortable two-stOry stone
buildings, floored with concrete, witt
auxiliary barracks of logs. The Ger,
man prisoners occupied the stonS
buildings, while the French guard,
We're quartered in the log houses. IN
side, the houses were divided into Ions
rooms with whitewashed walls. There
was.a gymnasium for the prisoners, &
canteen where they might buy mos
of the things you could buy anywhere
else in the country, and a studio fol
the painters among the prisoners. OF
ficers were separated from privates-
which was a good thing for the pr
vates-and We're kept in houses sur
rounded by stockades. officers ant
prlvates received the same treatment