Show gunner gunn e r depew D rw folh W gy by ex Es gunner and chief petty officer US navy member of the foreign legion of france A N m nj w ju epee ar W captain gun turret french battleship casbard I 1 JL 0 W winner of the croix de guerre copyright 1918 by br reilly and britton brilton co through special arrangement with the george matthew adams service DEPEW GOES OVER THE TOP AND GETS HIS FIRST GERMAN IN BAYONET FIGHT synopsis albert N depew author of the story tells of his service in the united states stales navy during which he attal attained ned the rank of chief petty of officer fleer first class gunner the world war starts soon after he receives his honorable discharge from the navy and he leaves for france fiance with a d determination to enlist he joins the foreign legion and is assigned to the dread dreadnought naught cassard where his marksmanship wins him high honors later he Is transferred to the land forces and sent to the flanders front he gets his first experience in a front line trench at DIx mude legionaries Legion aries vow vengeance when germans hide behind belgian women and children childred CHAPTER VI continued tho the lieutenant came back with the stretcher bearers and he asked one of them so the boy could not hear him if the boy would live the stretcher bearer said 1 I dont think think so one through his chest and right leg broken the boy had kept quiet for a while but hll all of a sudden he be yelled give gite me a cigarette I 1 banded him a cla cl a defte butt that I 1 had found in the dugout we were all out of cigarettes so they lit it for him and he be kept quiel As soon as they could they got the corner of the fire bay with him and through a communication trench to a field hospital the ole lieutenant and I 1 walked a little way with trim and he began to thank us and lie he told the lieuten lieutenant old man you have been alfather and a mother to me and the lieutenant said to him you have done well old boy you have done more than your share when they started into the communication ri ni trench the boy began to scream again and the lieutenant acted like a wild man he took out his cigarette case but there were no cigarettes in it and then he swore and put it back again but in a few minutes he had the case out again and was swearing worse than ever and talking to himself the boy dying like a gentleman he said why he keep quiet I 1 do not think he meant it he was all nervous and excited and kept taking out his cigarette case and putting it back again i the other officer had gone on to inspect the sentries when the boy rolled into the trench and a cama up to tell us that the officer had been hit we walked back to where I 1 had been and there was the officer if I 1 had been there I 1 would have got it too I 1 fuesti guess he was an awful mess the veins were sticking out of his neck ind and one side of him was blown off also his foot was wounded that Is what shrapnel does to you As I 1 crawled past him I 1 happened to touch bis foot and he cursed me all over the place but when I 1 tried to say I 1 was sorry I 1 could not for then lie he apologized and died a moment later there was a silver cigarette case sticking out of the rags where his bis side had been blown away and the lieutenant crossed himself and reached in and took out the case but when he pried open opeil the case he found that it had bad been bent and cracked and all the cigarettes were soaked with blood he swore worse than ever then and threw his own case away putting the other officers case in his pocket at this point our own artillery began shelling and we received the order to stand to with fixed bayonets when we got the order to advance some of the men were already over the parapet and the whole bunch after them and believe me I 1 was as pale as a sheet just seared scared to death I 1 think every man Is when he goes over for the first time every time for that matter but I 1 was glad we were going to get some action because it Is ir hard to sit around in a trench under fire and have nothing to do I 1 had all I 1 could do to hold my rifle ride we ran across no mans land I 1 canart remember much about it but when we got to the german trench I 1 fell on to top of a young fellow and my bayonet went right through him it was a crime to get him at that he was as del leate as a pencil when if got back to our trenches after m my first charge I 1 could not sleep for a long time afterward for remembering what that fellow looked like and how my bayonet slipped into him and how low lie he screamed when lie he fell f ell he had bad ills his legs and his neck twisted under him after he got lt it 1 I 1 thought about it a lot and it got to be almost a habit that whenever I 1 was going to 91 sleep P I 1 would think about him and then all hope of sleeping was gone our company took a german trene trench h that time and along with another company four hundred prisoners we had to retire because the men on our bides did not get through and we were being ranked flanked but we lost a lot of men doing it when we returned to our trenches our outfit was simply all in and were lying around in the front line like a bunch of old rags in a alley none of us showed any of life except a working party was digging with picks and shovels some aaroe bodies that had been frozen ut am mud