Evening Star Newspaper, October 17, 1926, Page 90

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHT) \GTON, D. C. OCTOBER 17, 1926—PART 5. Caught in the Sweep of a Monsoon Aboard a Fifty-Five-Footer Six Men Engage in Terrific Struggle With the Dread Laurabada of the Pacific Wearying of academic life +while @t the University of California, fol- lowing his service in the United States Navy during the World War, Warwick Miller Tompkins set out on a vagabond journey around the world. In the Philip- Pines, after working an adventur- ous way through China, Man- churia and Japan. he became one of a party of three that sailed a 15- foot yawl to Borneo. Celebes. Bali, Timor, Thursday Island and New Guinea. Here, in the waters surrounding and dividing_the world’s largest island, Mr. Tompkins had many thrilling adventures, and on sev- eral occasions his life was im- periled. Some of these adventures are recounted in this article and a succeeding one. BY WARWICK MILLER TOMPKINS. HE fragile shacks of Port Moresby. British New Guinea, had been vibriting for 10 day before the increasing might of a wind from the eastward. Day after day that rushing. invisible river of cool air had grown stronger. more boisterous. Long before, all the loose dust of the place had been hurled in a dun cloud across the azure bay and over the bare brown hills to the west. The homes of the settlers ware filled with sharp whistlings as the hunted air drove through cracks in walls and down fireless chimneys “It is the monsoon.” the ploneers re. marked 1o one another. Yes, it was the new southeast monsonn, the lau- rabada, that was bringing on its clean wings comfort and health to the little town that for four moenths had suf fered the heat and the rains and the mosquito legions swept down on it by the northwest trade.wind whose last foul breath had weakly died a fort- night previously Ir. the land-locked bay the scamper- ing f pled the water that lay green and blue and purple over the corai patches, hut without, in the open Guif, the stride of the noisy giant piled up smoking seas that sped to a crashing, white doom on the barrier reef 4 miles off- shore What a wind it was! It was strong er, the old-timers said. than any mon- soon they had ever known. Only 10 days old and blowing better than 45 miles an hour already! They - shook their heads when they saw that we were determined to venture out with our little yawl. There were six of us on the 35-foot Eleanor. There were Skipper Tom. the owner; myself, hie mate who had helped him bring the little packet across many thousand miles of ocean and Arthur Murcett, a voung Austra- lian we'd acquired in Port Moreshy a landlubber, it is true, but a hoy we knew to possess courage and enthu- siasm. \We three were aft in the cabi Constancio. the Filipina cook-hoy, wi boss of the tiny fo'c'sie where partner, Jose, and a Papuan we called Charlie him. We had spent a month in the fever- ish town getting the Eleanor ready for another contgst with the ocean, and we were all ready to face almost anything conceivable rather than delay our statt for Samarai. a port 250 miles to the threatening east whence drove the monsoon. So, with everything shipshape. tesied and workable, we finally cast off from the dock, set close.reefed sails and poked out of the harbor. »iwow 'HEN started a nightmare of hard, bitter work as we fought our way inch by inch along the coast The wind was dead-ahead and the short reaches between the coast and the reef precluded any long. winnin tacks. Hour after hour and day aft day we battled grimly on, never mak- ing more than 7 or § miles a day. Night sailing was, of course, out of the question. When darkness came with its startling. tropical rapidity. we anchored behind whatever shelter was t of the great wind merely rip- | his | pilot | were hunked with | available and walited for the first light of dawn to start the fight again. Days were all alike, gray, cold, filled with interminable rain. Dawn and twilight were quick transition pe- could be seen rather than just felt. Fvervthing on the ship was saturat- ed. The cabin reeked with the musty odor of dripping clothes hung from every available hook. Blankets lay crumpled and soggy in uninyiting bunks. Our morale suffered as the deadly routine of waiches, the unceas- ing sense of