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Show AM H W AN AMERKM SOLDO 4".: ' WHO WENT . fe MACHINE GUMtta.JERYINGINfRAWCE ' fctyV I 1917 BY I M J 1 i EMPEY JOINS THE "SUICIDE CLUB," AS THE BOMBING SQUAD IS CALLED. Synopsis. Fired by the sinking of the Lusitania, with the loss of American lives, Arthur Guy Empey, an 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 Prance, 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 learns, as comrade falls, that death lurks always In the trenches. Empey goes "over the top" for the first time and has a desperate fight. K CHAPTER XII. Bombing. The boys in the section welcomed me back, but there were many strange faces. Several of our men had gone West in that charge, and were lying "somewhere in Frauce" with a little wooden cross at their heads. We were in rest billets. The next day our captain cap-tain asked for volunteers for bombers' school. I gave my name and was accepted. ac-cepted. I had joined the Suicide club, and my troubles commenced. Thirty-two Thirty-two men of the battalion, including myself, my-self, were sent to L , where we went through a course in bombing. Here we were instructed in the uses, methods of throwing and manufacture of various kinds of hand grenades, from the old "jam tin," now obsolete, to the present Mills bomb, the standard of the British army. It all depends where you are as to what you are called. In France they call you a "bomber" and give you medals, med-als, while in neutral countries they call you an anarchist and give you "life." , From the very start the Germans were well equipped with effective bombs and trained bomb throwers, but the English army was as little prepared pre-pared in this important department of fighting as in many others. At bombing bomb-ing school an old sergeant of the Grenadier Gren-adier guards, whom I had the good fortune to meet, told me of the discouragements discour-agements this branch of the service suffered before they could meet the Germans on an eqfial footing. (Pacifists (Paci-fists and small army people in the XT. S. please read with care.) The first English expeditionary forces had no bombs at all, but had clicked a lot of casualties from those thrown by the Bodies. One bright morning someone higher up had an idea and issued an order detailing two men from each platoon to go to bombing school to learn the duties of a bomber and how to manufacture bombs. Noncommissioned Noncommis-sioned officers were generally selected for this course. After about two weeks at school they returned to their units in rest billets or in the fire trench, as the case might be, and got busy teaching their platoons how to make "jam tins." Previously an order had been Issued for all ranks to save empty jam tins for the manufacture of bombs. A professor pro-fessor of bombing would sit on the tire step in the front trench with the remainder of his section crowding around to see him work. On his left would be a pile of empty and rusty jam tins, while beside him mi the fire step would be a miscellaneous miscella-neous assortment of material used in the manufacture of the "jam tins." Tommy would stoop down, get an empty "jam tin," take a handful of clayey mud from the parapet, and line the inside of the tin with this substance. sub-stance. Then he would reach over, pick up Ids detonator and explosive, and insert them in the tin, fuse protruding. pro-truding. On the fire step would he a pile of fragments of shell, shrapnel halls, bits of iron, nails, etc anything that was hard enough to send over to Fritz; he would scoop up a handful of this junk and put it in the bomb. Perhaps Per-haps one of the platoon would ask him what he did this for, and he would explain that when the hoiiib exploded these bits would fly about and kill or wound any German hit by same; the questioner would immediately pull a button off his tunic and band it to the bomb maker with, "Well, blame me, wnO this over as a souvenir," or another Tommy would volunteer an old rusty and broken jackknlfc; both would be accepted and inserted. Then the professor would take another an-other handful of mud and fill the tin, after which he would punch a hole In the lid of the tin and put it over the top of the bomb, the fuse sticking out. Then perhaps ho would tightly wrap wire around the outside of the tin, and the bomb was ready to end over to Fritz with Tommy's compliments. A piece of wood about four inches wide had been issued. This was to be strapped on the left forearm by means of two leather straps and was like the side of n match box; it was called a "striker." There was a tip like the head of a match on the fuse of the bomb. To ignite the fuse, you had to rub it on the "striker," just the same as striking a match. The fuse was timed to five seconds or longer. Some of the fuses Issued in those days would burn down in a second or two, while others would "sizz" for a week before exploding. Back in Blighty the munition muni-tion workers weren't quite up to snuff, the way they are now. If the fuse took a notion to burn too quickly they generally gen-erally buried the bomb maker next day. So making bombs could not be called a "cushy" or safe job. After making several bombs the professor pro-fessor instructs the platoon in throwing throw-ing them. He takes a "jam tin" from the fire step, trembling a little, because be-cause it is nervous work, especially when new at it, lights the fuse on his striker. The fuse begins to "sizz" and sputter and a spiral of smoke, like that from a smoldering fag, rises from it. The platoon splits in two and ducks around the traverse nearest to them. They don't like the looks and sound of the burning fuse. When that fuse begins to smoke and "sizz" you want to say good-by to it as soon as possible, so Tommy with all his might chucks it over the top and crouches against the parapet, waiting for the explosion. Lots of times in bombing the "jam tin" would be picked up by the Germans, Ger-mans, before it exploded, and thrown back at Tommy with dire results. After a lot of men went West in this manner an order was issued, reading something like this: "To all ranks in the British army: After igniting the fuse and before throwing the jam-tin bomb, count slowly one ! two ! three !" This in order to give the fuse time enough to burn down, so that the bomb would