bind of the trem tren cit fa I 1 used to think all the germans were big and fat and strong and of course some of the grenadier regiments are but lots of the bodies I 1 saw were little and weak like this fellow I 1 got in my first charge it was a good piece of work to take the prisoners and a novelty for me to look them in the face the fellows I 1 had been fighting because when you look a nun hun in the face you can see the yellow streak even if you are their prisoner you can tell that the huns are yellow maybe you have heard pigs being butchered it sounded like that when we got to them when they attacked us they yelled to beat the band I 1 guess they thought they could scare us but you cannot scare machine guns nor the foreign legion either so when they could not scare us they were up against it and had to fight I 1 will admit though that tho the first ume time fritz came over and began yelling I 1 thought the whole german arm army y was after me at that and kaiser bill playing the drum and how they hate a bayonet bayon etl ct they would much rather sit in a ditch and pot you A I 1 admit I 1 am not crazy about bayonet fighting myself as a general proposition ion but I 1 will say that there have been times when I 1 was serving a gun behind the front lines when I 1 wished for a rifle and a bayonet in mv hands and a chance at fritz man to man it was in this charge that our chaplain was put out of commission As we were lined up waiting to climb on to the fire step and then over the parapet this chaplain came down the line speaking to each man as he went he would not say much but just a few words and then make the sign of the cross he was in a black cassock he was just one man from me as we got the word and stood up on the fire step he was not armed with as much as a pin but he jumped up on the step and stuck his head over the parapet and got it square landing right beside me I 1 thought he was killed but when we got back we found he was only wounded the men who saw it were over the parapet before the order was given and then the whole bunch after them because they too thought he was killed and figured lie he never would know how they came out about their vows all the men in the company were glad when they found he was only wounded while half of us were on the firing step through throughout oui the day or night the other half would be in the dugouts or sitting around in the bottom of the trench playing little games or mend stuck his head aver the parapet and got it square I 1 lag ing clothes or sleeping or coo cooking king or doing a thousand and one things lings ti the men were always in good humor at such times and it seemed to me even more so when the enemy fire was heavy if I 1 a manawas man was slightly wounded down would come the rifles to order arms and some was sure to shout right bight this way one franc it was w a s a standing joke jok e and they always did it i the gollu who did it kno moat it was a swiss and he was always playing a A jole joe on somebody or imitating some one of us or making faces we W were all sorry when this swiss delit west as the limeys limays say and we wa tried to keep up his jokes and say tho he same t things and so forth but they did not go very verv well after he was dead he got ills his in the same charge in ill which the chaplain was wounded he was one of the bunch that tha t charged before the order was given when the chaplain got it and was running pretty near me until we got to the boche wire I 1 had to stop to pet get through though must of it was cut up by artillery fire but lie he must have jumped it for when I 1 looked up he was twenty or thirty paces ahead of me we got to the germans about that time and I 1 was pretty busy for a while but soon I 1 saw him again helas he was pulling ills his bayonet out of a boche when another made a jab at him and stuck him in the arm then the boche made a swing at him with his rifle but the swiss dropped on one knee and dodged it he kept defending himself with ills his rifle but there was another german on him by this time and lie he could not get up the corporal of our squad came up just about that time but he was too late because one of the boches got to the swiss with his bayonet ile he did not have time to withdraw it before our corporal stuck him the other german made a pass at the corporal but he was too late the corporal beat him to it and felled him ith a terrific blow from liis ills rifle butt the huns were pretty thick around there just as another fellow and myself came up A boche swung his rlue rifle at the corporal and when he dodged it the boche almost got me the swing took him off ills his feet and then the corporal did as pretty a bit of work as I 1 ever saw he jumped for the boche who had had fallen landed on ills face with both feet and gave it to the next one with his bayonet all at the same time he was the quickest man I 1 ever saw there were a couple of 0 well known men in the next company and I 1 saw one of them get under fritzs guard with his foot and believe me there was some force in that kick ile he must have driven the germans chin clear through the back of 0 his bis neck we thought it was pretty tough luck to lose both the chaplain and the village wit in the same charge along with half of our officers aud and then have to give up the