The Jasper news. [volume] (Jasper, Missouri) 1898-1924, 1918-11-14


About eleven o'clock that morning
the whistle blew again, and we came
out and were given an aluminium
spoon and a dish apiece. Then we
cheered up and saw corned beef and
cabbage for ourselves. An hour later
they drilled us through the snow to
the kuche. When we got there we
stood In line until at least half-past
twelve, and then the Germans shout
ed: "Nlchts III essen" But we did
not know what that meant. so we just
hung around there and waited. Then
they started shouting, "Zuruck Zu-
ruckl" and drove us back to the bar
racks.
Later we heard the words "nichts
zu essen !" so often that we thought
probably they meant mo eats" We
had our reasons for thinking so, too.
Those words, and "zuruck" and
"'raus." were practically all we did
hear, except, of course, various kinds
of schweinhunde.
1t was awful to see the men when
we got back to the barracks. Some of
the boys from the George, not much
over twelve years old, were almost
crazy, but even the older men were
crying, many of them. 1t was nothing
but torture all the time. They opened
all the windows and doors in the bnr-
racks. and then we could not heat the
room with our bodies. When we start.
ed to move around, to keep warm, they
fired few shots ut us. ] do not
hot lnr h
we had got so that we did not pay any
attention to things like that. But 1t
stopped u.s. and we had to stand still.
The Huns thought we would take the
rifles from the sentries and use them,
too.
l never saw yellower bunch of
people in my life. / do not mean PEG.
pie. l wish l could publish what
really mean.
We had stoves in the barracks, but
no coal or wood to burn. There were
many boxes piled up there, but they
belonged to the Germans. We would
have burned them If we could, but
| the Germans made us carry them
across the road. They weighed about
$50 pounds apiece, and we were so
weak that 1t was all two men could do
to bulge them. And we had to carry
them; they would not let US roll them.
We were so cold and hungry that even
that exercise did not warm us.
About 2:30 the whistle blew again,
and the Huns picked out a few men
| and took them down the road. We
could not figure out why, but they
came back about three o'clock, all of
them with bread in their arms. They
were chewing away on 1t when they
| had chance. Whenever the sentries
were not looking they would bite at 1t
like fish going after a worm. Each
man carried five loaves.
When they got in the barracks the
sentries made them put the bread
down on the floor, and then, with
their bayonets, the sentries cut each
loaf once down the center lengthwise
and four times across, which meant
ten men to loaf about the size of an
ordinary ten-cent loaf In this country
now. They gave each of US a piece
a little larger than a safety-match
box.
The bread was hard and dark, and
l really think they made 1t from trees
1t had just exactly the same smell
that the dirt around trees has.
We filed past the sentries single file
to get our ration of this mud, and
there was no chance of getting in line
twice, for we had to keep on filing
until we were out In the road, and
stand there in the snow to eat it. We
could not go back in the barracks un-
til every man had been served.
Our meals were like this: A can Of
barley coffee In the morning; cabbage
soup, so called. at noon; tenth of a
loaf of bread at p. m. That was
our menu day in and day out, the
kaiser's birthday, Lincoln's, May day.
or any other time.
This cabbage soup was great idea.
We called 1t shadow soup, because the
boys claimed they made 1t by hanging
q cabbage over barrel of water and
letting the shadow fall on the water
We pretended, too, that If you found
any cabbage in 1t, you could take your
dish back for a second helping. But
l never saw anybody get more than
one dishful. All 1t was, was just
spoiled water.
We tried to go to sleep that night,
but there were so many sentries
around us-and those of us who were
not sick were wOunded-that I do not
think man of us really slept. After
while l asked sentry If could go
outside for minute, but for some rea-
son he would not let me. had diff.