Imperial Valley press., 1937-04-04

dorf were employing what we called leap-frog
tactics . alternately shelling with high explo-
sives, then with gas 1t grew so violent that every
man forced to wear gas mask. Fort-like
tanks rumbled fields of mud Wounded lay
for hours where they fell until delayed stretcher
bearers and ambuances came up. 1t was com
parable to a maniac's nightmare. Concentrated
artillery fire wrecked our railway tracks, gun
crews were slaughtered locomotives were
smashed, boilers shot away 1t grew worse daily
1t was impossible to salvage the heavy guns and
before we evacuated, gun crews smashed
them with sedge hammers, iron bars and what
ever was at hand anything to make them un-
fit for further service. Under the questionable
protection of Allied machine guns-a stubborn
rear guard-we retired. not too gracefully.
\ /ILLIONS of words have been written on
NJ battle scenes along the western front -.
but one thing man learns, which is simple: you
grow to look at such experiences in an abstract
way 1t must be so for once you recognize hor-
ror as reality, you are lost. You look at the man
next to you, wishing that he did not have to en-
dure the agony in store for him in the coming few
minutes but you forget yourself, that you
also are there, equally open to disaster.
In that evacuation 1 came across a lad in his
early twenties; he gentle person, who had
led sheltered life, caught in this terror. He
frankly miserable, sick at heart and weary in
body his face pale and drawn. My hand fell
on his shoulder.
What's wrong, M"
I'm not afraid of death there's too much
of it about to make it unusual"
1t wasn't death that bothered him. He'd lost
his dog tag" the identification disk every man
a cord around his neck. I've mother
and two sisters and girl back in Lynn Val
ley, England. Shan't see them again, you know
;. but it isn't that. But l don't want to be
tossed into an old trench and lost among so
many unidentified bodfes."
No one would miss me- so gave him my tag
changing the serial number on it to agree with
the one he'd lost-and strung it around his neck.
That night he went West. He was picked up
and taken to field hospital, but it too late.
l wrote to his mother that he died for the glory
of the Empire, and that he had been given the
Last POST
Veterans of the Civil War like to say today,
You think that war, eh? You should have
been at the battle of Shiloh. Your little fracas
at the Marine and Meuse-Argonne was childs
play. You don't know what wars like!'
Yet history credits the Meuse- -Argonne with
the largest number of men in mortal conflict,
the greatest artillery duels the world has known.
When CO. want to be where things are hap
penng-in some sort of war, where the gods of
conflict rule. Rather that than to shoulder my
way into oblivion from the blowing flaps of a
quiet tent.
-. then when you have lived with wars most of
your years, you think in terms of war. No mat
ter how useless most of these are the habit
of lifetime is strong. 1t sends you, restless, dis
content, from one disturbance to another feel
ing that here here at last you will find peace
from the monotonous horror of cities in the wild
dance of plunging horses, screaming shells, men
who shout and run forward.
Those four world-war years settled nothing
-. they were but the result of signs men could
have read in '12 and 13. The same monstrous
warning is written in the sky again q. and be-
low this scrawled portent, Europe and Asia are
armed encampments encircling battlefelds soon
to be swept by artillery fire.
When it breaks, 1 hope to be there.
X
IT HAS been joy to write these few brief
chapters of things which are etched as clear
ly in memory today as the hour they happened
with the exception occasionally of the
time element. man cannot always go back
20 and 30 years, being certain that hours and
dates accurate. When a friend asks:
where were you at nine o'clock April TO-
1922" - It's difficult question, unless a mans
memory has been specially trained to recall the
and million incidents of each year
Wherefore, if a number Of events have slipped
out of their correct chronological order, the
long years which have sped backward along the
road reason for the Ii nse ;.
(The end