Connecticut western news. [volume] (Salisbury, Litchfield Co., Conn.) 1871-1970, 1918-08-08

They Potted Huns by Guess Work.
they crawled back just before day
light, but sometimes they were out "a
hours at stretch. They took great
pride in the number of Germans they
knocked over, and If our men did not
get eight or ten they thought they had
not done a good nights work. OF
course 1t was not wholesale killing,
like machine cunning, but 1t was very
useful, because our snipers were al
ways laying for the German snipers,
and when they got SHIPPER Fritz they
saved just so many of our lives.
The Limeys have a great little ex-
preston that means a lot: Garry on"
They say 1t is a cockney expression
When a captain falls in action, his
words are not a message to the girl
he left behind him or any dope about
his gray-haired mother, but Garry on,
Lieutenant Whosis." IL the lieutenant
gets his it is "Carry on, Sergeant
Jacks" and so on as far as 1t goes.
So the words used to mean, "Take
over the command and do the job
right" But now they mean hot only
that but Keep up your courage, and
go to it." One man will say it to
another sometimes when he thinks the
first man is getting downhearted, but
more often, if he is a Limey, he will
start kidding him.
Our men, of course, did not say
Garry on" and in fact they did not
have any expression in French that
meant exactly the same thing. But
they used to cheer each other along,
all right, and they passed along the
command when it was necessary, too.
wonder what expression the Ameri-
can troops will use. (You notice /
do not call them Sammies y
took my turn at listening post with
the rest of them, of course. A listen
ing post is any good position .out in
No Mans Land, and is always held by
two men. Their Job is to keep live
ear on Fritz and in case they hear any
thing that sounds very much like an
attack one man runs back to his lines
and the other stays to hold back the
Boches as long as he can. You can
figure for yourself which is the most
healthful job.
AS many times as I went on listen
ing-post duty 1 never did get to feel
ing homelike there exactly. You have
to lie very still, of course, as Fritz is
listening, too, and a move may mean
a bullet in the ribs. So, lying on the
ground with hardly q change of posi-
ton, the whole lower part of my body
would go to sleep before I had been
at the post very long. l used to brag
a lot about how fast 1 could run, so
I had my turn as the runner, which
suited me all right. But every time
l got to a listening post and started
to think about what I would do If
Fritz should come over and wondered
how good runner he was, / took q
| long breath and said, EJECT, do your
duty" And 1 was strong on duty.
After I had done my stunt in the
front-line and reserve trenches 1 went
back with my company to billets, but
had only been there for a day or two
before I was detached and detailed to
the artillery position to the right of us,
where both the British and French
! had mounted naval guns. There were
guns of all calibers there, both naval
and field pieces, and l got good look
at the famous "75's," which are the
hest guns in the world, in my estima-
ton, and the one thing that saved
Verdun.
The "75's" fired 80 shots a minute
where the best the German guns could
do was SIX. The American threc-inch
| field piece lets go six times a minute
too. The French government owns the
secret of the mechanism that made
this rapid fire possible. When the first
"75's" began to roar, the Germans
knew the French had found a new
weapon, so they were very anxious to
get one of the guns and learn the
secret.
Shortly afterward they captured
eight guns by a mass attack in which
the allies claim, there were 1000 Ger
man troops killed. The Boches studied
the guns and tried to turn out pieces
like them at the Krupp factory. But
somehow they could not get it. Theil
imitation "75's' would only fire five
shots very rapidly and then Cough
puff, puff, puff, with nothing cominl
out. The destructive power of tht
''75's" is enormous. These guns have
saved the lives of thousands of poilu: