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Dec. 19,1917. Rifle Queers Jim On Guard BY OUR OWN RING W. LARDNER /7\ well al i of ben in the middul of a buntch of /</ \\ eggzitement witch vary few peepul has a chants [ '- > \ only wunce in a wile to get mixed into becaus i guest _/ p . j as Aggie ced their is allways sumthing doing wear- C ever J’ ou are y° u know me al. most of this eg- X. f gzitement has ben on a/c of my bean on gard duty ( \ } Cy T) J part of it is due to the riffle ime lerning to handul so \ vL x• v If tkat Germ man armie will be fewer & father between > r when i get to frantz. • V\. they is a no. of things that can happin to you • A wen your on S ard al & ’ gnest ive had most of them ’ 7tV\ /in A happin to me sents iof ben a soldger such as fall ' / I I V asleep. (? ft u this time 1 was put onto dut y as a g ar( l their was .nothink you cood see by sutch as a moon or a Hlo* streat Ute or nothing sutch as the cops have in the AT lHh cit J’ witch is a job a good deyull like bean on gard 1 AX-a~~~~K7~5 h only a gard dont have no lam posts to lean agenst & 111 | his revolver is a riffle & not no pistall. I well a ' th is gard of mine was on a rode wear | '/a no 1 ever travels on so i thot went i took it to gard. JIM’ W eve rythink was fine their was nothink to do but set 1 ' u “ and smoak & 1 was just getting ready to get up & go back & tell the commanding offiser wot is the ust of garding a rode like that nothing is ever a round wen i herd a masheen coming, it was coming so fast i ced to myself wot is the ust of monking with a masheen going that fast it wood only muss you up and ennyweighy mebbee their not frends but ennymies. i ced nothink wen the masheen cam up to wear i was setting only held my sigarett behin my back so they coodent see me. beleev me ala gard cant taik no chants us. if these garni mans ever catch a gard so they say their is no moar chants of his getting a weigh than their is a chants of my getting a weigh to see Aggie every nite in the weak witch is sum chants hay al. well this masheen was drilling a long that rode like 1 of these hear brittish tanx witch their is so mutch in the papers about & i was glad that I had decide it not to chalendge them but was sitting quitely a long the rode with my sigarett behin my back so as to not attrack no attpnshun. you cud see the lites of the masheen grining at you out of the nite like two eats eyes and she i mene the masheen al not the cat was snortink a weigh and she wa spownding & maiking other noyses witch a masheen can maik. beleev me i was geting gladder & gladder i was setting tite as that thing cairn out of the dark and blackness, i laid back with my gun laying their beside me & if it hadent ben for that riffle all mite of ben well and 1 & the masheen wood of ben the best of freinds. but you cant never trust no riffle al no moar than theshear come ediens say you cant trust no woomen all tho wat they say i§ bunk hay al after me noing Aggie. as i was laying their with that gunn besied me i was as inoscent as enny babby ever was befoar it growed up into mannhood & yet sum thing happint al that shood never have happint. just as the masheen got up to within a cuppel of ft. of wear i was laying i shift it a round some weigh or another and their was a sound broke out on the nite heir witch never shbod of broke out it was the sound of a gunn xploading al & the worse of it was that it was my gunn. the vary riffle witch had been laying their with me. well al it is hard to tell wat happint folowing after the riffle went off. the masheen stopt going and the lites went out somewear & their was some langwitch i cant rite to you for fear sum 1 mite get this not ust to sutch talk, their was a lot of hollering & yelling & finely i dish covered they was hollering for me but wat had i done hay al. so i just laid their & after a wile i stretcht my arms & pretend it i had just wot up from sleeping & ced well i guest its time for that other guy to cum hear and gard sort of as tho their was no 1 to here me but i was talking to myself, i guest the stiffs in the masheen must of ben scarit for they sed nothin for a cuppel of minints & at last sum 1 ced who goes their & i replide back thats not your line i say that who goes their yourself, then a fella cairn up with 1 of these hand electrick lites & he had a unniform on witch i found out was an offlsers unniform. wen he seen me said are you the garde i ced thats not for you to ask i demand to know who are you & do you know the pastword, well he ced you have got a (deleted by censor) of a nurruv talking to an offiser this way we was coming a long in the masheen wen a riffle goes off was it your i ced it was untill it made that bull and exploded now i will have nothin moar to do with it i have thrown it down four good, i was having a fine time laying their on the ground smoaking untill that gunn goes off now my fun is spoilt and yrs to