Class J1^±_0 BookJ^llil_ CopightS". CDF^OUGHT DEPOSm SHELLPROOF MACK Throwing the Mills Bomb SHELLPROOF MACK An American s fighting story BY ARTHUR MACK LATE OF THE 2 3D BATTALION, LONDON REGIMENT, H. M. IMPERIAL ARMY ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BOSTON SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY PUBLISHERS >% Copyright, 191 8 By small, MAYNARD & COMPANY (Incorporated) MAY -8 I9!8 THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. ©GLA494913 4 ( 3' r i TO MRS. ROSE ESCOTT NORTH East Leake, Nottingham, England Who adopted mc as a friendless soldier and wrote me the letters of a mother to a son, letters which cheered and made endurable many a ch.eerless day and night upon the battle fields of France, T/iis jQju/e 'Book is T)edicated FOREWORD The things that are set down here are written from the standpoint of the plain private soldier, — one who went as a volunteer, it is true, but who hated the whole vile business of war as any private soldier must, and who was glad when his work was done. If this book has any value it is because it is a true telling of the things that are, over there, and because it is without what the British Tommy calls "camouflage." This book lacks, no doubt, everything that would be put into such a story by a professional writer, — the briUiancy of expression and the vividness of narrative; but if it is without those things it is because it is the tale of a soldier and not of a war correspondent. A. M. CONTENTS Chapter Page I. Boyhood 3 II. College Lite 8 III. On the Stage 13 IV. Training 19 V. First Night in the Trenches ... 26 VI. Over the Top on the First of Jl^ly 40 VII. Mascots 49 VIII. Wounds 56 IX. My Nickname and How I Got It . 67 X. Rehearsal 89 XI. Messines Ridge 113 XII. Discipline 136 XIII. HOLLEBEKE 142 XIV. Rest i6o XV. Back to the Front 167 XVI. Taking the Pill-Boxes 178 XVII. Gassed 187 XVIII. Shells and Slang . 209 XIX. Back to Blighty . 216 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Throwing the Mills Bomb Frontispiece J Identification Discs Worn by the Author dur- ing His Service i6 ^ Throwing a Bomb from the Prone Position . . 46 i^ A Duphcate of the German Trenches was laid out in a Mile-Square Field, with every De- tail exactly as We would find It when We went " Over the Top " 96^ Open Fighting at Messines Ridge 120 German Translation of President Wilson's War Message of April 2, 1917 138- Rest. That was It. The Only Thing Lacking was a Chance to Sleep in a Bed 166 A Short Rest in an Advance 184 Here are the Trophies — a German Bomb and a German Helmet 212 ■ ,, The Author's Certificate of Discharge .... 222 ' SHELLPROOF MACK SHELLPROOF MACK CHAPTER I Boyhood Once, when I was in training in England, a Cockney sergeant came up to me and said: "Hi sye, rook, wot^s yer number?" Mine was a high one and I started to give it to him slow, "One — seven — four — " like that. He evidently thought I was trying to have him on and got very shirty over it. "Ow," says he, "so yer one o' them blinkin', swankin' Yanks, are yer?" That riled me and I came back. "That's what I am and I can back it up." "Can, can yer? Let's see yer," he invited. With that I poked him on the nose. That was a crime of course and I was on the mat with 3 SHELLPROOF MACK the company commander the next day. I might have got a lot of wholesome punishment for it and ought to have; but I did n't. The officer was a decent fellow. " What are you?" he asked. " Irish?" ^'Partly," I answered. " But mostly Scotch." "Ah," he said, "that accounts for it. The Scotch are half argument and half fight. I'm part Scotch myself." And with that he gave me a light punishment. I have thought since that that officer knew what he was talking about. It's the little bit of Scotch in me that has influenced me many a time through life. I was bom in New York and was christened Arthur James McKay. I retained that name until I went into the theatrical profession in 1906, when I took the name of Arthur Mack, the label I wore when I enlisted in the British Army. But I am getting ahead of my story. When I was a small boy my people moved to Northampton, Massachusetts, which was 4 BOYHOOD home until I struck out into the world for myself. My boyhood was pretty much like that of any other American youngster. I was fond of all outdoor sports except swimming and I would drown to-day in six feet of water, — or less. In spite of my athletic tendencies I was supposed to be not very strong and the fact that I was always small added to the impression. So it happened that my family had it all planned that I was to have a very elaborate education and go into the priesthood. Right there the Scotch in me asserted itself. Because somebody wanted me to be one thing I straightway decided that I wanted to be the opposite. I settled it in my own mind that I was going to be a soldier. I fancy that if the folks had wanted me to go to West Point I would have insisted upon a profession. Anyhow, I flatly refused to study in the high school and left. The year following I did 5 SHELLPROOF MACK consent to go to Williston Academy, where I devoted more time to athletics than to anything else and made a fair reputation as a runner. I ran fast enough to get beaten against such men as Schick, Hubbard, Piper Donovan and Bart Sullivan. I did fairly well in my studies at Williston and after one year took the examinations for Holy Cross and Norwich University, both of which I passed. I took the exams for Holy Cross to please my parents; but I knew where I was going. Norwich had, and I think still has, the reputation of being one of the finest military schools in the country. I still had soldiering on the brain. During the summer before entering Norwich I became a professional runner under an as- sumed name and was a member of the W. A. Bailey Hose Team which made a world's record for the 300 yards. Hose-team running in those days was a very popular sport in the western part of the State. I competed a good many 6 BOYHOOD times on this team that summer and was speedy on my feet. More than once during the two years I was in France I looked back upon those footracing days and wished that I could run as fast with ninety pounds of equipment on my back. CHAPTER II College Life In the fall of 1903 I entered Norwich Uni- versity. On arrival at Northfield I happened to run on to an old chum, one Biddy Burnett, a sophomore. He put me up to all the hazing dodges that I might expect and as a consequence I got off easy on that score. The hazing at Norwich was as bad in those days as it was at West Point and the first year men sure were disciplined by the upper classmen. I was fortunate in looking very much like a former student named Skinny Eaton who had been extremely popular. I was nicknamed Skinny Eaton No. 2 and afterward became Skinny McKay. Life at Norwich was one of stiff discipline. We had to wear a uniform all the time. The 8 COLLEGE LIFE life was as regular as that in the British Army. I took to it like a duck to water. I fancy the principal reason that I liked discipline was that it was so much fun to break the rules without getting caught. I got to be a past master in the art. I was the smallest man in the college, but my athletic reputation had preceded me and I was elected manager and coach of the Fresh- man basket ball team. I put out a cracker- jack of a team and defeated the varsity so badly that we finished the varsity schedule. Along in the spring we had some diphtheria in the college and about fifty men were quaran- tined on the upper floor of the barracks. The poor fellows were suffering for beer or thought they were. They couldn't get out, so they sent for me and told me their troubles from the window. I got a suit-case and went to town, filled it with beer, hired a rig, drove back and tied the load to the end of the fire-escape rope that had been lowered from the barracks. 9 SHELLPROOF MACK The celebration led to an investigation and of course I was convicted. I was barred from athletics for a year. This was a good thing, for I dug in on study and learned a lot that came in handy afterward in the British Army. I learned to take care of myself physically, a thing that is essential to a good soldier and that so few soldiers ever do learn thoroughly. Every man had to care for his own room and make his own bed, besides keeping his equipment clean and well polished. On Saturday we had to wash the windows and scrub the floors and paint, for Sunday in- spection by the commandant, a United States Army ofhcer. At the time I remember that I used to hate that scrubbing and would try every possible way to get out of it; but it was no go. Everybody had to do his bit. Our military duties consisted of theoretical artillery work, practical infantry and cavalry training and military science. I became pretty solidly groimded in discipline and infantry work lO COLLEGE LIFE in general and was on the way to becoming a real soldier. In fact I thought seriously of try- ing for a West Point appointment. In my third year in college I was reinstated in athletics and was manager of the baseball team. I got into more trouble, incidentally, though nothing very serious, and gradually began to get the notion that I was fed up on soldiering. It is a notion that comes to a man in the army often. And it almost always gets a boy in a military school. The difference is that he can't get out of the army when he gets temperamental, — that is, not without desert- ing and he does n't want to take any chances of getting shot. He can get out of a military school and he frequently does. I did. The thing that finally decided me to leave college was this. I had become a member of the Town Dramatic Club and liked it. The fact is that about four times on the stage as an amateur made me think I was cut out for another Henry Irving. I was stage-struck for II SHELLPROOF MACK further orders. And so at the end of my third year I let the military life go a-glimmering. I quit cold and came to Boston where I studied for a while at the Colonial Dramatic School. 12 CHAPTER III On the Stage My first professional appearance on the stage was with the old Castle Square Company. Howard Hansell and Lillian Kemble were in the leads. Mary Young and John Craig were also in the company and the piece was "Soldiers of Fortime." I finished out the season there and the next fall was out on the road with a second-rate stock company playing the South. At least we started to play the South. The show blew up in Norfolk, Virginia. We had known it was coming and a fellow named Bean and myself had been dickering with Charles E. Blaney by mail. The day we closed we had a letter from Blaney with the offer of the necessary job. Bean and I were to join one of the Blaney road companies at Richmond two weeks later. 13 SHELLPROOF MACK In the meantime Richmond was a long, long way from Norfolk and we were nearly broke. I had just fifty cents; Bean had an old silver watch and no cash whatever. We talked it over and decided that the only thing to do was to jump a freight. Hoboing was considerably out of our line but we had heard that it was easy enough. So we shipped the tnmks by express and sneaked down to the railroad yards. Along in the evening we stowed on a flat car of lumber and some time along towards morning she pulled out. We travelled on that freight, I suppose, about ten miles. When it got pretty light a hostile brakeman came along and routed us out. "Hit the grit, you 'boes," says he. "Hit the grit and be quick about it.'' "Wait until we make the next stop," I sug- gested. "Stop me eye," said he. "Hit the grit and do it now." He had a coupling-pin in his hand 14 ON THE STAGE and looked like using it, so we jumped. I did n't get the cinders out of my hide for a month. After that we walked a while and then took to the road. A farmer came along and gave us a ride and we told him our story. He was a good fellow and when we hit a Httle town he took us around to a little packing-box hotel and introduced us to the proprietor, who was a friend of his. The hotel man gave us a feed and let us sleep in the stable that night. Next morning he brought aroimd the local station-agent and he heard our tale of woe, too. I fancy they must have wanted to get us out of town, because the agent took us down that night and walked out to a water-tank about a mile down the line and helped to get us aboard an empty box-car. We made Richmond all right but we were fright- fully empty. Bean pawned his watch and we ate. Then we hunted jobs. It would be two weeks before the Blaney Company showed up and in the meantime we 15 SHELLPROOF MACK had to eat. It is a habit that grows on one, I notice, and both Bean and myself looked for- ward to a fortnight of emptiness with scant pleasure. It was one thing to hunt for a job in Richmond and another to find one. There seemed to be no market for a pair of actors on the bum. So when the watch money was gone we joined the Salvation Army. For the next ten nights we pounded the big bass dnmi and simg h3rmns and incidentally acquired a large respect for the Army. They pulled us through. We ate and we slept. And when the Blaney Company showed up we deserted from the Army! I was with Blaney for two seasons after that, playing with Fiske O'Hara and afterwards with Lottie WiUiams in " The Tomboy Girl." About this time the moving pictures were crowding things pretty hard and so many companies were going to the wall and so many houses dark that I jumped into vaudeville. I opened an office as a producer in New i6 Identification Discs Worn by the Author during His Service These discs are worn around the neck. The one shown on the left is green; the other is red. The green disc is removed in case of death and sent to the War Office ON THE STAGE York and succeeded for a while but eventually went broke. After that I went back on the stage again and stayed there until I decided to go over to France. At the time the Lusitania was sunk I was playing in stock in New Bedford. I was talking with the manager when I heard the news and said to him, "Well, here's my chance to be a soldier agam. We can't get out of declaring war on Germany." He laughed at me and said I was crazy and that we never would get into the war. After a few days I began to think he was right. I read the papers eagerly — read of the German cruelties and the atrocities in Belgium and of the endless call for men in England. Eventu- ally I saw there was no chance of the United States getting in. So I made a quick decision for myself, quit the stage then and there and declared war on Germany. I was going over and I was going quick. The memories of the 17 SHELLPROOF MACK military life at Norwich came back and I wanted to get into uniform as soon as possible. So I jumped the train for Boston and the next day was himting transportation to England. i8 CHAPTER IV Training When I started himting a way to get across I was, of course, broke as per usual. So I de- cided to work the horse boats as so many others had done. I shipped without any trouble on the Cambrian and sailed June 24, 19 15, arriv- ing in London on July 7 after a mildly exciting voyage. I had shipped for the round trip and was given five dollars cash and board and room at the Sailors' Home on Lemon Street. I batted around a bit and spent the five dollars and then hit the trail for the nearest recruiting office. I had had enough of horses, and anyhow I had come over to enlist so I wanted to get in as soon as possible. London at the time was full of recruiting stations and there were red arrows all over 19 SHELLPROOF MACK the shop pointing the way to the chance to give up life and Hberty for King and Country or for the fun of it as the case might be. I fol- lowed the arrows to Shoreditch Town Hall and went through the formalities and the examina- tions. They refused me flatly on account of poor eyesight. My right eye was all right but the left was no good at all. I had always sup- posed that both of them were good. I tackled another office in Whitechapel and went thorugh the same thing. Next day I went to an office at 32 St. PauFs Churchyard and told my troubles to the sergeant there. I said I was going to get into the army if I had to use a jimmy and that it was going to take a lot of refusing to keep me out. We went in to the officer and he heard the story without any reservations. He was a good chap, that officer. He put me through the examinations up to the eye test and said I was right enough except that I was light, weighing just under a himdred poimds. 