The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1918-06-15

front line, where they stick to the end of their
wires under terrific shell fire until ordered to re-
join their commands If they can get through alive.
An experience of this kind happened to me a
short time ago in a lonely chateau of the Ypres-
henin road" an English officer wrote home. THE
chateau was the center of a perfect hell of Ger
man shrapnel for nearly a week, until 1t became
almost untenable and was abandoned by the head
quarters staff.
1.-THE general gave instructions that n telegraph
LIST was to remain behind to transmit important
messages from the brigades, and I was left in
charge of the instruments in this shell-swept
chateau for a day and a night.
ION the second day the Germans broke through
our trenches and~the wires were cut by the shell
fire. l was given orders to .evacuate the building
and smash up my instruments. These l saved by
burying In a shellproof trench, and then 1 had to
escape between our own fire and that of the
enemy's across a field under a terrible tornado of
shrapnel.
"On the early morning of the same day one of
our cable detachments was cut up and another
captured by the Germans, only to be retaken by
our sappers and drivers after a desperate and
glorious fight"
The linemen also have regular patrols, stretches
of line which have to be constantly examined not
only for breaks but also to make sure that they
have not been tapped by enemy spies In such a
way that every bit of information sent over them
finds Its way to the Germans. In the Aisne once,
where the hill country offered good cover to spies,
the wires were constantly being tapped.
One day a lineman passing along the road no
ticed a lot Of cable lying at one side. He started
to coil it up and found that a piece of wire had
been tied to the main line. When he traced II he
found that 1t ran to a haystack. He went on.
tapped the line and sent in word to headquarters
and an armed escort found a spy hidden In the hay
with several days supply of food.
They are autocrats in their way, these wire re-
pairmen, and no one is permitted to interfere with
the witt execution of their work. Word coming
over the line that the wire to a battery was re-
paired is often the sweetest sound in the world to
an observation officer up front, even if it comes In
a rough brogue which French weather has not i'm
proved.
So when anybody else breaks in on the line and
i~nterferes with the repairman he gets rolled, es-
pecially If he has been sitting for several hours in
a shell hole with an icy rain dripping down his
back. An English officer told of what happened
to a general who broke in once.
"A general came in the hut and told me I rang
up the telephone just now and said, "Give me the
- brigade, please" but some one with a loud
voice replied deliberately and distinctly: "Get off
the blinking line" / got Off remarking that as
soon as convenient l should like to speak. l
apologized and explained that the line had been
down and was being repaired. He went Off with
a merry twinkle in his eye"
AS the number of men in the American army
abroad grows with the weeks, the number OF line
men, those who make possible all that the artil-
lery and infantry together accomplish, will stead
lily increase until they are a small army in them
selves. And probably 1t will not be long before an
nouncement will be made that some plain Bill
Smith, wire repairman. has been given a medal for
bravery under fire, which attracted attention even
among the hundreds of brave acts which these
men perform every day.