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Show The Enemy Within; , Rounding Up Spies on the Western Front T By "T" Sergeant Arthur Guy Empey Author of "Over the Top," -First Call." Etc o-o-o Mr. Empey's Experiences Experi-ences During His Seventeen Seven-teen Months in theFirst Line Trenches of the British Army in France (Copyright, 1917, br Tho McClure Nawijapr Brndic&te) 9 We were in rest billets In the little French village of S , about ten kilos from the front-line trench. .Number .Num-ber Two's gun crew were sitting on the ground In a circle around their machine ma-chine gun, while a sergeant, - newly returned from a special course in machine ma-chine gunnery at St. Omer, was expounding ex-pounding the theory of scientific machine ma-chine gunnery. He himself had never actually been under fire with a machine ma-chine gun, but from the theoretical point he sure could throw out the book stuff. I must confess that his flow of eloquence passed over my head like a Zeppelin, and I noticed an uneasy squirming among the rest of our crew. Happy Houghton, who was sitting next to me, leaned over, and with his eye on the sergeant, whispered in my ear: "Blime me, Yank, isn't it arful the way he chucks his weight about?" I ygreed with Happy. Across from me sat Ikey Honney, with our mascot, Jim, in his lap. Every now and then Jim would take his hind leg and furiously scratch at a spot behind his ear. Honney, noticing no-ticing this action, would reach under his armpit and also scratch. Sailor Bill was intently watching Jim and Honney; he, too, started scratching. . . In a minute or so Hungry Foxcroft started on a cootie hunt ; and I had an irresistible desire to lean back against the. barrel casing of the gun and also scratch. . It is one of the chief indoor sports on the western front, especially during dur-ing a monotonous lecture by some officer offi-cer or noncom,- for one of the fed-up listeners to start scratching himself. This generally causes the whole gang to do the same, the instructor included. includ-ed. It is just like a minister in the midst of a very dry sermon suddenly stopping, stretching himself, and yawn-lng. yawn-lng. this action causing the rest of the congregation to do likewise. As the whole circle scratched, our sergeant instructor commenced to shift his weight from one foot to the other in an uneasy manner. We all gazed at him intently and each began to scratch furiously. Sure enough, the sergeant gave In and started unbuttoning un-buttoning the front of his tunic to get at some real or imaginary cootie. A nudge went the rounds of the circle. We had accomplished our purpose. The sergeant's mind took an awful drop from the science of machine gunnery gun-nery to that of catching that particular particu-lar cootie. We constantly glanced at our wrist watches. Fifteen minutes more and the lesson would be over. The. sergeant ser-geant was becoming confused, and was trying tp flounder through the rest of his talk. We had no mercy on him, but kept up the scratching. At last, In desperation, the sergeant said : "You men have actually been under fire with machine guns several times. Can't one of you relate some incident of how, through some ruse, you put it 9ver on the Bodies ?" Ikey Honney, grasping this golden vpportunity to break up the lecture, nd slyly winking at us, started in and teld how a certain gun's crew located lo-cated and put out of action a German machine gunner by playing a tune on their gun, which the German tried to Imitate, thereby indicating to them by sound the exact location of the German Ger-man gun, which was later put out of action by concentrated machine-gun fire from their section. Of course we all listened very intently, in-tently, but it was an old story to us, .because we were the gtin's crew which hall accomplished the feat that Hon-sey Hon-sey was describing; but anything was better than listening to that sing-song Ironing of book knoM'ledge which the eergeiint had been pumping into us for the Inst hour and a half. The sergeant glanced at his watch and dismissed us. We dismounted our gun, put It in its box aud stored it away in our billet ; then we renssem-Wed renssem-Wed under an apple tree in the or-;hard, or-;hard, and, while the rest of us indulged in-dulged in a shirt hunt. Hungry went after our ration of tea. Hungry was pure on the job when it came to eat- I Ing. Tretty soon he returned with a ' dixie one-fourth full of tea, two tins of jam, a loaf of bread, a lnr.ee piece of cheese, and a tin of apricots which he had bought at a nearby French ea-tamlnet. ea-tamlnet. no dished out our rations, not forgetting a generous share for himself. After we had finished, out came the Inevitable fags, a few puffs fram each man, and the ball of conversation con-versation starred rolling. C-iir'y Wallace cleared Ills throat and itar'.l In with : T.emembor fjiat village we passed Jirivh r ojr march up the line; about two weeks ago; you know, the one where that big church with all the shell boles in it was right on the corner cor-ner where we turned to the left to take the road at St. A ?" We all remembered It and turned inquiring in-quiring glances in Curly's direction. "Well, this morning, when I went down with the quarter (quartermaster sergeant;, to draw coal, I met a fellow at division headquarters who told me a mighty interesting story of how he and another fellow rounded up a couple cou-ple of spies. "This bloke, through modesty, and to coyer up his own good work, tried to make me believe that it was only through a lucky chance that he stumbled stum-bled over the clue which lead to the spies' arrest, but I'm a-thinkin', and I know you'll all agree with me, that It was not so much luck as it was clever thinking. I'm not much at telling a story, but I'm going to try and give it, as far as I can remember, just the way he handed it to me. "It seems that this fellow, who told me the story, and another chap, had been detailed to the divisional intelligence intelli-gence department, and were hanging around division headquarters waiting for something to happen. "Now, here's the story as he reeled it off to me: " 'About three kilos behind division headquarters was the old French village vil-lage of B . One of our important roads ran through it. This road was greatly used by our troops for bringing' up supplies and ammunition for the front line. It was also used by large numbers of troops when relieving battalions bat-talions in the fire sector. " 'Of course, on account of this road being in range of the German guns, It could only tie used at night ; otherwise other-wise the enemy airmen and observation observa-tion balloons would get wise and it would only be a short time before the road would be shelled, thus causing many casualties. " 'For the last ten days reports had been received at division headquarters that every time troops passed a certain cer-tain point on this road, marked by an old church, they were sure to click heavy shell fire from the Boches. On nights when no troops passed through there would be very little shelling, if any, but If a battalion or brigade happened hap-pened to come this way they suffered from heavy shell fire. " 'Upon receipt of the first two or three of these reports we put it down as a strange coincidence, but when the fifth report of this nature reached us it was evident to us that a spy was at work, and that in some mysterious way the information of the movements of our troops were communicated by him to the enemy. " "Myself and another ' bloke, who had been working with me for the last two weeks, were assigned to the task of discovering and apprehending this spy. To us it seemed an impossible job, as there were no clues to work upon. As is usual, our general, "Old Pepper," called us In, and said: " ' "There is a spy working in the village of B ; go get him." " 'Foolishly, I butted in and asked for further information. I got it, all right. With a lowering look which made me tremble, he roared : " ' "Go and dig up your own clues. What are you with the intelligence department de-partment for? Intelligence department ! It ought to be called the 'brainless department' de-partment' if you two are a sample of the rest." " 'Somehow or other we didn't stop to argue with "Old Pepper." ' " At this point Sailor Bill butted in : "Blime me, he's just like an admiral we had in our navy, this 'Old Pepper.' " A chorus of, "Oh, shut up, you're in the army now," cut off Bill's story. We knew Sailor Bill. If he ever got started start-ed talking navy, nothing short of a gas attack could stop him. Sailor Bill, with an Indignant glance around the circle, relapsed into silence. Curly Wallace exclaimed : "To 'ell with your admiral; do you want to hear this story? If you do, shut up and let me tell it." "Go on, Curly, never mind; he's harmless," ejaculated Happy Houghton. Hough-ton. Curly carried on, with: "'Getting our packs and drawing three days' rations, we started hiking Hooked to the Plow, and Carried on His Work. It for the village of B . We arrived there about four In the afternoon, and after putting our packs and rations in an old barn which we Intended to use as our billet during our stay in the vil-lage, vil-lage, we left on a general tour of inspection in-spection " 'There were about three hundred civilians In the place, who preferred to brave the dangers of shell fire, as there i was ti rich harvest to be reaped from the sale of farm produce, beer and wines to the troops billeted all around. Two estaminets (French saloons) were still open and did a thriving business. busi-ness. " 'Occasionally a shell would burst in the village, but the civilians did not seem to mind it; just carried on with their larmlng and