Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 203, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 August 1916 — Coward the Regiment [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Coward the Regiment

by H. M. EGBERT

{Copyright. 1816, by W. G. Chapman.) A hero? I? Louis, whom you boys surnamed Louis the Debonair, because of my atmosphere of general well-be-ing? Listen, then, and I shall tell you the truth about my exploit. I am not ashamed to say that when General Joffre ordered me from my position as typewriter to the commissariat department to share in the perils of the trenches my first Impulse was to fly. I, a man of forty-seven, with a girth larger than I care to think about, and a family of seven, a beloved wife in Paris, weeping her eyes .out, should I then play the hero? No, gentlemen. It was my firm resolve, from the moment I was ordered to the front, that I would be taken prisoner. Better starve in a Boche prison camp than lie, a corpse, upon the plains of Champagne! A hero? I had less wish to be a hero than anything I know of. I must be taken prisoner. But how? My nerves were all unwrung by the terrific noise of the cannonades. The shells flew over us. Sometimes great craters were formed by the explosion of the hideous missiles which were called Jeansons. I trembled, I feared. I could not hide my cowardice. Nor did I wish to do so. I would have been branded a coward forever if only I could have been restored to my weeping Annette, and

my darling Jean, Pierre, Marie, Antoine, Louis, Philippe and Auguste. At last I summoned courage to go to my colonel. “My colonel,” I said, “I am useless here. I am a family man, and my nerves will not endure this strain. - When I must die, let it be of apoplexy or measles, not of a .Teanson. Send me to the rear in charge of the regimental commissariat supply."— The colonel was an older man than L He struck me In the stomach, causing a pain most acute. “We shall teach you, Louis,” he said. “Tonight you will go out on listening patrol!’’ I nearly swooned at the brutality of. his words. I knew what that portended. The listening post, between the lines, where the star rockets went up, disclosing all who were above the trenches, exposing them to those hideous shells. ... I fell upon my knees.

“Mercy, my colonel!” I exclaimed. "Have you no children?” "Fifteen hundred,” he replied sternly. I rose and stared at him in hopeless fear. Fifteen hundred children ! And yet he could face this inferno! “All the men of my regiment are my children, Louis,” he answered. “And you,” he added kindly, clapping his hand upon my shoulder, “are one of them. So we shall make you a brave child! Go!” I went with shaking knees. I knew that it meant certain death. But after a while an idea came to me; at first only a dim hope and then a happiness, finally an ecstacy! I woujd go and take advantage of the darkness to crawl away. I-would render up myself to the sausage-eaters! I would become a prisoner. We started out toward midnight My teeth chattered as I crawled through the mazes of barbed wire in the wake of the little lieutenant, accompanied by two other men. We all carried bombs. We had six apiece. If the pin were pulled out the thing would explode in fifteen seconds. Merciful heaven! Father of seven! And Annette weeping her eyes out for me in Paris! „ It was pitch dark, arnjl when the hideous rockets went up we flung ourselves flat upon the ground, and happily escaped detection. At last we halted in a traverse. It was twelve yards from the enemies’ lines. We could hear them talking among themselves. We listened. And then, as I lay there, looking for piy chunce to dart down the trench.

and yet not daring to, there happened the most terrible thing that I have ever known in my life. The German mine went off!. I had no time to be afraid. I felt my self rising, rising, amid a din of the Infernal regions, and I wondered whether I should travel as high as the moon. Up I went —and then I must have lost consciousness, for I opened my eyes to find myself lying In u huge crater, amid perfect silence. The lieutenant and my companions were nowhere to be seen. I lay in a pool of what I thought was iny blood. But after a while I discovered that it was only water. I was absolutely unharmed. My hopes w r ent up. Now I could surrender. I should become a prisoner until the war was over. Annette, Jean Pierre, Marie, Antoine* Louis, Philippe, Auguste would see me again. I listened. All about me I heard the Bodies talking In their guttural tongue. In front of me, behind me, and on each side of me were the enemy. To which, then, should I surrender?