imminent danger and the | continual struggles with the tackie sapped the strength of our malari racked hodies, Still, diving, twisting, smashing on, the Eleanor crawled along that coast | until one night found her anchored in the miserably scant shelier afforded by Table Point, a hare, low sand-spit hounding the western end of Tabie | Bay. Fifteen miles to the eastward the outer reef's long line broke into fragments, submerged, and then sank precipitately to the dep ocean floor, and |h°’\»rfls(»d »mbers of the South Pacific rished jovously on to the coast that trembled under their tread. Twenty-eight miles beyond our an- chorage that night there was another tiny patch of semisheltered holding ground to which we must win in one day’s salling. Twenty-eight miles! And we had been averaging about |8 miles a day! Still we had to croxs Table Ray. and the foul night saw all hands still working about | decks making final preparations for a strenuous dash’ the next d; Desperately as we all needed rest, | there was none for us on this night. A steadily falling harometer had both the skipper and me frankly worrled, and the vacht hehaved like a chained wild thing ax she tugged frantically | at her anchors and rolled in great ares untl it seemed she must surely go over., At 3 o'clock the skipper. then on | his ancror watch, couid stand it no | longer. He shoved hack the scuttle and a &wirl of rain and spray drove in | with his voice on Mure and me where | we were sleeping on the comparative- ) pile of storm sails. “Come on, fellows, this is awful: | let’s get out and start across the ha We rounded Table Point shortly after 3 In the morning. and we made | that desired anchorage, darkness, ad verse currents and the unmatchable feat us, * ok ox % [T wAs just hefore dawn that thing started happening. The close. reefed mainsail suddenly blew out of 1t holt-ropes and disappeared like a magic carpet into the mist to leeward. The vacht lost her headway, to cope with the seas and the wind that clutched at her rigging. sheeted home the perilous swinging hoom and lowered the gaff. Setting nother maingail was impossible in the gale. The vawl staggered on away from the coast until the pilot's warning cry { “Reef! Reef" again had all hands | on deck, cursing at the booming roar that came from ahead where we had | thought there was nothing but wide ocean, he'll never come ahout, not in this {sea!” the skipper howled. ‘“Stand by to wear ship!” As T went forward to tend the head safls, Mure passed me on his hurried way to the mizzen sheet, while the | skipper drove the helm hard up and | alternately looked at the reef—now | showing white and awful close ahead and at the compass card. The Eleanor Swung, swung just so far away from the wind. and then halted. She would not go around. “Headsalls to windward! Mizzen'll have to come in! I yelied to the strainidg little Filipinos with me as I secured a sheet that had cut my hand | badly and started aft to help Murc. | But the skipper had already realized his predicament and had_given Mure his_orders, \ riods between which the driving drops | good time, but once down to the end | of the reef and within a few miles of | madness of the wind combined to de- | unabla | We | | lighter sky. “STILL, DIVING TWISTING, SMASHING O! liards and a tugging sail at once, had gotten in a frightful mess. The sail was half down, but there was a tangle | some place and we could neither lower | nor raise the sail at all. But the di- minished sail area had enabled the ship, to get about, and now, on the starhoard tack, we were crawling on | inshore once more. Zip! A slit in the mizzen ran from hoom to gaff. “Douse it! Quick!” some oney velled, hut hefore a hand uched a'halliard the wind had taken tie whole thing off after our mainsail. Somehow we bent our other much- patched mizzen during a flendish hour while we were remorselessly hnm-! mered in toward the coast. It was| E the Eleanor headed once more valiantly into the storm; and a tea ech told that the old sail had | also ripped. There was no time to worry now ahout such things as a torn sail, for a “Land Ho!” from forward warned us | of near disaster. We all saw it, the black gloom of the coast trees stand- ing out faintly against the slight There was absolutely no chance to| come about; we conldn’t