Show J FAMOUS HEADLINE E DLIN HUNTER 1 iii I JA b IE Skirmish sh Line By FLOYD Gm GIBBONS ONS TI TODAY'S ODAY'S Distinguished Adventurer boys and girls is Charles Levine evine of New York city an old soldier and a veteran of the Philippine campaign Charley has an army citation for gallantry in action and action and heres here's how he won it It was the night of January 22 1913 and word had hod come to the army barracks at Jolo Jobo that a n Moro stronghold had been located eighteen miles in the Interior Charley Levines Levine's outfit H Troop outfit Troop Eighth Cavalry- Cavalry augmented by two companies of Philippine scouts and one company of native constabulary started out after nIter the Insurrectionists With them went a jackass battery consisting of at one three inch mountain gun hitched to four balky mules and Charley Chorley was one of at twelve men assigned to that battery All night long they forced their way through matted jungle jangle At daybreak they were In sight of or orthe the Moro J retreat retreat retreat-a a rectangular trench surrounded by a Do wall of bamboo palings covered over with a n thick matting of cogan grass and stocked with enough food and supplies and ammunition to withstand a long siege The Skirmishers Went Too Far There was no time for rest The Moros espied the cavalrymen and discharged a blast of rifle fire The Americans set up their mountain mountain moun moun- tain gun on a knoll five hundred feet away and let l loose ose a rain of shellfire shell shell- fires fire as the thc rest of the men deployed In a long skirmish line and advanced advanced ad ad- on the fort The skirmishers moved on the on-the the mountain gun shooting over their heads Then suddenly the lieutenant In charge of the gun shouted Hold It boys THEY'VE GONE TOO FAR The sk skirmishers almost to the fort now had advanced into the range of fire of ot their own artillery The bombardment ceased Somebody will have to go down there and tell them Ulem to fall tall back the lieutenant snapped A man was sent down with the message We watched him plunge into the jungle growth and strike off toward the line says Charley Suddenly a lithe brown figure streaked out of the underbrush A bolo flashed and the messenger crashed into the sea of grass grass DECAPITATED It was over in a moment We gritted our teeth with helpless rage Another man went forward forward to to his death The Tho jungle down there was full lull of Moros Still another man went down down and and again that macabre macabre- performance perform perform- ance was repeated Charley Took the Suicidal Job It was sheer murder to send a man down into that Moro infested noman's nomans nomans noman's nomans noman's no- no mans man's land sheer land sheer suicide to volunteer But in the meantime the skirmishers on the line were firing blindly at the thc bamboo walls exposed to the fusillades of at the Moros while they waited for the mountain gunto gun gunto gunto to open a breach brench Something had to be done Charley and a buddy Claude Underwood volunteered to try it together It wasn't much more than three hundred feet to the line says Charley but it looked like miles The tall grass rippled sleepily in the early morning breeze Ahead of us lay the Moro fort swathed in swirls of gun smoke which rose sinuously In the damp air Rifles Rilles roared and blasted We darted and ducked through the cogan The of the grass under our feet the feet the drowsy rustling of at the tall shoots shoots made made us grip our rifles hard and pivot from one side to the other in the direction direction tion of the sound Every movement of the undergrowth looked like a aMoro Moro Moro bolo bolo in hand waiting to pad out silently behind us and cut off our heads as they had cut off oft the heads of the others But evidently no one Moro wanted to tackle two men They got through to the line The line fell back and once more the gun on the knoll boomed out and sent its shells screaming into the fort Great gaps yawned in the walls The fire from the Moros became feebler and feebler Surrounded by the Moros l Charley and Claude stayed on the line until the order to charge was sounded Then they leaped forward with the rest They stumbled over a muddy creek bottom and swarmed through a n gap in the wall The fort was deserted The Moros had slipped away those away those that remained remained re reo re- re alive leaving alive leaving behind their dead their supplies and their ammu ammu- ni on The Thc men started back to the knolL Mopping their sweaty s faces Charley and Claude turned to follow when when- Out of or the jungle came eight Moros spread their bolos poised for their work of decapitation We gripped our rifles riDes and retreated for says Charley slowly exchanging glare glare with the A scatter of rifle rille fire sounded behind us Cut off oft SURROUNDED The creek bottom I roared to Underwood Lets run for it ill We ran for that slimy asylum reaching the creek bed as another burst of gunfire crashed over our heads They hugged the tile floor of the creek breathing hard It was their then last stand They peered through the grass but there was no one in sight Where were those Moros Vh Why didn't those birds with the bolos come crime and md finish their deadly work And where were their own pals Didn't they see the predicament Claude and Charley were in Comrades to the Rescue The suspense was maddening They decided to make a break for tor forit it try it-try try to shoot their way out The Moros weren't much good as marks marks- men They might make it Another crash of rifle fire tire and Charley started to get up An anxious voice yelled Get down Charlie Stay down Claude And Charley says that for the next ten seconds you couldn't have slipped a cigarette paper between him and the ground Another volley or two and it vas was all over The rifle fire had come from the Americans who had seen those eight bolo swinging bolo swinging Moros and were trying to drive them off by shooting over Claudes Claude's and Charley's Charleys heads Ducking into the creek had saved both their lives because it gave their buddies a n chance to shoot over them and drive off oft the enemy Twenty years later almost to a n day Charley Levine received the army's silver star citation for citation for gallantry in action against hostile Moros Moros' at nt Jolo Job Philippine Islands January 22 1913 e Service |