20 TRAINING When it came to the eyes he said, "Now, my lad, on this test of the left eye you cover up your right eye with your hand in- stead of a card." I did that little thing and was able to see fine between my fingers. I enlisted under my stage name, Arthur Mack. Three days later I was at Mill Hill Barracks, a member of the 2 2d Middlesex Regiment, an outfit of bantams. We were a funny-looking crowd. Early in the war the experiment of bantam regiments was well tried out. There wasn't a man in our regiment that was over five feet four and from that down. On the whole, though, the bantams never were a success: it turned out that a small man is a good deal more likely than a big one to have other disqualifying troubles. Eventually all the bantam units were distrib- uted to other regiments. I had been in uniform only three days when a drill sergeant spotted me as one who had had previous military training. He asked me and 21 SHELLPROOF MACK I told him all about my three years at Nor- wich. About six weeks later the sergeant- major sent for me and said: "Private Mack, I understand that you have had military training before and that you know the duties of a corporal. Do you realize the responsibihties? " "Yes, sir," I said, "I do." "Very well," he said, "you are to go up for your stripes." Now I knew too much about the military game to want to be a non-com and I said so. I told the sergeant-major that I did n't think I should like to assume the responsibility of even a low non-com much less seek pro- motion. I wished, I told him, to remain a private. The sergeant got pretty savage over that and made me feel that I had insulted him, the British Army and the King. But I knew what I wanted and what I didn't want and was content to remain just a private. I would n't 22 TRAINING have gone higher and have often been glad that I did n't. Two weeks later I was recommended to Brigade Officers' Staff and reported there as orderly. I hated to leave the bunch of pals I had come to like so weU but the job was the cushiest in the army. It let a man out of aU training and gave him better grub and a bed to sleep in. My regiment was shifted about constantly during the ^ve months I was at headquarters, and I saw Aldershot, Borden, Pirbright and several other places. Then I heard that my regiment was going to France. I asked for transfer back to active service. I got it. But I found that I had missed a lot of training. A short time after my return the men were aU examined by the Medical Board for Overseas and I failed to pass. That was discouraging as I had by this time fully made up my mind that I was going to 23 SHELLPROOF MACK see fighting by hook or by crook. I was sent to Harwich in a reserve batt. I had been there just one week when the commanding ofiicer asked for men who had passed their medical examinations and their course of firing. He wanted them as volunteers for the London 23d. I promptly hopped out of the ranks and volxmteered, though I wasn't up on either of the requirements. Somebody must have had an eye shut be- cause I got away with it. Next day I was in Winchester and a week later I sailed for France. Before sailing I had a new equipment which weighed complete ninety poxmds. I weighed myself stripped the day I received it and I tipped the beam at just ninety-nine poimds. Some load! Landed in France at Le Havre, I had nine days more of strenuous drill in specialized lines and then was ready for the front. Incidentally I saw the sights in Le Havre, the Red Light dis- trict and the white lights too. That is part of 24 TRAINING a soldier's education over there, you know. If he does n't learn to keep his head and behave himself on leave he's a poor soldier. The little more than a week of drill in Le Havre ended too soon. Within a few days after that we were within sound of the rumble of the big guns. 25 CHAPTER V First Night in the Trenches We cannot fight, We cannot die, Wot bloody good are we? And when we get to Berlin, The Kaiser he will say, Mein Gott, mein Gott, Wot a very fine lot To send to Germanee. I WAS lying on the floor of a bell tent at the base in Le Havre on a hot day in August. The hoarse voice of the singer floated in on the still air very dismally. He had the tune wrong and he did n't have the words exactly right, and he bore down on the "Wot bloody good are we/' as if he relished it. I got up and peeped through the tent flap. The singer was sitting on an upturned bucket peeling potatoes. His face was about eighteen 26 FIRST NIGHT IN THE TRENCHES inches long and he slewed his mouth around, rolled his eyes and shifted off into another song. Take me over the sea Where the Allemand can't get me, Oh, my I I don't wanner die. I wanner go 'ome. That finished me. I had heard both songs before sung better, but they never got imder my vest like that, and I knew there wasn^t any answer to the "Wot bloody good are we?", at least as far as I was concerned, and I knew right well that I wanted to go 'ome. I ducked out and hoofed it for the C. 0., and shoved in an appHcation for discharge from the British Army on the grounds that I was an American citizen. I was just down from seven weeks in the hospital after being woimded in three places on the same day by shell fragments. I was still shaky and had a silver plate in the top of my head and could feel my brains wobble around, but I had been examined by the Medical Board 27 SHELLPROOF MACK the day before and told that I was fit and that I was to be sent back to the batt in less than a week. This was in 19 16. In those days you could n^t get a discharge from the British Army for any- thing less than a leg off; and if you happened to be a good shoemaker or accountant or some- thing you did n't need a leg for, I don't beheve they'd let you go at that. It was possible for an American citizen to beg off. I had had a little more than three months in the trenches and was fed up. I had had enough. I wanted, like the fellow in the song, to go home. I suppose that every rookie goes through the same experience. He strikes a period in his service when he would give anything to get away. He has had enough fighting to be thoroughly scared and not enough to have be- come a seasoned veteran. It is this period of depression that produces the many songs like the ones quoted above. There was another, of which I can recaU only the last three lines. 28 FIRST NIGHT IN THE TRENCHES They were a supplication to the war office and went: Send your father, send your brother, Send your sister, send your mother, But for Gawd's sake don't send me. These songs were all sung in a spirit of josh, but we meant 'em too. Say what you will, there is a time in the life of any soldier when he wishes he had n't come. I am mighty glad to read that the American troops are being broken in and given their bap- tisms gently, so to speak. Back in the old days of 19 1 5, and half way through 19 16, the British were so short of men that they had to take raw rookies and shove them in to get used to things as best they could. That spoiled a lot of sol- diers. It came near spoiling me. As a fine example of the way the thing should not be done if it can be avoided it may do no harm to teU something about those first three months in the service. Probably no chap ever forgets his first night 29 SHELLPROOF MACK ia the trenches. I '11 bet a dinner there is n't one man in a thousand that had one like mine. I had been about ten months in training in England before being sent over to France. That was about twice what most of them were getting at the time. I had been in imiform so long that I'd heard the war talked over from every angle, and had heard scores of men who had come back tell of their experiences and had got so I thought the big show was more or less of a cinch. When I finally did go over they had me right up at the front without delay, and the batt landed in a place called Fonquevillers, bet^ter known to the Cockney as Funky Village. We were dumped down out of a train of toy freight cars five miles behind the lines, late in the after- noon, and marched up to the front. We got into the communication trenches at dark and aroimd ten in the evening I was standing on the fire-step in the front line looking over the top. Coming up there had been a booming of 30 FIRST NIGHT IN THE TRENCHES guns at a distance in both directions, north and south, but we hadn't seen a shell burst. A mate of mine named Higgins and I were shown a traverse about thirty feet long and told to stand on the fire-step until relieved, and there we were. The place was as still as the middle of somebody's melon patch along towards morn- ing. There wasn't a gun of any sort, big or little, going off for miles around. We stood a while on the step and "Hig" whispered to me: "What do we do next. Mack?" His whisper sounded like an umpire talking through a megaphone. "Shut up, you fool," I hissed. "They '11 hear you." That was how little v/e knew about what to do and how to do it. We stood there without moving imtil my foot went to sleep and the sweat was rolling down my back. Then the rats began to come. We had kept 31 SHELLPROOF MACK so still that I fancy they thought this bay was theirs. Anyhow, as many as a dozen big ones came scuttling along the trench and along the step. We did n't bother them until two of the biggest got in a row over a bit of garbage or something and squealed enough to make your blood run cold. "Hig" stood up on the step, whispering, "Shoo, shoo," at the rats, but they didn't pay any attention and had it out. I was afraid the Heinies would hear and come over to stop the fight. But nothing happened. After the rat row we loosened a little. I got down a sandbag to stand on to look over and stared out into the dark. There were a lot of old stumps out there, and after a while one of them moved. Then it did n't move. Then it looked like a horse, and moved again. My throat got dry and the hair crawled on the back of my neck and I itched in seventeen separate places. "Hig" pussyfooted down next to me and 32 FIRST NIGHT IN THE TRENCHES said, in a trembly voice, "See 'em move, my tie? Le 's give it to 'em." I held up my hand to him and he sneaked back, but before he went I heard him mutter: "Gripes, I wish they'd be some noise." I wished so too, but there wasn't. Not a shot of any kind was fired all night long. I nearly went mad half a dozen times, and when it began to get Hght I was a nervous wreck. Just as it was graying a little a couple of men came through lugging a dixie of stew and we fiUed up the tins. I was so glad to see some- body that I could talk to that I was nearly ready to hug the two of them. They growled and said some tea would be along shortly, and went. The tea never arrived. Before we had a chance to tackle the stew Fritz began to shell us. We'd been wishing for less silence, and, by heck, we got more noise. Out of a clear sky they gave it to us for twenty minutes, — whiz-bangs mostly, and they hit everywhere but in our traverse. One hit in 33 SHELLPROOF MACK the next bay and we heard a man yelling in there. We dropped our rifles and crouched under the parapet with our teeth chattering, praying for the end. When it was all over I found that I'd got my foot into my stew. I did n't care par- ticularly, because I was so sick I couldn't have eaten it, an3rw^ay. After the strafing was well over we were reHeved. I did n't get over that nerve-shattering first night and morn- ing for days. It was a poor way to start a rookie in. The Funky Village sector was supposed to be a holiday part of the line. It was, in a way. Frequently there would be no shelling at all, day or night, for days, except the regular strafing at breakfast. We got that without fail. After a week or ten days we got used to it and were on the way to becoming veterans. In the matter of the hardships of trench life Funky Village was a fine prep school for any- thing they could offer us anywhere else. For a 34 FIRST NIGHT IN THE TRENCHES so-called trench system it was a disgrace to an army that had been in the field learning for nearly two years. When the trenches had been dug they had been reasonably good, but they had been bashed in and there had never been any attempt at repairs. The nature of the ground made the traverses catch aU the water there was in that part of the world and hold it. We were up to our knees aU the time and up to the middle part of the time. It is a wonder we didn't grow flippers and tails. Hip-boots had not been issued at that time and we just wallowed. We used to cut sand- bags in two and wrap our legs, but all that did was to parboil the skin. The commimication trenches were so deep in water that two men were actually drowned in them. It was impossible to get up hot rations with any pretence of regularity. For the most part we lived on cold stuff with stew and tea when we got it, which was seldom. Water was scarce, except under foot. Drink- 35 SHELLPROOF MACK ing water was brought up in petrol tins and would be blue with oil. A good part of the time we drank the stuff out of the trenches, thick as pea soup with Httle zoos in it. Some humorist stuck up a sign, reading: DonH Drink the Water You Sleep In But most of us did it rather than try to worry down the gasolene mixture. It was a queer thing that the bad water did n't seem to make anyone sick. I fancy that we all got kind of amphibious after a bit, healthy like sea lions, and that we could have lived in an aquarium. You will understand that this was along towards the fag end of the extremely bad con- ditions on the British front. From the fall of 19 1 6 on, things got better, but it did take the EngHsh a long time to learn. I think it may be fairly said that the su- periority of trench construction by the Ger- mans from the beginning was the great reason 36 FIRST NIGHT IN THE TRENCHES why the Huns had it on the British in net miHtary results in the early days. From the time they dug in the Germans were thorough and careful in their trench building. They went down deep with their trenches and with their dugouts. They were safer all the time than we were. They were dry and comfortable in their sleeping quarters. Their communication trenches were good and they were able to feed their men well at all times. It stands to reason that a man who has slept well and eaten well is worth, setting aside the consideration of personal bravery, as much as two or three men who have slept in muck- holes and who have had cold rations. Whenever criticism was offered on the sub- ject of bad British trenches and the lack of dugouts the answer always was that they did n't expect to stay in their positions long enough to make elaborate workings worth while. That was not the answer at all. The fact was that the British did stop in bad trenches with- 37 SHELLPROOF