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Show '(11)111) P'Sf AN AMERICAN 50LMER WHO WENT - rfAEIll(ilYII!Y r MACHINE GUNWDl, JERYING IM fRAWCE- ' - ARTHUR tUY irVCf J ' EMPEY HEARS THE STORY OF THE TOMMY WHO HAD A BROAD STREAK OF YELLOW. Synopsis. Fired by the sinking of the Lusitania, with the loss of American lives, Arthur Guy Enpey,- nn American living in Jersey City, goes to England and enlists as a private in the British army. After a short experience as a recruiting officer in London, he is sent to training train-ing quarters in France, where he first hears the sound of big guns and makes the acquaintance of "cooties." After a brief period of training Empey's company is sent into the front-line trenches, where he takes his first turn on the fire step while the bullets whiz overhead. Empey lenrrvs, as comrade falls, that death lurks always In the trenches. Chaplain distinguishes himself by rescuing wounded men under hot fire. ' With pick and shovel Empey has experience as a trench digger in No Man's Land. Exciting experience on listening post detail. Exciting Ex-citing work on observation post duty. Back In rest billets Empey writes and stages a successful play. Once more In the front trenches, Empey goes "over the top" in a successful but costly attack on the German lines. Soon afterwards Empey and his comrades repulse a determined gas attack launched by the Germans. His next experience la as a member of a firing squad which executes a sentence of death. CHAPTER XXIV Continued. 21 After standing at "attention" for what seemed a week, though in reality it could not have been over five minutes, min-utes, we heard a low whispering in our rear and footsteps on the stone flagging flag-ging of the courtyard. Our officer reappeared and In a low, but firm voice, ordered: "About Turn !" We. turned about. In the gray light of dawn, a few yards in front of me, 1 could! make out a brick wall. Against this wall was a dark form with a white square pinned on its breast We were supposed to aim at this square. To the right of the form I noticed a white spot on the wall. Thrs would be my target. "Ready! Aim! Fire!" The dark form sank Into a huddled i heap. My bullet sped on its way. and hit the .wliltish spot on the wall; I could see the splinters fly. Some one else had received the rifle containing the blank cartridge, but my mind was at ease, there was no blood of a Tommy on my hands. "Order Arms ! About Turn ! Pile-Arms Pile-Arms ! Stand Clear." The stacks were re-formed. "Quick March ! Right Wheel !" And we left the scene of execution behind be-hind us. 1 It was now daylight. After marching march-ing about five minutes, we were dismissed dis-missed with the following instructions from the efflcer-in command: "Return, alone, to your respective companies, and remember, no talking about this affair, or else It will go hard with the guilty ones." . We needed no urging to get away. I did not recognize any of the men on the firing squad ; even the officer was a stranger to me. The victim's relations and friends in Blighty will never know that he was executed ; they will be under the Impression Im-pression that he died doing his bit faking fa-king and country. In the public casualty lists his name will appear under the caption "Accidentally "Acci-dentally Killed," or "Died." The day after the execution I received re-ceived orders to report back to the line, and to keep a still tongue In my head. Executions are a part of the day's work, but the part we hated most of all, I think certainly the saddest. The British war department is thought by many people to be composed of rigid regulations all wound around with red tape. But it has a heart, and one of ' the evidences of this is the considerate way in which an executio, is concealed and reported to the relati.-e of the unfortunate un-fortunate man. They never know the truth. He is listed in the bulletins' as among the "accidentally killed." In the last ten years I have several times read stories In magazines of cowards changing, in a charge, to heroes. he-roes. I used to laugh at it. It seemed easy for story-writers, but I said, "Men aren't made that way." But over in France I learned once that -the streak of yellow can turn all white. I picked up the story, bit by bit, from the captain of the company, the sentries sen-tries who guarded the poor fellow, as well as from my own observations. At first I did not realize the whole of his story, but after a week of investigation investiga-tion it stood out as clear in my mind as the mountains of my native West in the spring sunshine. It impressed me so much that I wrote it all down in rest billets on scraps of odd paper. The incidents