Evening star., 1940-03-12
BY WILLIAM L. WHITE.

yin LIE AftI 4lC O1nClE
FRONT.-Well, here we were, on
cur way to the front lines, this
bic Irishman was telling you about
and I, lying side-by- side on the big
sledge, covered with hay and blan-
kets, and with this submachine
gun handy, and the driver just
above, his rifle over one shoulder,
urging the horse on.
And In the sledge we rolled
around a lot because the runners
would 60 of the road wherever it
slanted and then the horse would
pull 1t back up again and the Irish
man said this was a hell of a place
to be with all this stuff piled on
top Of AIS and 1t would take at
least 10 minutes to get untangled
and out and ready to run If we
did happen to meet an enemy patrol
and the horse was shot.
And he laughed that nice mellow
laugh. He said we ought to pretend
to be somewhere else we really
wanted to be, and he laughed and
said why didn't we pretend it was
Venice and this was a gondola in
stead Of snow-sledge, and that
one OF us was beautiful girl instead
OF both of us being newspapermen,
and he laugh again.
The Front Line.
He was very good guy, and
between the second line cabin and
the first line command tent where
we left the sledge, we did not meet
any Rssian patrols. But it was lot
OF fun getting tipped out of the
sledge, with that submachine gun.
and did I tell you there wasn't any
safety catch on the submachine
gun because 1t was loaded and the
safety catch doesn't work then?
We came to the first line command
post IN about an hour. We could
tell this was moving front because
1t was only big round tent with
the snow shoveled off the dirt floor,
and little snow shoveled on the top
to conceal it from the air, and no
attempt to dig in at all. Here we
left the sledges and went on up to
the front through a path in the
snow. Between us walked Finnish
soldiers who carried the subma-
chine guns In case we met Russian
patrols.
1t was very dark because the
moon was not yet up. The path
led to ridge and on top Of it was
a machine gun nest and a soldier
walking around its rim. The officer
from the first line command tent
talked to the soldier minute, and
then pointed down the hill into
the valley, where there were no trees,
and we could see them plainly, three
OF them. lying out on the snow in
the clearing. part of Russian
patrol of about 20 which had crossed.
Russian Patrols.
The officer said the machine gun
ner explained he waited until the
Russian patrol was in the middle
OF the clearing before he fired. The
rest Of them had Immediately scat
tered so that he could not hit any
more. The machine gunner said
the Russian patrol kept right on
running III the direction of the
forest nearest the Finnish lines,
and had probably reassembled and
were wandering back of the lines
now hunting for wires to cut, only
he did not think they were near
because for half an hour he had
heard no sound.
He said 10 Russian patrols had
been out during the day, and proba-
bly, as many more would come wan
dering over before dawn.
We went on up the hard path
in the snow which led along the
ridge and this path was the front
line. About every so or 100 yards
we would come onto a machine
gun nest, dug couple of feet down
into the snow and frozen earth,
and standing on its rim would be
a soldier, slapping his arms around
himself to keep warm.
Aside from these shallow pits