The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1919-01-09

the kuche. When we got there we
stood in line until at least half-paSt
twelve. and then the Germans shout
I'd: "NichtS Zu essen" But we did
not know what that meant, so we just
hung around there and waited. Then
they started shouting, "Zuruck! Zu-
ruck!" and drove us back to the bar
racks.
Later we heard the words "nichts
zu essen!" so often that we thought
probably they meant ''no eats" We
had our reasons for thinking so, too.
Those words, and "zuruck' and
"'raus," We're practically all we did
hear, except, of course, various kinds
of schweinhunde.
It was awful to see the men when
we got back to the barracks. Some Of
the boys from the George, not much
over twelve years old, We're almost
crazy, but even the older men were
crying, many of them. 1t was nothing
but torture all the time. They opened
all the windows and doors in the bar
racks, and then we could not heat the
room with our bodies. When we start
ed to move around, to keep warm, they
fired :. few shots at us. l do not
know whether they hit anyone or not;
we had got so that we did not pay any
attention to things like that. But it
stopped us, and we had to stand still.
The Huns thought we would take the
rifles from the sentries and use them,
too.
l never saw a yellower bunch Of
people in my life. I do not mean peo-
pie. wish I could publish what
really mean.
We had stoves in the barracks, but
no coal or wood to burn. There were
many boxes piled up there, but they
belonged to the Germans. We would
have burned them If we could, but
the Germans made us carry them
across the road. They weighed about
$50 pounds apiece, and we were so
weak that it was all two men could do
to bulge them. And we had to carry
them; they would not let us roll them.
We were so cold and hungry that even
that exercise did not warm us.
About 2:3O the whistle blew again,
and the Huns picked out a few men
and took them down the road. We
could not figure out why. but they
came back about three o'clock, all Of
them with bread in their arms. They
We're chewing away on it when they
had a chance. Whenever the sentries
were not looking they would bite at it
like fish going after worm. Each
man carried five lOaves.
When they got in the barracks the
sentries made them put the bread
down on the floor, and then, with
their bayonets, the sentries cut each
loaf once down the center lenethwise
and four times across, which meant
ten men to loaf about the size Of an
ordinary ten-cent loaf in this country
now. They gave each of us a piece
, little larger than a safety-match
, box.
The bread was hard and dark, and
really think they made it from trees.
It had just exactly the same smell
that the dirt around trees has.
We filed past the sentries single file
to get our ration of this mud, and
there was no chance of getting in line
> twice, for we had to keep on filing
until we were out in the road, and
!, stand there in the snow to eat it. We
could not 60 back in the barracks I'M
til every man had been served.
Our meals were like this: A can OF
!, barley coffee in the morning; cabbage
soup. so called. ut noon: tenth of a
loaf of bread at p. m. That was
our menu day in and day out, the
kaiser's birthday. Lincoln's, May day,
= or any other time.
This cabbage soup was great idea
We called it shadow soup, because the
= boys claimed they made it by hanging
cabbage over a barrel of water ant
letting the shadow fall on the water
We pretended, too, that if you fount
any cabbage in it, you could take you
: dish back for second helping. Blu
't / never saw anybody get more thai
one dishful All it was, was jus
spoiled water.
We tried to go to sleep that night
u but there were SO many sentrie
around us-and those of us who wer
. not sick were wounded-that l do NO