Shoshone journal. [volume] (Shoshone, Idaho) 1884-1931, 1919-01-17
(Oopyright,I9l7 by The Mcclure Newspaper
Syndicete)


French village of S., about te
kilos from the front-line trench. Mum
Der Two's gun crew were sitting on tn,
ground in a circle around their ma
chine gun, while a sergeant, newl.
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 a ma
chine gun, but from the Theoretical
point he sure could throw out the
book stuff. 1 must confess that his
flow of eloquence passed over my
head like a Zeppelin, and 1 noticed
an uneasy squirming among the rest
of our crew.
Happy Houghton, who was sitting
next to me, leaned over, and with his
eye on the sergeant, whispered in my
ear:
"Blime me, Yank, isn't it arful the
way he chucks his weight about?"
1 agreed with Happy.
Across from me sat key Honey,
with our mascot, Jim, in his lap.
Every now and then Jim would take
his hind leg and furiously scratch at
a spot behind his ear. Honey, no
ticing this action, would reach under
his armpit and also scratch.
Sailor Bill was intent,y watching
Jim and Honey; he, too, started
scratching.
In minute or so Hungry Foxcroft
started on q 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 a nonotonous lecture by some Off
Ger or nOncom, 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. 1t 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 I'M
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- |
lar cootfe.
We constantly glanced at our wrist |
watches. Fifteen minutes more and
the lesson 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,
but 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
over on the Boches?"
1hCy AiOuhCSt SlGsp4A5 6OA0Ch
to break up the lecture,
and slyly winking at US, started in
and told how a certain guns crew To-
Gated and put out of action a German
gunner by playing tune on
their gun, which the German tried to
initiate, thereby indicating to them by
sound the exact location of the Ger
1r, 1o+o IF
action by concentrated machine-gun
fire from their section.
Of course we all listened very in
emily, but it was an old story to us,
because we were the guns crew which
had accomplished the feat that Hon.
ley was describing; but anything was S
better than listening to that sing-song
roning of book knowledge which the
sergeant had been pumping into US
or the last hour and g half.
The sergeant glanced at his watch
nd dismissed us. We dismounted our
.un, put it in its box ard stored It :
way ia our billet; then we reassem- :
led snder an apple tree in the or u
hard, and, while the rest of US in
ulged in a shirt hunt. Hungry went !
fter our ration of tea. Hungry was =
ure on the job when it came to eat
lg. Pretty soon he returned with n
ike one-fourth full of tea, two tins Of y
am, loaf of bread, large piece of y
heese. and a tin of apricots which he
nd bought at a nearby French es-
iminet. He dished out our rations, it
OF forgetting a generous share for II
imself After we had finished, out al
lme the inevitable Tags, few puffs al
-om each man, and the ball of con- as
ersation starred rolling. la
Jury Wallace cleared his throat and ST
ar.c6 in with:
Remember That village we passed CT
rc~gh On car march no the line br