Williams news., 1918-05-17

nets, a Sheepskin coat, rubber mack, intosh, steel helmet, two blankets, tear shell goggles, a balaclava helmet. gloves and tin of antifrostbite grease which is excellent for greasing the boots. Add to this the weight of his rations, and can you blame Tommy for growing at twenty-kilo route march? Having served as sergeant major in the United States cavalry, I tried to tell the English drill sergeants their business, but it did not work. They immediately put me as batman in their mess. Many greasy dish of stew was accidentally spilled over them.
 would sooner fight than be waiter, so when the order came through from headquarters calling for draft of 250 re-enforcements for France, I vol unteered.
 Then we went before the M. O. (medical officer) for another physical examination. This was very brief. He asked our names and numbers and said "Fit," and we went out to fight.
 We were put into troop trains and sent to Southampton, where we de trained, and had our trench rifles is- sued to us. Then in columns of twos we went up the gangplank of little steamer lying alongside the dock. At the head of the gangplank there was an old sergeant, who directed that we line ourselves along both rails of the ship. Then he ordered us to take life belts from the racks overhead and put them on. have crossed the ocean several times and knew I was not sea- sick, but when buckled on that life belt had a sensation of sickness.
 After we got out into the stream all could think of was that there were a million German submarines with tor pedo on each, across the warhead of which was inscribed my name and ad- dress.
 After five hours we came alongside a pier and disembarked. I had at- tained another one of my ambitions. was Somewhere in France" We slept in the open that night on the side ing we were ordered to entrain. looked around for the passenger coaches, but all could see on the sid these. On the side of each car was sign reading "Hommes 40, Cheveaux g." When we got inside of the cars, we thought that perhaps the sign painter had reversed the order of things. After 4s hours in these trucks we detrained at Rouen. At this place we went through an intensive training for ten days.
 The training consisted of the rudi- ments of trench warfare. Trenches had been dug. with barbed wire en- | tanglements, bombing saps, dugouts, l observation posts and machine gun en- placements. We were given smat- tering of trench cooking, sanitation, bomb throwing, reconnoitering, listen | ing posts, constructing and repairing barbed wire, "carrying in" parties, methods used in attack and defense, | wiring parties, mass formation, and the procedure for poison-gas attacks. | On the tenth day we again met our friends "Hommes 40, Cheveaux S." Thirty-six hours more of misery, and we arrived at the town of F-.
 After unloading, our rations and equipment, we lined up on the road in columns of fours waiting for the order ito march.
 | A dull rumbling could be heard. The sun was shining. I turned to the man on my left and asked, ''What's the noise, Bill?" He did not know, but his face was of a pea-green color. Jim, on my right, also did not know, but suggested that "awsk'' the sergeant.
 Coming towards us was an old griz- zled sergeant, properly fed up with the war, so "awsked" him.
 'Think it's going to rain, sergeant?''
 He looked at me in contempt, and grunted, "'Ow's it a-goin' ter rain with the bloomin' sun a-shinin'?" I looked guilty.
 'Them's the guns up the line, me lad, and you'll get enough of 'em be- fore you gets back to Blighty.''
 My knees seemed to wilt, and I squeaked out a weak "Oh!''
 Then we started our march up to the line in ten-kilo treks. After the first days march we arrived at our rest billets. In France they call them rest bfllets, because while in them Tommy works seven days a week and on the eighth day of the week he is given twenty-four hours lon his own."
 Our billet was a spacious affair, a large barn on the left side of the road, which had one hundred entrances, ninety-nine for shells, rats, wind and rain, and the hundredth one for Tom