The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-07-16
SOLDIERS FIRST {. NIGHT IN TRENCHES
 PICTURED BY ONE
Mind Grows So Active That the Head Throhs From Physical Exertion
 of Thinking

London, June 0.-(Corresnondence oe
 the Associated Pres)-What will tba fret
 iiisht m the trenches be? is a question
 that thousands of American soldiers
 have faced perhaps with some mlsgiv- ings, certainly with lively antieination The experience of many of them n,us+ De like that of a British plowbov-soIaier
 aeserised by Lord Dunsany, captain of
 the InniskilliFg Fusiliers.
 A mans first night in the front t;ro IS an merchandising experience." ne writes. Tt is like mans fret ,ota or his twenty-first birthday-it is a mia,
 stone Tn his life. marking the chance rom the mimic warfare behind inc lfnae eo the grim realities of actual confHc+
 efhaps 1 can best explain how this eXperlenee affects soldier bv teIIine !ou ene story or recruits first night
 III the trenches. Dick Chesser. one of m lis men was plowboy just past IS when ne enlisted, and not vet 19 yban ne went on his first sentry go, in tba front line th 'he
 II was a quiet night, and dawn was only an hour or so distant when cHasser LOOK his post. The corporal told him
 where to stand, warned him to keen a good lookout, and left him.
 There was Dick Cheeser alone in tba dark, with an army in front of him So yards away; 8 resourceful. crafty and desperate enemy. The stiffness of the nlght only added to Cheese1ss feelino, of responsibility. The stiffness awed him
 Ihefe had not been 9 shell all night He put his head over the parspet glngeriy and waited. Nobody fired at him He Ieit somehow that the night was waiting for him. that something uncannv and uIeXDaCtp6 t,at voices Tn communication trench some- where behind him, there were q few sen- tences Of sruff, unintelligible conversa- ton; the voices died away There was a long silence. Cheeser fell to won- dering whether the night was black or gray; he stared hard at the night to study it's exact color; the night stared back at him. and seemed to be threat enlng him; 1t Was gray, gray and art ful. like eat or a fox
 It was uncanny, thought Cheeser If smells would come, or Germans, or any, thing at all, you would know how to take 1t; but this deathly quiet. like mist over huge valleys. Anything might happen. Cheeser waited and waited and the night waited too. He felt that they were watching each other, the night and he, both crouching, both ready to spring.
 His mind grew so active that his head throbbed with the physical exer- tion of thinking He was watchiner with eyes and ears and imagination hoping to anticipate by a second or two the dread something that he felt was sure to happen soon in the ominous mist of
 No Mans Land. He thought of throw ing stone out into the blackness just to see what would happen. Then he began to wish for his boyhood slingshot, so that he could catapult a nice round stone right across the blackness into the Ger man line.
 "A little wind blew in the night, too cold for the time of year. It made for a moment line in the mist over No Mans Land. Cheeser peered into it. but seemed to say. You cant guess my se- cret.' And the awesome hush intensi- | fled. What are they up to now? thought the sentry. What are those crafty en- l enlies planning in all those miles of si- lence?
 Even the very lights were few and far between. When one went up, far hills of shadow seemed to sit and brood over the valley: black shapes grew up and vanished in the shadow The rocket faded and the hills went back into mys- tery again, and Cheeser still peered level over the ominous valley
 All the dangers and sinister shapes and evil destinies that the sentry faced that night cannot be pictured or de- scribed in mere words. It was only two
 hours that he stood there and not a shell fell in all that time, not a Ger man stirred.
 Tt is weird and awful experience, that first night ju the trenches. The next time it is an easy matter"