have done so against those seas had we heen under full sail. And how far away was that threatening black shore? ~Could we again_wear ship or would that take us inio the surf> How far? How far? In the_instant that he weighed his slim chances of escape, the skipper | caught the heavy crash of the heac pounding surf. ~“Must anchor—onl chance—bend hawser—all chain We had to anchor in a seaway where 30-foot combers were rearing their white crests over our decks. Jose and I toiled in a blackness illu- That lad, trying to handle two hal- mined only by those tawny, gleaming | &rip on | manes of the seas while we hent a | | hawser to our heaviest anchor. got|were hobhing wildly. | {both the mudhooks over the side. and a flash, and then the water got to| our fuses and the ship was plunged | let them go. Not a thing could we see, but the same sense which got | the anchors out told us when the! yacht ceased her drifting and pointed | her nose straight into the seas. and u cork we were . x ur Like a twirled to the tops of the seas. then down, down, with = sickening | swoop as the hoat lurclYed into the deep troughs. The salls cime down and our fingers lost all sensa\on as they fought to furl th> win\filied canvas. 1 found myself actually cry-| ing with rage and shame as I kwt a the jib and knew that the hard tussle to lash it along the siy- tabbing. wave-plercing bowsprk must begin all over. At last we were snugged down, do- ing a devil's own dance at the end of our chains, wondering just how long it was possible to last in our| precarious position. I looked at the cabin clock. It was onfy 10 minutes past 8! Ten minutes later T was standing in the galley munching a chunk of #hip's bread. A dish bhounced out of its rack and shattered on the stove. “Must have been some roll to do that,” T was thinking. when the ship appeared to turn over. hurled in among the dishes. literally flew out of his bunk to ¢ through the glass bookcase dac And hefore my mind could grasp the situation, the starhoard side of the cabin trunk burst in before a solid wall of water. Mure, dazed. disappeared under the frantie pool in which a couple of stools, some hooks. THE ELEANOR CRAWLED Al | he sing | those | the “hawser a sextant bhox and the phonograph This I saw in into utter darkness. “The anchors have gone!” first thought as 1 fought tow companionway, and then a sndden fear made me almost frantic. Where was the skipper? He had heen on deck when that crushing, killing hlow had thrown us over. But why didn't out Mure’s hand clutched at me as T waded by and I yanked him up the night by his collar. “F° Quick! Look out for the skipper chains parted we're going ishore” 1 velled into his ear as we stood for an Instant by the hatch- In another minute T was leaning over the how, feeling the slack end of the starboard chain. It thou that anchor had carrled way. To port the other chain and stretched as taut as a violin string out and ahead into the was my rd the ipper - he's out—cold———" Mure’s voice it was, “Make him fast and then get these salls loosed!” 1 howled hack, fecling almost carefree at learning that Tom was atill ahoard. A sudden heave of the ship threw Mure away from !me, and when 1 found him. again he had efficiently lashed the unconscious owner to the foot of the mainmast. Cut the gaskets! | ose! Constancio! Charlie!” Yes, sair!” came Jose's voice as other figures detached themselves from the blackness which now seemed less impenetrable. “What you want?" “Free fjib! This anchor's going ordered. was as I cojled NG THAT COA | | | | | | | | | | ST when the next hig wave hits stancio. get that mizzen read Sheath knives leaped out and the row! E t the gas- | flat. Constancio and I furled the jib. | jreln N0l iuuitioo iy | called the other watch, and turned in. | Nothing happened. except many other | | idle calls for “All hands” as the reef kets, acted, wheel Not a second too soon had we for 1 had just gotten to the when, enormous heyvond the | power of my words to tell, another Al sea rose ahove us, * ok ok X DONXN'T remember clearly what hap- pened then. 1 tried to shout a warning to the boys, but my was drowned in a swegping flood of water as the sea broke on our hows. For what seemed an age, water tugged at.my legs and washed about my waist My feet were swept from under me and my hands ached cruelly as I hung to the wheel with every atom of trength T had. A snaky something hout me-—the free end of a halyard. Then. miraculously, the deck again came under me, and T saw the mainmast swinging against the s & ‘hain, he broke!" Jose sang out. “Rope has gone, tool” Mure supple- | pe has gone, toor” Murc supple. | Grange it mented. jib! eamed. nstancio!” Up_ forestaysail Stand by your mizzen, od boy, Tommy! Good boy! Tl take the wheel. You give a hand for ward.” A wraith spoke at my elhow. It was the skipper “Are vou all right. Tom. old kid I queried, peering hard buy gutilely for his face. “Kind of sick, but all here,” §o an- swered with a spark of his usnal fire. vent the ghostly sails as the s sped through our hands. Together we howed our backs to flat- sc & | |v voice | ) ten in the tugging sheets. And then we sat down to await our ultimate success or failure. The yacht spun like a cat as the headsalls jerked her head away from the wind and the seax. Her motion became smoother, easfer. And ever the surging monody of the surf grew louder. Would we never get around? How slowly those seconds dragged! The silhouetted coast ran to meet us as we swung about until the chasing seas threw us down their steep faces. On and on we raced into the shoal water. “We'll never make it: we'll ne: [ make it!"" Murcett was repeating and over ta-himself when the head- saile flapped over and the skipper's olce. cool, collected, cut to us: “All right, lads, set what's left of the mizzen now. We're around i The tattered sail was holsted. The ship heeled and gathered headway We clawed off the coast, heading int new dangers only guessed at. Then we set 1o hail out the cabin. the buckets went from hand to hand and the ship (!'udllnll_\'km'fiv{‘ less and s sluggish. We spoke little. e en to a wateh.” the akipper finally commanded. “one forward as a lookout and cne at the wheel. I\Pv!: your eves peeled for the barrier reef. Constancio and I took the first trick while the others stumbled below 1o the cheerless cabin. Rain! Rain! Rain! How it did rain! The night seemed as fluid as ocean, as the crashing sheets of w ter drove across us. The wind seen to have lost something of fts fu but the ocean was still on the ramp- age. g The mizzen latted hellishly, it sounded like a neve lent gun with its banging reports. 1 watched it dis- integrating from my post at the wheel. Rit by bit it tore into shreds and di appeared. R.rrip! Bang! Rerrri Bang-bang! That was the song the mizzen through the hours. Where was the barrier reef? Some- where just ahead it was screaming and thundering. Our eyes played us tricks. A dozen times one or both of us lookouts summoned the rest on deck only to find that the glimpsed of thinking it was the reef. * ok ok K T WARDS the end of my watch the and 1 hove the ship to with the heim Iast of the mizzen flapped away. hard down and the staysail pulled in seemed near, until the little cook and 1 again took the deck at 4 in the mornire. The skipper had figured that. hove to, we were drifting to leeward at hout 2 knots, and that. by daybreak from which we could fun to | safety with our headsails. Vhen 1 relieved him. he pointed to % dark patch off the starboard quarter and saild. “There's Table Point: ! when we can run behind he went helow. “That's not Table P stancio 10 minutes later in my ear: “that's Grange Tsland.” 0. impossible.” 1 replied: “we couldn’t possibly have drifted that far.” but Constancio insisted and 1 gradually became convinced he was right. Grange Island. let me explain, is a fsle some 7 miles west 6f Table Point. It lies in the midst of a perfect tangle of jagged reefs and it is popularly supposed to have no passage between it and the barrier reef. The charts show that there is Mo passage. At once I called the skipper, for, if that land was the island. we had heen blown willy-nilly into a situation fully s perilous as that from which we'd escaped eight hours previously. Coming dawn verified our fears, We were hetween Grange Island and the barrier reef! | Point “Well, fellows, we've got one chance Hours passed, hours and hours. while | head of a giant sea had fooled us into | we should be in a position off Table | | come soon. in a thousand now." the skipper re- marked. “but let's play that for all it's_ worth!" Cheered by Tom's courage and tne light of day, we all bucked up. “Get that storm trysail out of the lazarette!” 