| Show PH UTAH ernie enie pyles slaw slant on the war arabs profit by yanks liberal trading policy infantry the underdogs Under dogs of african battles carried cat ried on without fanfare by ernie pyle I 1 editors note pyle relates some of his experiences while he was with the dough 1 lios bos during the african campaign lie ile is now taking a long needed rest in new Al mexico exico NORTHERN TUNISIA one night at Kai rouan three of us correspondents finding the newly taken town filled with newly arrived british and american troops just drove out of town into the country and camped for the night we put up a tent we just slept in the open the mosquitoes were fierce and xe ke draped netting over our heads we were in a sort 0 of big ditch right alongside an arab graveyard But 4 7 4 neither the graves nor the mosquitoes bo bothered us that night for ag we were tired and wind burned and before we knew it morning ernie pyle had come and a hot sun W was s beaming down into our squinting ayes and what should those sleepy eyes behold but two arab boys sta standing anding right fight over our bedrolls bed rolls holding out ggs it was practically like a new yorker corker cartoon for all I 1 know they nay may have been standing there all night at any rate they had come to the right place for we were definitely in the market for eggs they sell for money so we dug into our larder box bos and got four eggs in trade for three little cellophane packets of hard candy then we started all over again and got four four more eggs for a pack of cigarettes we thought it a good trade but found later that the trading ratio which the germans had set up up ahead of us was one cigarette for one egg we americans have to ruin everything ery thing of course but as one tough looking soldier said if I 1 want to give 50 for an egg its my business and my 50 and from all ive seen of arabs an extra franc or two aint gonna hurt them any all this transpired before we had got out of our bedrolls bed rolls but the youthful traders leave As we were putting on our pants each boy whisked a shoe shining box from under his burnoose and went after ou our r shoes then when we started a fire and were feeding it with sticks one of the boys got down and blew on the flame flam e to make it burn better it was easy to see that we had acquired a couple of body servants the boys were herding about two dozen goats in some nearby clover now and then one of them would run over and chase the goats back nearer to our camp we called our boy mohammed and the other abdullah Ah dullah seemed to tickle them they were good natured happy boys of about 15 one of them tried on my goggles he seemed to imagine that he looked wonderful in them and giggled and made poses he know the goggles were upside down also he know that I 1 was hoping fervently his eyes as diseased as they looked the boys told us in french that the germans had made them work at an airport opening gas cans and doing general flunky work they said the germans paid them 20 francs a day which is above the local scale but it turned out they were german printed francs which of course are naw absolutely worthless our self appointed helpers hunted sticks tor for us poured water out of our big cani can and helped us wash our mess kits they kept blowing in the fire they cleaned up all the scraps around our bivouac they lifted our heavy bedrolls bed rolls into the jeep for us and just as we were ready to leave they gave our shoes a final brushing we paid them with three cigarettes and two sticks of gum each and they were delighted when we were ready to go we shook hands all around au smiled and saluted and then one of the boys asked apologetically it if we could give them one more thing maybe we asked what it was they wanted never guess he wanted an empty empt y tin can for his goats to chew on we gave him one a 0 0 hadji Is the arab word used in place of sir before the name of anybody who has journeyed to mecca and become holy seven journeys to Kai rouan equal one to mecca so we correspondents now go around calling each other hadji since most of us have crossed the city line more than seven times another word weve adopted is daebel dj ebel its arabic for hill or mountain on the maps every knob you see is daebel this or daebel that so we also call each other daebel and if you think silly well we have to have something to augh laugh at were now with an infantry outfit that has battled ceaselessly for four days and nights this northern warfare has been in the mountains you dont ride much any more it is walking and climbing and crawling country the mountains arent big but they are constant they are largely treeless they are easy to defend and bitter to take but we are taking them the germans lie on the back slope of every ridge deeply dug into foxholes in front of them the fields and pastures are hideous with thousands of hidden mines the forward slopes are left open untenanted and if the americans tried to scale these slopes they would be murdered wholesale in an inferno of machine gun crossfire crossmire cros plus mortars and grenades consequently we dont do it that way we have fallen back to the old warfare of first pulverizing the enemy with artillery then sweeping around the ends of the hill with infantry and taking them from the sides and ana behind our artillery has really been sensational sat ional for once we have enough of something and at the right time officers tell me they actually have more guns than they know what to do with all ali the guns in any one sector can be centered to shoot at one spot and when we lay the whole business on a german hill the whole slope seems to erupt it becomes an unbelievable cauldron cauldren caul dron of fire and smoke and dirt veteran german soldiers say they have never been through anything me like it I 1 love the infantry because they aire are the underdogs under dogs they are the mud frost and wind boys they have no comforts and they even learn to live without the necessities and in the end they are the guys that wars cant be won without I 1 wish you could see just one ol of the ineradicable pictures I 1 have in my mind today in this particular picture I 1 am sitting among clumps of sword grass on a steep and rocky hillside that we have just taken we are looking out over a vast rolling country to the rear A narrow path comes like a ribbon over a hill miles away down a long slope across a creek up a slope and over another hill all AA along the length of this ribbon there is now a thin line of men for tour four days and nights they have fought hard eaten little washed none and slept hardly at all their nights havo have been violent with attack fright butchery and their days sleepless a and nd miserable with the crash of artillery the men are walking they are 50 feet apart for dispersal their walk is slow for they are dead weary as you can tell even when looking at them from behind every line and sag of their bodies speaks their inhuman exhaustion on their shoulders and backs they carry heavy steel tripods machine gun barrels leaden boxes of aluni tion their feet seem to sink into the ground from the overload they are bearing they dont slouch it is the terrible deliberation of each step that tha spells out their appalling tiredness their faces are black and unshaven they are young men but the grime and whiskers and exhaustion makes them look middle aged in their eyes as they pass is not nol hatred not excitement not despair not the tonic of their victory there ther is just the simple expression of being here as though they had been here doing this forever and nothing else |
