OCR Text |
Show OVIEK THE TOPw By An American Arthw Quj Empey Soldier Who WBlt Machine Gunner, Serving in France Copyright 1917, by Arthur Guy Empey EMPEY AND HIS COMRADES MAKE THEIR MACHINE 'GUNS PERFORM SOME MARVELOUS TRICKS. Synopsis. Fired by the sinking of the Lusitnnia, with the loss of American lives, Arthur Guy Knipey, an American living in Jersey City, goes to England and enlists as a private In the British army. After n short experience as a recruiting ollicer in London, lie is sent to training train-ing quarters in France, where he first Wars 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. 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. CHAPTER XXII Continued. 18 This punishment is awarded where there is a doubt as to the willful guilt of a man- who ha ; committed an offence of-fence punishable by death. Then comes the famous field punishment pun-ishment No. 1. Tommy has nicknamed It "crucifixion." It means that a man is spread-eagled on a limber wheel, two hours a day for twenty-one days. During this time he only gets water, bully beef and biscuits for his chow. You get "crucified" for repeated minor offenses. Next in order is field punishment No. 2. This is confinement in the "clink," without blankets, getting water, bully beef and biscuits for rations and doing all the dirty work that can be found. This may be for twenty-four hours or twenty days, according to the gravity of the offense. Then comes "pack drill" or defaulters' default-ers' parade. This consists of drilling, mstly at the double, for two hours with full equipment. Tommy hates this, because it is hard work. Sometimes Some-times he fills his pack with straw to lighten it, and sometimes he gets caught. If he gets caught, he grouses ut everything in general for twenty-one twenty-one days, from the vantage point of a limber wheel. Next comes "C. B." meaning "confined "con-fined to barracks." This consists of Rtaying'in billets or barracks for twenty-four hours to seven days. You also get an occasional defaulters' parade and dirty jobs around the quarters. The sergeant major keeps what Is known as the crime sheet. When a man commits an offense, he is "crimed," that is, his name, number and offense is entered on the crime sheet. Next day at 9 a. m. he goes to the "orderly room" before the captain, who either punishes him with "C. B." or sends him before the O. C. (officer commanding battalion). The captain of the company can only award "C. B." Tommy many a time has thanked the king for making that provision In his regulations. To gain the title of a "smart soldier," Tommy has to keep clear of the crime sheet, and you have to be darned smart to do it. I have been on It a few times, mostly most-ly for "Yankee impudence." During our stay of two weeks In . rest billets our captain put us through a course of machine-gun drills, trying out new stunts and theories. After parades were over, our guns' crews got together and also tried out some theories of their own in reference to handling guns. These courses had nolhing to do with the advancement of the war, consisted mostly of causing Iricky jams in the gun, and then the rest of the crew would endeavor to locate lo-cate as quickly as possible the cause of the stoppage. This amused them for a few days and then things came tc u standstill. One of the boys on my gun claimed that he could play a tune while the gun was actually firing, and domon-s-trated this fact one. day on the target range. We were very enthusiastic anil decided to become musicians. After constant practice I became quite expert in the tune entitled "All Conductors Have Big Feet." ' When I had mastered this tune, our two weeks' rest came to an end, and once again we wont up the line and took over the sector In front of G wood. At this pflnt the German trenches ran around the base of a hill, on the top of which was a dense wood. This wood was infested with machine guns, which used to traverse our lines at will, and sweep the streets of a little village, where we were billeted while 1n reserve. There was one gun In particular which used to get our goats, it had the exact range of our "elephant" dugout entrance, and every morning, about the time rations were being brought up. Its bullets would knock up the dust on the road; more than one Tommy went Wjest or to Blighty by running into them. This gun got our nerves on edge, and Fritz seemed to know It, because he never gave us an hour's rest. Our reputation as machine gunners was at stake ; we tried various ruses to locate and put this gun out of action, but each one proved to be a failure, and Fritz became a worse nuisance than ever. lie was getting fresher and more careless every day, took all kinds of liberties with us thought he was Invincible. In-vincible. Then one of our crew got n brilliant idea and we were all enthusiastic to put it to the test. Here was his scheme : When firing my gun, I was to play my tune, and Fritz, no doubt, would fall for it, try to imitate me as an added insult. This gunner and two others would try, by the sound, to locate lo-cate Fritz and his gun. After having got the location, they would mount .two machine guns in trees, In a little ' i .' i .' " I trJ YD!' ioo yoj , it n gun mcMTGun Showing How Fritz Is Fooled. Clump of woods to the left of our cemetery, ceme-tery, and while Fritz was in the middle of his lesson, would open up and trust to luck. By our calculations, It would take at least a week to pull off the stunt. If Fritz refused to swallow our bait, It would be impossible to locate his special gun, and that's the one we were after, because they all sound alike, a slow pup-pup-pup. Our prestige was hanging by a thread. In the battalion we had to endure en-dure till kinds of insults and fresh remarks re-marks as to our ability In silencing Fritz. Even to