are, as I say, every bit true; the feelings of the man are true I know from all I underwent In the fighting over In France. We will call him Albert Lloyd. That wasn't his name, but It will do: Albert Lloyd was what the world terms a coward. In London they called him a slacker. His country had been at war nearly eighteen months, and still he was not in khaki. He had no good reason for not enlisting, en-listing, being alone in the world, having hav-ing been educated In an orphan asylum, asy-lum, and there being no one dependent upon him for support. He had no good position to" lose, and there was no sweetheart to tell him with her lips to go, while her eyes pleaded for him to stay. Every time he saw a recruiting sergeant ser-geant he'd slink around the corner out ; of sight, with a terrible fear gnawing at his heart. When passing the big recruiting re-cruiting posters, and on his way to business and back he passed many, he would pull down his cap and look the other way from that awful finger pointing at him, under the caption, "Tour King and Country Need You ;" or the boring eyes of Kitchener, which burned into his very soul, causing him to shudder. Then the Zeppelin raids during them, he used to crouch In a corner of his boarding-house cellar, whimpering like a whipped puppy and calling upon the Lord to protect him. Even his landlady despised him, although al-though she had to admit that he was "good pay." - He very seldom read the papers, but one momentous morning the landlady put the morning paper af his place before be-fore he came down to breakfast. Tak ing his seat he read the flaring headline, head-line, "Conscription Bill Passed," and nearly fainted. Excusing hknself, he stumbled upstairs to his bedroom, with the horror of it gnawing into his vitals. Having saved up a few pounds, he decided not to leave the house, and to sham sickness, so he stayed in his room and had the landlady serve his meals there. Every time there was a knock at the door he trembled all over, imagining It was a policeman who "had come to take him away to the army. One morning his fears were realized. Sure enough, there stood a policeman with the fatal paper. Taking -it in his trembling hand he read that he, Albert Lloyd, was ordered to report himself to the nearest recruiting station for physical examination. He reported immediately, im-mediately, because he was afraid to disobey. ' ' . The doctor looked with approval upon.LJoyd.'s six feet of physical perfection,, per-fection,, aiid thought what a Cue guardsman he would make, hut examined exam-ined his heart twice before he passed him as "physically lit;" it was beating so fust. From the recruiting depot Lloyd was taken, with many others, in charge of a sergeant, to the training depot at Al-dershot, Al-dershot, where ho was given an outfit of khaki, and drew his other equipment, equip-ment, lie made a fine-looking soldier, except for the slight shrinking in his shoulders and the hunted look in his eyes. At the training depot It does not take long to find out a man's character, and Lloyd was promptly dubbed "windy." In the English army "windy" means cowardly. The smallest recruit In the barracks looked on him with contempt, and was not slow to show it in many ways. Lloyd was a good soldier, learned quickly, obeyed every order promptly, never groused at the hardest fatigues. He was afraid to. He lived in deadly fear of the officers and "noncoms" over him. They also despised him. One morning about three months after his enlistment Lloyd's company w as paraded, and the names picked out for the next draft to France were read. When his name was called, he did not step out smartly, two paces to the front, and answer cheerfully, "Here, sir," as the others did. He just fainted faint-ed in the ranks and was carried to barracks bar-racks amid the sneers of the rest. That night was an agony of misery to him. He could not sleep. Just cried and whimpered in his bunk, because on the morrow the draft was to sail for France, where he would see death on all sides, and perhaps be killed himself. him-self. On the steamer,, crossing the channel, he would have Jumped overboard over-board to escape, but was afraid of drowning. Arriving In France, he and the rest were huddled Into cattle cars. On the side of each appeared in white letters, "Hommes 40, Chevaux 8." After hours of bumping over the uneven French roadbeds they arrived at the training base of Rouen. At this place they were put through a week's rigid- training in trench warfare. war-fare. On the morning of the eighth day they paraded at ten o'clock, and were inspected and passed by General H , then were marched to the quartermaster's, quar-termaster's, to draw their