Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1918-09-17
CHAPTER vi.

My outfit was one of those that saw
the Germans place women and chill
dren In front of them as shields
against our fire. More than third of
our men, should say, had been pretty
tough criminals in their own countries.
They always traded their pay against
a handful of cards or roll of the
bones whenever they got a chance.
They had been in most of the dirty
parts of the world. This war was not
such a much to them; just one more
job in the list. They could call God
and the saints and the human body
more things than any boss stevedore
that ever lived.
Yet they were religious In a way.
Some of them were always reading
religious books or saying prayers in
different ways and between them they
believed in every religion and super.
stition under the sun, | guess. Yet
they were the toughest bunch l ever
saw.
After they saw the Germans using
the Belgian women the way they did,
some kind of vow or other, and
most of them kept their vows, too,
believe. And those that were religious
got more so after that
Our chaplain had always been very
friendly with the men, and while 1
think they liked him they were so
tough they would never admit it, and
some Of them claimed he was a Jonah,
or jinx, or bad luck of some kind But
they all told him their vows as soon
as they made them and he was sup
posed to be sort of referee as to
whether they kept them or not.
During my second stunt in the front
lines things got pretty bad. The Ger.
mans were five to our one and they
kept pushing back parts of the line
and cleaning out others. And the
weather was as bad as it could be
and the food did not always come reg
ularly. Now, before they took their
vows, every last man in the bunch
would have been kicking and growing
all the time, but, as it was, the only
time they growled was when the Ger
mans pushed us back.
Things kept getting worse and you
could see that the men talked to the
chaplain more and quite few of them
got real chummy with him.
One morning Fritz started in bright
and early to begin his strafe The
lieutenant was walking up and down
the trench to see that the sentries
were properly posted and were on the
Job. A shell whizzed over his head
and landed just behind the parados
and the dirt spouted up like imagine
Yellowstone geyser looks.
Another officer came up to the lieu
tenant--a new one who had only
joined the company about a week be-
fore. They had walked about ten
yards when another shell whizzed over
them. They laid to and a third one
came There were three in less than
five minutes, directly over their heads.
Then shell landed on the left side
of the trench and a poilu yelled that
four men had got it. They were all
wounded and three died later. The
lieutenant went over to them and Just
after he passed me a lad got it square
not far from me and was knocked
over to where / was lying
The lieutenant came back and
helped me with the first-aid roll and
then the Germans began using shrap-
mel. The lieutenant was swearing
hard about the shrapnel and the Ger
mans and everything else.
Farther to the right shell had Just
struck near the parados and made a
big crater and across from it, against
the parapet, was young chap with
a deep cash In his head, sitting on
the fire step and next TO him a fellow
nursing the place where his arm had
been blown off. Our bread ration lay
all about the trench and some of the
poilus were fishing 1t out of the mud