MACK out going forward for a year, and for two years at some points. The reasons were two. First, the fact that England was not ready when the war started, and that her officers, drawn mostly from civiHan life, had to learn. The second reason was that the Englishman is naturally conservative and slow to grasp a new idea, and is satisfied to muddle through. I can look back on those trenches at Funky Village and see how even a Httle pick and shovel work in the quiet days when we had absolutely nothing to do would have given us dry dugouts, good drainage, safe traverses and communications, and would have increased our efficiency one hundred per cent if we had n't been lazy or stupid, whichever it was. Well, that 's all gone by. And I, for one, can rejoice that the American rookie has not to face the bad conditions of breaking in that I had to go against. What we had at Funky was heaven compared with what the Canadians endured at Ypres a year earlier, but it was so 38 FIRST NIGHT IN THE TRENCHES bad that no new troops going in now will ever have to stand up to anything like it. After that first night, and on up to the first of July, 19 1 6, we were in and out at Funky, having our "rest" at a place called St. Amand, an ex-village consisting of two pubs where they sold slushy beer and vin blanc, and about six whole houses. It was discouraging work. Sometimes we would have as many as fifteen or sixteen days in the trenches without reHef and then, maybe, two days in biUets. Over a week in the trenches at one stretch is ruinous to the nerves. At the end of one week a man's nerves get strung up so he gets to seeing things at night, whether he is a hardened vet or not. There was another place the Fritzies had it on us. According to all accoimts they made out from the beginning to give the men a regular system of six days in the front line, six days in support and six days in billets. They came back fresh. We did n't. 39 CHAPTER VI Over the Top on the First of July Well, we worried along this way until the first of July, and on that day they pulled off what was supposed to be the big spring at- tack. All the rookies who had come up with me were on the ragged edge of nervous pros- tration and the chaps who had been there when we came were nearly as bad. Our morale was bad. We had got some used to being shelled — just enough so we were able to figure out the mathematical chances of being hit by the next one — and that's a bad state to be in. Most of us had never been under rifle fire in the open or under machine guns, and we were so shaken that we dreaded it. And that's the shape we were in when we went over the top on the morning of the first of July. 40 OVER THE TOP We had a fair artillery preparation — enough to batter down their wire and that was all. We went over early in the morning. There was no barrage — and we simply climbed out and went forward on the double. There was no smoke screen in front of us and we were open to the sight of the strongly emplaced German machines. Besides that we had very few grenades. The Mills bombs had come in only a short time be- fore and had not yet reached us. We had some of the old-fashioned hairbrush and jam- tin grenades, but they were worse than noth- ing, as the men did n't trust them. Those old jam-tin bombs were sure suicide tools. They were made, as the name impHes, of old jam and marmalade cans. You'd light the fuse and then had a matter of four seconds to throw the thing. Once a fellow in my section was get- ting ready to throw one and a bluebottle fly kept settling down on the grenade to get some ©f the jam scrapings. The chap kept shaking 41 SHELLPROOF MACK the fly off and finally he got the fuse lighted and the fly settled again, and he waited to give the bomb another shake and it went off. He never threw another bomb. The fly got away. So that's the way we went into the July first attack, without barrage and without bombs. Nothing but rifles and the bayonets. It was eight hundred yards to the German trenches. We crossed it on the double with two rests of about a minute each to catch our breath. The whole attack as far as our sector was concerned was a washout. The division on our left had a mix-up on orders and didn't go over with the rest of us. The result was that we were enfiladed and raked fore and aft. I was so scared that I was petrified. I re- member that all the way across I was praying that I wouldn't have to use the bayonet or to face the bayonet. I have read a good deal of tommy-rot from time to time about the German being afraid of 42 OVER THE TOP the cold steel. The fact is that any Anglo- Saxon hates it. The Scotch and the Irish like the bayonet. The Englishman hates it as bad as any German. I dreaded it on my first charge, and in all the many months of service after that, and I hate the idea now. I had that dread topside in my mind all the way across. When we made the German trenches we found no Fritzies there. The Hun was playing it low down and foxy on us. He had raked us all the way across and had quietly abandoned his front line when we arrived. I dropped into a bay and waited there for as much as half an hour. The suspense was just what was needed to give me a let-down and knock out what faked-up courage I had left in me. I stood there alone, shaking all over, and very badly nauseated, imtil an officer came along and told me to join some of the men two traverses further down. I moved down and joined them. There was little shellfire and we 43 SHELLPROOF MACK were fairly safe from the typewriters. I was just getting a little courage back when a com- motion started around the comer in a com- munication trench, and a second later around the corner came crowding about twenty Heinies. They had come out of a dugout. They were on top of us in an instant. A big fellow made a thrust at me. I parried per- fectly. He dropped his rifle. I made a thrust at his chest. He caught the rifle with both hands and seemed to pull the bayonet into his throat. And then a strange thing happened. When the steel went into him my head cleared. The lump went out of my throat. My solar plexus stopped squirming. My knees were sohd. I let go a glad yell and kicked him off the pin. It broke at the butt, but I did n't care. I clubbed old Sarah Jane and went after the next Fritz, knowing I was just twice as good a man as he. We polished off that gang in less time than 44 OVER THE TOP it takes to tell it. About five minutes after- wards the Germans began to shell us. Lord, how they gave it to us! They had the range, naturally, having just left those trenches, and laid down the shells just where they would do the most good. Our orders had been to go it on our own and to return to our lines if the officers judged it was getting too hot. The officer in command of our platoon gave us the word and we went back. They enfiladed us on the return. But I never felt another pang of fear through that day. Out of the eight hundred of our batt that went over that morning just ninety-two re- sponded to rollcall in our trenches that even- ing. Another hundred straggled in through the night. The attack was one grand washout, but it did one thing for me. It gave me back part of the courage that had been squeezed out of me by my unfortunate early experience. Three weeks later, on the 21st of July, I was 45 SHELLPROOF MACK badly smashed up while standing in a trench. Shells bursting overhead — this was before I became known as "Shellproof — got me in the head and shoulder and the hand, — of which more later. They had me in the hospital for repairs, and at the beach for recuperation, and finally, as I have said, I brought up at Le Havre at the base, ready for shipment back to the front. During the days at the hospital and the beach I had time to think over the weeks in the trenches. And I came to resent keenly the things that had happened to me there. I was disgusted with the British Army. I was dis- gusted with war. I was fed up on mud and blood and cooties and bad food and the whole blooming show. I wanted to go home. So, as I have told, I went down to the C. 0. and applied for a discharge as an American citizen. The officer was agreeable and filled out the papers and told me I'd have to see 46 OVER THE TOP the Camp commander. I found him in his quarters. He was a middle-aged man with a ready but kind of frosty smile. He heard my case. " Surely/' said he, "you shall have your dis- charge. But don't you care for the British Army?'' With that little encouragement I opened up and told him all my troubles. I was fed up and said so. The officer twinkled his eyes. "Would n't you feel a Httle better with a bit more rest?" he asked. I shook my head kind of stubborn. "Have you killed a German yet?" he asked. "Yes, sir," I said, and I loosened up again and told him all about it. "Do you remember how you felt when you got him? " I thought a minute and then looked the officer in the eye. He smiled, and I smiled. He picked up my fiUed-out appHcation 47 SHELLPROOF MACK blank and held it out. I took it and tore it up. "Go back and get another German," he said; and he shook hands with me. Two days later I was on the way up to the Somme to rejoin the batt for thirteen months more of it. 48 CHAPTER VII Mascots The British Tommy has a lot of quahties that are unattractive and a lot more that endear him to the heart of anybody but a German. He is apt to be rough and uncouth. He grouses a good deal and is suspicious and unapproachable until he knows you. But he is always good-natured underneath and he sure is human. He has n't the cold intellectual efficiency of the 'orrible 'Un and he therefore insists upon keeping a variety of pets and mascots even if the Hve stock eats his rations and takes no active part in winning the war. Any soldier is more or less of a kid, usually more. No matter how old the Tommy is or what he was in peace times he sheds his re- sponsibility when he gets in uniform; he looks 49 SHELLPROOF MACK upon his officers as parents or schoolmasters, or both, and spends a good deal of his time trying to get around the entirely wholesome regula- tions laid down for him by those in command. One of these rules is the one that mascots shall not be carried. As a general thing the officers shut their eyes at the small animals. If Tommy had free hand a battalion would carry a menagerie with everything in it up to an elephant. Large animals eat a lot of grub and are in the way, which is probably the reason why they are banned. So the soldier has to worry along and bestow his affection on cats and small dogs with an occasional rabbit or guinea pig — anything that will .cuddle up and let itself be petted and loved. As a rule it is hard to keep dogs. The dog is supposed to be man's faithful friend. But it was our experience that the trench pups lived up to the reputation of the house cat. They went where they got the most grub. Another tradition gone blooey through the war! SO MASCOTS My crowd never did have but one dog that stuck. He was a tough Httle fox terrier named Kitchener and he loved rats. We used to get German shells loaded with lyddite, which gave off an awful stink, and smoke out rats for Kitchener. We would put some of the lyddite on pieces of paper and light them and sHp them into ratholes. Pretty soon the other holes down the trench would spout rats and Kitchener would have the time of his young life. He got hit by shrapnel at last and went west. When we were at the support timnel behind the Bluff Sector at Messines Ridge there was a grand old tomcat whose name was Bill — Old Bill to be exact. Bill was the mascot of the tunnel, not of any particular unit, and he was the first thing thought of or asked for when we came out of the trenches for a rest. Bill was a tough cat. He was built heavy forward, like a Hon, with wide jowls and battered ears where he had fought many a valiant fight with rats and such, and he had a SI SHELLPROOF MACK chronic scowl. He swaggered and did n't care a damn for anyone. So we liked him. Yet Old Bill was as human as any Tommy. He loved to have his beUy rubbed, and would rumble a hoarse purr like a whiskey tenor trying to sing bass. There were cook-houses outside the tunnel at the various entrances. Bill used to make the rounds two or three times a day for his rations and he kept fat. For a long time BiU liked to take a ramble out into the field when it was good and sunny. But one day a shell burst within fifty yards or so of Bill and he Ht out for home with a tail as big as a toffee apple. After that he never did go out. We always remembered Bill kindly because he clawed the leg of a war correspondent — a famous one at that — who came down to report the battle of Messines Ridge for a London daily. Bill was imdoubtedly an inteUigent cat and used good judgment in the case of the newspaper man who, as we found out when we saw the 52 MASCOTS papers^ reported as an eye-witness things that happened seventeen miles away from where he was when they happened. R. I. P. — Bill, not the war correspondent. Another cat my platoon had was a little she-one, very soft and cuddlesome, that would ride on the top of anybody's pack and make herself at home in any trench or dugout and never groused about the rations. Her name was Vic. Vic got very thick with a chap named Bott and used to follow him around. One night Bott went out on patrol and Vic went along and got lost. Along towards morning we heard her cr3ang out there in the dark and three men risked their lives — it was just before dawn and the Boche shelling was nearly due — going out after her. If that cat had gone west I think Bott would have been shot at sunrise. Another time we had a goat named Hinden- burg. He was allowed by the officers because he didn't require any rations. Hindenburg could butt like blazes. He was that kind of a 53 SHELLPROOF MACK goat. And while he was n't the sort of animal you'd care to take to bed with you, he was popular because he was rough and could take care of himself. When we were on the hike he would hop on the top of a limber and ride standing up, taking in the scenery, very inter- ested and independent. Hindenburg got on the crime-sheet when he ate the first leftenant's other shirt. After that the orders were to keep him tied up. He did n't like that and one day he chewed the rope apart and butted the C.S.M., a dignified old swab who was hoping for a commission that he couldn't afford. Hindenburg was turned over to the quarter- master and appeared later as mutton at the sergeants' mess. We all hoped he'd poison the cannibals, but he did n't and was said by those who had some of him to be good eating. There was a Blackpool Cockney in my platoon for a while that swore he had a tame cooty, but I think he was a liar. I think the strangest pet that I ever heard 54 MASCOTS of in the trendies was a tame starling. The English starling is about as common in northern France as he is across the Channel. Sometimes they get up pretty close to the lines, but on the whole they don't like gunfire and keep clear, the same as most of the other birds. Down around Funky, though, there was a starling that hung around the trenches regularly and got so tame he would come down and hop along the fire-step in the second line trench. Nobody ever bothered him and he lived well. Soldiers are kind to animals and birds. They are bound to be, as they take out all their hating on the Boche. And, anyway, a dog or a cat is human in comparison. 