1 velled to Mure as. knife in hand. I crawled out on the hoomkin to cut away the remnant of the miz- zen. Five minuter later we had set the tiny bit of canvas and had found that it helped to steady the ship eon- siderably. ‘Then a wail arose forward. The jib. when set. had torn to ribhon “How long will the mainsail last” Tom howled at me. Not more than fifteen minutes.” T estimated, thinking of the great rip in | 1e. “All right. set it! with it may pull us through!” came the word. We jumped to spread that hattered canvas, Could we have sailed within four and a half points of the wind we might have scraped by Grange Island the skipper had entertained some fleeting hopes of doing that hut there was no chance of accomplishe ing the feat under our miserably short sail and in those seas. Soon it was evident that we must face the nnex- plored dangers between the island and the reef. “Slack away mainsail. slack away headsai The skipper. realizing the futility of trying to beat ta windward was oing to try to sall throu h the reefs! The Eleanor raced off before the wind. Fifteen minntes * ok % o ‘OW there in truth, nething more that we could do. If the end of the Eleanor and those ahoard her was to come. it wonld come and A great calm settled over as suddenly interrupted hy a hail from Charlie. aloft: “Taubada! Tauhada! fellow reef got hole:” Charlie was fairly dancing as he stretched an arm out over the port how. Hardly daring to helieve him, we all stared hard where he pointed. At first all we could see wa another precipitons line of br that rose sheer over the reef, poised for an instant while the piercing light darted through the crystal.green walls, and smashed thunderously creamy foam. Then— there it is’ No! Yes! YES. There was a patch perhaps fifty feet wide where the charging line did not break. hut rolled smothly on and in to another resf a hundred feet further inshore. Fascinated. charmed, we stared at thix portal as the skipper swing the how toward it. How majfestically those successive waves trampad through it! And. oh! How dead purple was the water that shone in the shallow of the troughs! “Now or never! Now or Tom_yelled. “Shall we try Tows?" “Let's go!" swer, the vacht headed one slim hope. Well we all knew our danger. If there were five feet of water instead of a little over six over that gateway. In two minutes the Fleanor would be held helpless in the gap, awalting the infuriated strength of the next sea! Like a chip we rose up the face of that hig sea. 1 looked down the decka and saw the howsprit plunging into & submarine garden of coral -a garden of magic beauty. of fairy flowers. “Fiye-eeeeeeest the recf was astern and Charlie's vell was echoed by nus all. We were in the open gulf! There is not much more to tell. Three hours later we limped inte & Government station up the coast where we rested and worked for a week. Then once more we headed back into Port Moreshy for mare com plete repairs. There we were greeted as ones from the dead: we had hesn reported lost a dozen times by natives who had glimpsed us battling in the mist_and tBe foulness of the worst month's storm ever recorded in New (master) him- never it. fel- T howled. and. In an- toward anr Guinea. “Fix Ba BY JOHN W. THOMASON, JR. Captain. T'. S. Marine Corps. CHAPTER VI Marines at Blanc Mont. HE battalion groped way through the wet darkness to a wood of scrubby pines, and lay down in the slow Autumn | rain. North and east the guns | made a wall of sound: flaghes from hidden batteries and flares sent up from nervous front.-line trenches lighted the low clouds: occasonal shells from the Roche heavies whined | overhead, searching the transport lines to the rear. It lacked an hour vet until dawn, and the companies dis. posed themselves in the mud and slept. sleep they could before hattle A few days before this hattalion. the first of the 5th Regimen: of Marines. a unit of the 2nd Division. had puiled out of a pleasant town helow Toul. in the area where the divigion rested after the Saint Mihiel drive. and hafl come north a day and a night hy train to Chalons-sur-Marne. Thence, by night marches. the division reached certain bleak and areas behind the and here general orders announced