Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 70, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 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 irrepressible In Fees of Grave Danger—Sea Fight as Seen From the Engine Room. London. —The war mailbag is lost 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 correspondent. The following is written from the front by Corp. T. Trainor: "We have had German cavalry thrown at ns six times in the last four hours, and each time it has been a different body, so that they must have plenty to spare. There is no eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep and eight hoars for play with us, whatever the Germans may do. "The strain is beginning to tell on them more than on us, and you can •as by the weary faces and trembling hands that they are beginning to break down. "One prisoner taken by the French mar Gourtrai sobbed for an hoar as tHr.wg+l us heart 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 ebap about the place until the giant tires himself out, 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 I 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, but his style is none the worse for the inspiration furnished by the shrieking 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 fiendish row all along our front, we haven’t seen as much as a mosquito's eyelash to shoot at. That's why 1 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 banging around like a great blue bottle up in the sky. and now and then opr 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 ns, 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 Btreets can stand 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 Sefgt- T. Cahill under fire. He writes: “The Red Cross glrleens with their party faces and their sweet ways are aa 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 Claficy is that droll with his larking and bamboozling the Germans that he makes us nearly split our tfdes laughing at him and his ways. # “Yesterday he got a stick and put a cap .on It, so that it peeped vo above the,trench just like a man, atia 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, aa the following from a wounded soldier shows: *t ‘pur men have just had their papers , from horhe, and have noted, among other things, that ‘Business as Usual’ is -the motto of patriotic shop- . keepers. ' _• ». “In last week's hard fighting the Wilts hires, 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 Germans that the fight could now be.resumed on more mjii.l terms. “Finally the tin had to be taken In because It *ee proving such a good

target for the German riflemen, but the Joker was struck twice in rescuing It “A wounded private of the BufTs relates how an Infantryman got temporarily separated from his regiment at Mods, 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 horses at a distance and came forward on foot to the trench. “The hidden Infantryman waited until they were half-way up the slbpe, and then sprang out of his hiding place with a cry. ‘Now, lads, give them bell!’ Without waiting to see the ‘lads' the Germans took to their heels.” From Men In the Fleet. Equally interesting are some of the letters from men with the fleet. Tom Thorne, writing to his mother, in Sussex. says:-' “Before we started fighting we were all very nervoisi, but after we Joined in we were all’happy and moat of us laughing till ft 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 is known, none of her crew was Baved. 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 pbserved 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 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, there was found a half sheet of notepaper, on which was written a message for a woman, or 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

both oar hearts dreamed, remember that my sole wish is now that yon should he happy. Forget me. Create for yourself some happy home that may restore to you some of the greater pleasures of Hfe. For myself I ■hall have died happy in the thought of your love. My last thought has been for you and for those I have at home. Acoept 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 asked to send a hundred men to stiffen some reservist artillery in the middle of France, far- away from the vat area. He called for volunteers. “Some 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 one 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, but hiß voice failed him. 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.