explode before the Germans could throw it hack. Tommy read the order he reads them all, but after he ignited the fuse and it began to smoke orders were forgotten, and away she went in record time and hack she came to the further discomfort of the thrower. Then another order was issued to count, "one hundred! two hundred! three hundred !" But Tommy didn't care if the order read to count up to a thousand by quarters, ho was going to get rid of that "jam tin," because from experience he had learned not to trust it. When the powers that be realized that they could not change Tommy they decided to 'change the type of bomb and did so substituting the "hair brush," the "cricket ball," and later the Mills bomb. The standard bomb used in the British Brit-ish army is Hie "Mills." It is about the shape and size of a large lemon. Although Al-though not actually a lemon, Fritz Insists In-sists that it Is; perhaps he judges it by the havoc caused by its explosion. The Mills bomb is made of steel, the outside of which is corrugated into 4S small squares, which, upon the explosion explo-sion of the bomb, scatter in a wide area, wounding or killing any Fritz who Is unfortunate enough to be hit by one of the flying fragments. Although a very destructive and efficient ef-ficient bomb the "Mills" has the confidence con-fidence of the thrower, In that he knows it will not explode until released re-leased from his grlu It is a mechanical device, with a lever, fitted into a slot at the top, which extends half way around the circumference and is held in place at the bottom by a fixing pin. In tills pin there is a small metal ring, for the purpose of extracting the pin when ready to throw. You do not throw a bomb the way a baseball is thrown, because, when in a narrow trench, your hand is liable to strike against the parados, traverse or parapet, and then down goes the bomb, and, in a couple of seconds or so, up goes Tommy. In throwing, the bomb and lever are grasped in the right hand, the left foot is advanced, knee stiff, about one and a half Its length to the front, while the right leg, knee bent, is carried slightly to the right. The left arm is extended at an angle of 45 degrees, pointing in the direction the bomb is to be thrown. This position is similar to that of shot putting, only that the right arm Is extended downward. Then you hurl the bomb from you with an overhead bowling motion, the same as in cricket, throwing it fairly high In the air, this in order to give the fuse a chance to burn down so that when the bomb lands, it immediately explodes ex-plodes and gives the Germans no time to scamper out of its range or to return re-turn it. As the bomb leaves your hand, the lever, by means of a spring, is projected into the air and falls harmlessly to the ground a few feet in front of the bomber. When the lever flies off It releasee a strong spring, which forces the firing pin into a percussion cap. This ignites the fuse, which burns down and sets off the detonator, charged with fulminate fulmi-nate of mercury, which explodes the main charge of ammonal. The average British soldier Is not an expert at throwing; It is a new game to him, therefore the Canadians and Americans, who have played baseball from the kindergarten up, take naturally natu-rally to bomb throwing and excel in this act. A six-foot English bomber will stand in awed silence when he sees a little five-foot-nothing Canadian outdistance his throw by several yards. i ' 7 :.....,-. fe.';,' .... ' , '.':'' ' -J X ' ' V - f .;... Throwing Hand Grenades. I have read a few war stories of bombing, bomb-ing, where baseball pitchers curved their bombs when throwing them, but a pitcher who can do this would make "Christy'-1 Mathewson look like a piker, and is losing valuable time playing in the European War S.jsh league, when ho would be able to set the "big league" on fire. We had a cushy time while at this school. In fact, to us It was a regular vacation, and we were very sorry when one morning the adjutant ordered us to report at headquarters for transportation trans-portation and rations to return to our units up the line. Arriving at our section, the hoys once again tendered us the glad mitt, but looked askance at us out of the corners of their eyes. They could not conceive, as they expressed it, how a man could be such si blinking Idiot as to join the Suicide club. 1 was beginning begin-ning to feel sorry that I had become a member of said club, and my life to me appeared doubly precious. Now that I was a sure-enough bomber I was praying for peace and hoping that my servicesis such would not be required. CHAPTER XIII. My First Official Bath. Right behind our rest billet was a large creek about ten feet deep and twenty feet across, and It was a habit of the company to avail themselves of an opportunity to take a swim and at the same time thoroughly wash themselves them-selves and their underwear when on their own. We were having a spell of hot weather, and these baths to us were a luxury. The Tommies would splash around in the water and then come out and sit in the sun and have what they termed a "shirt hunt." At first we tried to drown the "cooties," but they also seemed to enjoy the bath. One Sunday morning the whole section sec-tion was in the creek and we were having hav-ing a gay time, when the sergeant major ma-jor appeared on the scene, lie came to the edge of the creek and ordered: "Come out of It. Get your equipment on, 'drill order,' and fall in for bath parade. Look lively, my hearties. You have only got fifteen minutes." A howl of Indignation from the creek greeted this order, but out we came. Discipline Disci-pline is discipline. We lined up in front of our billet with rifles and bayonets bay-onets (why you need rifles and bayonets bayo-nets to take a bath gets me), 'a full quota of ammunition, and our tin hats. Each man had a piece of soap and a towel. Alter an eight-kilo march along a dusty road, with an occasional shell whistling overhead, we arrived at a little squat frame building upon the bank of n creek. Nailed over the door of this building was a large sign which read "Divisional Baths." In a wooden shed in the rear we could hear a wheezy old engine pumping water. 9 The joys of the bath are depicted de-picted by Empey in the next installment. in-stallment. Sit (TO BE CONTINTJED.) |