Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1918-11-22

few high ones just to Neep us m
crested We were recently presented
with a service Ia talon of several
nundrd darkies ever whom we act as
ioremen. With characterize. good
nature they take TO soldering much
more easily than we do. ana with less
worry ana sense of responsible y-ii
such a thing We're possible
Still they have their trials, and one
of these is a hearty dislike for 20 NJ.
NJ. II. Els, that's the size that jerry
generally feeds MS, as it makes such a
sizable dent in the road, he figures 1t
Will dishearten us read builders com
pie ely, They make an ungodly NOISE
coming over, sounding when they are
high up like the shrieking of an
emergency brake on La Bahada, when
the old bus is ge, ting away from you:
and when they are getting near your
range, they resemble a runaway
freight train going a million miles a
minute. The lofty advice, that you
never hear the shell that hi 5 YOU,
doesn't keep you from duckiug your
head foot sweet" OFrehch for damn
pronto.) We have official instructions
what to do in a case like this Just as
we are taught to get up at reYeille,
nd sign the payroll and so forth.
They are to seek the nearest dug
out or to go away from here--W which
aNer is the most accessible.
The first day we had our colored
brethren out, the boChe began to pass
he time 'oday with some big stuff
1--WE back here are not familiar enough
with them TO give pet names YETI the
first shell had just ripped a hole in
the silence and the neighboring land
scape, near one Of our gangs. Jim
Johnson, recently from Alabama, had
been shoveling and singing. He
stopped both. Huh" he demanded,
dropping the shovel, where's dem
digouts?' They tell the S DRY around
here of another darky who was given
to prayer, when danger was threat
ened. A shell had just whistled over
his head and he was hot-footing it to
dugout. AS he ran. this was his
prayer--"Oh, Lord, keep 'em hight
A few days ago we were sIent but
busy Witnesses of one of the big
drives. Our part was the unimportant
part of mending some roads that lead
20 the front, and if we don't get
things at first hand, we at least get
hem at second. SO we had a good
many of the thrills about the danger
which we don't consider compensa
ton for not being able to take the
manifest part in this fight. For days
before we had felt" something in
the air, had heard hollow nocturnal
rumblings, and had received and
passed on low-vOiced rumors that
something would he doing pretty prom
to that would make us glad and proud
to be called Americans.
One night shortly after midnight,
we were awakened by a terrific bar
rage. The only sound distinguishahle
from the continuous roar was the
earthquaking jolts of our heaVies, and
he bark of enemy shrapnel. We
looked out and the sky toward the line
was wildly ablaze. We were too ex-
cited to sleep. The rest of the night
we spent hoping we would be sent
up irho the line TO do pioneer work,
that is, fill shell holes and construct
temporary roads across the enemy
trenches, It seems that engineers
don't fight except when there is a
threatened break in the line. Along
toward daybreak a s'ackening in the
bomhardment told us our boys were
going over" We hurried out to the
job on the road to get news From
signal men and NJ. P.'s we learned
that our fellows had gone over at
430, had reached all detectives 50 far,
| and were still going strong.
Observation balloons were UP, how
ing under the sky clouds and whole
squadrons of planes buzzed by in ba--
tie formation. They seemed to have
| things their own way, as there WASH
a boche in sight. Still, there had been
nothing very unusual so far--nothing
| to refute the impression that we had
only heard one of the frequent bonn
bardments, ami that the planes were
only on a practice hike. We lacked
something concrete to convince our
senses that there had really been a
| battle.
Then about o'clock it came. We
noticed first big limousine speeding
toward us with two red stars on the
windshield. We don't see a general
every day, so we looked up. But il
/ wasn't general. The car was full of
wounded douhboys, bandaged, but
smiling-those that could. There fol-
lowed a string of officers cars (no h
ing is too good for our wounded) and
ambulances, racing to the hospital 1t
brought the war home to us for the
first time as nothing else had. We had
seen all of its preparatlon--thousa
of men and guns and acres of piles
of ammunition, have watched ba, ter
les in action shooting at an invs BILE
enemy, have seen distant observation
balloons shot down in flames by enc
my airpanes, and have heard the
took ,ock of machine guns from
these same planes as they nose -dived
and sprayed our roads with bullets
and we have eaten corned Willie, the
army's own, and yet the war had al
ways seemed unreal, existent, UNI
til that morning.
That afternoon a strange procession
wound down the road past us, Two
husky Americans with rifles led 1t and
others followed, and in between were
hundreds of dirty, grayish green uni
formed beings, old men, boys OF II,
owlsh-looking dwarfs, and plain
fighting men who had learned to say
kamerad. They were an army of mis-
fits, who called themselves supermen.
Well, folks. it's past taps, and we
wake nm early DaDU that roOStpr-