Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 189, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 August 1913 — THE COST of the BATTLE LUST [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE COST of the BATTLE LUST

THE REAL EXPETOCES 017 If*! ARE4LIRSURRECT0 X J rprrpri HE batye was lobL mvwmimum 4 I U the most san- > t ) guine of Mosby’s dare-,* ® ar/uocmUy e* LmZsT

lj-j pTI HE batye was lost JJ pven the most sanguine of Mosby’s dare- * devils admitted that. iC (j fy So, after the manner of > their kind, they broke the firing-line into a hundred pieces and bunched in twos and threes scattered broadcast over the sun-baked, cactus-clad hills —soldiers of fortune, insurrectos of Mexico no longer; merely men, who had broken the laws of a land and were fleeing for their lives. It had but one object in view—this fighting machine broken into bits, that had taken up the cause of a country other than its own—and that was to cross the American border and there Beek the protection of the stars and stripes, under whose folds every mother’s son of Its soldiery had been born.

My bunkife and I were on the left flank when the crash came. Something hit that left flank and melted it, twisted and distorted it like so much steel put to the flame. I did not realize what it was at the time, but I do now. It was a battery, a living, breathing incarnation of hell in the shape of machine guns, handled by men who knew how to use them. Our wing of the army melted in its hot breath. Men who had fought standing, kneeled. Men who kneeled, lay down, tried to bury myßelf in the bosom of Mother Earth and, Mother Earth being baked adobe in that particular spot, I.took to my heels. It was the beginning .of the end. Everybody was running, so what was the use of remaining? They were ten to one against us, this enemy, and artillery to boot. Besides, our oldfashioned single-loading Springflelds were being pitted against repeating rifles of the latest pattern. And the ammunition was running low. Even thus I reasoned as I ran, pellmell, for the border, four long miles away. In my fancy there loomed before me the fate of our wounded at Tecate and the. bloodletting of the Alamo.

Somebody gripped the toe of my boot and I sprawled headlong into cactus and rocks. It was a wounded comrade, an American like myself, only a boy at that, whose ruddy face I had often seen at our troop mess or over some neighboring campfire of Baja California. His shoulder had been shot away. A leg was crushed below the knee. There was no hope for his life, but he wanted to he taken away. “For Ood’B sake, don't leave me, pal!” he cried. “They’ll burn me, they’ll kill me slow,” he moaned. For a moment I was stunned by the fall, but the boy’s pathetic appeal brought me to my senses and burned Into my brain where it will forever remain. I looked around me. There were wounded men, most of them boys, clutching at their fleeing comrades, beseeching them not to leave them to the mercy of the Mexican rurales. Yet these men whom I had seen cheerfully face death many times, men who had enlisted in a foreign cause .unafraid to die in battle, but standing ever in mortal terror of the torture chambers on the battle fields of Mexico. The Death Rain. For a moment my manhood returned and the massacre fear left me. I would shoulder this maimed bit of humanity, stagger to the line with my burden, over those cruel, never ending hills which I must scale with my charge before we reached safety. I staggered to my feet, but the zip zip of the “dum-dums," those same ’‘dum-dums” that had crippled this boy brought me back to a realization of my peril. An instant'l faltered in hoisting him to my back, but the boy seemed to divine my change of heart. He gripped me again, this time with a dying man’s'clutch which I could not and would not shake off unless I broke his arm. So I shouldered the bleeding little figure and labored forward, the while he murmured, "Good boy, good boy,” and the bullets of the Federals ever hissed and screeched In my ears. Something rose up in my path. It barred my progress. It was shattered by shot —a human form —scarce recognizable now for the blood that stained it from head to foot. But a voice husky with pain and terror begged me not to leave him. Fled as From an Ehemy. I fled from this dying man as I fled from Hie enemy. Dodged him as he reached for me. Aa I passed him from his reach he tottered back on the

ground with a cry of despsdr that left with me another memory) My \ legs were growing numb from the exertion of it all. Ahead of me fled the army, or what was left of it Behind me echoed the wail of the wounded, the vivas of the victorious Federate, the hiss and Bcream of their bullets. Ever present was the memory of the Alamo and Tecate, where our wounded and those of our fellows taken prisoners had experienced living hells before death relieved them of their torment. On and on I stumbled, falling now and then, but always my burden. It had ceased to urge me forward, this maimed bit of boyhood, but its lone arm still encircled my neck with a vise-like grip that at times made it almost impossible to breathe. Sounds of the battle left me now. I no longer saw men. I dared not stop, however, for fear of not being able to rise again, but at last I stumbled and fell with my burden for the last time. For a long time I remained on the ground, breathing heavily and resting. How sweet that rest was. I cared not for Federal soldado or rural.’ Let them come! I would sleep. The weight slipped from my back and I breathed freer. I must have lain there for an hour. When I arose the little figure at my side did not speak. I bent over him. He had cheated the torture chambers. They could not get him now. From his pocket a worn and thumb-marked bit of paper protruded. In the hope of learning his name I read it.

It was a message from a mother to her son. There was no post-mark. No address. Nothing to lead to his identity. Just “Jim, come home. Mother needs you. Your little sister and I pray for you every night. We aro very lonely with you away. Come home,' dear boy." That was all. Just a good-by message—the last he was ever to receive from that little mother somewhere in the states. If she could see her boy now! ( The Price of the Wanderlust. “And what did he die for?” I asked myself. What would I have died for? Just the battle-lust, that is all. The something inside of us that makes us soldiers of fortune. The wanderlust! I buried him, in the night, on the side of a hill where the soil was softer

and a little grass grew. A nameless grave with not even a mark to show that a body rested there. Perhaps the mother may read these lines and recognize in the little soldier of fortune her boy. At least she may console herself with the thought that his flesh was not food for coyotes; his bones not bleaching white in the sun like two hundred others of his comrades who in five short months paid the penalty of the battle-lusCin Mexico. As for myself, I stole like a thief in the night across the border and surrendered to the United States authorities. With ninety-three of my fellows I was penned up in Foft Rosecrans at San Diego for five days, while the government in Mexico we had sought to overthrow pleaded for our possession. Uncle Sam refused to give us up, but he kept our general, daring young Jack Mosby, veteran of five wars, beloved of his men, who is now at the naval disciplinary barracks Puget Sound, for taking French leave of the United States navy when the Mexican war cloud broke. , Of the ninety-three who survived that bloody day which cost us so many men, some are nojv fighting in the Balkans under different flags, and, if the powers of Europe clash over the division of the spoils, I feel that I must join them, even at the penalty of the !

Old-fashioned women who know how to make pieced quilts are developing a ureful Industry, particularly In the south and New England, by making silk and cotton creations to supply the demand of fashionable women who are ready to pay big prices. This picture shows a scene in the home of a southern family. ,

PIECED QUILTS COMING BACK.