It puzzled me. If I went right, those on the left might be indignant and fire on me. But I must certainly surrender to some party of them, for there was not a Frenchman left in thet trench which they had blown up. I crawled out of the crater, and my hand touched something round and smooth which made me recoil in terror. It was a skull, the grisly skull of a dead man? So I thought for a few moments. But no! It was a bomb —one of the bombs which we had brought with us. The pins not having been removed, they hud not been discharged when the mine went off, though tons of earth were flung all about us. I touched it more easily and theh its neighbor. Then a sort of curiosity overcame me, and I CQunted the bombs. There were just eighteen of them —my six, and the six of each of my companions, the brave fellows who now lay buried under the great heap of debris that formed the sides of the crater.

My blood began to rise. Assassins! I shook my fists at the Bodies. Did they stop to think what they had done before they massacred a brave lieutenant and two soldiers of France? The little lieutenant had looked like my own Jean. Perhaps he had a mother somewhere, waiting for his return. “Rendez-vous V shouted a harsh voice at my side. The invitation to surrender, spoken in an execrable intonation,: brought me back to myself. I started, and saw three Bodies with fixed bayonets leveled at me-. I heard a cry on my other side. I looked around. Six Boches stood there.! And they were coming up before me and behind me. I was trapped. 4 I dived into the crater, and as I did so the whole eighteen bombs rolled down after me like skulls. I trembled, I shook with fear. Then suddenly a hideous sentiment took possession of me. I, a Frenchman, the father of seven children, t» surrender to a pack of cowardly Boches? I saw red. Stooping, I gathered up a bomb, removed the pin, and hurled it with all my might in the faces of the nearest party. It exploded with a terrific crash, and the whole six took to flight. But on my other side the party of three were already topping the crater. I saw their bayonets gleaming, and I picked up another bomb and flung it at them. I laughed at the detonation. When the smoke cleared away nothing was seen.

I heard the shouts and groans of the wounded Boches, but they did not move my heart. I hurled bomb after bomb, before, behind me. I gathered up TheTeniainder and ran into the Boches' trench. I saw the frightened pack retreat, and I rushed after them, bombing them. With my right hand I hurled the deadly missiles, while with my left I withdrew the pins. In an incredibly short space of time I had cleared the trench. I paced it like a victorious lion. And then suddenly the realization of my folly came to me. I, who had wished to yield, had permanently alienated my friends the enemy. I became frantic. “I surrender! lam Knmarad!” I shouted. But there was none to answer me. I was alone, like Crusoe, in the hostile trench. I thought of Annette, of Jean, Pierre, Marie, Antoine, Louis,’ Philippe, Auguste. I sat down and hid my face in my hands and wept bitterly.

Suddenly the air above me hissed with bullets. I cowered in terror at the bottom of the trench. The battle had begun again. I heard an earthshaking tread. A company advanced at the double, with bayonets fixed. The foremost man leaped into the trench. I looked down. One bomb remained. I raised it to remove the pin. Then I saw that the blue uniforms were of our Frenchmen, and that the man with the sword raised to cut me dowp was the colonel. I stopped. I let the bomb fall. Thte tears were streaming down my cheeks. But the colonel took me in his arms and embraced me —yes, before all. “It is thou, Louis, who hast won this trench single-handed!” he critjd/ ’iocredujously. “I clo not know, my colonel,” I answered, shaking with terror. wish," I added, “now that I have been with the listening post, to return to the commissariat.” "No, Louis,” he answered. “The regiment has need of brave men like tbee in the fighting line.” Later they pinned the cross upon my breast. And L Louis, the pride of the regiment, know that I shall never see my family again. Coward I am, and unless I can manage to be taken prisoner I Shall die a dpg’s death in the trenches. My heart melts when I think of Annette, of Jean —

Made Me Recoil in Terror.