The gazette-times. [volume] (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925, 1919-01-02

refuge Wueu the SuellluB DeSdn dQU
whence they had been afraid to come
7 out. so deep-rooted was their con.
viction that Americans were aceus.
toned to boil their prisoners in oil
There they would be found by YankS
on a still hunt for souvenirs.
Two famished Boches emerged as
late as Saturday from a deep dugout
, hat was not more than a good rife
shot from the dugout of a general
commanding an American reserve
battalion.
Aside from these shell holes and
remnants of abandoned trenches. the
waterless. foodless land for several
kilometers in depth offered not q
vestige of shelter, not a hedge OF
even a clump Of green behind which
a gun might hide, or in the scant
protection of which line of trucks
might move unobserved.
One Wall for a Village.
As for the villages which the first
few days reoaptured, some are so
completely obilterated that runners
passed through them in broad day
light, never once dreaming chat a
village had stood there.
One messenger. knowing that a
c,,,r,1'c u bad hhAD ,lJ, n
a certain town which looked impos-
ing enough on the map, found when
ut came 10 the place that only a
part of one wall of one house re-
NAMED to identify it. Against this
wall, a telephone was placed.
Where is the divisional P. CT"
the runner asked of the officer at the
telephone.
You're in it now," replied the
officer with grin.
Of other towns, such as Cuisy ana
Montfaucon or Bethincourt, more is
lett, but net enough on which to
build anew, and sometimes you can
recognize the church, where weeds
grow rank through the stones of the
floor only by the remnants Of
painted angels lttering a heap of
stones which was once an altar.
But it vas neither in terms of
battle nor in terms of restoration
that this terrain presented its most
serious problem during the first few
days of the battle. 1t was in terms
of traffic.
! Roads over which no vehicle had
passed since the summer of 1914,
roads recognizable after four years
only as serpentine paths weaving
disconsolately among the shell holes,
roads in which mine craters yaWned
past all hasty bridging, these had to
receive and bear during the first
three days a volume of heavy, cease
less traffic that would have worried
a dozen Lincoln Highways.
In Terms of Traffic.
That is why the pioneers-both
i Engineer and Infantry-went for
days and nights without stopping to
!. sleep or eat. That is why the clink
Of pick and shovel working ahead of
the trucks, working under the trucks,
will ever be music in the ears Of the
American Army Theirs was the
task of getting the guns up, and get
them up they did, faster in some
places than in others, but still the
guns moved On through the rain,
and the ammunition followed
J Even had the roads been perfect
from the start, the traffic problem
/ rJHid have still been enarmous, and
IthCse who went through it will never
If1Iget the paraly2ing congestion.
Every one helped. Every one had to
o,n. The sight no one could stand
was the spectacle of a long train of
Iambulancea stalled in the rain, the
drivers raging, the onl0okers cursing,
only the wounded within silent and
uncomplaining save when one of
them might reach out and ask for
smoke or a pull ON a passing
canteen.
Perhaps, when it meant just d
short but impossible blockade, an
oniCer would leap down from a truck
nd call for volunteers. These men
have paid the price" he would call
out in the darkness, "and we've got
to see them through to the hospitals.
Maybe we can cut road through
this wire and mud that will skirt
these foundered trucks blocking the
way. Pitch in, everybody.
Road Built in Twinkling.
Then down from the trucks, out
from under tarpaulins, emerging
here from hastily made bed beside
the road or there from roadside
kitchen, the volunteers would come
The improved road would be made
in twinkling, the litters would be
carried across its torturingly bumpy
surface, the amDulances would
trundle after and little later the
train of wounded would be creeping
on its way to beds and warm food
and expert, compassionate hands.
In such traffic jams, when an oc-
casional ill-adyised cart full Of
officers baggage would be chucked
ruthlacelv tn the side and when stub