The Snyder Signal. (Snyder, Tex.), Vol. TWENTY-EIGHTH YEAR, No. FIFTY-ONE, Ed. 1 Friday, June 4, 1915 Page: 16 of 20
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HO? MEN BEHAVE UNDER FIRE .
B
l
. . ..appears mo mpn
.WEN tt" SS he field of battle
RAT I will be W"Jd than at any other
I VXJ dead and world's history.
3 moment iJr Decn devised such
There uaa f moAera artillery.
a mr
. .t of oouw
fir. 1 shell the roar of it
rrii moaninft Inir of the homo a few
ixploaion the crydust and iirt ahooting
vara punim i k.
in in smoke "Shattering on cobbles and
deces of hot in(these assail the senses
Tn the wall of fcinah of the ancient world
u no hand-to-fjruna shell fire and shrap-
r did. M&Af all-inclusive. They awoep
are aecurfce seen villages of i landers
Wot cleariai left untouohed. 1 have
tore " hpock-marked face pitted by
VfieUleon every rod of their aero-
explje-woven net of death that the
It irwer an entire area. Few can
UliMsnd then be fortunate enough
un h that mesh.
Won I saw a little group of mpn
-.enudo wlien the town was boing
Jnte ground. They wore Hod Croat
lllehoy went in to got somo wounded
rigi the oenter of the fire in the
pec Hotel de Ville. Those few nun-
'fr an unceasing fire of shells put a
It into the oonsoionsness of the little
I work on the wounded.
' - m .wno loot ms nerve.
' munons war correspondent with' tlie
a of half-dozen decorations from other
n. fluttering on his ohest stood helpless
J ambulance. He lost the color from
face. He trembled. He said "It is time
b. Why don't we get out of thist" He
I unable to give a hand to the wounded
r. Hector Munro became a dreamer. His
t eyes filmed over as if he were in a
ice. The shattering glass the dead bod-
Jan d the recurring roar of the shells that
fe very close some of them striking the
iel de Ville whore be worked all this
Lt horror was very fur away from him.
fcarried out the wounded strapped them
b the motor went bock to the dead and
ng. lie worked like an automaton eli'i-
litly without waste mot inn.
Lieutenant Robert de Broqueville son of
i Prime Minuter of Belgium was a man in
klory. Ho was as happy and excited as a
at a ball game. Danger touched him with
Jt. He ohargod in and out of the cellar
"r-re the wounded were huddled lifted ran
1 u with his loads called to us cheerily and
t ''"'.lly ran down a street that was in ruins.
ecuse some wounded men wore reported
J"ndir. He did not reappear for some noun.
" oame with his wounded.
. vOl'R GALLANT ROY DRIVER.
Smith the Iondon boy driver whose sal-
ary is two pounds a week wns as calm nnd
silent as he is at monl time. He carried
stretchers arranged blankets buckled straps
and ran his car with the same slightly bored
expression on his face.
''There comes one" he said as a slow
spent obus sailed hv him and buried itself in
the vellow brick of the Hotel de Ville. In
his spare moments he hunted for fragments
of shell and pocketed them for souvonirs
of the afternoon. His search wns as slow and
careful as that of a child picking up shells
uf another sort on the seashore. I shall not
fKet his stooping figure as he reached
ariMiV) fnr keepsakes among the litter of the
rn :. f yarn or his level voice as be shoved
J? ': 'tcbor and asked me "All right iu
fmn i -"e ''rove w'"' wh''' ''nrc w!"'n the
bad '"si WBS Pu'n fr'"u "lp uiotion! He
vrr no thought of himself. It would have
" "'rised him to lenrn that his strength wns
good to be with. Hu is the bravest man I met
among many brave.
There was another youthful driver a lad
of seventeen years. He had been reared deli-
cately. He was fat and immature. Most of
bis vitality had gone to growth. We had
crossed the Channel together and ho bad
asked me many curious questions of what it
was like to be under fire. This day in Dix-
mnde was his initiation. It was oversudilen
and violent: but be stood his ground becauso
of the Knglish in him.
"This is a real fight isn't itt" ho asked
a moment later.
I told him that it was damned hot.
All this was immensely comforting to him;
for it means the inner torment wns justified.
Any sane person under fire has a desire to
run away and this boy wnnted to 1 told
that it was worth while to stick around. He
stayed and brought out a carload of wounded.
He was sick at this stomach for many hours
after he gt back to safety and then (level-
oped an attack of grippe. The Kiint of it
is not that be was ill later on but that he
held himself together while there was work
to be done.
DID NOT DUCK THE SHELLS.
I saw Smith at work on another day. Ho
is slight of build and looks like one of the
eity's weaklings who would break under a
strain; high shoulders and angular hitch in
his walk a man who talks in monosyllables.
"(Jo into Hixmnde to the house beyond the
Caeskerke Station and bring the wounded"
the Corporal ordered him.
Smith cranked np his engine and traveled
down the road to DixiAude. He drove to the
inn where the Sengalese were stationed. It
was the intermittent target of (leruian shells.
The front of it was blackened with explosives.
The pane of glass were shattered out of the
' window. The high car with its brown ean-
1 vas covering was a fair mark in the clear
moming light. Cool and expert he turned
bis car and brought it to a standstill in the
middle of the road. A battery of four Ger-
man runs sent four small obus just over his
car. They struck the wall ot the deserted
bonse optwsite. The black men" standing out-
Modern Artillery Fire a Supreme Test of Human Courage
By ARTHUR GLEASON Since Last September With Monro Amootance
"H. Alwayi Smiled His Gratttade"
wounded men each of them with an arm
wouud ran to the ambulance and climbed in-
side. Fifty feet away from the yard of the inn
a strange figure came slowly. He was a Sen-
gnlese with bis foot shot away. lie came on
liis hands and kneos. Again the battery of
four guns fired and the whistle of the snots
was audible for a second of time before thev
cu. overhead into the house opposite. Smith
did not duck his head. He stood by his car
waiting for the trailing black man man to
come. There are lota of men who would have
gone out of that accurate fire with the two
wounded men.
It was a dreary wait for the third man
scratching along over the ground. Two more
sholls came past and the negro arrived at
the stop. Smith lifted him in and brought
the three bock to safoty
ROME BRAVE OERMAN OFFICERS.
Of bat tle gallantry I saw several instances.
At a skirmish at Melle between Germans and
Relgians I saw a Gorman hussar rido out of
a wood one thousand yards beyond his own
lines. I happened to be standing in the road
where he emerged. He came out of the trees
as silently as an Indian. He was entirely
cool unhurried; only his eyes were alert
If the Belgians were still in possession of
the rond they would shoot him down. Bit
his men would hear tho volley and would not
advance. If the Belgians had retired thon
his men could come on Bafely. He was tnking
all the chances in order to save an ambuscade
of his men. But there wasn't a tremor in him.
The Belgians had retired; so he smiled at us
and rodo fnrthor down the road to gain as
much ground as possible.
My wife and I were in the village of 7A
when a band of twenty Uhlans rode in. The
three officers had their pistols drawn. Their
fai'es were set and stern. Their men were
laughing. One of them talked with us about
New York. A few hundred yards beyond
them just over the railroad tracks on the
rnsd to Ghent there was a red brick homo
sheltering a dor.en Belgian soldiers. Behind
a cover of hushes there were fifty more. At
the turn of the road a quarter mile awny
there were mauy hundred Belgians and ut
the corner a machine gun.
It was the job of the Uhlans to learn if the "v
villuge itself was a cover for troops. If it
was thev would lie wiieu out ; hut their main
body of troops would remain back and not
be molested. Jt wns even chances that the
Belgians down the road would rake them
down with rifle and machine gun. The Uhlans
ipsKctod the village and then sent word for
their troops to enter. It is for pieces of ut-
ter daring like this that the Iron oss is
given. The death rate of Uhlans is high.
DYING. HE SMOKED niS riPE.
Hadclyfl'e Diigmnre the English naturalist
and 1 were present at a skirmish in Aalst
where the Belgians had made a barricade
ac ross a narrow treeU They used a market
garden cart soda of earth and bags of fish.
As the shrapnel puttered around tncra I saw
one nnd another laugh and then as 1 caught
his eye spit as if he were Rpitting out a
piece of the bullet. That humorous defiance
is rather characteristic uf the seasoned sol-
dier. I saw a Belgian phvairian Dr. Van der
Ghiust when a shell fell and exploded a hun-
dred feet in frout of him. He stopped an in-
stant to let the air clear and then walked
or. past the place. "That is nothing at all"
ho said. "Thev come all the time." They
did. where be worked.
That is the active phase of courago. There
is another the long-suffering courage that en-
dures grimly. That too we have seen. We
have brought in three thousand wounded men.
I had an English boy who had his bicep
muscle shot away in the battle of Ypres. He
had lain for thirty hours with only a rude
first dressing of antiseptic and bandage. All
the color had gone out of his face lie fainted
twice on my shoulder. He did not groan nor
complain. Once in a hoarse whisper be asked
for water.
Mrs. Knocker and I brought np from Dover
to London a Belgian soldier who was dying.
