El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1918-02-26

mere incidents. The main current has
gone along steadily enough; day by
! day and week by week the men have
I been learning the new sort Of war
fare, through the rain and the eternal
mud and the snow, in discomfort IN
believable.
Always the Mud.
I This particular division lives in a
triangle Of villages. scattered about
on the slopes of hills. or tucked into
folds of the valley OF a river, which
just now, in the mild weather OF the
last week, is in furious. muddy spate.
The men live, some of them, in
original Plattsburg barracks. and as
soon as they were made weather.
proof. were comfortable, enough
Others are in old French barracks,
and they, too, are comfortable enough.
The rest are in billets. which may
houses Sometimes there are COWS for
neighbors in the next room; some
times the front door is not much more
than a fence.
Always. in barracks or billet, it is
impossible to avoid tracking in the
mud. Always the floors-if there are
floors,-are slippery. There is no get
ting rid OF it, clean as one will
Plenty OF Work.
And when men are Weakened and
fed Before daylight, marched out in
cold and rain and mud five or six
miles, drilled all the morning, drilled
again all the afternoon. and finally
marched home in the wet. miserable
dusk, there is not likely to be much
enthusiasm over cleaning the floor.
Left alone, many outfits get what
is called by the sanitary officers
persons without any pity for fatigue
mud fever" 1t isn't exactly a
sickness; it is state of contentment
with the mud. It is a slackening of
Of the feeling for neatness and it
leads TO a dangerous lowering of
morale.
Whereupon, the sanitary officer
sneaks round and inspects when no.
body is looking. and then jacks up the
major, and the major calls the atten-
ton OF the captains. and the scolsiug
trickles down 20 the squad leaosrs,
and certain men. not well enough to
90 out on drill. but not sick enough to
go 10 hospital and so assigned to
light duty find that light duty in
cludes cleaning up barracks rooms or
billets.
Wouldn't Know Your Boys
The conditions are hard, but every
time any one OF the boys gets feel
ing that he isn't having the best time
in his life he goes over for a look
round the French soldiers quarters.
and especially their mess. Then he
finds that he is really living like a
prince.
Meanwhile the training period has
done everybody heaps Of good Physi-
cally, you wouldn't know your boys
They have become s0Ldiers-and that
is an indefinable thing. There is a
residence, a snap and a CLINT in the
eye; there is a certain precision of
movement, a readiness and a spirit;
and there is toughness.
If you don't believe IL, pack your
self up with So pounds Of awkward
ness, take a rifle. stand for a while
under a showerbath, kit and all. and
then put on a gas mask and go out
and hike round for a while, some
times running a bit. and then again
lying prone in the mud for a change.
II you can come home as cheerful as
these boys you're pretty TT.
Some Are Veterans Now.
Some of the divisions have nearly
finished their training periods and are
already facing the day when they
must leave such comfort and order as
they have been able to achieve and
move forward to whatever duty lies
ahead-the actual entrance of our
troops into the war.
One doesn't dare say going into the
trenches" because II isn't yet off
oially stated that they are going into
the trenches. It may be that the
Germans don't know whether they are
going in; if the Boche thinks they are,
when as a matter Of fact they are
merely going to do laundry work be-
hind the lines, the Germans will be
fooled, that's all. And nobody wants
to divulge military information.
Lies From Missionaries.
There was a general the other day, ]
and he was mad. Papers had come
a.
tanning an interview or a speech from |
some Understanding Methodists who |