Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1919-02-20


gray fog lowering close to the earth |
when we climbed out of the trench |
We formed our line there and waited |
a few minutes while few of our
men cut paths through the barb wire
We had sometimes talked about how
we would feel when we went over the
top the first time and I had read SEN
timental articles on how a man feels
at such a time but none of them fit
our case Everyone seemed to feel
about as I did and I felt about like
did a long time ago when was just
outside the entrance to my first cir
Gus. Our big shells were going over
head and playing a serenade in
Jerry's back yard That was the be-
ginning. After that enough happened
to write a library about.
Some times we advanced as if we
were on clark" other times we
ssducked' from shell hole to shell
hole as we advanced on machine
guns. Where there was no shell holes
it was one hell hole was never so
glad to see hole before in all my
life and I Rugged the earth harder
than I ever Rugged anything before
in all my life. A number of times I
could feel the breeze of the bullets as
they went over my back and I'll tell
you it is cute little breeze they
make Then at times the enemy artll-
1ery opened up on us and caused US to
dig as we never dug before. We were
cold, wet and shivering all the five
DAYS we were in the scrap but some
| how when the big shells hit among US
we suddenly became considerable cold
err I don't deny it and no one else
that was there does. I have heard a
| lot about what a man thinks when he
gets in tight place but III tell you
what he thinks about It isn't the
| past or future or folks at home but
i it's himself and right now. Fellows
were saying 1sThis hole isn't half deep
enough" EtMy Godi If I only had a
| shovel instead of a mess kit to dig
with" and all the time the old mess
| kit was throwing out more dirt than
a steam shovel.
It rained nearly all the time we
| were out and when we slept we just
dropped down in muddy shell hole.
When I came out my hair was plast-
cred to my head with mud, my
clothes were torn and muddy and my
hands were cut from barb wire.
We ate just when we could get a
bite and it wasn't easy to get ra-
| tons up to the firing line. You would
not think we could come through in
as good shape we did but the
excitment of the game seems to
create an antitoxine in ones system
which overcomes everything
When we were relieved we had NOV
ed Jerry back Is kilometers nearer
his beloved Rhine and taken a num-
Der of prisoners and machine guns
German machine gunners would
| throw up their hands and wall with
fpo fhaiy l.
French to US, saying go, pardon
nessieurs beau coupe merci-" One of
our fellows got one prisoner who with
tears flowing down his cheeks like
water out of a rain pipe held up five
fingers and said tsfumf kinder
Before we went into it I had my
head set on getting a bunch of souv-
enirs and I could have gotten plenty
of them but I decided to act wise and
leave their junk alone because they
leave so many Internal machines ]
was searching a machine gunner and
found a good pair of home knit sox
in bag he had I was about to take
them when he began begging and
saying, sMein Mutter, Mein Mutter. p
and let him keep them. Afterwards
when my feet were wet and cold l
| blamed myself for it but after all /
suppose they meant lot to the poor
devil and to me they would have been
/ just sox-
/ The whole thing was a big success
although the French and Germans
| said the position could not be taken
| but we took it and If reports are true
we won mighty good reputation for
| ourselves General Pershing made the
| following remark after the battle,
i by Godl The 18th and 139th are
/ the fgthingest troops ever did see.''
/ We were against the Prussian Guard
which you know is the pride of
/ the German army, and they tried
/ some tricks that didn't work
| as they expected
/ Eddie Moore was genuine soldier
/ and heaps of trouble didn't bother