as your masheen wood of went buy without no trubbel. now i guest it is my duty to put you under a rest you are my prisoner cum with me. i start it to grab him by the overcoat tale but he ced by gordge this gink has got enough nurruv to be a jenrill their will be no questchun but wat he will clean up the Germ mans alright, so they goes off and leeves me al but this a. m. i was told to cum up & see the madger & ime riteing you befoar i go. he will probly say you have got some nurruv & mebbe want to maik me a corprall or sumthing. your freind PRIVATE JIM. Your Flag And My Flag Your flag and my flag, And how it flies to-day In your land and my land And half a world away! Rose-red and blood-red The stripes forever gleam; Snow-white and soul-white— The good forefathers’ dream; Sky-blue and true-blue, with stars to gleam aright— The gloried guidon of the day, a shelter through the night. Your flag and my flag! And, oh, how much it holds— Your land and my land— Secure within its folds! Your heart and my heart Beat quicker at the sight; Sun-kissed and wind-tossed— Red and blue and white The one flag—the great flag—the flag for me and you— Glorified all else beside—the red and white and blue! By Wilbur D. Nesbit, in Watchman Examiner. ASK THEM TO KEEP IT Let the folks back home know what is doing in your camp. Send Trench and Camp to them and ask them to keep a complete set of the copies for you to read after the War ci 1317. TRENCH AND CAMr NO “OFFICIAL” SERVICE FLAG No company or individual has ob tained official sanction from the War- Department for any particular service flag, Secretary of War Baker has an nounced, and no service flag can be sold legitimately on the claim that it is the "official” flag. LAUGHS AT LOSS OF BOTH LEGS; STILL EAGER TO SERVE BY HOWARD KAHN A port in France (By Mail) When the transport sails from this harbor in a few days, it will carry the happiest boy in the world. That is the way he charac terizes himself. I would call him the nerviest boy in the world. His name is Aubrey McLeod. He is a farmer student at Purdue Uni versity, a resident of Boston, and he served in an Indiana battery on the Mexican border last year. Ail of which has nothing to do with why he is the happiest and the nerviest boy in the world. When histories of the present war are written, Aubrey McLeod’s name will go down as the first American casualty. The air raid on Base Hos pital No. , which resulted in the death of Lieut. Fitzsimmons of the medical corps and three privates early in July, injured McLeod so seri ously that his two legs had to be am putated six inches above the knees. This much has been briefly mention ed in official newspaper dispatches. But nothing has been said about Mc- Leod himself or his hopes for the fu ture. I met a hospital sergeant on a train bound for this port the other day. “We’re taking Aubrey McLeod home,’’ he said. “Would you like to see him?” I was not sure. I had seen a lot of French and German “mutilds” dur ing four months at the French front, and the memory of some of them was still with me. I did not know whether I wanted to see a pale-faced, drawn and suffering American. I had known some of McLeod’s friends on the Mexican border last summer, however, and I thought some news of them might cheer him a lot. I entered his compartment. Two soldiers were there. Both were hearty, red-cheeked, fresh-looking Americans, neither of whom appeared to have known what a day’s illness meant. "Where’s McLeod?” I asked. His First Glimpse of McLeod "My name is McLeod,” replied one of them smiling. Then I noticed that, the lower part of his body was govered with a rug. If the American wounded and the American people accept their misfor tunes like Aubrey McLeod has ac cepted his, the receipt of the long casualty lists which are sure to come will cause no alarm as to American morale. “Looking for a sick man?” laughed McLeod, reading my thoughts. “There’s nobody sick around here. I may get a little seasick in a few days, but there won’t be anything serious about it.” “Just what happened?” “A fleet of Boche planes. They dropped six bombs. One of ’em got me. Now I’m minus two legs.” McLeod said all this with a smile on his face. “I had been on guard. Somebody relieved me, and I lay down for some sleep. I heard a commotion and jumped to my feet. Two bombs went off and I knew it was an air raid. Then a third exploded very near to me. Another man in my unit began yelling, ‘help me,’ and I saw that h_e was wounded. Then I looked down and saw that my right leg was al most cut in two. I didn’t feel a bit of pain, but I began yelling too just like the other fellow was doing. I remember the colonel ran in and looked at me and held me up until two men came with a stretcher.” '“Next thing I knew was when I woke up the following day! I re membered about my right leg dang ling as if ready to drop off. I reached down and found that it was gone. Then I reached