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Show Aufo Trucks and Motorcycles r f f s Mexican campaign shows their use- vf fulness over army mule and cavalry "V iV v" fl'v horse Flesh and blood can't com- J 'tf Spj 'v4' pete with steel and gasoline down "L- A 5 on the desert and mountain trails ; Vn 3 L J t SORROWFUL unJ prophetic nrmy mule stood beside a Soto cactus near the American end of the long, dusty road from Columlius, New Mexico, to Namlqnlpa, Old Mexico, so writes W. O. MeGeehan In the New York Tri-Uown Tri-Uown the trail from the base of the punitive expedition swept a train of 30 auto trucks. They were heavily laden with the variety of cargoes that are required for an army In the held, .inch truck carried four or live troopers in olive drab squatted insecurely on top of the load. The road was uneven, it was full of ruts, but the auto truck train glided along at the rate of from eight to ten miles an hour. The vehicles kept a perfect alignment. The troopers swore softly but earnestly as the trucks jolted. ' lOveu as the army mule watched, the sweating, swearing swear-ing truck train disappeared into a cloud of dust be-roud be-roud the border line. Then the mule tilted buck his dejected head and gave vent to a secret sorrow in one far-reaching vocal effort. As though mocking his criet', the horns of the auto trucks tooted back derisively de-risively in the distance. The grief of that army mule was the grief of Othello Othel-lo with his occupation gone. He sunk behind the Soto ractus and subsided into painful meditation. He had lust seen ins finish. He realized at that moment that the nrmy mule ivould never again hold a high place among the factors fac-tors which win battles. He realized that practical poets would no longer sing of the virtues which the irmy mule could display upon great emergencies. He ivas already obsolete, down and out. J ; Even the "mule skinner," with the picturesque vo-abulary vo-abulary and the hard words, had abandoned him. The mule skinner was now driving one of those into trucks, and was addressing it with strained politeness when he spoke to it at all, ! It was all wrong. By the martyred mule of Maianzas, of which the army bards sang during the Spanish-American war days, it was all wrong I There was no use to pull against th( auto truck, lie had tried it when they hitched him to the rear of one. He decided to drag the thing back over the ilesert. But, instead, he was relentlessly dragged on his haunches for a mile, and he gave it up. The Columbus expedition has demonstrated that in the matter of army transportation "the mule is dead, long live the auto truck!" It had already been demonstrated at the battle of the Marne, when motor vehicles checked the German advance and saved France. L -But OUT War department moves with excessive ieUberation, Jt clung tenaciously to its faith In the mule until the 'first auto truck train went galumphing into Mexico, making three times the distance that a mule could make over roads which no motor-driven vehicle could be expected to travel, The consequence was a rush order for auto trucks and drivers. The auto trucks ore standing up wonderfully well. They plow through the alkali dust up to the hubs, they jolt over the rocky places, they flounder through the sandy wastes that irrind the bearings, and they puff through the mountain pusses. They gc anywhere the mule will go. and they get there in better time. While the long trail from Columbus to Narul-quipa Narul-quipa is lined with the carcasses of mules and horses, the auto trucks go rumbling on in their work of keeping the field army supplied with food and ammunition. They perform new miracles upon every new emergency. There are several hundred auto trucks at the army base at Columbus. On a pinch those trucks could move an entire brigade In one day twice as far as ail the horses and mules in the world could move it. This Is true, despite the fact that many of the trucks are badly racked because of bad driving. Not only does the successful test of the auto truck spell the passing of the mule train. It Also means the passing of cavalry, the most picturesque pic-turesque branch of the service. Even cavalry officers offi-cers in the punitive expedition will admit that three or four auto trucks will get a company of infantry in-fantry twice as far on a forced march as the best-mounted best-mounted troop of cavalry could travel. Cavalry charges are rare In these days of rapid-fire rapid-fire rides and machine guns. The horses are used only to get the men to the front, where they operate op-erate as infantry. When the gasoline-fed mounts can get them there so much faster than the horses, it begins to look had for the cavalry horse. The United States army of the near future will travel extensively on gasoline. There will be few more heart-breaking infantry hikes, and there will be few more wild cavalry rides, leaving In their wake dead and dying horses. Ever, field artillery can be carried by the auto trucks. All of this should have been realized before. One of the lasting benefits of the punitive expedition will be the modernizing of the military trauspor-lation trauspor-lation branch. The auto truck has passed the stern test. For the present the auto truck trains with the nrmy in Mexico are not working under any definite system. The organization of the truck train of the United States army has not been decided upon. Neither lias the type of truck to be used in the organization been decided upon. Captains and ' lieutenants are busy taking notes as to net mileage mile-age and gasoline requirements; also, as to stability md reliability of the different makes of trucks in e service. The driers are a mixed lot. Some are regular mmm. ymrtm mwi -mtmmwm -iwmmmM s aimmsf -iX ;;: ' 4. :-iil?K?SS-:?: : ' ;:. i 'i; : i;s;:?wS- Si i; :,W!&M&M8fMi i?& f : ' fcifc; j i-&Z ffVf?: i . I . .vfjj - m m $&fg0m& TUT ym " k rnXdguVaerrdhhoeusWerr n considerable period for i;::iiii:! insubordination. :5s More than once the army :fifiipf;i:f in Mexico has been forced !fl! illegally but practically to Sjfglsfiil siii discipline some of the ci- (Q7e?rc!i iiMmmmii vilian drivers. The most fttff ienr "G&SOimZ' tigXaZJPY'' startling incident of this k.ma t hr,ni nf New York taxicab army enlisted men, detaUed to drive the type of truck tentatively adopted. The others are chauffeurs chauf-feurs of all sorts, adventurers from all over the country, college men in search of experience, and even ex-taxicab drivers from New York city. With some of the trucks under probation are men from the factories. It is a more picturesque body than any assemblage as-semblage of mule skinners. The types are more varied and the views upon things in general are more Interesting. Moreover, the army chauffeur In the aggregate is naturally more intelligent than the mule skinner, w-hose close association witli the mule has given him some of the traits of that noble animal. To the average army chauffeur the stolid-looking, itiiiibjring auto truck is a beautiful and a living thing. " ' '! . Qa the. j-oad to Namiquipa i listened to a colored sergeant of the Ninth cavalry who had been detailed de-tailed to drive a five-ton truck. He was addressing his vehicle. 