The Lancaster news. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1905-current, 1919-08-08
Missed the Front Line

to get bumped off we would rather it
would be in the midst of our own
crowd. So out of the hospital we
went and back to the company on No
vember 10.
Ready to Go.
Everything was packed up on the
morning of the day the armistice was
signed. We were ready to start on the
long trip to the front when the word
came that the. armistiCe had been
signed. Then there was a jubilee. not
so much because the prospect of being
of the war had come. American SOL
diers had long before begun to grow
tired of it all. 1 have often wondered
what would have been their feeling
had they been in ii as long as had
the British and the French and the
Germans.
To my surprise. I was not much
excited over the prospect of going up
to the front where the chances nine
out of ten were that / would be
wounded or killed sooner or later de-
spite the fact that I was in not
strictly speaking fighting unit. / was
not much worried over the prospect.
| Before l went into the army, long
before the clouds of war appeared
upon the horizon so far as Uncle Sam
was concerned l had thought of bat
ties and all that kind of thing and /
entertained then feeling that I
would be scared to death. In my
thoughts and fancies before the out
break of the war had ina gined my
self on some foreign battlefield with
leg off and an eye out and an arm
off, and l always involuntarily shud-
dered at the picture. But on the day
that 1t came my turn to go to the
place where there was cracking
good chance to sleep on the fields
where poppies blow, l wasn't worried
about the proposition at all. l am not
possessed of any unusual amount of
ourage. l would scrap any man who
called me a liar unless II was some
/ possess any more courage than the
average man and, really, it was some
what of surprise to me when
/ found that l was not the least bit en-
cited at the prospect OF going 90 the
front. Neither were the other boys
of the outfit. Soldiers don't get pan
| icky as a rule. l have seen troop
trains loaded with wounded coming
back from the front-hundreds of
such wounded-yes, even the Ger
man wounded, never appear fright
ened or horror stricken Maybe
/ would have changed my attitude and
died Of fright if Heinie's big shells
! had been dropping around me; but
don't think so. 1t would have been
the she i itself that would have killed
/ And, besides, I might have had a
ghost OF chance to do little kill
ing myself while was getting mine.
Real Time for Fear.
The time for fear and foreboding
and the time l really kissed myself
! goodbye was going over. We left
! Hoboken about 5 o'clock one after
noon last September. It was dark
and foggy and raining. Not a light
showed. There were several thou
sand of us on the transport All the
way across the ocean we showed no
! lights. Quarters were crowded. Flu
/ broke out soon after we left land.
! There were over thousand cases
among the men before we landed at
Brest, France.
Your buddy talked to you pleasant
ly and cheerfully at the noon day
meal. He was stricken with flu be-
/ fore supper. BY supper time the next
! day he was dead, perhaps. and ere
another day he had been lowered to
I Davy Jones locker amid the darkness
and the dread and the gloom, the
thoughts of your own self possibly
/ finding a watery grave on account OF
the flu ere another sun had set or a
watery grave by means of torpedo
from some Hun submarine which
: probably lurked in the vicinity.
That was the real time of my nine
! months overseas | was really scared
and frightened and when | gave up
/ eli thought OF ever Seeing home and
I friends again. There were other CON
ditions besides Hun bullets that were
]