The spectator., 1919-04-15


 her Two's gun crew were sitting on the ground in a circle around their ma chine gun. while sergeant, newly returned from a special course in ma chine gunnery at St. Omer, was ex- pounding the theory of scientific ma chine gunnery. He himself had never actually been under fire with ma chine gun, but from the theoretical poinf he sure could throw out the 5ook stuff. I must confess that his flow of eloquence passed over my head like Zeppelin, and I noticed an uneasy squirming among the rest of our crew.
 Happy Houghton, who was sitting glext to me, leaned over and with his eye en atle sergeant, whisro-ed in my GRIT:
 "BlIme me- Yank, isn't it arful the ysvay he chucks his weight about?"
 l agreed with Happy.
 Across from me sat Iley HoIney, with our mascot, Jim, in his lap. Every TOW and then Jim would take ais hind leg and furiously scratch at spot behind his ear. Honney, mo- ticins this action, would reach under his armpit and also scratch.
 Sailor Bill was intent,y watching Jim and Honney; he, too, started scratching.
 In a minute or so Hungry Foxcroft started on a cootie hunt; and l had an Irresistible desire to lean back against the barrel casing of the gun and also scratch.
 1t is one of the chief indoor sports on the western front, especially dur ing q monotonous lecture by some off Cer or nonc0m. for one of the fed-up listeners to start scratching himself. This generally causes the whole gang to do the same, the instructor includ- ed. It is just like a minister in the midst of a very dry sermon suddenly stopping, stretching himself, and yawn- Ing, this action causing the rest of the congregation to do likewise.
 As the whole circle scratched, our sergeant instructor commenced to shift his weight from one foot to the other in an uneasy manner. We all gazed at him intently and each began to scratch furiously. Sure enough, the sergeant gave in and started un- buttoning the front of his tunic to get at some real or imaginary cOOtie. A nudge went the rounds of the circle We had accomplished our purpose. The sergeant's mind took an awful drop from the science of machine gun ,nery to that of catching that particu- tar cootie.
 We constantly glanced at our wrist watches Fifteen minutes more and the leSsoa would be over. The ser ,geant was becoming confused, and was trying to founder through the rest of his talk. We had no mercy on him, Nut kept up the scratching. At last. in desperation, the sergeant said:
 ''YOu men have actually been under fire with machine guns several times. Can't one of you relate some incident of how, through some ruse, you put it lover on the Boches?"
 Ikey Honney, grasping this golden opportunity to break up the lecture, ,and slyly winking at us, started in and told how a certain guns crew To- cated and put out of action German machine gunner by playing tune on sheir gun, which the German tried to Initiate, thereby indicating to them by sound the exact location of the Ger man gun, which was later put out of action by concentrated machine-gun fire from their section.
 Of course we all listened very in- Kcntiy, but 1t was an old story to us, because we were the guns crew which had accomplished the feat that Hon. ney was describing; but anything was better than listening to that sing-song ironing of book knowledge which the sergeant had been pumping into us for the last hour and half.
 The sergeant glanced at his watch and dismissed us. We dismounted our gun, put it in it's box ard stored 1t away in our billet; then we renssem- bled under an apple tree in the or .chard. and, while the rest of us in- .xlulged in a shirt hunt, Hungry went after our ration of tea. Hungry was sure on the job when it came to eat inx. Pretty soon he returned with dixie one-fourth full of tea, two tins of jam, loaf of bread. large piece of cheese, and tin of apricots which he An6l bought at a nearby French es- faminet. He dished out our ratlons, mt forgetting generous share for Almself. After we had finished. out enme the inevitable flags, a few puffs from each man. and the ball of con- versntion started rolling.
 Curly Wallace cleared his throat and aGnrtei in with:
 sI,cmember that village we passed through on our march up the line