New Britain herald., 1927-06-20

| IcHdut 0Olou Auu Il4 4Ouuu 0L French officers. whose faces tol, him that they felt they had not onl. lost the days battle, but that 1 would be only . question of tim' when the hated Boche would cros the Marne and then so on to theil beloved Paris. and 1t. seemed to hin that these living men. in theil despair. were more horrifying than the dead ones he had passed such little while before. From them the two Americans learned that their countrymen did hold the town.
 That morning the Americans and this company of French soldiers Phil had seen so slaughtered, had met the Germans and captured 1t. and all day long the Boche had tried to take 1t back.
 Phillip Wynne Tracy W asked himself if any country. let alone . town, was worth that carnage and resultant despair.
 Lieutenant Dolan, asking detail, learned there were 14 men and six officers left out of a company of 800.
 Phil heard someone digging a trench nearby. and the sergeant, as if interpreting his look. said: We have no time for graves. The men will just pile them in."
 Phil almost blubbered. Twenty left from 300.
 Dolan brushed his arm across his eyes aud started back without a word. Phil followed.
 Ultimately they reached the river. It was dark by now. All along the banks the star shells were turning the night into pyrotechnic glory. which once in a while would die down only to start up again more brightly than before.
 They found the bridge and start cd across. Phil was ahead.
 All of a sudden it was as though someone had started a typewriter close to him. The machine gunners had found them in the shells glare.
 Behind him Dolan called: Tracy, you will report what we have learned if I don't get back"
 q will sir," said Phil, not know ing that Lieutenant had received his command to go west.
 The house door on which Phil was lying sank beneath him.
 "They have blown the bridge out. lieutenant" he shouted. well have to swim for it." And not knowing that Lieutenant Dolan was beyond hearing. he started out. The machine gun bullets on the water hissed and skipped around him as though the Germans, aware that he had information, were de- termined that information should never get to the American head quarters.
 Almost in a state of collapse, at last Phil felt the reeds along the shore. His stomach touched the marshy loam and the acrid smell of the gass-filled earth came to him again.
 Something like bee stung him on the shoulder.
 He choked and spat out what he thought was a mouthful of queer tasting water. Then there came a moment when he realized that he had been hit and that Lieutenant Dolan had not come through. He absolutely lost control of himself. a. ton to headquarters. As usual, he thought of Rod. He pulled himself up the bank with his one arm. and shrieked, "Rod!" and mercifully tainted.
 Three days later he awakened in hospital back of the lines. He was in bed, with sheets upon it.. He was clean and a woman in a spotless white dress with a red cross on her cap. was bending over him. He did not know how he had got- ten there - he didn't realize what pain and suffering his unconscious condition had spared him. He only knew that he was more comfortable than he had been for months. even if he did find it hard to | breathe.
 As memory came back to him. he began to question. "Did headquar- ters get the information? How did I get here? Did they find Lieutenant Dolan's body? What happened to me? How did get out?"
 The sympathizing nurse told him that he had been found with an- other American boy. at the waters edge. He was underneath the body of that other boy. who was com- pletely riddlsd with machine gun fire.
 Phil had no intuition. It was harder for him to breathe even. than before.
 He didn't want to. but he had to ask who it was. He was almost sure he knew. Finally he made himself inquire: Was that other man Lieu tenant Dolan?"
 "No. I do not think so."
 "Who was it?"
 "Do you really want to know?"
 "Yes." Phil answered.
 "Ill have to look it up." she said. pitying. and disappeared through the door. She came back soon and said: His name was Rodney Max we'll"
 Phil closed his eyes. and with a groan he turned his head toward the wall. A crimson trickle stained the pillow.
 "Oh, you've opened your wound i again." said the nurse. Phil had lost consciousness.
 It was more than a week after ward that a French officer stopped l hN the side of Inc he'd and ninn ed