Not a moan came out of him. I lighted his
pipe for him and he always smiled nis grat-
itude. Many times I have prepared smokes
for men with the arm gone. There is always
a humorous smile from the wonnded man at
his own helplessness. He regards the atten-
- J;on as a rather good joke on( bimwjf Tn
arm. The index finger had been shot away
clean to tho butt. His face was wet and shiny
in the l(Mtern light with the tears of a child.
We told him it was nothing. "C'est rien."
We told him that other men were wounded
more grievously. He calmed himself at once.
He had got himself out of perspective fur the
momont.
COURAGE OF THE WOUNDED.
VSTien the fighting broke out in suddon an-
gry spurts our cam were loaded with blood-
ing soldiers. On busy dnvs we carried en
average of thirty men. These men were
brought to the bnso hospital in our niuto- am-
bulances from the trenches barricade wood
house dressing station and roadside. They
would have lain wounded for a length of time
varying from one hour to twelve hours. Somo
of thorn died on the trip in. One of our
drivers fresh from London on his first trip
put in three griovously wounded men at the
front nnd took out three doad men at the
hospital. Many of our passengon suffered
much pain.
I remember a Belgian officer with a shat-
tered arm. Every swerve of the ambulance
was ii hurt to him.
"Oh go slower if you pleasel" ho would
say. "I beg you Sir to stop a momeut!"
Never once on the ten-mile .Irivo did ho
forget to speak with courtesy in spite of
his fever and pain.
We brought in a man whose face had beeu
tapped by a shell so that tho veins hnd to he
bound. He lay unmurmuring. Onlv he ksiit
picking at the bnndnges because of tho itch-
rug of the wounds. I sat on his anus or he
would have plucked away the bandages and
bled to death.
I saw eleven civilisns men women and
children iu the hospital nt Wotteren. Th'.-y
each had bnvonet wounds in their bodies.
They Inv without groaning. One of them
wept as he told me how they had been march-
ed in front of troops. When they fell on their
faces to escape the rifle fire the soldiers
had prodded them with bayonets to mako
them stand ngniu. I went to ench of the
eleven. One was a girl of twelve years with
light hair. Her back was laid open to the
bone. One was a wuman while haired and
wrinkled perhaps eiglitv vears old. She n 1 1
a bayonet thrust through her left thigh. They
all seemed patient us they lay there. We all
a little group of men came out crying ami
swearing.
The Boy Who Had No Father
(Continued From Page 2.)
long night dress his thick hair crumple I. Tho
Window-pane Man let go of the women lie
held; he turned to Hohiu with an oath but
Robin ran past him to the shelter of his
mother's arms.
"I stayed 'wake! I stayed 'wake!" ho
cried. "1 stayed 'wake to tell you that my
father is the man that makes the music!-ho
made the music you sing and bis name ia
(ief'ry. And and I'd rather have him for
my futher than the Window-nane Man."
He looked anxiously towards the door for
the Man who made the Music bad promised
to come over as soon as he saw the big car
draw up at the house and he had not conic
but A bell whirred suddenly through the
silence.
The Window-pane ?dan made an angry step
forward.
"Send tho boy away. What is the mean-
ing of all this absurd scene! Send him away
Evelyn."
But the Beautiful Person hold Robin close
in her arms and before either of llicm could
speak again the door ojieiicd and the Man
who made the Music stood there.
"Geoffryl" said Robin's mother nnd her
voice was almost a scream in its wild glad-
ness. She loosed her hold of Robin and tot-
tered forward into the man's outstretched
arms.
"If I've got a father now" he said pres-
ently as nurse led him upstairs to bed "why
haven't I always had a father!"
Nurse took refuge behind the barrier that
had served as a screen for her ignorance on
more than one occasion.
"There are some things little boys cannot
be told. Master Robin!"
"Didn't my mother want my father!" he
pursued relentlessly.
"Some people" said nurse enigmaticslly
"never know what they want till they find
i thevcafl.'tihavjj.'i'i
But late that night-Christmas Eve when
Robin lay awake listoning to some boy? sing-
ing carols down the road the Beautiful Per-
son who was his mother orept into the room
and stood besido his bed.
"I'm 'wake" said Robin with a ohnokle.
as sho wns turning quietly away from him.
He pulled her down to the bed beside him.
"Muvvor! if I've got a fathor now why.
haven't I alwavs had a fnthorl"
Just a littlo silence in the light of the
thaded candle sho carried Robin's mother
looked almost sad for a moment then she
said:
"Because dnrling I never knew what a
dear father he was; 1 never knew how much I
loved him. I would not do as he wished; I
wanted to go my own way; I wanted all the
things that I thought meant happiness and
when I found out that 1 wns wrong I wns
afraid to ask him to forgive me."
