Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 69, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 March 1915 — SOLDIERS TELL VIVID STORIES [ARTICLE]

SOLDIERS TELL VIVID STORIES

Give Personal Touches Impossible to War Correspondent in These Days. JOKERS EVEN IN TRENCHES Irish Spirit Proves Irroprooolblo »« Face of Grave Danger—Sea Fight M Seen From the Engine Room. li(ndoD. —The war mailbag ia Just now a prolific source of Interest Vivid letters from soldiers at the front or in hospital bases and scrappy notes from the tars with the “silent fleet* mirror the actualities of war with a wealth of Intimate detail and picturesque personal touches impossible to the harshly censored war oorreepondent The following Is written from the front by Oorp. T. Trainor: "We have had German cavalry thrown at ns six times in the last four hours, and each time it has been s different body, so that they must have plenty to spare. There is no eight hours for work, eight hours for deep and eight hours for play with vm. whatever the Germans may do. "The strain is beginning to tell on tWi more on us, and you can see by the weary faces and trembling k«ixi« that they are beginning to break down. -One prisoner token by the French aear Courtrai sobbed for an hour as though his were broken, his nerves were so much shaken by what he had been through. The French are fighting hard all round us with a grit and go that will carry them through. "Have you ever seen a little man fighting a great, big, hulking giant who keeps on forcing the little chap about the place until the giant tires himself oat, and then the little one, who has kept his wind, knocks him over? That's how the fighting here strikes me. “We are dancing about round the big German army, but our turn will come. Our commanders know their business, and we shall come out on top all right.” Sergeant Major McDermott does not write under ideal literary conditions, bnt his style ia none the worse for the inspiration furnished by the shriekiifg shell: “I am writing *to you with the enemy's shells bursting and screaming overhead! but God knows when it will be posted, if at all. “We are waiting for something to turn up to be shot at, but up to now, though their artillery has been making a fiendisji row all along our front, we haven’t seen as much as a mosquito's eyelash to shoot at. That's why I am able to write, and some of us are able to take a bit of rest while the others keep ‘dick.’ “There is a fine German airship bunging around like a great blue bottle up in the sky, and now and then ouf gunners are .trying to bring It down, but they haven’t done it yet “It’s the quantity, not the quality of the German shells that is having effect on us, and it’s not so much the actual damage to life as the nerveracking row that counts for so much. “Townsmen who are used to the noise and roar of streets can Btand it better than the countrymen, and I think you will find that by far the fittest men are those of regiments mainly recruited in the big cities. “A London lad near me says it’s no worse than the roar of the motor ’buses and other traffic in the city on a busy day.” Gaelic Spirit irrepressible. The Gaelic spirit has not deserted Sergt. T. Cahill under fire. He writes: “The Red Cross girleens with their purty faces and their sweet ways are as good men as most of us, and better than some of us. They are not supposed to venture into the firing line at all, but they get there all the same, and devil a one of us durst turn them away. “Mike Clancy is that droll with his larking and bamboozling the Germans that he makes us nearly split our sides, laughing at him and his ways. “Yesterday he got a stick and.put a cap on it. -sc that It peeped *so above the trench just like a man, ana then the Germans, kept shooting away at it until they must have used up tons of ammunition.” But Mike Clancy was not the only practical joker in the trenches, as the following from a wounded soldier shows: “Our men have Just had their papers from home, and have noted, among other things, that 'Business as Usual’ is the motto of patriotic shopkeepers. -(“In last week’s hard fighting the Wiltshires, holding an exposed position, ran oat of ammunition, and had to suspend firing until a party brought fresh supplies across the open under a heavy fire. “Then the wag of the regiment, a Cockney, produced a biscuit tin with ‘Business as Usual* crudely printed on it, and set it up before the trenches as a hint to the Gormans that the fight could now be resumed on more “Finally the tin had to be taken In bMtoM It proving such a good