55 CHAPTER VIII Wounds When I was first in France, before going up to the front and before I had ever heard a shot fired in actual battle, I was sitting one day in a fit tie estaminet when in came a British soldier on crutches. He was quite evidently a veteran and I hailed him and asked him to have a drink. He was ready enough. A Tommy never refuses hospitality, particularly if it is Hquid. I wanted some inside information on trench conditions and the sort of thing I was likely to go up against in the next few weeks and I started in asking questions at once. My first one was that blamed fool query that I came later to hate so and that makes every soldier that hears it want to murder the questioner. "Have you been wounded?" 56 WOUNDS Any fool could see that this man had been wounded but I asked just the same. Tommy looked at me with contempt and I hastily ordered another drink for him. Just then another soldier entered. My chap didn't know the newcomer who had his arm in a sling but that did n't matter. He hailed him. "Wot 'o, mytie. 'Ave a go. The bloomin' rook 'ere's standin' treat." I ordered "veesky-soda" for the new man, who sized me up with almost as much scorn as the first one. To cover my confusion I asked another question. "How does it feel to be wounded?" This seemed to be in perfectly good form and I got my answer from him of the crutch. "Hit feels," says he, "like gettin' bashed wiv a bally cricket ball." "Yer're a liar," said he of the smashed arm, speaking without heat. "Feels like some bHghter was stickin' a red 'ot needle in yer." 57 SHELLPROOF MACK There followed an argument on the sensa- tions of various woimds. Each man had been hit only once and each was right as to the feel- ing that he individually registered. Later on I copped a few myself and would have been able to give a new recruit a whole lot of information on how it feels to get hit with either bullet or shrapnel or to get gassed or to be buried and jammed about with sandbags, which usually coimts for a wound; and I could have told him something of the sensations of shellshock, although I don't really qualify on that last, being shellproof apparently, and never was able in my whole seventeen months' experience in the trenches to work up anything more than faint symptoms of shock. I remember my first wound. Everybody is bound to if it doesn't knock him cold. My first one was more painful than any hurt that I received except, of course, being gassed. My first three wounds were received all on one day and they were not come by in battle. 58 WOUNDS I never, in fact, was hit by anything in action, — that is, in a charge or a raid. We were in a front trench one morning when Fritz commenced his regular before-breakfast strafing. I had become pretty well accustomed to this sort of thing at the time and was more or less indifferent to it. I was hunched up under the parapet, along with my mate Higgins. I had my tin kelly pushed back on my head, which was a careless thing to do — but you do get careless over there. A big boy burst in the next traverse and a lot of muck and stones came over and Hig sung out to me, "Pull yer 'at up on yer napper, yer fool." Well, I laughed at him but I took his advice; and just as I took hold of the rim of the helmet and pulled it forward a big chunk of shell caught me right on the fingers. Woow! It pinched my trigger finger against the rim of the tin hat and smashed it — smashed it plenty — and jammed the second finger almost as bad. Did you ever get your finger shut in a door or 59 SHELLPROOF MACK caught in one of the old-fashioned patent rockers? This was the same thing, only more so. Hig got a first-aid bandage on the hurt, and when the blood began to come back into it she fairly jumped and I howled. It was hurting so that I thought I would find some kind of a dugout and crawl in and nurse it there. I was going down the trench hunting for shelter when I got my second crack. Zizzz- Whang! Down comes a whiz-bang, which is a choice variety of sheU that sounds like that and that you don't hear until it goes off. This ,one hit so near that it slammed me up against the parapet and I felt a smash on the shoulder about like what the fellow said about the cricket ball. It was just a shocking jolt, numb- ing but not painful at first. Then after a bit it began to hurt, too; but not anywhere as bad as the hand. That shoulder wound was serious. A big chunk of shrapnel had gone in and ripped a big hole. An officer came up and told me that I'd better get along back to an 60 WOUNDS aid station as the shoulder ought to be looked after right away. There weren't any com- munication trenches at that point and it was up to me to go over the top, — that is, to climb over the parados and go to the rear across lots. I didn't fancy it and said so. I could walk all right and did n't see any need of taking any such risk, at least until the shelling was over. However, the hand was hurting so that my judgment was kind of hazy and it was an order really from the officer to go back. Anyhow, I went. I remember I had gone about a hundred yards and was breaking all records for cross- country running when there was a blinding, stunning crash. For an instant I had a sink- ing sensation, without any pain and then I did n't know any more. This last one was a big piece of shell and it pretty near lifted the top of my head off. I never did wake up after that whack until I was miles back of the line in a hospital. Then the 6i SHELLPROOF MACK old napper did n^t hurt much; but the shoulder was throbbing some and the hand was hurt- ing worse than ever. They operated on the head and put in a nice silver lid, and that didn't bother me any more, although, of course, it was the serious wound of the three. The shoulder got well after some weeks and the hand kept on being bad for months. For that matter I have never had the use of that trigger finger since. My second time woimded and my fourth hit was with a bullet, and it reminded me of the fellow who maintained so stoutly that a wound was like a hot needle. This took place one night while on a ration party. About six of us were going back to bring up the grub. We had loads, depend upon that. Tommy is made a pack-horse whenever he goes to the rear. There is always something to go back. We each had buckets in one hand and a case of Mills bombs on the other shoulder. There was one incom- 62 WOUNDS petent, clumsy beggar in the party who kept shifting his bucket and his case of bombs. Now when a Very Hght goes up, the thing to do is to stand absolutely still until the light has died down. If you stand still Fritz does n't see you. If you move, he fans you with a typewriter and fills you full of bullets. We kept teUing this chap to freeze when a light went up, but he kept taking occasion to shift his load when a Very was floating overhead, and the Boche spotted us. The first burst of bullets drilled me clean through the thigh. It didn't hit the bone; and it did feel exactly like a hot needle. I kept on walking for about three steps. Then I dropped the bucket and dragged a little. Then down went the Millses and I dragged some more. Then I went down myself. That cute little hole in the leg did n't pain me any to speak of, after the first "burn"; and it only kept me in the hospital two weeks. The human body sure will stand a lot of 63 SHELLPROOF MACK punishment at times. Of course where there are so many men being hit every day things happen that anyone would have said before the war could n't happen. We had in our batt a negro. Blacks were not common in the British Army — that is, outside of native units. I used to josh the Tommies and fill them up with fairy tales about this and that; and I instructed them on that old tradition about a negro's head being harder than a white man's. Only I stretched it and told them that a bullet would bounce off the black man's skull. Well, it happened that this coon got creased along the scalp two or three times without getting hurt enough to send to the rear and the men had got so they believed his napper would turn anything. After a while he got one straight through the top of the head. The bullet went in at the top of his forehead and came out of the back. It must have pierced his brain, if he had any. And he lived. That 64 WOUNDS is, he lived for three days; and I think if he hadn't got spilled out of an ambulance he would have pulled through to convalescence. Another queer thing in the way of war hurts is shell-shock. Some men seem to be shell proof — like myself. I have seen a man lifted and thrown over into the next traverse and half his clothes taken ojff by a shell which must have burst right beside him; and there was nothing the matter with the fellow. On the other hand some are so sensitive to the jar of shells that they get shell-shock if one bursts within a hundred yards. Shell-shock is, of course, merely a form of paralysis. In the early days of the war it used to be the custom to execute any man who deserted under fire or, rather, who showed cowardice and ran, disobeying orders. For that matter, it is the custom now, only they are more careful to prove the case, because it was found that a good many men with slight shell-shock and apparently all right, 65 SHELLPROOF MACK really had no control over themselves. Their legs would work all right but the brain did n't, and they were as apt to start running to the rear as anything else. They were n't cowards. It was simply that the telegraph system of the nerves had been shocked out of commis- sion and they could n't make their feet behave. After all, when you figure it all out, mere wounds are the smallest part of war. I would rather be in the front trench taking my chance with the whiz-bangs any time than ten miles to the rear, making roads or lugging ammo. The percentage of chances of being hit is small. If you are hit it is likely to be a cushy one that you can swing BKghty on. Or it may be a quick one that will snuff you out like a candle and send you west without your knowing it. Either one is good. The per- centage of wounds that are painful and crip- pling is very, very small. Anyhow, it is the chance you have to take. It's a great life and you can't weaken. 66 CHAPTER IX My Nickname and How I Got It Last Christmas Eve, just after I got home to America, I was sitting with a bunch of fellows and one of them said, "Come on, Mack. Tell us a nice cheerful Christmas Eve story about the trenches." It was a large order and it couldn't be done; for Christmas eve in the trenches is rarely a pleasant occasion. Fritz sends over too many Christmas presents. To the rear there may be good food and merriment and rejoicing of a sort, but not up there in the front line. I have spent one Christmas on the firing line and it was not pleasant. There is very little Christian spirit in the trenches at any time, and rather less on Christmas Eve than at any other season. 67 MY NICKNAME Still and all, the British Tommy is cheerful always. He finds the heart to make light of his troubles when they are the heaviest. So I am going to set down the thing that hap- pened to me Christmas Eve, 19 16; and if it reads like the story of a railroad wreck it has at least the merit of being true and absolutely without camouflage. And I am glad that I was able on that night to accept the happening in the spirit of irrepressible good nature that is the outstanding characteristic of the London Cockney. Without wanting to get over-personal I think I may say that I am a true Cockney. When I left the United States I was an Ameri- can, bom and bred here. When I enlisted in London they told me that I was an Irishman. After two years with the 23d BattaHon of the London Regiment I found I was a Cockney of Cockneys; and I suppose I shall remain so imtil American life remodels me again. Well, to resume. When I began, all hands 68 MY NICKNAME insisted that there must have been something happen to me on Christmas Day or on the night before and that I ought to tell it. Which I did. And I am setting down here the yarn that I told then of how I came by my nick- name in the batt where I was known to officers and men as "Old Shellproof." December, 19 16, our batt was lying up at Dominion Camp, near Popperinghe, about eight miles behind the lines and about six miles from Ypres. We had been on this sector ever since October, when we had been moved up after the Big Push (that's the battle of the Somme, you know). During those months we had been in and out from the trenches at Hill 60, taking over for a week and then coming out to the Dominion Camp billets for a week of rest. Along about the nineteenth or the twentieth of December rumors began going around that we were to go in for Christmas. We had been in billets for only ^ve days and there 69 SHELLPROOF MACK was the usual grousing. There is no place like the army for rumors. The average battalion has got the average sewing circle beat seven ways for gossip. You can hear anything that you want to listen to; so when the bad news came we all hoped for the best and trusted to luck that there might be nothing in it. This time it happened to be right and rumor pedlers had the real story. On the morning of the twenty-first we got orders to take over Hill 60 for ten days, to be followed by ten more days in support. The weather was just like spring in New England, warm and sticky, especially sticky, with mud up to the knees in most places and up to the ankles everywhere. We spent the whole day cleaning equipment and grousing. We had one old fellow in my platoon named Tuffnell who had been in the service from the beginning, and who had never had a leave. I call Tuffnell old. He was forty; and that is well along for a soldier. He had just had 70 MY NICKNAME bad news from home, and thought sure that he would get a furlough for Christmas. But he didn't and was well discouraged. It's the way of things in the army. There is a lot that seems like injustice, but it is all for the great cause, and a chap has to take it with a grin. Old Tuff foimd it hard, and he could n't help showing it. The rest of us kept more cheerful than we had any right to be, and there was a lot of joking and horse play when we feU in at six o'clock for the eight-mile hike. It is a queer thing about Tommy that he smothers his grouch and starts joshing the minute he gets in action, no matter how cross he had seemed a Kttle while before. There was a lot of talk among us about the turkey dinner we would have in the trenches, and some cheerful betting that some of us would never eat another Christmas dinner in the line or out. According to custom we got away by com- panies at about fifteen-minute intervals. We 71 SHELLPROOF MACK marched this way until we got to the outskirts of what had been the city of Ypres, where we broke up into platoons and went along that way until we hit the duck walls, about two miles from the front line, where we went single file. I have been through Ypres many times and never got entirely hardened to the frightful- ness of war as shown by the desolation there. Here was a town of at least 30,000 or 40,000 people one great hopeless ruin. Judging from the remains of the old Cloth Hall and the Cathedral and of the many churches it must have been very beautiful; and here in two short years the labor and art work of centuries was reduced to broken junk. After passing Ypres and getting on the duck boards on this particular night we were supposed to go quietly, as Fritz was busy and the shells whistled overhead all the time, and the typewriters were sending over plenty of bullets; we were still in a mood for kidding, 72 MY NICKNAME however, in spite of the danger, and every few minutes somebody would fall off the boards with a clatter of equipment and all hands would holler, "Hurroo! There goes Clubfoot Dean." Clubfoot was one of those fellows that fall over their own shadows