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Show BINGLE-BIRD STORY CLASSIC OF THE WAR Tale of Heroism of Minor League Baseball Player in Asia; i Good Arm and Control Saved a Regiment, but No One Learned His Name. I foe seemed to gi hui'k suddenly . f retreating a. though routed, down a saucer-shap-d desert vnt-le vnt-le y to a rd a K re t ru m pa r t t ( rirks that reared fortv feet high Ht ihe other side. The r'lTint a ; regiment charged after them, yelling lustily, hut their shouts t urned to rumen of const erna t inn ' when they brought ui r'n yards further on, trapped --the soo of them fts effectively an though ' they had walked Into the bottom of a well. The Turku w hn had trlrked them j Into the ml de sac scaled the pall- j Bade) Ike rocks lh:t fronted them then Intrenched themselves with six machine guns already p'.iiiteij 1 - awaiting the coming of davlicht to slaughter the Kni-ltsh cooped helplessly beneath. The rrgimcnt.il off.n-is .uri lug their wily, ordered no- no n to ceiuie futile firinic aa mt i to impenetrable barricade of t lo- ((Continued "ii vnuo t . MA N Y Nti.nes of herolitm In j the ureat war mill be tdd "S-" ih tlmsTottP atnnm."- j i but there, will he none I that will nive mor of a thrlM than ! this one below, preserved in the j notes of a P-Mshnri. newspaper ' reporter, as i. - . it down at a I banquet Kl veil i c i. tly by thm ; ; rittstntrp Athletic asroclHtlon to a j . number of vtstting Hrltish army , j officers, aniong wlonn wer Sir ! Thomas Mylea and Major tiwirm j llrey Turner, nnfl it was the lat-j lat-j ter, who told the tale. It com in 1 out a-i a result of the Incident of . the rittsbur newspaper man be-) be-) Irif? left-handed. The new Hps per man wrotw It as Turner told it for the I'lttsburg . I 1 iazette. throuxh whose court.-y It nppears. An effort Is being ' ; made tu learn tin- Identity of the I it u mer in i in r lea k lit pitcher, who j futures its the hero under th ; name of ' Mingle- Rlrrt ' 'ltend It f unt rejoice tt ou love tiaMebnll 1 ! that Ii numlriTx such men in Its I ranks: " i "Ah! a 'southpaw,'" comment- j J e. Sir Thonns Myles. sinlllncly. ns I , the rprteFiTFcw pencil tind pnprr I from his pocket and began taking t notes anent the Interview with I his left hand. "fr should I have ( said 'port fllntrer' "' he continued. t j "Really, you know, all your base- J ball slang words are so deliclously apropos that there's hardly a j choice' "The proper word Is 'blngle-blrd, 'blngle-blrd, Hlr Thomas," Interrupted Major Ueorge Crey Turner, P.. H. , quietly, and without & smile. -It Is the rcriftllnh Tommy's" 'soubriquet 'sou-briquet d'honneur fnr a left-handed left-handed American soldier. It was coined In the mouth of a dytnft-man dytnft-man on a battlefield In Mesopotamia. Mesopo-tamia. I know a regiment of Kff-,glishmen Kff-,glishmen who hold that slang word sacred " WHERE HE MET BINGLE-BIRD Major Turner's first service In the world war took him thrmirrh the Asian campaign avalnst the Turks with enenln Maule and Ijike and It Was on a battlefield of upper Mesopotamia that he met the "bln-tie-blrd." The bingla.iilrd ajks a "re- - crulty" from the I'nited Htates a very raw "recruitv" who had quit I a minor league baseball team In the Middle Western states tn enlist en-list against the Hun. Ills Yan-keelnms Yan-keelnms and his civilian unsnphis-tu-ation struck nut all over him In that regiment of British regulars I and for very simple, natural rea- I sons he could not get to fraternise frater-nise with his fellow soldiers, who sometimes chaffed and bantered him. Altogether he felt himself an allea, though among allies and very much alone. He made It worse by trying at first to "chum" with them once even committed 1 the mistake of boast ine- a bit of . I his -bility as a left-handed pitcher I In the league back home. But he I stuck to the soldiering doggedly he was there to lick the Hun and once he even won (the com-, mendatlon of hie captain because of his extraordinary ability to hurl hand grenades accurately and far That was tan weeks before Baku. One week before a new top sergeant enforce a silly order M the Yank recruit's expense. j Jrenades must be thrown by the right arm only; he commanded as the regulations provide. The ex -ball twirler protested, trying to explain that ten years of left-handed left-handed baseball pitching had so enervated the right thst It was weak and nearly useless. When the proteet did no good he persisted per-sisted throwing hand grenades with his left arm and went to the guardhouse . for three days.s. He was back In the ranks again the night before Baku. The good-humored