Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1918-12-01
A Night .Ramble.

A 4 10 o'clock Peter Hart, who had
been on duty all the previous night.
found himself getting SO sleepy that he
could scarcely keep awake; SO, like q
wise man. he firmly declined to play any
more bridge that night and rose to 60 to
bed.
Peter was in no desperate hurry to
get back. but at the same time he had
no wish to spend half the night In doing
it. Yet that was what he began to
think it would come to.
1t was. Of course. all the lsaiser's
fault One Of his batteries had caused
q new and uncharted shell crater to ap-
pear In the ground not fifteen yards
from COOS mess dugout. and Peter, who
had run out Of refills for his torch, was
cropping his way homo in tho absolute
pitch blackness, unlit by moon or star,
when lie fell into 1t.
He came to no harm. but the nuisance
Of It was that. not having heard the
shell that caused It and having passed
that way only little more than two
hours earlier, he got it into his very
sleepy head that he had started off too
much to the right. So he tried to steer
his course little more to the left.
But this was not the only thing he did
wrong. He had lost his bearings when
emerging from the crater, and when he
fancted he was going Only q point or
two north Of his original course he was
really nearly q quarter of tho circle
round. Therefore the next landmark he
struck was a tangle Of barbed wire, and
he not only punctured his gum boots very
badly. but mistook the identity of that
particular tangIe and turned left-hand-
ed, expecting to reach a familiar gap.
f1,roy,c oh fo11 hiu 10 xuI,
a matter Of fact, there was no gap, till
you came to the next obstacle, an old
German trench. ".'t.
Here, o minute or two later, you:
would have come upon Peter, very
querulous Peter. for"the trench was
deep and dirty and a half-buried field
artillery horse was Just by him. How
ever, he crawled out, and before set
ting out again waited for some In
dication Of his direction, of. which,,
after his many tumblings. he had lost
A star she'll going up on the horizon
presently showed HIM where the front
line lay, though the information was
not very precise: 1t showed him, at
least, that he had been going due
east when he should have gone north.
He left tho trench and struck north
west, thinking il he went far enough
he'd strike a Decauville railway that
supplied the battery with ammuni-
tion. But again his luck was out. for
he had not gone very far before he
stumbled over O mound, parked his
shins against n piece Of wood and
knew that he had trespassed on the
grave of ono Fritz Wurstheim Of the
374th Infantry Regiment, which grave
lay about 200 yards northeast Of the
spot he had started from.
He now knew where he was, and
the flash Of a British gun, which he
had no doubt was one Of a neighbour
ing battery a quarter of mile due
north of his own section, gave hini
a more accurate bearing than the
star shells. and trench flares which
from time to time. went up at various
points between northeast and south
east. Boldly and confidently he slith-
cred across the muddy ground and
presently began to. go cautiously for
fear Of tumbling down the steps of
one OF his own dugouts. Then, just
as he was wondering il he had again
got of the line" he heard the familiar
click of a closing breech. a murmured
Fire" and tho blast of one OF his
own guns. barely five yards Mn front
of him, nearly cracked his ear drums
and sent. him fiat on the ground.
When presently he crawled. Imply
and with buzzing head. into his own
dugout it was ten minutes to Al.
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