trench every man la in the bunch was sore as a boll boil when we got back CHAPTER VII stopping the huns at I 1 was standing in a communication trench that connected one of 0 our f front line trenches with a crater caused by the explosion of a mine all around me men of the third line were coming up lip climbing around digging hammering shifting planks moving sandbags sandbars sand bags up and down bringing up new timbers reels of barbed wire ladders cases of 0 ammunition machine guns trench mortars all the things that make an army look like h a general store on legs the noise of the guns was just deafening our own shells passed not far above our heads so close were the enemy trenches and the explosions were so near ard so violent that when you rested your rifle butt on something solid like a rock you could feel it shake and hum every time a shell landed our first line was just on the outskirts of the town in trenches that had been won and lost by both sides many times our second line was in the streets and the third line was almost at the south end of 0 the town the huns were hard at it shelling the batte battered fed remains of Di and to the right stretcher bearers were wem working in lines so close that they looked like two parades passing each other but the bearers from the company near me had not returned from the emergency dressing station and the wounded were piling up waiting for or them A company of the ame legion atran gere had just come up to take their stations in the crater under the parapet of sandbags sandbars sand bags A shell landed among them just juat before they entered the crater and sent almost a whole squad west besides wounding several others almost before they occupied the crater the wires were laid and reached back to us and the order came for us to remain where we were until further orders then we got the comp compete tete orders gewere we were to make no noise but were all to be ready in ten minutes we put on oil goggles and respirators in ten tea minutes the bombers were to leave the trenches three mines were to explode and then we were to take and hold a certain portion of the enemy trenches not far off we were all ready to start up the ladders when they moved digs section over to ours and he sneaked up to me and whispered behind his hand be a sport doc make it fifty fifty and cimine a chance I 1 did not have any idea what he meant and he had to get back to his squad then the bombas bomb ds came up to the ladders masked and with loaded sacks on their left arms one minute now said the offic officers s getting on oil their own ladder and drawing their i revolvers though most moat of the butcher of the lesion legion charged alth rifle and bayonet like their men then boom 1 slam I 1 bang I 1 and the mines went off allez I 1 and then the parapet was wag filled with bayonets and men scram was bling and crawling and falling and getting up again the drifted bad on us and then our own machine guns began ahead of 0 us up toward the front the bombers were fishing in their bags and throwing just like ilko boys niter after a rat along the locks docks the black smoke from the J jack ack Jolin johnsons sons rolled over us and probably there was gas too but you could not tell the front lines had taken trenches and gone on and you could see them when you stood on a parapet running about like sounds dounda through the enemy communication trenches bombing out dugouts dug outs disarming prisoners very scary looking in their masks and goggles the wounded were comine i back slowly then wo we got busy with our work in the dugouts and communication trenches and fire bays with bayonets and bombs digging the bockes boches out and sending them west and every once in a while a fritz on one side would step out and yell kamerad Kam crad while like as not on tle the other side his pal would pot you with a revolver when you started to pick him up thinking he was wounded then we stood aside at the entrance to a dugout and some boches came out in single file shouting kamerad 1 Z 7 i lz fl 0 X t aj VZ 0 tw 11 arl ilar MN the bombers were fishing in chelp bag and throwing for all they were worth one of them had his mask and face blown off yet he was trying to talk with the tears rolling down over the raw flesh ile he died five minutes later one night while I 1 was lying hack back in the trench trying not to think of anything and go to sleep the bombs began to get pretty thick around there end and when I 1 could not stand it any longer I 1 rushed out into the bay of the fire fille trench and right up against the parapet where it was safer hundreds of star shells were being sent up by both sides S and the field and the trenches were as bright as day all up and down the trenches our men were dodging about keeping out of the way of tte the bombs that were being thrown in our faces it did not seem as it if there was any place where it was possible to get cover most of the time I 1 was picking dirt out of my eyes that explosions had driven into them if you went into a dugout the men already in there would shout dont stick in a bunch spread out while you were in a dugout you kept act expecting to be buried alive and when you went outside you thought the bodies were aiming at you direct and thoro there was no place at all where you felt safe but the |