business as usual. ," 'We decided to make a thorough search of all houses, barns and buildings build-ings for concealed wires, and did so, but with barren results. Nothing suspicious sus-picious was found. This search wasted wast-ed live days, and "we were in desperation. despera-tion. Watch and question as we would, not a single clue came to light. " 'During this time two large bodies of troops had passed through and each time they , were heavily shelled, with dire results. " 'On the sixth night of our assignment, assign-ment, utterly disgusted, I, being in charge, had decided to chuck up the whole business and report back to Old Pepper that we had made a mess out of the investigation. My partner pleaded with me to stick it out a couple cou-ple of days more, and after he gave me a vivid description of what Old Pepper would hand out to us I decided decid-ed to stick it out for six months, if necessary. To celebrate this decision my side-kicker offered to blow to several sev-eral rounds of drinks. Now, this fellow fel-low had never, during my acquaint-"ance acquaint-"ance with him, offered to spend a ha'penny, ha'-penny, so I quickly accepted his offer and we went to the nearest estaminet. " 'Sitting around a long table, drinking drink-ing French beer and smoking cigarettes, cigar-ettes, was a crowd of soldiers, laughing, laugh-ing, joking, arguing and telling stories. " 'We sat down at the end of the table, and in a low tone tried to work Impossible theories as to how the spy, if there was one by this time we were doubtful could get the information informa-tion back to the German batteries. " 'Right across from us were two soldiers; arguing about farming. Suddenly Sud-denly my side-kicker pinched me on the knee and whispered : " ' "Listen to what those two fellows across the table from us are saying. It sounds good." , " 'I listened for about a minute and then paid no further attention. At that time farming in no way interested me. I wanted to catch that spy, and started devising impossible theories as to the ways and means of doing so. At last I gave up in disgust. My partner part-ner was still attentively listening to the two across the table from us. Another An-other poke in the knee from my partner part-ner and I was all attention. One of the fellows across the way was talking: " ' "Well, I don't see why this French blighter should change horses in his plow every afternoon. I've watched him for several days. Now, in the morning he uses two grays, and then about two in the afternoon he either hooks up two blacks or a gray and a black. French ways may be different, but this frog-eater is very partial to the colors of his team. He works the grays all morning and then changes them in the afternoon. Now, figure it out for yourself. He starts work with the two grays about six o'clock in the morning; works the two beggars up till noon. That's six hours straight. Then he sticks them in the stable, lays off for two hours, and in the afternoon about two o'clock the new relay of animals comes on and works up till four. Now, anybody with any brains in their nappers knows that is no way to keep horses in condition, working one team over six hours and the other team only two hours. I know, beeause we have been farmers in our family back in Blighty for generations." " 'I was all excitement, and a great hope surged through me that at last we had fallen on the clue that we were looking for. Restraining my eagerness eager-ness as much as possible I addressed the fellow who had just spoken: " ' "Well, mate, I don't like to intrude into your conversation, but I've also been a farmer all my life and I don't see anything queer in the actions of this French farmer." " 'He answered : "Well, blime me, there might be a reason for this blighter doing this, but I can't figure it out at all. If you can explain it, go ahead." "'I answered: "Wejl, perhaps if you can give a little more details about it, It would be easy enough to explain. Who is the farmer, and where is his farm located?" " 'He swallowed the bait, all right, and informed me that the farmer was plowing a field on a hill about five hundred yards west of the church at a point where our troops were being shelled. " 'Buying a round of drinks, I nudged my partner and he came in on the conversation. The two of us, by adroit questioning, got the exact location loca-tion of t'le field and a description of the farmer. " 'I pretended to be sleepy, and, yiwnlug, got up from the table, saying say-ing that I was going to turn In, and loft. My partner soon followed me. 1'pon reactung our billet, we outlined our plan. We decided that next morn-ir,g morn-ir,g we wcold get up at daybreak and scout around the field to see if there was a hiding place. I " 'Sure enough, along one edge of the j field ran a thick hedge. We secreted ourselves in this and waited for