'Yes, Betsy, old girl," he was saying, "Ah knows that this here cheap government gasoline ain't the proper nourishment for a high-toned lady truck like you. But when we gets to Corallitas Ah'm going go-ing to put some of that nice cool spring water in your radiator. That'll freshen you up a whole lot, Betsy. "Does you-all want a little more oil in your bearings, bear-ings, Betsy? If you does, jes' say so. 'Tain't no trouble at all for me. Ah jes' thought you might, because your pretty engine was breathing a little hard on that last hill. Ah don't want any of them fresh New York chauffeurs to think you was complaining, com-plaining, Betsy, because me and you knows that you don't complain." The colored trooper adjusted some pink and green ribbon which was tied to the truck radiator. The whistle of the truck master blew. The sergeant ser-geant whirled the crank, listened solicitously for an instant to his motor, and swung Betsy into line with her mates. One of the difficulties which the captain of an auto truck encounters is in maintaining discipline with a mixed company of civilians and soldiers. Civilian drivers have their own notions as to how auto trucks should be driven. It is the theory of the captain that the auto train should have a perfect per-fect alignment, with the trucks a hundred yards apart. . The civilian drivers cannot see the necessity for this. Some of them want to show that their trucks can travel the fastest. Others insist that their trucks be carefully handled. The result is that the captain, fuming inwardly, has to be a diplomat wjjra he is in command of a mixed train of trucks. One of these trains started out at the rate of 12 miles an hour. A short distance out of Columbus it encountered bad roads. A new truck slowed down and began to pick the going. The captain shot 'cross-country from the rear in his standard runabout to see what was cutting his train in two. "What's the trouble?" he demanded of the .-civilian driver. "No trouble at all," replied the driver. "But eight miles is all that I am going to do with this load and over this sort of road. You can go ahead with those Barney Oldlields if you want to. I'll catch up with you after half of those trains are wrecked." The captain was a trifle angry. He reminded the driver that all trains were ordered kept intact. It was no 'cross-country race. It was a military truck train. The driver was obdurate, and the train had to slow down to a reasonable pace. The driver was right, though very unmilitary. The loads which the trucks were carrying were not needed in a hurry. But if he had happened to be drivers who were shipped out to handle a train made up of a certain uniform make of trucks. They got 50 miles into Mexico, and then decided that they did not like the country at all. They agreed that the United States government was foolish to go in at all. Their spokesman went to the captain and Informed In-formed him that they had decided to go back. They did not like the food, the water was not iced, and there was no beer in the godforsaken place. Whereupon the captain gave orders to the sergeant of his guard. The noncommissioned officer Informed In-formed the drivers that the first of them who turned back to Columbus would be systematically shot up. The drivers protested that they were American citizens and wanted their rights. The sergeant listened unmoved as he drew up his squad into a Convenient place for the shooting. The drivers finally concluded that they were too far away to consult their attorneys, and the train proceeded to Namiquipa. " . Camping out away from a garrisoned town, the truck trains take the same formation that was used by the emigrant trains when they were forced to. guard against Indian attacks at night. The trucks are distributed in a circle, with the captain's runabout, the cook truck and the ammunition truck in the center. Placed in this formation, the truck train is in a difficult position for a bandit band to rush. No doubt, many a band has been watching those valuable trains of food and ammunition, longing to pounce upon them, but they refrained. A well-ordered well-ordered truck train could get into battle formation in a few minutes, and the Springfield rifles would be covering every point of attack very effectively. A quarter of a million dollars in gold was shipped in with one train, guarded by 50 picked marksmen. Bandit bands, knowing of this, probably prob-ably longed to rush it, but they did not make the attempt. At night, in its proper formation, with its outposts alert, the well-conducted train should be impossible to surprise. But civilian drivers are hard to convince of the necessity for remaining alert. They will lock their ammunition in the tool boxes; and, while they are painfully solicitous of the mechanism of their trucks, they have no regard re-gard for the mechanism of the Springfield rifles which are issued to them. They have no respect for shoulder straps. A typical incident was one near Espia. The truck train drew into the place hot and dusty. The news was spread that there was a real swimming hole 20 feet deep in the place. Soldier guards and civilian drivers made a dash for it. As they neared it they heard a delicious splashing, but a sentry halted them. "Sorry, boys," he said, "but there's an officer bathing there now. and the orders are that nobody is allowed in till he gets through." A big ex-taxicab driver from New York proceeded proceed-ed to peel off his army uniform. In another minute min-ute he dived into the pool with a mighty splash. He came to the surface and grinned cheerfully at the indignant expression of the second lieutenant, outraged at the fact that his privacy had been disturbed, dis-turbed, apparently by the enlisted man. "Oh, that's all right !" shouted the auto driver. "I don't mind if you are a little bit dirty. Come on in. The water is fine." But one of these days the truck train will be systematized. sys-tematized. The drivers will all be enlisted men. There will be a fixed rate of speed, and the trucks will all he up to determined specifications. When the truck train is perfected, the mule train will go. Also, the pride of the cavalry will be trailed in the gasoline-scented dust of the autotruck auto-truck train. |