They had learned to get all the | had | war-worn | Champagne front. | that the 2nd was detached from the | American forces and lent by the gen eralissimo as a special reserve to Gou rard’s 4th French Army. The dawn came very reluctantly through the clouds, bringing no sun with it. although the drizzle stopped. The battalion rose from its soggy blankets, kneading stiffened muscles to restore circulation. in disconsolate. shivering groups around the galleys. These had come up in the night. and from then. stand ing under the dripping pines, came a promising smell of hot coffee. Some. thing hot was the main con In life just now. RBut the fr teeble, and something hot wa coming. This matter finally disposed of, however. curious eyes about them North from the edge of the pines the battalion looked out on desslation where the once grassy of the Champagne stretched awax like a great white sea that had been dead and accursed through all time. at hand was Souain, a town of the dead, a shattered skeleton of a place. with shells breaking ov t. Bevond and northward was Somme-Py. near- ly blotted out by four vears of war. From there to the horizon, east and west and north and south, was ail a stricken land. * o o x second-in-command, heing E peering from the pines with other officers | could see nothing Men of the battalion. that moved in all the desolation. were there, thousands of them. they were burrowed like animals in the earth. then, Gourard's hard-fighting French- men were hlasting their way through the lines that led up to the last strong- holds of the Boche toward Blanc Mont Ridge. and over this mangled terrain could be seen the smoke and fury of bursting_shrapnel shell and high explosive. The sustained roar of artillery d the infernal clattering of machine-guns and musketry beat upon the ears of the watchers. Through glasses one could make out and gathered | teration | he men cast in- | rolling slopes | Near | bue ! North of Somme.Py, even | A LEAF FROM CAPT. THOMASO Story of the [ E é [ Y NOTEBOOK--SHOWING ATTI- TUDES OF FIGHTING MEN AT SOISSONS. k0 hits of blue and bits of green-gray, flung casually about between the | trenches. These, the only touches of | color in the waste, were the unburied | bodies of French and German dead. | "So this. Slover, is the Champagne,” said the second-incommand to one of | | his non-coms, whe stood beside him. | | The sergeant spat. "It locks like he, | | sir” he said | The lieutenant strolled over to where | a French staff captain stood with a | knot of officers in the edge of tha pines, ponting out features of this extended field, made memorable by | bitter fighting. Rince 1914 we have fought hard | here,” he was saving. “Oh, the French know this Champagne. well, | and the Boche knows it. too.~ Yonder' | he pointed to the southwest is the Butte de Souain, where our Foreign | j Legion met in the first vear that 1guard division that the Prussians ] call the ‘Cockchafers.” They took the | Butte, but most of the Legion are lying there now. And yonder'—tl Frenchmar extended his arm with a gesture that bad something of the | holds salute In it-—"stands the Mountain of | Rheims. If vou lonk—the air is clear- ing a little-—you can perhaps see the towers of Rheims itself. A long grayish hill lay against the gray sky at the horizon. and over it a good glass showed. very far and faint, the spires of the great cathe. | dral, with a cloud of shell-fire hang- ing over them “All this terrain. as far as Rheims, is dominated hy Rlanc Mont Ridge yon- der to the north. As long as the Boche RBlanc Mont he can throw his shells into Rheims: he can dominate | the whole Champagne sector as far | as the Marne. Indeed, they say that the Kalser watched from Blane Mont the battle that he launched here in | July. And the Boche means to hang on there. So far, we have failed to dislodge them. 1 expect'—he broke off and smiled gravely on the circle of officers——"you will see some very hard figting in the next few days, gentle- men'” It was the last day of Setember, and as the forenopn went by an inter- mittent drizzle sent the battalion to | grips with #uch miserable shelters as the men could improvise. Company com- manders and seconds-in-command went up toward ruined Somme-Py for reconnoissance, and returnefl to pro- fane the prospect to their