the battalion that German Ger-man gun was a sore spot. Next day, Fritz opened tip as usual. I let him fire away, for a while and then butted in with my "pup-pup-pup-pup-pup-pup." I kept this up quite a while, used two belts of ammunition. Fritz had stopped firing to listen. Then lie started in; sure enough, lie had fallen for our game, his gun was trying to imitate mine, but, at first he made a horrible mess of that tune. Again I butted in with a few bars and stopped. Then he tried to copy what I had played. He was a good sport all right, because his bullets were going away over our heads, must have been firing into the air. I commenced to feel friendly toward him. This duet went on for five days. Fritz was a good pupil and learned rapidly, In fact, got better Uian his teacher. I commenced to feel jealous. When he had completely mastered the tune, he started sweeping the road again and we clicked It worse than ever. But he signed his death warrant by doing so, because my friendship turned to hate. Every time he fired he played that tune and we danced. The boys In the battalion gave us the "Ha! Ha!" They weren't In on our little frameup. I The originator of the ruse and the other two gunneru had Fritz's location taped to the minute; they mounted their two guns, and also gave mo the range. The next afternoon was set for the grand finale. Our three guns, with different elevations, eleva-tions, had their fire so arranged, that, opening up together, their bullets would suddenly drop on "Fritz like a hailstorm. About three the next day, Fritz started start-ed "pup-pupping" that tune. I blew a sharp blast on a whistle, it was the signal sig-nal agreed upon; we turned loose and Fritz's gun suddenly stopped in the middle of a bar. We had cooked his goose, and our ruse had worked. After firing two belts each, to make sure of our job, we hurriedly dismounted our guns and took cover in the dugout. We knew what to expect soon. We didn't have to wait long, three salvos of "whizz-bangs" came over from Fritz's artillery, n further confirmation that we had sent that musical rr.achine-giin-ner on his Westward-bound journey. That gun never bothered us again. We were the heroes of the battalion, our captain congratulated us, said It wns a neat piece of work, and, consequently, conse-quently, we were all puffeM up over the stunt. There are several ways Tommy uses to disguise the location of his machine gun and get his range. Some of the most commonly used stunts are as follows fol-lows ; At night, when he mounts his gun over the top of his trench and wants to get the range of Fritz's trench he adopts the method of what he terms "getting the sparks." This consists of firing bursts froni his gun until the bullets hit the German barbed wire. He can tell when they are cutting the wire, because a bullet when It hits a wire throws out a blue electric spark. Machine-gun fire is very damaging to wire and causes many a wiring party to go out at night when it Is quiet to repair the damage. To disguise the flare of his gun at night when firing, Tommy uses what is called a flare protector. This is a stovepipe stove-pipe arrangement which fits over the barrel casing of the gun and screens th ; sparks from the right and left, but not from the front. So Tommy, always resourceful, adopts this scheme: About three feet or less In front of the gun he drives two stakes into the ground. abou1 five feet apart. Across these stakes he stretches n curtain made out of empty sandbags ripped open. He soaks this curtain In water and fires through it. The water prevents It catching fire and effectively screens the flare of the firing gun from the enemy. Sound Is a valuable asset In locating a machine gun, but Tommy surmounts this obstacle by placing two mnchine (funs about one hundred to one hundred hun-dred and fifty yards apart. The gun on the right to cover with its fire the sector of the left gun and the gun on the left to cover that of the right gun. This makes their fire cross; they are fired simultaneously. By this method It sounds like one gun firing and gives the Germans the Impression that the gun is firing from a point midway between the guns which are actually firing, and they accordingly ac-cordingly shell that particular spot. The machine gutiuers chuckle and say, "Fritz Is a brainy boy, not 'alf he ain't." ( But the men in our lines at the spot being shelled curse Fritz for his ignorance igno-rance and pass a few pert remarks down the line In reference to the machine ma-chine gunners being "windy" and afraid to take their medicine. CHAPTER XXIII. Gas Attacks and Spies. Three days after 'we had silenced Fritz, the Germans sent over gas. It did not catch us unawares, because the wind had been made to1 order, that Is, It was blowing from the German trenches toward ours at the rate of about five miles per hour. Warnings had been passed down the trench to keep a sharp lookout for gas. We had a new man at the periscope, on this afternoon In question; I was sitting on the fire step, cleaning my rifle, when he called out to me: "There's a sort of greenish, yellow cloud rolling along the ground out In front, it's coming " But I waited for no more, grabbing my bayonet, which was detached from the rifle, 1 gave the alarm by banging an empty shell case, which was hanging hang-ing near the periscope. At the same Instant, gongs started ringing down the trench, the signal for Tommy to don his respirator, or smoke helmet, as we call It. Gns travels quickly, so you must not lose any time; you generally have about eighteen or twenty seconds In which to adjust your gas helmet. Empey la assigned to the Intelligence department, but finds it Is not the "soft" snap that he anticipated. The next installment tells of some of his experiences in his new Job as a spy-catcher. (TO BE CONTINUED.) |