target for the Gorman riflemen, hut the Joker was struck twice In rescuing It "A wounded private of the Buffs relates how an infantryman got temporarily separated from his regiment at Mons, and lay concealed in a trench while the Germans prowled around. “Just when he thought they had left him for good ten troopers left their horsee at a distance and came forward on foot to the trench. “The hidden infantryman waited until they were half-way up the slope, and then sprang out of hia hiding place with a cry. ‘Now, lads, give them hell!’ Without waiting to see the ‘lads’ the Germans took to tbelr heels.” From Men In the Ffeet. Equally interesting are some of the letters from men with the fleet. Tom Thome, writing to his mother, in Sussex, says: “Before we started fighting we were all very nervous, but after we joined in we were all happy and most of us laughing till it was finished. Then we all sobbed and cried. “Even if I never come back, don’t think I’ve died a painful death. Everything yesterday was as quick as lightning. “We were in action on Friday morning off Helgoland. I had a piece of shell as big as the palm of my hand go through my trousers, and as my trouser legs were blowing in the breeze, I think I was very lucky.”. A gunroom officer in a battle cruiser writes: “The particular ship we were engaged with was in a pitiful plight when we had finished with her —her funnels shot away, masts tottering, great gaps of daylight in her sides, smoke and flame belching from her everywhere. She speedily keeled over and sank like a stone, stern first. So far as ia known, none of her crew was saved. She was game to the last, let it be said, her flag flying till she sank, her guns barking till they could bark no more. “Although we ourselves suffered no loss, we had some very narrow escapes. Three torpedoes were observed to pass us, one within a few feet. Four-inch shells, too, fell short or were ahead of us. The sea was alive with the enemy’s submarines, which, however, did us no damage. They should not be underrated, these Germans. That cruiser did not think, apparently, of surrender.” What naval warfare seems like to the “black squad,” imprisoned in the engine, room is described by an en-gine-room man of the Laurel, who went through the “scrap” off Helgoland. Writing to his wife, he says: “It was a terribly anxious time for us, I can tell you, as we stayed down there keeping the engines going at their top speed in order to cut off the Germans from their fleet. We could hear the awful din around and the scampering of the tars on deck as they rushed about from point to point, and we knew what was to the fore when we caught odd glimpses of the stretcher bearers with their ghastly burdens. • “We heard the shells crashing against the sides of the ship or shrieking overhead, as they passed into the water, and we knew that at any moment one might strike us in a vital part and send us below for good. “It is ten times harder on the men whose duty is in the engine room than for those on deck taking part in the fighting, for they, at least, have the excitement of the fight, and if the ship is struck they have more than a sporting chance of escape. We have none.” From a Dying Frenchman. The most dramatic letter comes from the French. On one of the fields of battle, when the Red Cross soldiers were collecting the wounded after a heavy engagement, Ihere was found a half sheet of notepaper, bn which was written a message for a woman, of which this is the translation: "Sweetheart: Fate in this present war has treated us more cruelly than many others. If I have not lived to create for you the happiness of which t. • t

both our hearts dreamed, remember that my sole wish la now that you should be happy. Forget me. Create for yourself tome happy home that may restore to you some of the greater pleasures of life. For myself 1 shall have died happy In the thought of your love. My last thought has been for you pud for those I have at home. Accept this, the last kiss, from him who loved you.” Writing from a fortress on the frontier, a French officer says the colonel in command was a.k* to send a hundred men to stiffen some reservist artillery in the middle of France, far away from the war area. He called for volunteers. “Spine of you who have got wives and children or old mothers fall out,” he said. Not a man stirred. “Come, come,” the colonel went on. “No ohe will dream of saying you funked. Nothing of that kind. Fall out!” Again the ranks were unbroken. The colonel blew his - nose violently. He tried to speak severely, bnt his voice failed bJm. He tried to frown, but somehow it turned Into a smile. "Very well,” he said, “you must draw lots.” And that was what they did.