platoon leaders. * ok X %k second-in-command and the captain. that afternoon, were huddled under a small sheet of cor- rugated iron, stolen by an enterpris- ing orderly from the French gunners. The captain was very large and the other very lean, and they were hoth ahout the same length. They fitted under the sheet by a sort of dovetail ing process that made it complicated for either to move. A second-in-command is sort of an understudy to the company command- er. In some of the outfits the captain does everything, and his understudy can only ‘mope around and wait for his senior to become a casmalty. In others, it is the junfor who getk things done. and the captain is just a figure- head. In the 49th, however, the rela- tion was at its happiest. The big cap- tain and his lieutenant functioned to- gether as smoothly as parts of a sweet-running engine, and there was between them the undemonstrative affection of men who have faced much peril together. “As for me." rejoined the captain, drawing up one soaked knee and put- ting the other out in the wet. “I want to get wounded in this fight. A hon blighty, In the arm or the leg, I think. Something that will keep me in a nice hospital until Spring. I don't like cold weather. Now, who is pushin'? It's nothin’ to me, John. if your side leaks keep off o’ mine’ So the last day of September, 1918, passed. with the racket up forward unabated. So much of war is just Iving around waiting in more or less discomfort. Apd herein lies the excel- lence of veterzns. They swear and &rowl horribly under mscomfort and exposure —far more than green troops; but privations do not sap their spirit or undermine that Intangible thing called morale. Rather do sufferings nourish in the men a cold, mounting anger, that” swells to sullen argor | when at last the infantry comes to | the enemy, and then it | £oes hard indeed with him who stands | in the way. On the front. a few kil where the battalion lay and listened to the guns, Gourard's attack was coming to a head around the heights north of Somme-Py and the strong | trench svsteme that guarded the way to Blanc Mont Ridge. Three mag- nificent French divisions. one of Chasseurs. a colonial division, and a | line division with a Verdun history, | shattered themselves in fruitless at tacks on the Essen Trench and the Essen Hook. a switch line of -that system. Reyond the Essen line the Blanc Mont position loomed impreg- nable. Late on the first of October, a gray, bleak dav, the vattalion got its battle orders, and took over a man- gled front line from certain weary Frenchmen. 'HE meters from * k% o* YATHERING the platoon leaders and non-coms afpund them, the captain and the gecond in command of the 49th Company spread a large map on the ground, weighting it corners with their pistols. 3 arines in Critical War SAVAGE FIGHTING IN THE WOODS AT SOISSONS. “You give the dope, John,” ordered |\Yes, Tom, we ought to get to use the captain. who was not a man of | those sawed-off ehotguns they gave us words, and his junior spoke somewhat in this manner: ‘‘Here, you birds, look at this map. The Frogs have driven tne Boche a )'(llnm’!tr and a half north of fHmme- Py them shell tnis morning. ab, St. Mihiel —though, when we get pakt the Essen system, we'll be in the open, most] .. 'Tha old Deux- ieme Division is goin' in tonight—it's goin’ to be some part Move but of You see it here—the town vou | here as soon as it's dark. That's all.” | watched The road here was screened on the They have gotten into the Prussian ;$ide toward the enemy by coarse mats trench front of it. It's just mostly shell-holes linked up. Behind it, quite close, is the Essen trench which is evidently a humdinger: Con’ | this blue line with the wire in , ©f camouflage material erected on tall a fire trench, | poles. Through this screen the Ger- man flares, ceaselessly ascending, shown with cold, greenish whiteness, 0 that men saw their comrades’ crete pill-hoxes and deep dugouts and | faces weirdly drawn and pale under all that sort of thing—regular fort. “The Frogs say it can't be taken from the front—they've tried. goin' to take it. o’ stuff, they say. We're to take them. You see them all on the map. . . . Next, away up in this corner of the map, {8 the Blanc Mont place. Who- ever s left when we get that far will take