Connecticut western news., 1918-10-17
The Most Amazing Story of the War
CHAPTER XVIII.
nPack Up Your TroubIes.U


 "Pack Up Your Troubles"
 We arrived at Swinemunde, on the east bank, and after we had had our drink of water and had been rousted back into the bunkers, Badewitz went across to the west side In a launch with Joyce and Hill and guard of sailors. They were to be shot the next morning, with some others, at a public shooting-fest. The rest of us wrapped ourselves in Jumps of coal as best we could and tried to sleep.
 In the morning crowds of Germans came aboard us and were turned loose on the boxes in the hold. It was a sight to see them rip off the covers and gobble the salami and oth- CT stuff that we carried. Table man. ners are not needed when there is no table, I guess, but if you had seen them, you would say these Germans did not even have trough manners. I have seen hogs that were more fin fclSy.,
 While they were at 1t, hand to hand with the chow, giving and receiving terrible punishment, we prisoners were mustered on deck, counted, Kicked onto tugs and transferred to the west bank, where the mob was waiting for us. My wounds, as you can imagine, were in a pretty bad state by this time, and were getting more painful every minute, so that I fou'ld l was getting ugly and anxious For an argument. I knew that if I stayed this way I would probably never come out alive, for there is every chance you could want to pick a. quarrel while you are a prisoner that will mean freedom for you-but only the freedom of going west, which K was not anxious to try
 When we got near the west bank, 1 on the tugs, we could see that we were Aupiagainst a battle with our arms tied. lover half the crowd was women and ehiIdren,&I should say, and the rest we're laborers and old civvies, and re- serve soldiers, and roughnecks gen. eFally- We could see the spit experts the spit snipers, deployed to the fEont,f almost.
 As,.we went ashore. the lombard ment began, and we were not only under fire of spit, if you could call 1t that, but also of rocks and bottles and sticks and most anything that could be thrown.
 All this time, "lest you forget" we had no shoes, and no clothing-only what had once been our underwear. It Is all right to be a Coney Island snowbird and pose around in your bathing suit In the drifts, because you are,in good condition, and last but not least. because you do not have to do M-j Figure out the other side of it flor yourself. s:. f.. " there was nothing much but guns and ammunition and snow, and set us up fn something like skirmish formation. We stood there for some time, and then we saw lot of Huns with the .new long rifles coming toward us, yelling just as they did in battle, and we thought sure we were being used for practice targets. 1t Is a good thing they halted and stopped yelling
 
 started for them to fight it out, for we were not the kind that likes to be Butchered with hands in the air, and we would have been glad for chance to get a few of them before they got 'usa But they did halt, and then sur rounded us, and drilled us away through swamps and woods and shal- low water or slush. The women fol- lowed, tco, and there were plenty of bricks and spit left. Women as well Sss RRn are the same the world over, tliey say. ! wonder? You can just picture the women of, say, Rockland, Me, following a crowd of German pnisoners that way, can't you? Not Rda of course the women of ROckland arg pretty crude-nO kultur at all and Gdtta never commissioned Presl- denGN Wilson to take the lid off the straTes pot for him.
 They drilled us along the docks, and lit looked as though the whole German inavy was tied up at Swinemunde. I've saw many of the ships we had theard about, among them being the famous Vulcan, the mother-ship for submarines. There were many sail ,ors loafng along the docks, and they gave the women q hand with their days work They were no better with brick, but they had more ammunition when,ft came to splitting. One of them tripped a young boy by the name of Kelly. and as you would never doubt Kelly picked up rock and crashed .fha sailor with 1t. He was then bay