in the daytime and can't keep their footing at all at night. He was a nuisance. Nobody wanted to march behind him, because every time he went down the fellow behind would pile up too. It was worse to march in front, because he always made out to thump the man ahead when he took his header. We used to threaten to shoot Clubfoot and wished him all kinds of bad luck; but he was dangerproof and never seemed to get hurt by bullets or an)^hing else. Well, in spite of old Clubfoot, we got up to the front trench and reheved the other batt. We tried to pump them as usual, as we wanted to know who were in front of us — the Prussians, 73 SHELLPROOF MACK the Bavarians or the Saxons. As usual we got mighty Httle information beyond saying that it had been very quiet and to look out for the snipers. It was always the way. When you are being relieved you are in a hurry to go. If the Germans get on to the fact that a change is taking place, they will make it a point to shell blazes out of the approaches and the fellows going out get it good. So they want to go quick and they have n't any time to swap lies with the rehef . Stm and all, the chaps taking over are entitled to some information as to the particu- lar enemy they are going to fight. It makes a great difference. The Prussians are nasty fighters. I mean by that that they keep at it night and day and don't seem to have any sense of trying to make things easy for both sides. There's no reason why a feUow shouldn't be reasonable even if he is at war. I have heard it said that the Prussians are the best 74 MY NICKNAME fighters in the German army. I, personally, don't think so. When they come to close quarters they will fight until there is no hope, then they quit. Now the Bavarian is sort of a decent, gentle- manly bird, with some sense; but he'll go a step further than the Prussian when he is at close quarters, and will keep on scrapping when there is no hope — like a Frenchman or an Englishman or a Jock or a Canadian. He's just that much better than the advertised Prussian. Your Saxon, now, he's another breed of cats. He is a big, good-natured, blond beggar, and he is perfectly willing to lay off the sniping and the nasty work any time and be friendly. We were in one sector several times where the trenches were only thirty yards apart. When the Saxons came in they would let us know it, and all hands would start doing the brother act. They knew they could trust us and we knew we could trust them. A lot 75 SHELLPROOF MACK of them could speak English, and they would hop up on the parapets unarmed and shout across to know if we had any fags. Then both sides would start joshing. There would always be some of the Saxons who knew more about London than the men did who came from there, and they would swap yams about the places they both knew. Once I remember all of us got so interested over an argument as to how long the war would last and which side was going to win that we almost came to blows. One of the officers put a stop to it by going out between the lines — this, in broad day- light, mind you — and telling the Saxons that if they did n't get down he would order them fired on. On the whole, they were good, friendly fellows, and we liked them. I remember about the time that Rimiania entered the war; they had it before we did and told us all about it. When Bucharest fell they shouted the news across to us and we 76 MY NICKNAME called them bloody liars. There was a little bad feehng for a day or two and we did n't let them put their heads up. So they began to stick up signs telling us what boobs we were. We all had a shot at the signs. One night some of us sneaked over with a piece of old wire cable we had found and hitched it on to the Saxon barbed wire. Then about fifty of us got hold and gave a heave all together. We pulled up a section of the wire and it made an awful noise, and the Saxons cut loose with everything they had in the way of machine gun and rifle fire. I fancy they must have thought there was half a battaHon or more out their fussing with their wire. Next morning they saw what had made the disturbance and we joked them some more. They took it in good part. One time someone over in the Saxon trench got an old comet and started playing toot — a toot — toot, toot. After a while he just played the first part and the Saxons finished 77 SHELLPROOF MACK off the last two toots vocally. Then we joined in and tooted, too. We kept it up all one day like a lot of kids, until the officers came around and put a stop to it. Well, this time I'm telling about there were no good-natured Saxons against us — there were Prussians. The fellows we were taking over from told us to be careful of the snipers. We did n't need to be told that, as we had been on this sector before and knew just how bad the snipers would be if they were Prussians. I have to hand it to the Prussian snipers for bravery. They were as bold as brass, and as a common thing would get out between the lines at night and stop there in the daytime concealed behind dead bodies or in shell-holes or wherever there was cover and then put at us. As a rule I think that these snipers were officers. On several occasions they even got through our lines and hid to our rear and sniped at us. Think what nerve a man must have had 78 MY NICKNAME to do a stunt like that! He was nearly sure to get caught and not a chance for life if he was taken. Another nervy thing they pulled quite often was this: A German officer would dress in an English officer's uniform and deliberately come over and drop into our trenches and stroll along asking questions of the men. Usually he would wear the R. E. uniform, and would be some man who had been educated in England, and who was more English than the English themselves in manner and speech. The very boldness of it made the scheme successful. They got away with it as a rule, too. I have known of at least six cases of the sort in my sector, although I never actually saw but one. I remember one chap who was caught. He was taken before a lieutenant named Barrett. He greeted Barrett cordially with "Ah, Lieutenant Barrett, I believe. I had a shot at you a night or two ago and came jolly near doing' you in.'' 79 SHELLPROOF MACK "How do you know my name?" asked Barrett. The German laughed. "Really, old chap, you mustn't ask," he said. "That's my business, you know." Then he went on to tell about killing two officers some time before, giving their names and the time when they were killed. It all checked up. This officer was taken to the rear and probably shot, although I don't know about that. His courage and coolness cer- tainly merited something better. The bravery and willingness for sacrifice is not all on one side in this war. When we got into our front trench and tried to get settled down for the ten days of discomfort we found things bad. The trench was knee-deep in mud and water, and the water was cold. The dugouts were better than most in that part of the line.. It was a farce to call them dugouts, at that. They were only head and shoulder shelters. I am 80 MY NICKNAME fortunate in being short, for I could almost always find an extra-size shelter that I could get into, legs and all, and be fairly comfortable. Things were quiet for the next three days, with only a shell or two coming at intervals. We spent the time writing letters to the folks at home, telling them what a fine Christmas we were having and all about the big feed that was planned. As a matter of fact we were in for bully beef and bread and tea, but there was no harm in letting the people who were worrying about us think that we were due for turkey and plum pudding. My platoon was on duty in the front line from 7 A. M. to 8 p. m. No union hours over there, you see. The rest of the time we spent in the shelters. It was pretty quiet, as I have said, but we felt a little bit leary of Fritz. We expected him to send over his Christmas presents before the hoHday was past. It is a habit of the beastly Boche to select special occasions for his con- 8i SHELLPROOF MACK tributions of explosive hardware. I never knew it to fail but once. On the Kaiser's birthday in 19 17 we had it all doped out that the Heinies would celebrate by strafing us with all they had. We got ready by building special parapets and sand- bagging everything that could be protected in that way. The Prussians were against us and^we had it figured that they could n't resist the temptation. They fooled us, and for the whole day and one before and one after they did n't send over a shell. On this Christmas Eve Fritz didn't dis- appoint us at aU. He was right there, living up to his reputation. For about four o'clock in the afternoon he started his show. There were five of us sitting on the fire-step in^ the bay talking when Captain Trembard came along on inspection of rounds. Mr. Trembard had only been out a few weeks and was due to become a very popular officer. He was a kind, cordial chap who seemed to take a 82 MY NICKNAME personal interest in the men, and was nowhere near as far away as the average captain. He came along and passed a few remarks, asking if we were trying to make ourselves comfortable, and then he wished us a Merry Christmas and moved down the traverse. He had hardly turned the corner of the bay when the first shell burst directly over the trench. It did Captain Trembard in. I ran down and found that he had gone west, hit fair in the stomach with a big fragment. I ran back and got up on the fire-step and hugged the parapet along with the others. Other shells came over and they had the range right. We humped ourselves up with our heads dov/n and our arms over our abdomens, trying to make ourselves small. You will understand that when a bombardment is on the men simply have to stand by and take it. There is not a thing to do but hope and wish them away. After giving us a ten minutes' strafing they 83 SHELLPROOF MACK let up a bit. We, too, loosened up and moved about some. A mate of mine named Livins and I were sitting on the fire-step. Howard was standing on the step and Tuffnell and Court were standing in the trench when the shell came over that fixed our clocks. It must have been a big boy, because there was a terrible crash and the whole parapet for the space of at least twenty feet lifted and came in on us. I found myself buried up to the neck, but I had raised my hands and they were sticking up in front of my face, although my arms were imder. I was packed in as neat as you please. Now getting buried by a shell-burst is not an unusual thing. It happens to thousands of soldiers. Nearly everybody that comes out of the big show alive has been buried wholly or partly. I was not uncomfortably crushed and naturally began to claw about and try to get my arms free. I'd have got completely out only I was saved the trouble. I may have been digging for two or three 84 MY NICKNAME minutes when I heard another shell coming. You can hear them go overhead with a long thin "sque-e-e-e-e-e." You instinctively duck your head, though you know it's not going to do any good. I ducked this time, sticking my nose into the mud. And then she smashed. I don't know whether it hit in front or behind; how near it was, or how big. All I knew was that there was another crash, which somehow seemed to come from below, and I oozed up, up, up out of the ground. "Oozed" is the only way I can express it. I could feel myself trickling up through the mud and then suddenly I fetched loose and flew. I must have gone up ten feet and I came down all spraddled out but on my feet. I promptly sat down. I was a little dazed but not much and began to laugh. Must have been a little hysterical, I suppose. I sat for not more than a few seconds and then deliberately got up. I did n't have a scratch. 83 SHELLPROOF MACK I didn't have a sign or a symptom of a shell-shock. I said to myself, "Mack, old top, you ought to get Blighty on this." And I tried to imagine that I was dumb or paralyzed or something. No use! I was as good as new. It was a case of in again, out again. I had been buried imder by a shell, which should by all rules of the game have done me in, and had been boosted out again by another that should have pulverized me. And no harm done. I took a look around and saw the trench all bashed in and legs and arms sticking out here and there, and then I shook the reefs out of my legs and fairly flew to the aid post in the rear. I got a couple of stretcher bearers and some shovels and went back. The shells by this time were going-over to the second line and we worked like beavers. Livins, who had been close beside me, was alive but blinded and badly shell-shocked. Poor old Tuffnell, who should have been on his way to Blighty by rights, had gone west 86 MY NICKNAME without a scratch or a mark on him, killed by the concussion. Court and Howard were both gone, too. I was the only man left in my section. Out of the forty-two men in my platoon there were only two left untouched besides myself. My experience attracted a lot of attention and various medical officers said that the impossible had happened. I was christened right then and there "Old Shell- proof," and I suppose I have lived up to the name; what with the silver skylight in the top of my head, the numerous holes in various parts of my body and considerable excess weight in the way of shrapnel fragments, to say nothing of having been filled up — as I shall tell you later — with the latest and most fashionable thing in the way of German kultur, mustard gas — and I am alive. I am no bloomin' Hercules, but with any kind of luck I hope to get into good enough shape with a little rest to go back over there 87 SHELLPROOF MACK and help finish up the job that I have helped start. So there you have the cheerful tale of a Christmas Eve. I had my head between the jaws of death and pulled it out just in time. Our batt was so badly cut up that they pulled us out, what was left of us, and sent the 24th in to relieve us, much to their disgust, as they had planned their Christmas dinner in the safety of the support trenches. That was where I had mine. It consisted of bully beef and suet pudding, and it tasted jolly good. There was plenty of it, as there were only three of us left to eat what had been provided for forty-two. 88 CHAPTER X Rehearsal In September, 19 17, when I was in a hos- pital in England recovering from an overdose of German mustard gas which I had inhaled before Passchendaele, someone was good enough to send me a copy of the Boston Post, That paper was sure fine reading, although it was nearly three months old. It was dated June 8 and spread across the front page in big letters was the announcement of the begin- ning of the battle of Messines Ridge and the blowing up of Hill 60 with a million pounds of explosive. Perhaps I read the account of the Hill 60 episode with more interest because I had been concerned in the preparations for the battle of which it was the opening gun. There had never been, I suppose, up to that 89 SHELLPROOF MACK time, and, of course, there has not been since, such elaborate preparation for a battle. For more than two years, or ever since the spring of 19 1 5, the Germans and the British had been facing each other along the Hill 60 sector and neither side had gained a yard. My division had been holding the Hill 60 and the Bluff Sector to the right of the hill since October, 19 16. We had been in and out during all that time, taking over for ten days, or, sometimes, a week, and then for a like time in supports and after that in billets to the rear. We had got to know the place pretty well. Too well ! I fancy that the General Staff had come to hate the sight and name of Hill 60. Any- how, when the big attack, known as the battle of Messines Ridge, was planned, the most im- portant point in the line to be taken was Hill 60. The situation at the hill was imique. The German and British trenches paralleled each other, with British front line cutting into the west side of the hill. 90 REHEARSAL The surrounding terrain close-up was fairly level and the hill stuck up like a giant wart perhaps a hundred feet high, nearly round, and perhaps ^ve hundred yards across. The hill was, then, in No Man's Land, with the Hun trenches on the other side. But strangely enough the hill was occupied by the Germans, — that is to say, they did not occupy it on the surface of the ground; but they had run tunnels into the side of the hill and had fairly honey- combed the whole place with galleries and shafts. Thousands of their soldiers lived in these tunnels. On the top of the hill there had been a forest, but all the trees had been stripped of branches and were now merely splintered posts and stumps. The German snipers used to crawl up on the side of the hill and hide in the long grass and behind the wreckage that had been the wood and pick us off. This was one of the things that made the sector especially dangerous. Just to the right of the hill the lines bent to- 9J SHELLPROOF MACK gether, and at one point were no more than thirty yards apart. Something more than a mile to the right the Yser Canal crossed both lines and No Man's Land at right angles. Along the bank of the canal ran a low ridge, also at right angles to the trenches. This ridge had been tunnelled lengthwise by our forces and was used as a support trench and for sleep- ing quarters. It accommodated three thou- sand men. Now, here was the situation. As much as a year previous to the battle of Messines Ridge our sappers had begun to run tunnels under Hill 60. The preparation for blowing it up had begun as far back as that. But on the other hand the Germans had sunk deep shafts and had rim imder the lines to the long timnel which we were using as a support, and the time was approaching in June when they would be ready to touch us off and send us up in the air. These mining operations were the most ex- tensive in the history of warfare. 92 REHEARSAL The rehearsals of the men began in March and they were as elaborate as the mining. About thirty miles to the rear there had been prepared a great field which was an exact rep- lica of the German front. Also a large num- ber of photographs had been collected by our airmen, showing every detail of the German positions During April and May our division had two goes at this rehearsal business. I remember that when we went out for the first one there was a good deal of excitement among the men, as it was clear to anyone that something big was coming off. We were marched for fifteen miles back of the lines and were there loaded on the match- box cars — funny Httle freight cars about half as big as ours — and after a bit we brought up in a Httle town in northern France, where the training field was located. This field of ours was only one of I don't know how many. When you consider that the Messines Ridge 93 SHELLPROOF MACK battle extended over a ten-mile front, perhaps more, and that every man on that front was as carefully rehearsed as he would have been as an actor in a drama, it will be understood that there must have been some scores of these fields. There must have been thousands of carefully instructed ojSicers as teachers. I know that we were duly impressed with the importance of what was coming off before we began. The billets at X. were better than usual. As a rule the billets of a batt are selected by advance agents, the quartermaster ser- geants, who go ahead when the troops are on the march and secure the quarters necessary. There is always keen rivalry for the best quarters to be had in any town, as it is neces- sary to use farm buildings and someone always has to put up in old chicken coops and some- times in a lately used stable. At X. our whole batt was extra comfortable. We had our sleeping quarters in big, clean bams, full cf hay. Most of us made a practice of going into 94 REHEARSAL the mows and burying ourselves for the night. The roofs were tight and we slept dry and clean and there didn't seem to be as many cooties as usual. The cootie, as everybody knows by now, is the common body louse, the soldier's worst enemy. There were a good many orchards all over the place and we spent a good deal of the time when we were on our own, loafing in the shade. On warm, dry nights it was a common thing for whole companies to sleep under the apple trees, sheltered only by Kttle tents made of our waterproof sheets. On the whole we had it cushy on that ten days' training. Each morning reveille was at 6:30, breakfast at 7, and at 8 parade in full fighting order to the training field two miles away. Here they put us over the jumps by battahons. The duplicate of the German trenches was laid out on a mile-square field, with every detail exactly as we would find it when we went over. A platform, .rrounded 95 SHELLPROOF MACK the field and here and there were wooden towers from which every detail could be seen. We would spend the entire morning up to one o'clock, going through extended formations and the study of objectives of each company. Getting through at one o'clock made it a short, cushy day, but we made up for that by the care with which we learned every move. The first thing in the morning we would line up and study the terrain. An officer would point out each strong point, each spot where machine g\ms would be likely to be emplaced, each separate traverse and every extra dan- gerous bit of ground. Then the companies would be put over the ground examining every inch of it. After that we went over again in exactly the order we would go in the attack. On certain days we had afternoon rehearsals. This consisted of studying photographs. We would gather by platoons in a big barn, and the officers who un- derstood the airplane pictures would go over 96 British Off! da! Phofos;raph. Copyright, International Film Service. A Duplicate of the German Trenches REHEARSAL them for us. These photographs were about two feet square. They would hold them up against the wall and point out this, that, and the other point and cross-examine the men. Shortly we had that terrain down so fine that every man could go to his own place with his eyes shut. Every man knew his objective, how he was to reach it, how fast he was to go, what he had to go through to get there, what he was to do at each stage of the advance. He knew just how things were going to look when he went over. Almost, it is no exaggeration to say, he knew just where his feet were to be set down on each step from the beginning to the end of the show. The only thing that could not be reckoned with was shot and shell. Like rehearsing anything else most of the men got letter perfect in a few days; but there were some, as there always are, who were stupid and who needed an awful lot of work to get the things into their heads. Two or three such 97 SHELLPROOF MACK men in a platoon may queer the whole game and are dangerous. The blockheads in a rehearsal of this sort nearly drive the officers mad. On the whole, however, the rehearsals went smoothly enough. And I think that the ex- citement and interest, and the afternoons on our own, conditioned the men to a point of keenness that proved valuable when the time came for the big attack. We played football or cricket almost every afternoon. At least the other men did. Per- sonally I never could get up an appetite for cricket. British football I never could get used to. They always put me in as goal tender. When I saw the ball coming I would grab it and start on an end nm. Then there would be a row. I used to try to get the gang to play baseball, but they could n't see it any more than I could see cricket. I was the only American in my batt and I continued to be a good deal of a curiosity to the Tommies throughout my service. The 98 REHEARSAL opinion is solidly grounded in the British mind, it seems to me, that Americans are all swank. They think that we are bluffers, braggers and hot-air merchants. They used to delight to get me started on the size of things over here. "Sye, Shellproof," somebody would call out, "'ow big is the blooming Stytes?'' Then I would start in and tell them how you could drop England down in the middle of Texas and lose it, and they would look at each other and grin. Then somebody would say, '^'Ow abaht 'igh 'ouses, Mackie?" Whereupon I would tell all about the Wool- worth Building. This always brought the same frank com- ment. "Shellproof, yer a bHnkin' Kar. Couldn't never be no buildin' fifty-one stories 'igh." You could n't beat them. Tell 'em the plain unvarnished God's truth and they'd swear it 99 SHELLPROOF MACK was swank. At that they were good lads and true, and honest comrades, brave and kind. Americans, as I have said, were a curiosity in our batt. And that was odd, as there were said to be so many in the army. I remember running across one that proves the truth of the often-repeated statement that "it's a small world.'' When we were marching back to the front after our first rehearsal, we had halted by the roadside for the regular ten-minutes-in-the- hour rest. Another batt passed us going the other way. A young lieutenant eyed me as he passed at the rear of his men and then came back. "Is n't yoiu: name MacKay?" he asked. "Yes, sir," I said, saluting and standing at attention. "It used to be." "Did n't you," he went on, "used to live in Northampton, Massachusetts?" "I did sir," said I. "And who, may I ask, are you? " lOO REHEARSAL He laughed and said: "I am Clyde Baxter.'' ^ You could have knocked me down with a feather. When Baxter was a two-year-old baby I had lived on the same street with him. I was ten and they used to give me a dime to wheel Clyde out for the afternoon. Later, when I was fifteen or sixteen, I remember him as a youngster of about eight, and that was the last I ever saw of him until he hailed me by the roadside in Flanders. For old times' sake Baxter tried to get me transferred to his regiment and promised to get it cushy for me; but it never came off. Baxter was afterwards reported missing and so far as I know is either dead or perhaps a prisoner in Germany. I don't know which is worse. * I have given this man's name as Baxter, which is n't it at all, for this reason: any American who fought with the Allied forces was regarded as a franc-tireur, that is, as an unauthorized fighter, and to be regarded as a spy and executed as such. This would not be the case now. But at the time Baxter enhsted he was a neutral, and if he were a prisoner now in Germany and it be- came known that he was with the British before the United States entered the war he would probably be shot. lOI SHELLPROOF MACK In May the batt had twenty days in the trenches and in support, before coming out for the second rehearsal. The greater part of that twenty days was spent in trench raids and patrol work, as there was need of all the information that could be had as the time came on for the big attack. I did not take part in any of the raids. As a matter of fact I never took part in but one trench raid in all my seventeen months of ser- vice in the trenches. Right here I want to say something about trench raids and such stunts and volunteers for them. Every now and then I read something about some fellow who volimteers for special and dangerous duty as a habit. I never saw one of those men my- self. The man who says he volimteers more than once for trench raids and that sort of thing either misses the truth or is a most ex- traordinary person. I think that nearly every- body does volunteer once; and then he finds that once is enough. After that he does his I02 REHEARSAL duty as it comes to him, and unless he is a fool for fighting he does n't go about hunting trouble. I know that this is contrary to the accepted ideas of gallantry and heroism; but it is the truth. All the trench raids that I have ever read about have been large successes. The only one that I was ever in was a flat failure. I am go- ing back and tell you about it. It will only take a minute and it does illustrate a point of British discipline that shows very clearly what makes the British Army great. This raid took place away back in the early days of 191 6. The lines were about fwe hun- dred yards apart. The customary orders were given out to cross over into the German trenches and take prisoners and do all the damage possible. We sneaked across with twelve men and one officer, a Heutenant. The Fritzies had three lines of wire outside of their trench, narrow lines not more than six feet wide and perhaps ten yards apart. There had 103 SHELLPROOF MACK been no artillery preparation and it was up to us to get through the wire without making any noise and to get back if we coxild. We managed to get beyond the first two lines of wire and would have got through the other but through some miscarraige of orders our own machine guns and hght artillery opened up on us. We hugged the ground, but not quick enough, and three of our men clicked. Worse than that, the lieutenant, who was just get- ting through the wire, got tangled up with one leg caught in a loop or something; anyhow he couldn't get loose and we couldn't pry him out, try as we would. The Germans had got "windy'' by this time and were sending up Hghts. So it was plain enough that the raid was all off. The officer ordered us to go it on our own and to get back as best we could. He was to be left behind. After the custom the non-com detailed a man to stop with the officer on the chance that he might do some good and 104 REHEARSAL get the lieutenant loose before daylight. This is always done when an officer gets in a posi- tion where he cannot move. He mustn't be left alone. A man has to stay, no matter how hopeless the situation. It is rough on the man, but it is part of the game. Well, we quit the lieutenant and the man, and worked back across No Man's Land, and made it into our own trenches without any further casualties. About an hour later, just before dawn, the man who had been left came crawling in. He had deserted the officer. The lieutenant never was heard from, and was probably either killed or taken prisoner. The man who deserted him was promptly executed. But to get back to the trenches. After ten days spent in the front line and ten more in supports, we were moved back again to the little town thirty miles to the rear where the rehearsal field was. They gave it to us good on this dose of getting ready. It was hard work all the time, morning, noon and night. 