"I'm not 'frnid" said Robin only half un-
derstanding. She hent and kissed him silently.
"Will he always be my father now!"
"Yes always."
"Oh I Then tho bovs will play with me at
school now won't tlieyt"
And then Robin's mother told him that they
were not going to let him go back to that y
school any morn; that they wore going to
tuke him away to a fresh place altogether
that they were going to begin all over again
and be happy.
"And will the Man who makes the Musio
come with us!" asked Robin sleepily. The
Beautiful Person who was Robin's mother
laughed such a sweet contented laugh!
".We shnll go with him" she said. "How
elso did you think wo could be happy
Robhy!"
But Robin wns asleep.
When Germany's Big Guns Roared
Mr. Reginald Wright Kauffman the au-
thor gives this vivid description of the fir-
ing of the big German guns nt Antwerp where
he first heard tho "forty-twos:"
"Suddenly something bolted past above
my head something hot scorching and of
tremendous size something that roared like 4)
a frightened train and sped like a meteorio
sun. The very draft of it seemed first to suck
mo upwards and then hurl pie far forward
and aidewiso on my face. I fell as a man
might full before a cyclonic blast from the
furnace where worlds are ninde; but as I fell
1 saw. or thought I saw that meteorio sun
explode up thnre where the searchlight
played. If I thought of anything it was of
au earthquake.
"I know that there shot out a sheet of '
flame that must have been two or three hun-
dred feet wido and fully as high. I know
that a Niagara of stones and olav leaped up-
ward from the distant spot. I know that a
hail of pulverized stone isiured all about mo.
nnd that the detonation rocked the citv of
Antwerp as a giant might rock a cradlo 'that
he stumbled over. I know that now; but then
all that I knew clearly was that all our pre
vious alarms nan Keen tntles and that this at
lust was thn beginning of the 42 centimeter
guns."
Indian Raids in Texas
(Continued From Page 3.)
and by coming up it about six abreast The
first thing tho teamsters knew the Indians
hnd complete possession. When their pres-
ence was first discovered one of the boya ex-
claimed: "Good heavens have all these post-
oak trees turned to Comnnchest" The In-
dian hoys amused themselves by shooting the
1'. S. on the wagons with their arrows. The
wagon master interviewed the chief to know
what he wanted. Tho chief replied that ho
wanted ponies and blankets; that he intended
to have them and said: "If vou think this
hundred men is not enough I have got one
hundred more just over the hill." This wns
sufficient. They ransacked the wagons took
"til the provisions blinikets and clothing that
tho teamsters had nnd then told the teamsters
to hitch np their mules and vnmooso which
thev did. This took place near ('operas creek
in the northern portion of Comanche countv.
The train then had to go to Fort Crogin now
the town of Huniet Burnet county before
getting anything to eat.
Shortly after this incident while teaming
on the same road one morning about one milo .
south of where the town of Comanche now
stands we met a littlo Indian boy (or we sup-
posed him to he) who told us he was a Mex-
ican mid bad been raptured by the Indians
but had gotten away from them. We atronglv J
snspirioned him though as being a spy. We v
gave him something to eat and told him to go
which he did. The little fellow kept the road
until he reached 0. T. Tyler's a distance of
over one hundred miles. One evening just
at dark Mr. Tyler saw him sitting on the t
fence. Tvler went to him and quicklv found
out that he was a Mexican. He kindly took
the lad in wrote the governor of Mexico and
after ascertaining where he lived sent him
home to his widowed mother. All that the
little fellow had told us about his capture and
treatment by the Indians was true no doubt
I could give many more instances that would
be interesting to the reader concerning our
many and varied experiences while teaming m
through this wilderness country in pioneer '
days but what I have said must suffice for
the present as I have something more valua-
ble to talk about Inter.
(Copyrighted by E. L Dcaton.)
"War Bread."" '
In Holland all bread is baked by the town
bakers and never made in the home. A kind
of bread is baked called "war bread" or "ne-
cessity bread" partly of rine and rye and
this everyone eats and is still eating. It is
not unlike our own rye bread and while many
people do not like it it is healthier tlma
. white bresd and unite as palntnWe. Th-
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The Snyder Signal. (Snyder, Tex.), Vol. TWENTY-EIGHTH YEAR, No. FIFTY-ONE, Ed. 1 Friday, June 4, 1915, newspaper, June 4, 1915; Snyder, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth288102/m1/16/: accessed July 4, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .