The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1918-04-09
THE AMERICAN MORALE.

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An interesting letter from Lieut..
FeatherstoRe published in The In
dex, telling of how our boys fight:
Fighting a powerful, wonderful
ly organized enemy three thousand
miles from home is a. task the mag
nitude Of which We can hardly real
ize ourselves and have many, many
lessons to learn; but the U. s. SOL
diers are coming to the scratch no
bly,. I have been out with our men
land the larges. part Of the battery
is made up of men younger chan ]
am-and a great many Of them
seventeen, eighteen. and. nineteen
years old) for three and, four, days
at hard work when, our average
sleep was close to nothing and they
worked %cheerfully, faithfully and
steadily, Once we, were in the sad
die for sixteen hours and we got in
and learned that we had to go out
in. an hour for eight hours more
(and we had one meal when there
should have been three, and that one
had been cold)-one man complain
ed out loud and he was met with a
volley, Of "what'd YOU come over
here for anyway" "say you ought
to've brought your nurse along"
cd you come here to get your fill
of chow?" and he was sorry he,
hadn't kept quiet.
Hot German Fire.
Only. 4 few days age, p Boehe bat
terry opened up on US with high ex-
plosives and they weren't wasting
their shells all oyer the country Ell
ther. The situation Was pretty had,
and everybody was ordered. to take
the best shelter available. The.
Beche fire got q little more previous
as it vent on and it didn't make,
very nice musie, Finally we got
some information as to what bat
terry was firing on US and the cap;
tain told ne to open up on them
with two guns and. send rest of the
men away from the battery position.
We computed firing data very hasti-
ly and when / stepped outside and
blew the whistle the men sprsng.
out to the guns with a yell-andi it
reminded me Of a football team
when the whistle starts the game.
With shell falling all around us we
gave them "a, aabbo9pat thirty, rounds and
absolutely silenced them-and if
there WAS a man in the battery as
scared as / was he didn't show it
that day. A number Of the men
were hit, but not hurt, by frag-
msntss and ] had three fragments
try to make q bell out Of my he'll
met, when q she'll burst in the top
of a nearby tree. It was one Of the
| . FaH .FH.a. :" ' = . s''f. ..' - .L#. Ef-. -
happiest punches ! eveF saw when,
it vas phoped into. Us = few min,
iates later. that we had caused a big
explosion and fire at the PBoche bat
terry and put one gun out Of com
mis4siioqnn-7appaEeptly having bit an
ammunition dump in their vicinity.
In Very Front Line.
/ haye been in a forward obser-'
walton post for the past two days
and ! have an. opportunity to write
this only because, it is rainig slightly
and a dense fog covers things and
where yesterday I could see nearly
every movement over a couple of
kilometres Of front in No Mans
Land, enemy trenches and, with the
aid Of glasses, eight or ten kilome-
tiers behind the enemy lines, and
aerial activity still further-today
can scarcely see the enemy's first
line trenches and it has been the
qIuietest day, since ! have beerp, at
the front. Yesterday we were
shelled heavily and there hasn't
been an inspecting officer around
in three days-the Germans are use
full for some things after all.