105 SHELLPROOF MACK It got so we could do every move in our sleep. Besides which they gave us the regular "physical jerks," that is, the setting-up exer- cises without rifles, in extra sessions. The word went around that the big attack was to come off the tenth of June. There was the regular amount of gossip and a thousand different rumors as to what was to happen and on how wide a front the offensive was to be made. It was always the same way. The rank and file knew as much as old Haig when any- thing was to come off. The only difference between headquarters and the men was that the men knew so many things that weren't so. In general, though, pretty nearly every- thing of consequence seeped down to the men in one form or another. The trouble was to sort out the true from the false. On the Messines Ridge attack the powers at the head of things fooled us purposely. They drilled the idea into us that the attack was to come off the tenth of Jime and every io6 REHEARSAL man had that notion firmly imbedded in his mind. There was a good reason for this. The German secret service was very active. They, no doubt, had spies behind our lines and per- haps in the very army. Now the mining situation was, as I have said, pecuHar. Both sides were playing awfully close. Hill 60 was full of high explosive placed by our sappers. And lower down in the hill the Germans had mined and had no doubt placed more or less dynamite. Also, as I have said, they had come across under our support tunnel. These mining op- erations cannot be kept secret by either side for long. The Royal Engineer officers are listening all the time. They have an instru- ment of the nature of a microphone, a jigger that is stuck down in the ground and a kind of stethoscope affair to put to the ears. With this they can hear the slightest tap or scrape. After a good deal of practice they get so they can tell whether digging is going on and how 107 SHELLPROOF MACK far advanced the mining processes are. When the enemy begins bringing in boxes of explosive that is betrayed, too, by the changed sound. If the enemy is nearly ready to set off his mines and the R. E. ofhcers detect it, why, of course, our men are ordered from the vicinity. The trick is to wait until the last possible mo- ment. It is shivery business trying to out- guess the Heinies on this sort of thing. WeU, on this Hill 60 business we were going close to the limit. The engineers had been listening to the digging under our support tim- nel and they knew that the Germans had nearly finished bringing in the boxes of high explosive — that they were almost ready to touch her off. Which would have been a disaster. This support tunnel which I have men- tioned was an interesting piece of work and one of the neatest ever constructed in the British lines. In fact it was worthy of the best efforts of the Germans in construction for the 108 REHEARSAL comfort of the men. The tunnel ran back from the front line right in the heart of the ridge for about six hundred yards, a hole four feet wide and high enough to let a man stand up. Then for about four hundred yards it was nine feet wide and eight feet high, and on each side there were tiers of double-decked beds, leaving a little alley between about a yard wide. Running down at each side were short galleries, also furnished with the double- decked beds. The whole place was lighted with electricity. It had been built by Cana- dian and Australian engineers and was per- fectly safe from shell-fire except around the edges, where a shell would come through now and then, but not enough to worry about. The place held three thousand men and kept them dry and comfortable and safe and ready for an instant charge when the time came for that charge. The delicate part of the situa- tion was that the Germans could send up that tunnel with its three thousand soldiers any 109 SHELLPROOF MACK time they thought best. We learned after the battle of Messines Eidge that they had planned to touch us off on the night of the ninth. You see the widely spread information that we were to blow up Hill 60 and start the attack on Jime 10 had by some mysterious method reached the Germans; and they were planning to beat us to it by one day. It was uncom- fortably close figuring either way. But we outguessed them. On the night of Jime 6 my ba-tt was brought up from the rear and quartered in the timnel, and about eleven o'clock the order went around that the attack was to come off the next morning at exactly 3:10. We had fooled Fritzie by putting the show forward three days from the time origi- nally given out. The artillery preparation had begim in a mild but continuous way ten days before, and had been gradually increased, until on the night of the sixth, when we came up, it was one gigantic throb of sound after another, riding no REHEARSAL down the wind. Although we knew that the attack was slated for 3:10, I think that most of us slept well. I know that I did. At three o'clock somebody waked me. All hands were sitting round waiting, waiting and wondering how much of a crash the million pounds of ammonal under Hill 60 would make. It will be remembered that Lloyd George heard the explosion one hundred and thirty miles away in London. We were only a mile and a half away, and we were n't at all sure that it would n't stun us, even sheltered as we were. We all held our breaths as 3:10 approached and kept our eyes on the wrist watches. On the tick the hill went off. There were just two very heavy rumbles and the tunnel and the ridge over it rocked like a boat. A man who had been standing in the alley in front of my bed tottered and grabbed as a man will on a rocking elevated train. I felt the cot move imder me as much as two or three inches. It III SHELLPROOF MACK was all over in a matter of seconds and was disappointing. And then the order passed and out we all crowded to the exits to be ready to go over in the charge at 3:15, which was zero. After the battle of the Ridge it was found that the Germans had completed the mining under our quarters and had their ammonal in and connected up. It will always be a mystery why they did n't set us off. I am fully satis- fied that they didn't, for when I go west I want it to be in the open with the blue sky overhead. I was sorry for the thousands of Fritzies who had been pulverized in the blow- ing up of Hill 60. 112 CHAPTER XI Messines Ridge The big explosion that destroyed Hill 60 on the morning of June 7 broke the tension and brought us all up on our toes. As the last rumble and quiver died away and the world stopped rocking under our feet we all picked up our rifles and trooped out of the support timnel and into the newly made trench called Rennie Street, which had lately been dug; it was about three feet deep, parallel to the front line trench and about a third of a mile behind it. The end of Rennie Street touched the support tunnel. It was just Hght when we got out and into the trench. It was one of those misty mornings so common in Flanders, with promise of fair weather overhead, but with a thin haze over everythiag. Still and aU, we could see to almost any distance well enough. Away off there to 113 SHELLPROOF MACK the left and in front, where Hill 60 had been the night before, there was a yawning pit. The hill was gone. It seems unbelievable, but that great hill was, so far as we could tell from where we were, completely gone. Out in front and between us and the front trench the ground was reasonably smooth but sloping upward a Httle. The artillery prepara- tion had been going on for ten days and was now at its height. Shells by the thousand were squealing overhead from our guns in the rear. The Fritzies were sending back a lot, and the open field we had to cover was getting most of them, or that's the way it looked from Rennie Street. Everybody was looking back over the terrain toward Ypres, expecting the tanks to come up. It had been rumored all along that the tanks were to take part in the attack, and a good many of the men who had never seen them in action were curious. Once on the rehearsals we had run across a squadron of the land ships coming 114 MESSINES RIDGE up to the front. I had gone into the battle of High Wood on the Somme with the first of the tanks and recalled how easy they had made things there, and sure hoped that we were to have the mechanical monsters with us at Mes- sines. But it was n't to be. The tanks did go into this battle, but farther down the line. It was said afterwards that the ground was too rough at Messines and beyond, and that there was too much mined area to make it worth while to take the chance with the big crawlers. We squatted in the three-foot ditch and waited for zero and the whistle that would take us out and over, and hoped that nothing would get us before we started. That's one of the things that I noticed over there. When I was going over in an attack my mind seemed to run tc^rhopes that I would n't get it in the early stages of the game. I was n't wishing for anything later on, either, but I somehow seemed to have the idea that it would be a waste of my time if I got hit at the begin- 115 SHELLPROOF MACK ning of the show. Same way about the other fellows. I pitied a man a good deal more if he was hit when we first went over than I did some chap that went west late in the day. It sort of felt as though the chap that got his early had n't had a chance to do his bit. Fimny how a man's mind runs on things like that. I think perhaps I 'd better put in a little map with this story. I am not much of an artist, but a rough sketch will serve to show where we went on that day of the opening of Messines Ridge. This is the description of a hard day's work that we had been getting ready for for months, and the locations will be clearer to the reader with a map. The distances shown in the sketch are not in the correct proportion — not drawn to scale, that is — but they do show general directions. My company occupied the part of Rennic Street near the support tunnel. We weren't there long, but it was time enough to work up a cordial dread for the slow march we had to ii6 MESSINES RIDGE make across the shell-swept open to the trenches. It is the horrible part of any prepared long ad- vance that it goes so slow. There is so much oBjBcme ^/u so j£croi^ fi£NNIE Sketch-map drawn by the author, showing the relative positions in the advance from Hill 60 at the Battle of Messines Ridge. The dotted line shows the course covered by the author's company. waiting under fire and so little chance to get at the enemy and have it over with. We saw the smoke barrage begin in front of our front line at about a minute of zero. This 117 SHELLPROOF MACK was a curtain of shells that shook out great lumpy clouds of sooty black smoke in front of our men and effectually screened them from rifle fire and machine guns. That is, it con- cealed them from the enemy, but as the smoke barrage works out the enemy only had to pump his lead into the cloud low down to be effective enough. At zero, that is at 3:15, we saw the front waves, two of them, go over from the front trench and follow the barrage. About three minutes later we got our orders and out we went. We had left our packs behind and were flying light. We had each two bandoliers slung across our shoulders, a haversack with two days' rations, a water-bottle and the rifle slung across the back. We carried six bombs each in our pockets. Just before we went over I lit my pipe and started the march forward with my hands in my pockets about the way I would if I was strolling ii8 MESSINES RIDGE across Boston Common on a bright Sunday morning. This attitude of imconcern wasn't swank — it was n't what the papers call bra- vado. I lit the pipe because I never smoke cigarettes, and I put my hands in my pockets because there wasn't any other place to put them. As a matter of fact I was scared stiff and didn't think for a minute that I would get across the first two hundred yards of the ad- vance. I said so between my teeth to a mate of mine named Baggot, who was keeping touch with me at my left. "Baggsie" was another bantam. He had enlisted with me and was smaller than I, being only five feet two inches. Baggot was so short in the legs that he never could get pants to fit. The smallest size would kind of ooze out over his putties and slop around in wrinkles down near his ankles. He was always hitching them up. Baggot was a pipe smoker, too, and when I started to growl he grinned at me and puffed his Uttle black clay and says: 119 SHELLPROOF MACK "Cheerio, Macksie! T' 'ell wif th' shells. So I keeps th' cutty alight and th' trousies up, wot do I care?" And that shows that it's a fine thing in times of action to have something to keep your mind off the danger. We paddled out across those five hundred yards that lay between us and No Man's Land, and I '11 swear that we did n't go more than a mile an hour. We reached our trenches and stopped there a while, unslung the rifles, fixed bayonets, and then went along over. In the German trenches we found nothing but dead Fritzies and several squads of prisoners, each twenty or thirty guarded by a lone Tommy. On from there we slewed around on a right incline as per the instructions learned in re- hearsals and hit the canal. This was about fifty feet wide and there was no bridge. We hesitated for a bit on the near side because we didn't know how deep the water was and there was a lot of bodies in it. 1 20 MESSINES RIDGE There was an argument of a few seconds among the officers as to whether the place was fordable. And then in we went. Colonel Kemble went down at this point, hit in the stomach by a shell fragment. Two stretcher-bearers carried him off to the rear and along with him two more officers who had gone down. The colonel was very popular with both officers and men. He was much more demo- cratic than most English officers. Perhaps this was because he had been before the war the principal of one of the largest private schools in England. I am inclined to think that he knew soldiers because he knew boys, for the Tommy is only a grown-up kid when you come right down to facts. We sloshed into the canal, and I thought be- fore I reached the far side that I would n't make it. The water was up to my armpits, and when I was in the middle I began to wish that I was more than five feet three. We made it across all right, and as we clambered up the bank we 121 SHELLPROOF MACK ran slam-bang into a galling machine gim fire. Off a few himdred yards to the right and up a clight rise were the remains of an old wood. There was a lot of fairly big stumps and some piled-up wreckage of smashed trees, and every spot in this tangle had a typewriter, and they were simply spewing bullets at us. For some reason the British troops from the right of our line, who were supposed to have come up and silenced this bunch of Huns in the wood, had not arrived, and the Heinies were free to give it to us good and plenty. We started to charge the wood, but our ofii- cers chased us back, and along we went on the route that had been laid out for us in the battle plans. You see, we could n't vary from the schedule, no matter what came up; and we walked through that rain of bullets with our heads down, cursing the luck and the orders that would n't let us strike back. The activity of those guns in the wood cost us a good deal before the day was over. Just 122 MESSINES RIDGE beyond the wood we met a lot of our wounded going back. They had to go through the ma- chine gun fire, too. At the top of the canal bank they were perfect marks, and as the barrage smoke was Hf ted the Germans simply took their time and slaughtered the returning wounded. There must be hundreds of reported missing men resting in the bottom of the Yser Canal at the point where our batt crossed. Beyond the wood we ran into a heavy Ger- man shell-fire. There was supposed to be a double line of German trenches here, and it was in the orders that we should rest in them for a short time before going on. Baggot and an- other chap and I had fallen behind our com- pany, and when we hit the trench we tumbled in. There were a good many dead and wounded Germans there, and some of our men, also dead. The first wave had evidently had a good deal of a job in taking this place. The three of us hunted up a dugout that was serviceable and crawled into it. There were 123 SHELLPROOF MACK three dead Germans in there and we shoved them out and fell on the floor exhausted. None of us was able to talk. We had come not more than three-quarters of a mile and had