OCR Text |
Show Spy Rounded Up By Trap Shooter Paris. There Is a certain United States signal service sergeant up In the Toul sector at the front who has been able of late to combine a little pleasure with his business. The censor cen-sor won't let one tell the sergeant's name, but without revealing any military mili-tary information it may be said that before the war the sergeant was rated as one of the top guns at a well-known trap-shooting club in the States. There is not much trap-shooting just now in France. They are not cracking crack-ing away at live birds, either. But the sergeant got his pigeon shooting just the same. 11.3 particular front in which the sergeant operates Is Infested with German Ger-man spies. All sorts of things were happening. ' A "tramp" battery, one of those particular par-ticular guns that whisks up, slams a few at the Frltzies, then slides out on the jump, found itself being shelled the instant It lined up for a shot. Again, every time there was a troop movement, the movement was anticipated antici-pated by the Boche. Beside that, every ev-ery time a body of our men got together to-gether for any purpose whatever, the Germans shelled them with everything they had, big guns included. Tipping Off the Hun. Now, the Hun doesn't use his big guns unless he knows what he's shooting shoot-ing at. How he learned, however, was pretty evident. Sr me one back of our lines was tipping him off. The signal service sergeant was the first to detect how It was done. His squad was repairing signal wires back of the trenches. The sergeant halted in his work and gazed skywards. A pigeon was going over his head. The sergeant watched It idly, calculating as he stood there how far he'd lead it with a 12-gauge. Then with a sigh he went to laying a wire again. A few minutes later the sergeant stopped again. Another pigeon had risen from the wood. But a few minutes min-utes later, when a third pigeon rose from the wood, the former trap-shooter tarried no longer. A half hour later he bolted into the quartermaster's department, depart-ment, clicked a salute and spoke hurriedly. hur-riedly. "Gimme a shotgun," he demanded. Shotguns are a regular part of certain cer-tain quartermaster's supplies. Soon the sergeant might have been seen standing behind a hedgerow gazing toward to-ward the nearby wood. Presently he was seen to stiffen, at the same time murmuring "pull." The 12-gauge swung briefly In an arc; a crack and a crumpled ball of feathers came tumbling tum-bling toward earth. To make sure, the sergeant gave It a second barrel Just before It hit the earth. Clever Shooting. It was pretty clever shooting. The bird was high, going over fast and quartering. "Kill," murmured the sergeant ser-geant methodically, as he retrieved the fallen game. That afternoon the sergeant got four other birds. Attrched to a leg of each pigeon was a code message In German handwriting. A short time later a detachment of military police got the owner of the pigeons. In his blouse and sabots he looked like any of the peasants tilling the fields behind the lines. On being stripped, however, he proved to be a German under officer, Since his cap-ture cap-ture the nightly bombardment of the "Y" huts and other- places where soldiers sol-diers congregate has been more or less haphazard. The Frltzies still chuck heavy stuff at them, but thanks to the ex-pigeon shot, the sergeant, they are not scoring as frequently as formerly. "It's bum cards they're bringing In," says the sergeant. |