for my left leg. It was gone too.” Please remember that McLeod was not telling this with tragedy in his voice. There were no sighs, no self pity. There was merely an air of sat isfaction—satisfaction at having done his duty. He did not show the least indication that he considered that he had done more. Tells of Loss of Both Legs “I called for my nurse,” he con tinued, “and I remember that I had a long argument with her before I sank off to sleep again. I told her that she had promised they wouldn’t amputate my leg, and here they had amputated both of them. I told her that I thought it was not fair to be lied to like that. But there was no heart-breaking realization that I'was a cripple for life. I was too full of morphine for that. And by the time the morphine had worn off I suppose I had- quit worrying about the future.” “And now?” “Well, I’m going home. I want to hear ’em speak English like Ameri cans. I want the kind of food my mother'knows how to cook. When they got me pretty well patched up I’m going to try to find something else I can do for the government. I don’t know what it will be, but I’ve got two good arms, and I know some thing will turn up. I’m far from be ing ready for the junk pile.” And Aubrey McLeod smiled again —a smile that brought confidence to the other Americans who had crowd ed into his compartment during his recital. For they regarded McLeod as a typical American soldier, and if a typical American soldier has this philosophy of life, what is there to fear? McLeod will start for home amply supplied with everything to make him comfortable for the long trip. The government is taking the best of care of him, and the American Y. M. C. A. has seen to it that he has books, candy, and everything else a traveler could want. The boy attributes his happy state of mind to the fact that Americans, particularly Y. M. C. A. secretaries, have watched out for him so carefully. “I’m not nearly so unlucky as I would have been had I been born a Frenchman, an Englishman—or a German,” he com'-tded. MAIL CENSORSHIP RULES SHOULD BE PRESERVED BY SOLDIERS IN CAMPS It is suggested that every reader of Trench and Camp who is likely to be a member of an expeditionary force save the following reprints of official correspondence. While both letters are dated from Hoboken, N. J., it is fair to assume that the reg ulations regarding mail and mail cen sorship have been standardized for all embarkation ports. Hqrs. Port of Embarkation, Hoboken, N. J. Memorandum: Subject: Instruc tions reference mail. Notice to Men Sailing: It is sug gested that you write postals to your parents, stating that, you have arrived safely abroad. These postals you must put in the mail bag on the ship before sailing and they will be held at these headquarters until your ship has arrived safely abroad and then mailed. Your safe arrival will, therefore, be announced to your rela tives two weeks earlier than you can advise them by writing from the other side. By command of Major General Shanks: D. A. WATT, Adjutant General. Hqrs. Port of Embarkation, Hoboken, N. 'J. Memorandum: Subject—Censor ship of Mail. To Troops Abroad: 1. A mail bag is placed at the office of the quartermaster or purser where all mail must be deposited. All sealed mail will be held until your arrival abroad. All unsealed mail will be censored at once, then sealed and forwarded to destination. 2. The object of the censorship is to prevent any information reaching the enemy, which would endanger your lives while en route, and there fore nothing should be said as to are sailing from, or when, or whef'e to. Say nothing as to the boat you are leaving on, whether transport or commercial liner, nor whether boats, transports, or war ships are leaving at the same time. Remember particularly that postal cards pass through a number of hands, and protect your own life by being careful to give no news to the enemy. 3. You can write your loved ones as fully and freely on personal mat ters as if your mail was sealed. The censor has to read as many as 1,000 letters a day. He pays no attention to names or addresses, but simply runs through a letter to cut out any prohibited matter as mentioned above. The letter is then sealed at once by him and is ready for the post office. 4. On the way over you will be able to write and tell about your trip, but remember again that your mail must go through the censor over there, so again avoid trouble by not mentioning names of boats, organi zations, convoys, etc., and remember all the time that the object of the censorship is to protect your country, your comrades and yourself. By command of Brigadier General Shanks: T. EDWARD HAMBLETON, Major, A.G., Asst. Adjutant. THE QUESTION Missionary—A little contribution for the heathen, sir. Gotrox—How are you going to get it into Germany? Page 9 11J tßsosEra-sEsr? rtil if s afl jp'-Atf rl I I 14L.L -U-LX s Wk Y \ I AM ‘j'T! sn I Hi g/ i'H h! Bbi I fel