n't run a step, and yet I was panting and wheezing. But I was hanging on to the old pipe. Baggot had his, too — the stem of it. A bullet or some- thing had carried away the bowl. I remember his taking the bit of clay stem out of his mouth and looking at it very silly and saying over and over to himself, "Gawd lumme. She's gone. She 's gone. ' ' And then he 'd giggle. We lay there in the dugout quite a while — I don't know how long — and after a bit pulled ourselves together some and had a drag out of the water-bottles. There was an awful din of smashing shells and the scream of others going over, and there was a wounded German out in the bay that kept hollering from time to time. As we got our wind back and worked around into a little more sane frame of mind we began to talk about getting on. We all of us knew we 124 MESSINES RIDGE had n't any business stopping where we were, but we did n't want to get out of the shelter. We were trying to convince ourselves that we had a good right to stay when a couple of shells hit right near us — judging from the sound, in the same traverse — and a lot of mud came down the stairs. With that we crawled out and started to hunt up the rest of the company. Out of the trench we ran into another hail of bullets. They were knocking up the dirt all about and I '11 swear that I felt several graze my legs. We could n't see a single German any- where to shoot at, and could n't make out where the fire was coming from. Probably the bulk of it was from the wood which was now behind us and to the right. We fell into a shell-hole after a very few steps and lay low. Then some wounded came along and told us that our company was in a stretch of trench about sixty yards ahead. We got out and legged it. Baggot never got there. He went down hit in three or four places, the 125 SHELLPROOF MACK worst in the shoulder. We dragged him into a shell-hole and left him. I never saw him again, but afterwards heard that he came through and got Blighty on the woimds. My other mate, Cowles, and I made the trench and found our company there. They told us that the casualties had been light so far. That didn't seem reasonable after what we had been through, and I asked a sergeant what was meant by light. He said we had lost about twenty per cent. We had still eight himdred yards to go to make our objective and we soon were ordered out to start again. This time we got a shell-fire that was worse than anything else I saw over there. At least half a dozen shells struck so close to me that I was staggered by the shock and yet was n't scratched. Men seemed to be going down by scores. Two more ofi&cers fell, leaving the company in command of a second lieutenant. Still we kept on and soon found ourselves ap- proaching the White Chateau. 126 MESSINES RIDGE The White Chateau was a country place sur- rounded by a little park which still had some of the trees standing. The house was a big one painted white and over it flew the Red Cross flag. In rehearsals we had been told that this place was a Red Cross station and that we were to let it strictly alone. A detail from the last wave was to take it over and guard it. As we came up to the Chateau we split and were going by on each side when the house began to belch machine gun fire. How anybody managed to live through that fire I don't know. It was at short range and there was a lot of guns. Right here we dis- obeyed orders. We did n't pass the Chateau as we had the wood back by the canal. Not we. Led by the little ofi&cer man, who was a gaUant lad, we turned as one man and made for the Chateau. We charged without orders right up through the remains of the little park and up to the house, and began heaving bombs through the windows. 127 SHELLPROOF MACK I came up on one side along with six or seven other chaps. I remember chucking two bombs through a window, and when the explosions came off, another window, which had been closed and unbroken before, heaved out and came away from the casement bodily. Then a sergeant yelled to let up on the bombs and hollered: "Now, then, up with you two little fellers. Pitch 'em in, lads." The men grabbed me and one other and heaved us up and into the window. With my himdred pounds' weight, and a boost by a pair of big hus- kies, I simply floated up and Ht on the broad window-sill. The inside of the room I landed in was a mess. There was a machine gun upset near the window and a lot of bodies all about. I stood there staring through the smoke for a minute, and then stepped into the room carefully and easy, right up on my toes, with the rifle poised all ready to stick the trusty Httle old pin into anything that moved. A Hun over there in the 128 MESSINES RIDGE comer rolled over and held up a good arm and slobbered out, "Mercy, kamarad." Then I yelled, " Come out of that. Come out, ye blankety blank Boches." I cussed real cor- dial for a minute or so, and then a door opened slowly and out sneaked three Germans, whining "Kamarad,'' with their hands up. Well, we cleaned that Chateau. They did n't make a tap of resistance after we got inside, and we harvested forty-odd men and four or five officers. The officers were all ia the cellar, and they had a perfect telephone system to other parts of the Hne. Upstairs in the tower there was a regimental sergeant-major with tele- phones leading down from his lookout to the cel- lar. There were two huge red crosses painted on the white roof to keep off the airplanes, and the cross was painted on all four sides of the house. There cannot be any doubt that the Huns had used this place for observation under the pro- tection of the Red Cross for a long time. There was nothing about the Chateau to show that it 129 SHELLPROOF MACK had ever been used for a hospital. It was a clear case of treachery and the use of the Red Cross for a miHtary blind. We left a hundred dead in the Chateau besides the prisoners, but their loss could n't have been a tenth part of what they had inflicted on us through their dirty work. It's this kind of thing that will win the war for the Hun — if the rest of the world lets him win. If he does win, here's one American citizen and beHever in world democracy that will go away to the head waters of the Amazon or some such place and bury himself in the jungle to associate with the decent beasts. After cleaning out the Chateau we might have stayed there without danger, as the German bat- teries evidently had orders not to shell the place and nothiQg was coming down within a himdred yards. They had the range perfect, as was shown by the way the shells fell all aroimd the Chateau and did n't land on it. Well, we could n't stop there, as we had to make our objective, which was stiQ about three hundred 130 MESSINES RIDGE yards away. So we got out and went for it. Half that distance was under heavy shell-fire. I made it in approximately thirty seconds. Nobody timed me, but I am confident that I broke all records for the three hundred yards, either professional or amateur. I fell into the trench and sat on the fire-step puffing at the old pipe like a steam engine. She was out, but that did n't make any difference. Somebody ran up and said: " Mack, you 're hit. Get that tunic off." I looked and found that I was covered with blood all down the left side. I began to get faint and imagined that my shoulder pained me. After a while I peeled out of the jacket slow and easy and there was n't a scratch on me. I never did know where that blood came from. After a short rest we all turned to and began to consoKdate the trench and to turn it around. The traverses were in good shape and wide, and about all we had to do was to transfer the sand- bags and put in a new fire-step. The shell and 131 SHELLPROOF MACK machine gun fire was still heavy, and there were scores of airplanes flying very low. Some came down so near that we waved to the pilots and yelled to them and they answered. After we had the trench tidied up we had breakfast. We were all as hungry as wolves. I had a tin of cold bully beef and a chunk of rooty — that's trench lingo for bread — and found an onion snuggled down in the corner of the haversack, and, beheve me, that meal tasted good. We had to stand to all day for the expected counter-attack, but it did n't come. Along around dusk a funny stunt came ofl and I had the pleasure of seeing the only German I was ever sorry for. We were well consohdated and were keeping a sharp lookout over the parapet when suddenly out of a shell-hole about twenty yards in front there jumped a German soldier who started to leg it for the German lines. He had a sandbag over his shoulder. Our one officer shouted to the fellow to stop, but he 132 MESSINES RIDGE kept going and about twenty of us cut loose at him. He went down in a heap and, still hanging on to his precious sack, crawled into a shallow shell-hole. The lieutenant was a good deal worried about that bag and rather thought that it must contain papers of some kind. After dark we sent two men out and brought the Fritzie back. He had more holes in him than a colander, but he was still alive and he still hung to the bag. We had to pry him away from it. The lieutenant opened the sack with large expectations of valuable documents and pulled out — you wouldn't guess it in a thousand years — just two bottles of seltzer water. It happened that our officer spoke German and he cross-examined the Fritz. The fellow said that he was an officer's servant and had been told to save that soda water, and he had done his best to obey orders. We could n't help being sorry for the simple-mindedness of the poor beggar, and we could n't help admiring his nerve in trying to do his duty as he saw it. He may 133 SHELLPROOF MACK have been one of those men whose minds are just big enough to hold one idea at a time. There 's a lot of them that way. For that matter almost everybody does queer things in the excitement of battle. And nearly everyone has the experience of seeming to lose sense of time and proportion. In this day's work at Messines Ridge that I have just told, one thing comes back to me as a profound mystery. We started on our advance at 3 115, as I have told. We went forward about a mile and a half. We stopped perhaps ten minutes at the front trench, ten more in the German trench, maybe half an hour in the German dugout and about an hour at the White Chateau. We arrived at our objective at nine o'clock. In other words, it had taken us four hours' actual marching to traverse a mile and a half. As I look back on that day it seems to me that nearly every move is clear. I can remem- ber many trifling details; but to save my life I 134 MESSINES RIDGE cannot account for that four hours. It might well have taken an hour to make the mile and a half march. But what about the other three hours? What was I doing? How were those hours occupied? I don't know. Another thing that puzzles me is that when the day was over I had not fired one single shot from my rifle. But my bombs were gone, and I know that at the White Chateau I got enough Germans for a mess. 135 CHAPTER XII Discipline In the British army the discipline is probably as strict or stricter than in any army in the world. The French have nothing like it. Possibly the old French Foreign Legion held its men with a harder hand. Discipline is safely seventy-five per cent of an army's effectiveness. Men who obey without question stay put and don't give ground when they are Hcked. Give them intelligent officers and there can be none better. Discipline is what makes the British Tommy great. The punishments for a military crime are very severe. Any violation of military orders or regulations is caUed a crime; and a careful list of these is kept which is called a crime- sheet. I am proud to say that I was discharged with a clean sheet. Of course I violated rules 136 DISCIPLINE many times, but was lucky and didn't get caught. I have already told of one crime I committed; but that was under provocation, and while I might have been given Field Punishment No. i the officer was a good feUow and let me off with three days C. B. (Confined to Barracks.) On active service a man is liable to get extreme punishment for what seem little things. In fact it does n't take such a lot to get him shot. Field Punishment No. i is bad enough and is dished out frequently. This consists of being confined to the guard-room and, for two hours each day, being tied to the wheel of a limber, — spread-eagled. This is called crucifixion. In the early days of the war the death sentence was common, as a general thing being inflicted for disobeying orders. In a good many cases officers used bad judgment and thus actually murdered their men. That is what it amoimted to. I recall one case when 137 SHELLPROOF MACK we were being shelled and our wires were being knocked to pieces. It was broad day- light. An officer came along and ordered a man to go out to repair the wire. If the officer had known anything at all he would never have given the order. The man came back at him. "It is sure death to go out there now, sir. I don't think I ought to go." The man was put imder arrest and a few weeks later was shot. I knew of one case of a man in the York and Lancaster Regiment who had deserted and made his way to England. How he got across was a mystery. The man's own wife gave him up to the police and he was returned to the regiment for court-martial. He had no defense whatever except that he had been a good soldier with a clean record before that and he was found guilty and sentenced to death. One of the firing-squad told me of what happened when they took this man out to shoot him. As he was being marched out from 138 be ht§ frrifibcntcn s'f^n am '}. 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OJf^u'iuu^, itittm 1'. nl, S!ti!*afe((jimg SSutjeran^ttteajj smb SJotwmViMtut itttt'i! t u»t iwii i« ftitif SBsfm f;Att«, m{ii;c tw > ^ •t^ ^' (U ;j^ ;-i 'ii « O •2 ito •^ •«5 &iC g -s K ^ O «^ s^ !to ?^ fter serving 2: years 'O ^ days with the Colours, and COL -z years- -days - o (Place) J?^^i-^C^3± _ Signature of Commanding ^ •Description of the above-named man nn ^ fn^*' 6--tU^ ((^ { "^ when he left the Colours. Marks or Scars, whether on face Agp f4-(D Height ^ p', ^ ^*— '^-^^-3 or other parts of body. T 1 Eyes — ^^? ,^ i r 'A^n^M^ Wt. W16565/M1853 2oo,cx)o 3/17 0.D.&L. 8ch.l<. Forn^/Bao^/ii ^ Mm » The Author's Certificate of Discharge After a service of two years and one hundred and nine davs BACK TO BLIGHTY him. "Ever since I have been here the visi- biHty has been low. I went out to have a look at the Nelson Column and can't see the top half of it for the smoke. I have n't been able to see across the Thames since I came. Nights I can't see three feet ahead of me. " Somebody told me that Petticoat Lane was one of the sights of London. The day I was there I saw three old Janes buying fish and a guy selling plate poHsh. Nothing more exciting than that. I've seen your Zoological Gardens^ and I find that the Bronx Park has them faded. When you get your haircut you never shave your neck and the hair hangs down your back. Three minutes off the Strand and you can hear the sparrows talking on the roof. No, brother," says I, "I'll leave little old Limnon for those that love it. Me for Boston, Mass." And with that I went out and bought my ticket for God's country. Blighty may be all right for someone who is used to it. To me 223 SHELLPROOF MACK it was a way-station to the U. S. A., where I am going to stop until I get the chance, if they will let me, to go over there and fight imder the STARS AND STRIPES. 224 The Beacon Biographies Edited by M. A. 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