gas helmets and trench equipment. At four in the afternoon they were again hustled into cattle cars. This time the journey lasted two days. They disembarked at the town of Fre-vent Fre-vent and could hear a distant dull booming. With knees shaking, Llovd asked the sergeant what the noise was, and nearly dropped when the sergeant replied in a somewhat bored tone : "Oh, them's the guns up the line. We'll be up there in a couple o' days or so. Don't worry, my laddie, you'll see more of 'em than you want before you get 'ome to Blighty again, that is, if you're lucky enough to get back. Now lend a hand there unloadin' them cars, and quit that everlastln' shakln'. I believe yer scared." The last with a ' contemptuous sneer. They marched ten kilos, full pack, to a little dilapidated village, an1 the sound of the guns grew louder, constantly con-stantly louder. The village was full of soldiers who turned out to inspect the new draft, the men who were shortly to be their mates in the trenches, for they were going "up the line" on the morrow, to "take over" their certain sector of trenches. The draft was paraded In front of battalion headquarters and the men were assigned to companies. Lloyd was the only man assigned to D company. Perhaps the officer in charge of the draft had something to do with it, for he called Lloyd aside and said : "Lloyd, you are going to a new com- pany. No one knows you. Your bed will be as you make it, so for God's sake, brace up and be a man. I think you have the stuff in you, my boy, so good-by and the best of luck to you." The next day the battalion took over their part of the trenches. It happened to be a very quiet day. The artillery behind the lines was still, except for an occasional shell sent over to let the Germans know the gunners were not asleep. In the darkness, In single file, the company slowly wended their way down the communication tench to the front line. No one noticed Lloyd's white and drawn face. After they had relieved the company in the trenches, Lloyd, with two of the old company men, was put on guard In one of the traverses. Not a shot was fired from the German lines, and no one paid any attention to him crouched on the firing step. On the first time in, a new recruit is not required to stand with his head "over the top." He only "sits it out," while the older men keep watch. At about ten o'clock all of a sudden, he thought hell had broken loose, and crouched and shivered up against the parapet Shells started bursting, as he imagined, right in their trench, when In fact they were landing about a hundred hun-dred yards in rear of them, in the second sec-ond lines. : One of the older men on guard, turning turn-ing to his mate, said: ' "There goes Fritz with those d d trench mortars again. It's about time our artillery 'taped' them, and sent over a few. Well, I'll be d d, Where's that blighter of a draft man gone to? There's his rifle leaning against the parapet. He must have legged It. Just keep your eye peeled, Dick, while I report it to the sergeant. I wonder if the fool knows he can be shot for such tricks as leavln' his post?" Lloyd had gone. When the trench mortars opened up, a maddening terror ter-ror seized him and he wanted to run, to get away from that horrible din, anywhere to safety. So quietly sneaking sneak-ing around the traverse, he came to the entrance of a communication trench, nnd ran madly and blindly down It, running Into traverses, stumbling into muddy holes, and falling full length over trench grids. Groping blindly, with his arms stretched out in front of him, he at last came out of the trench into the village, or what used to be a village, before the German artillery razed it. Mixed with his fear, he had a peculiar pe-culiar sort of cunning, which whispered whis-pered to him to avoid all sentries, because be-cause If they saw him he would be sent back to that awful destruction in the front line, and perhaps be killed or maimed. The thought made him shudder, the cold sweat coming out in beads on his face. Empey learns that a 6treak of yellow sometimes can turn all white. He tells the unusual story in, the next Installment. (TO BE CONTINUED.) Stand While Typewriting. Officials in the French army do not believe that the most efficient service Is obtained from members of the military mili-tary clerical force when the latter sit at their desks practically all day without with-out interruption, according to the Popular Pop-ular Mechanics magazine. Thus the French government has installed, for the use .of army clerks, typewriter stands so made that each machine is alternately raised and lowered each half hour. The innovation is reported to have proved very beneficial. |