developments. de-velopments. "'At about six In the morning, the former appeared, driving two grays, which he hooked to the plow, and carried car-ried nn his work. To us there appeared ap-peared nothing suspicious In his actions. ac-tions. We watched him all morning. At noon he unhooked the horses and went home. We remained In hiding, afraid to leave, because we wanted to take no chances of beinr seen by the 1 farmer. We had forgotten to bring j rations witb "3, o it was a rnLsij-pble c wait until two o'clock, at which time the farmer reappeared, driving two Macks, which he hitched to the plow, and carried on until four o'clock, and then knocked off for the day. That night troops came through and, as usual, usu-al, were shelled. " 'Next morning, at daybreak, we again took our stations in the hedge, this time bringing rations with us. The farmer used the same grays in the morning, but in the afternoon he appeared with a black and a gray, and again knocked off around four o'clock No troops came through that night, end there was no shelliug. " 'Next day the farmer repeated the previous day's actions two grays in the morning and a black and a gray in the afternoon. No t-oops, no shelling. shell-ing. " 'We were pretty sure that we had him, but this arresting a spy on slim evidence is a ticklish matter. We didn't want to make a mess of the affair, af-fair, or perhaps send an innocent man i to his death, so the following day. we again took up our stations. Sure enough, it was two grays in the morning, morn-ing, but in the afternoon he used two blacks. That night troops came through and were shelled. We had solved the problem. Two grays in the morning mean nothing.. The actual signal to the enemy was the change of horses in the afternoon ; two blacks meaning "troops coming through tonight, to-night, shell the road;" a gray and a blacj, "No troops expected, do not shell." "When it got dark and It was safe to leave the hedge, we immediately reported re-ported the whole affair, to the town major (an English officer detailed in charge of a French village or town occupied by English troops) who, accompanied ac-companied by us and a detail of six mek with fixed bayonets, went to the farmer's house that night and arrested arrest-ed him. He protested his innocence, but we took him to military police headquarters where, after a grueling questioning, he at last confessed. " 'It was a mystery to us how this farmer knew that troops were coming com-ing through, because he never made a mistake in his schedule. After further fur-ther questioning he explained to us "I Havo a Good Mind to Send You Back to Your Units." that if we searched in his cellar and raised Tip an old flagstone with a ring in it, we would find a telephone set. The other end of this set was established in an estaminet in a little French village eleven kilos distant. His confederate was so situated on the road that troops coming Into the village had to pass the door. As troops march only at night while in the fire sector, his confederate could safely figure out that the passing troops would be quartered in his village vil-lage until the next night, when, under cover of darkness, they would start for the next village, and would have to pass the point in the road by the old church. He would immediately telephone this information to the farmer, who would change his horses accordingly. The hill on which he did his plowing could be easily observed ob-served from an observation balloon in the German lines, and thus the signal sig-nal was given to the German artillery " 'We still carried on with our third Oegree, and got further valuable information infor-mation from him. " 'If, in the plowing, two gray horses were used on two consecutive afternoons, it meant that the use ot the road had been indefinitely discontinued discon-tinued for troops and supplies. " 'Under a strong guard, which concealed con-cealed itself In the hedge, the farmer farm-er was made to use two grays for two afternoons. The scheme worked. For weeks afterward that road was only occasionally shelled, and our troops and supply trains used it at will. The spy at the other end was rounded up and both were taken to the base and shot. r 'We reported back to Old Pepper, expecting to be highly commended for our work, and we were I don't think. All the blooming blighter said was: '""Well, you certainly took lonR enough to do it. .1 have a damn good mind to send you back to your units for incompetency and Inefficiency." '"We saluted and left. '"You see, we didn't deserve any Trent credit, beeause it was only through a lucky chance that we stumbled stum-bled over the clue, so I guess "Old Pepper" was right after all.'" After finishing his story, Curly turned to us and asked: "Don't you think it was pretty nifty work ?" We agreed that It was. After a few minutes more tiie party broke up and turned in. |