Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1918-02-21

the bloomin' sun a-shinin'r ! looked
guilty.
"Them's the guns up the line. me
lad and you'll get enough OF 'em be-
fore you gets back to Bllghty."
NY knees seemed TO wilt, and ]
squeaked out weak "OhW
Then we started our march up to the
line In ten-kilo tricks. After the first
DAYS march we arrived at our rest
blllets. In France they call them rest
billets. because while In them Tommy
works seven days a week and on the
eighth day OF the week he is given
twenty-four hours ION his own"
Our billet was a spacious affair, a
large barn on the left side of the road,
which had one hundred entrances,
ninety-nlne for shells, rats, wind and
rain, and the hundredth one for Tom
my. / was tired out, and using my
shrapnel-proof helmet (shrapnel proof
until a piece of shrapnel hits IT., or
tin hat, for a pillow, lay down In the
straw, and was soon fast asleep. i
must have slept about two hours, when
awoke with a prlckling sensation all
over me. As thought, the straw had
worked through my uniform. l woke
up the fellow lying on my left, who had
been up the line before, and asked
him:
"Does the straw bother you, mater
It's worked through my uniform and !
can't Sleep"
In sleepy voice he answered,
"That ain't straw, them's coolies"
From that time on my friends the
"cooties" were constantly with me.
"Cooties," or body lice, are the bane
of Tommy's existence.
The arlstocracy of the trenches very
seldom call them Coolies" they speak
of them as fleas.
To an American flea means small
insect armed with bayonet, who is
wont to jab 1t into you and then hop
skip and jump to the next place to be
attacked. There Is an advantage In
having fieas on you instead Of Coolies"
In that In one of his extended jumps
said flea is liable to land on the fell
low next to you; he has the typical
energy and push of the American,
while the "cootIe" has the bulldog
tenacity Of the Englishman; he holds
on and consolidates or digs in until
his meal is finished.
There Is no way to get rid Of them
permanently. No matter how often
you battle, and that is not very often,
or how many times you change your
underwear, your friends the "cooties"
are always in evidence. The billets are
infested with them, especially so II
there is straw on the floor.
/ have taken a bath and put on
brand-new underwear; In fact, a COM
plete change of uniform. and then
turned in for the night. The next morn
ing my shirt would be full of them. II
is common sight to see eight or ten
soldiers sitting under a tree with their
shirts over their knees engaging in a
"shlrt hunt"
At night about half an hour before
flights out" you can see the Tommles
grouped around a candle, trying, in its
dim light, to rid their underwear of
the vermin. A popular and very quick
method is to take your shirt and draw
ers and run the seams back and for
ward In the flame from a candle and
burn them out. This practice is dan
gerOus, because you are liable to burn
holes in the garments If you are not
careful.
Recruits generally sent to Blighty
for a brand of insect powder adver-
tised as Good for body lice" The adj
vertisement is quite right; the powder
is good for "cooties;" they simply
thrive on 1t.
The older men of our battalion were
wiser and made scratchers out of
wood. These were rubbed smooth with
q bit Of stone or sand to prevent splin-
tiers. They were about eighteen inches
long, and Tommy guarantees that
scratcher of this length will reach
any part of the body which may be at
tackled. Some of the fellows were lazy
and only made their scratchers twelve
inches, but many night when on
guard, looking over the top from the
fire step of the front-line trench, they
would have given thousand "quld'
for the other six inches.
Once while we were In rest billets an
Irish Hussar regiment camped in an
open field opposite our billet. After
they had picketed and fed their horses,
a general shirt hunt took place. The
troopers ignored the call Dinner up
and kept on with their search for big
game. They had curious method of
procedure. They hung their shirts over
a hedge and beat them with their en-
trenching tool handles.
I asked one of them why they didn't
pick them off by hand, and he an
swered. eve haven't had bath for