Evening Star Newspaper, August 12, 1935, Page 21

DAILY SHORT STORY: GUN CREW By Glenn Reslly. 1917 Over the wd *face of half of Europe the grimy, blood- stained hand of Mars had spread in unrelenting posses- sion. Somewhere in the north of France the remnants of Battery D, 58th Artillery, lay im- patiently waiting « . . Waiting. ‘The muddy gun crews of the only two remaining .75s sat under the shel- tering camoufiage of branches torn from the shell-torn trees standing be- hind them, which shielded them from enemy aircraft. ‘“How much longer are we go- ing to sti~k around this dump?” the sergeant asked gen- erally. “Five weeks in action and two whole days lying arcund here waiting for replacements! What the hell!” He spat disgustedly. | o | 8 ] T CANNOT last much longer — | Christmas, they say,” reflectively offered Pvt. Schmidt in his precise, | slow accent. Although a German by birth, he had taken citizenship papers and had been drafted. “Here’s some news, men!” They looked up as Lieut. Harder broke into the group. “A runner just came up from G. H. Q. We're being held here for another day because we happen to be the only outfit left in the im- mediate sector wiht any workable guns.” “Do we get replaced?” asked Hayes “The replacements can’t come up because the roads are being shelled night and day behind us. The only thing that is holding us up is a half-dozen machine gun nests on a hill about a mile ahead of us. To- morrow morning we'll shell them with shrapnel to clear the way for an ad- vance and then the reinforcements can come up.” He walked back to the captain’s shack, an old barn just inside the wood, leaving the gunners to grum- blingly discuss the situation. Schmidt abruptly arose and left them. He was tired of war, of the sound of it. He halted before crossing the road which ran through the woods and on the other side of which the pick- et line and the rolling kitchen were established in the echelon. A strag- gling line of prisoners was being herded slowly along the road. Schmidt watched them. Most of them were wounded: all of them seemed glad to be going away from the action which lay ahead. He wished he was going along with them “Hans, mein freund!” He glanced up sharply—it had been a long time since he had heard his name thus. He had changed it to Henry in the States. One of the men had stopped. and underneath the grime and stub- bly growth of beard Schmidt rec- ognized August Lederer, from his home town in Germany. They conversed rapidly as he walked a little way down the road with the prisoners. As he stopped August said to him stolidly, “Carl is left on the hill with the machine gunners vet!” Schmidt gulped. Carl! His younger brother! It couldn’t be . . . but then, it had been eight years since he had been home. He usually remembered Carl as a rosy- cheeked boy of 12 or 13, standing with the family waving good-by to Chinese “Thermos Bottles.” Some examples of the Chinese equivalent of thermos bottles are in- eluded in an exhibit in the Field Museum of Natural History. These consist of wickerware baskets with heavily-padded interiors, fitted with | porcelain teapots. It is said that they are as efficient in keeping tea or other liquids hot as the vacuum bot- tles used in this country. The spot of the teapot projects through e per- foration in the lock of the basket, | making it possible to pour without removing the pot. The baskets are fastened with a brass hook in the form of a fish, the tail of which fits into a loop. Although the thermos bottle was invented in England, as recently as 1907, the Chinese have had their | hot teapots for the use of travelers for hundreds of years. - e Bicycles Stage Comeback. If gasoline and automobile taxes keep increasing, bicycles will again have “their day.” Since 1927 the number of bicycles manufactured an- | nually has increased almost 50,000 a year. | Schmidt turned pale. him. He must be | all of 20 now. And he was on the hill that they were to shell in the morn- ing! Schmidt walked | into the woods| and lay down, his brain in a whirl. | He couldn't help to kill his own brother. Yet he must! In anguish of soul he dug his fingers into the clay under the leaves and groaned. The guard awoke them before day- | light, stamping up and down where| they lay nuddled | in blankets under | the limbers and caissons. Schmidt arose from a sleep- less night with a dumbly animal-like look in his tor- | tured eyes. | = e THE two gun crews took their po- itions in the unreal light of lhé‘ ay, frosty dawn. The gunner cor- | poral and the No. 1 man sat upon | the little seats flanking the muzzle | of the piece, adjusting their aiming instruments. | Schmidt, the No. 3 man, took the| shells as they were handed to him| : by the No. 4 man from the racks in| i the caisson and after setting the | range on the dial of the fuse cutter inserted and twisted them. Thus the fuse inside the war heads was cut allowing it to burn but a regulated amount of time causing the shell to explode just before it struck. He then handed it to the waiting No. 2 man, standing beside the trail | of the gun, who inserted it into the | breech. | Capt. Maddox and the lieutenant stood at the fringe of the woods with the B. C. detail, figuring the range by means of a transit and a geo- metrical computation | “It is up to us, men,” the captain announced 1 his flat, calm voice. ‘The gunners in the woods on that hill are holding up the whoie line of advance; the sooner we wipe them out the better!” Schmidt turned pale and his hands squeezed feverishly at the ready shell in his hands. The lieutenant looked up from kis figures and took out his field glasses. “Range 40, plateau 10! It should .be a direct hit!” ! Schmidt bent over the fuse cutter and adjusted the dial with fingers that trembled. Such a little difference between life and death! Twisting the shell he handed it mechanically to No. 2, who thrust it into the breech of the piece and stepped back, away from the recoil. “Fire!” the lanyard jerked. There was a flash, then with a tremendous Toar the muzzle of the gun was rent and twisted from mouth to breech, and the terrific blast was immediately followed by a still greater one as the shock from the exploded gun deto- nated the delicate high explosive shells in the caissons. Battery D spewed heavenward in a vast geyser of broken guns men and dirt. A few minutes later all was quiet, the dust still gently sifting downard from the upper air. Lodged in the fork of a tree a hun- dred feet away the round brass dial of the fuse cutter lay face up ... set at zero! | (Copyright. 1935.) Tomorrow: “Heaven's Bells,” by James Lavin, is the strange story of a man who died and came back to | life again. { | i | | SPORTS LIABILITY and all forms of Insurance J. Blaise de Sibour & Co. INSURANCE BROKERS NAtL 1633 If Your Dentist Hurts You Try DR. FIELD Plate Expert Double < Suction Guarantee a Perfect Tight Any Mouth I Give Violet Ray Treatments for Pyorrhea Extraction §] ana 52 Also Gas Ext. 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