that, too. . .. . Questions? , . . We're | On the other side | those of that is the Elbe trench and a little | reckon hell's lit to the left the Essen Hook, and in the | of e center the Bois de Vipre—same kind | flare that went their helmets, t went- e seen the things The files talked as tinte 1I'd have called pretty—but now with “the same kind - “Remember the up in our faces the the relief in Bellew Seemed to me like everybody glims!" night we made Woods? ‘The road passed into the desolation meter. Presently the camouflage ended and the battalion felt exceed- ingly naked without its sheiter. Then | a slope to the left screened the way, the crest of it sharply outlined an the flares ascended. Bevond that crest the machine guns sounded very near: now whispering rush of their passing high toward target in the rear. The upper air was populous with shells’ passing, and the sky flickered with gun flashes, but the road along which the battalion went enjoyed for the time an uneasy immunity. The rests were all too short: files swore at their heav golng was very hard. | road ceased to be a road-merely a brokeh way across an interminable waste of shell holes, made passable after a fashiorl by the h packs: the and wound north, kilometer after kilo- | and again the air was filled with the | bullets, | some chance | the sweating | Presently the | Strugsles neared Somme-Py a pitiful stream of trafic grew and passed between them, the tide of French wounded ehhing o the rear. They were the debris of the attacks that had spent themselves through the day—walking wounded. drifting back like shadows in stained blue uniforms, men who stagggered And leaned against each other and spoke in low, racked vveices 1o the passing files: and broken men who were horne in stretchers, moaning “Ah. Jesu! % “Doucement, doucement! A Farther back the ambulances would be_waiting for them. The column went quickly threugh the town of Somme.Py. Inte which | shells were falling. stumbling over 1he | debris of ruined walls and hov There wap a_very busy French dress ing station there, under the relic of a jchurch. Tt was too dark to see. bt {each man caught the sound and the smell of it. They cleared the town and went on to a cross.roads. French guides were 1o have met the battalion | there, for the line was fust ahead. hut the guides were late. There was a | nerve-racking halt. The next bat | talion in column closed up: a machin |gun out®. with fts solemn. blase mules, jammed into the rifle com- panies. The 49th was the leading company. just behind the Battallon Headquar- ters group, and the second In com- mand went up 1o where the major and hin satellites were haited. “Crosa-roads are always a dam’ had husiness, Coxy,” the major was oh- serving to hia adjutant. “Just askin' for it here—no tellin’ how late onr Frog friends will he get the men moved into that ditch off the read vonder- — Ah! thought A high. swift whine that grew ta a shrieking roar, and a five-inch shell crashed down ‘some 50 vards to the right of the crowded road. Everybody flat on the ground hefore it landed, but wicked aplinters of steel sung across the road, and a machine gun- ner. aquatting by his cart, collapsed and rolled toward the edge of the road, swearing and clutching at his thigh. (Copyright. 1026 ) L SN Cod Liver Oil for Hens. 'EED a hen cod lver ofl, and what happens® The hen lays bigger and better eggs. Dr. Arthur A. Holmes of Boaton described at the recent meeting of the American Chemical Society how he gave Rhode Island Red pullets daily doses of cod liver oil, rich in vitamin A. Although the hens lald more and larger eggm | a8 a Tesult of this stimulation, it did |not hurt them physieally. They showed increased vitality, did not lose welght, and had more fesistance to diseate. - . Cylindrical Houses. YLINDRICAL houses are being erected in Germany to solve the housing problem. The houses are of ty work of | standardiaed construction, all sections in the world was lookin' at me.” | French engineers, toiling behind the | being interchangeahle. Rooms are on “Bois de Belleau! mighty few in the battalion new that remember them days, sonny. o laa-uh of the infan The files try, A plotted on each side | storage of the tumbled track, and as they | house. twe floars, and a cupola, intendeq for purposes, surmounts the H