Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 164, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 July 1916 — TURTLES AS TOMMIES’ PETS [ARTICLE]

TURTLES AS TOMMIES’ PETS

British Soldiers on the Tigris Amuse Themselves With Captured Tortoises. « London. —During lulls in the fighting on the Tigris British soldiers pff duty found it very hard to amuse themselves, according to Edmund Candler, the British press representative in Mesopotamia. At one time vtfTten the British force intrenched near El Hannah, because the Turkish position was too strong to be taken by a direct frontal attack, the soldiers found themselves on a narrow strip of ground with the Tigris on one side and a salt marsh on the other. The soldiers enjoyed bathing in the salt marshes, and a favorite sport was catching tortoises. A Tommy Atkins would tie a string around the leg of his pet and put him up on the parapet of the trenches to graze while he fought the enemy. The pet of one of the soldiers, a Scotsman, found too little food on the parapet, and died. The body of the victim was gravely buried by the soldiers with an identification disk about its neck.