| Show pad 0 adventurers CLUB B 1 HEADLINES FROM FRA THE LIVES OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELF the unseen foe by FLOYD GIBBONS famous headline hunter H HELLO ELLO its dan EVERYBODY of new york late sergeant of the royal munster Fusi leers who tells tale of mystery and terror like one of kippings Kip lings soldiers three dan has fought all over india he has seen the things that kipling saw and hes bringing us such a tale as kipling might have written the story of a strange and terrifying experience on the northwest frontier up near khyber keyber pass word had come that the tribes were plundering and raiding up khyber keyber way and the munster Fusi leers was one of the outfits ordered out against them they left their barracks in punjab in the summer of 1908 entrained for Pe marched through the pass i and fought their way into lundi kotal the fort on the other side of the afghan border they chased the marauding ma tribes back into the hills but that as kipling would say is another story the one were concerned with happened on the way back bach no beer so they drank water the regiment passed through Pe again and marched on to Shab khadar twenty miles away there for the first time during the expedition the native canteen manager hari chand ran out of beer no one who been in india says dan has any idea how necessary beer is to the fighting forces most of the water in india contaminated and unfit to drink but that day we had nothing else so we drank it and liked it we pitched camp that night went to bed early as orders had been issued for an early morning start the next day but daylight came and we still received orders to fan fall in no one in the regiment could understand it other regiments were on the move two native regiments the twenty second punjabis Pun jabis and the fortieth path mathans ans marched past the Fusi leers camp their drums beating and the men singing while they were passing the Pusi Fusi leers got an order that only mystified led them the more they were told to fall fail in WITHOUT their rifles the whole regiment was marched off to a corner of the camp soo soon n a doctor appeared and began distributing medicine while the doctor was moving down the line the man in front of dan dropped to the ground dan picked him up and asked him what was the matter and he replied 1 I dont know dan but I 1 feel very bad the doctor came along says dan and began asking him questions ons I 1 thought it was strange that he come near the sick man lie he screamed one ominous word cholera he stood well away and asked me to take the poor devil to the hospital I 1 carried him there on my shoulders they were dying of cholera there were several other men in the hospital all of them complaining of pains in their stomachs but that mean anything to dan at the moment when he got back to his company they were ordered off to a spot six hundred yards away where a flag was flying they were issued beer and rum that evening and given a supply of green goggles to keep the sun out of their eyes all the rest of that day they lay in camp doing nothing and wondering why they on the march when dan awoke the next morning there was a great commotion outside his tent 1 I lifted the tent wall he says and asked the sentry what was the matter oh lord donoghue he cried were au all dying there are dozens dead and by tonight have taken all of uell dan sat straight up on his cot What ll take all of asp us he wanted to know and the sentry screamed one ominous word CHOLERA dan will never forget the things he saw during the terrible days that followed you can get away from an enemy he says you can fight and bluff your way out of tight corners in a battle but you cant fight or bluff or run away when the cholera germ gets into your system you suffer terrible cramps in your abdomen and you get so weak that you cant stand up during that epidemic it was a common sight to see the fellows visiting one another crawling along on their hands and knees buried the dead in quicklime the boys died off like flies and those who died were buried immediately buried all together in a long trench with six inches of quicklime in the bottom it was not at all common to hear a fellow say come on over and see who is getting buried and on one such occasion I 1 saw the strangest sight of my whole life A new trench had been dug and about fifty were getting buried in it the bodies were brought over and laid in the ditch side by side some were naked and others were fully clothed even to the boots and puttees put tees As soon as each corpse was put in a blanket was thrown over it and another layer of quicklime was placed on top of that father looman the catholic chaplain was standing at the end of the long grave reciting the burial prayers it was an awful and solemn moment 1 I was there to see a friend buried everyone else there had come for the same reason there a dry eye in the crowd I 1 was standing at the edge of the trench looking down when suddenly I 1 jumped directly below me was a body covered with a blanket and it seemed to me I 1 had seen that blanket move As dan watched that blanket moved again other men had seen it move too the whole crowd stood stunned for a minute and then dan and another man hopped into the trench and helped out a poor devil who was about to be buried alive in quicklime and as we led him away says dan he crept crying say the idea all this crowd around here for he even know how narrowly he had escaped a terrible death it was the quicklime that had saved him that and the tact fact that he had been buried naked says dan if hed been buried with his clothes on he have felt the burn of that biting stuff until it was too late As it was the sting of the stuff brought him to his senses and he lived to get wounded twice during the world war copyright service |