good-humored banter of his comrades cut crueller than 'ever and hs crawled beneath his blanket s pretty much discouraged and angry an-gry and sick to his heart for a sight or a sound f home. TOMMIES WERE TRAPPED EFFECTIVELY. At dawn the Knglish regiment struck ramp and marched against ihe Turks who outnumbered tt four to one and fought on a field of their own choosing. All day long and Into the night the British pounded sway against the solid thousands of (ierman officered Mussulmen and "Bay thans," and aj. midnight one detachment of the BINGLE-BIRD fContlntied from page 4 ) Turks above. Their machine gun fusillades only fell back harmlessly harm-lessly from the granite cliff a, rifle bullet were more ridiculously use-leas, use-leas, and they had no mortar that might have cast a high-rtsing shell tip over tha rocks in soaring flight to dlalndge the enemy guns planted behind. YANKEE RECRUIT HAS PLAN. At I a. m. tha Yankee recruit asked to eea the colonel. The colonel heard him Impatiently at firat and called him a hare brained Idiot, but tha recruit pleaded hia plan an earnestly that finally half to be. rid of him and tiajf because, be-cause, anyway. It could do no harm ha ordered flva men tn carry two armloads of hand grenades gren-ades forward to a brush pile shelter shel-ter about forty feet from the I miss of the cliff behind Ihe t,.u of which the enemy lay waiting, with hia machine (una, until morning. It waa plain to the lmed British Brit-ish regiment that tha Turks would open flrw upon them, helpless below. be-low. Just aa soon aa the aun should rite. The sky lightened In the Kast . grew gray, then pink; a red top of tha aun paekedl above the horisnn, and as though It were a signal, a Turk rifle from the rllff top cracked twice, to be followed by a rain ttf machine gun bullets, which crashed Into the huddled Knar I is h In the hollow, killing tha colonel and dropping three other men. But at that aame moment some-- some-- r thing elaa waa happening. Krom tha aparsa cover of tha desert bruah heap that had screened him. rose up tha lone Yank recruit. Tha puxiled British aoldlera saw him polae on one foot for an tn at ant, his eyea on the flame spitting spit-ting cliff brows above; then he wound himself Into the human I "op familiar on every baseball field, but moat weirdly strange in that desert Asian battlefield the windup" of the left handed pitcher pitch-er who Is about to deliver the ball to a batter, with no one on first r second base. Next instant the Yank uncoiled, his left arm sprung outward and upward In a lightning dart, and from It shot a spherical object somewhat bigger than a regulation ball, which soared up and over in , , a swift flying arc atraight to the brow of the rock ledie 100 feet away, topped it by three feet, then dropped down behind, exploding full In tha midst of the Turk machine ma-chine gun neat. For a moment no one understood what had happened, but the Yank hurled a second and a third grenade gren-ade straight to their marks with deadly effect, and a minute after ward the British, yelling like mad In triumph, were bounding up to the ramparts and over them upon the demoralised horde of Turks, FATE OF AMERICAN HERO. It was over In f.fteen minutes, and the victorious Kngllahmen. having put to death half the enemy ene-my and the other half to rout, scrambled down Into the hollow Again and to the Yank recruit ' 'sou t h pa w, who, s i n g le ha nd ed, had saved them from maaaacre. They found him lying by the aide f of hta pitiful desert bruah acreen. A "1'aythan bullet had got him as he reached for one of bla store of grenades and had torn a great hole In hia chest. Hut he was not dead and they improvised a cot for him and carried hlra to the regimental surgeon. The Utter aaw at once that the recruit could live only a - tittle while, but he made him ag comfortable com-fortable as poaaible. Hia feilow aoldlera grouped around him with awkward solicitude, for they remembered re-membered that the Yank had been lonely and an alien among them and that they had often heckled htm and that In return his despised left arm had aaved all their live. As ha lay there on the desert, dying end dreaming. It came to the officers that none of hia comrades com-rades knew the name of the Americas Amer-icas recruit who had given hia Hfe to save their Knglish regtmeDt. 8o the ma for raised his head and . I asked him, and the dying recruit, stilt living that baH game In the . Hta tea, answered proudly; "Me. why why me why 31ngiMrd." 1 He died a minute later. ' , The nam waa only the a free-j free-j Uonata nickname tha fans had gjvea him tack la big native town. J |