TEN THOUSAND SHALL FALL

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 964, 6 May 1930, Page 5

TEN THOUSAND SHALL FALL

By

DAVID W. KING

(Copyright 1929, by Duffield and Co. Distributed by the King Features Syndicate Inc.)

SYNOPSIS Long before the United States enters the World War, David King, Harvard student, answers the call. He joins the tcunous French Foreign Legion. His buddies in the Legion are “Phil,” an ex-elephant hunter, and Alan Seeger, the American poet, later killed in action. All nationalities are represented in the Foreign Legion. Most of them are fin it because of unrequited love or manslaughter. In a few days they are marched to a town behind the front. Pressed in red trousers, they soon occupy front-line trenches. The first night, “Phil” goes out to capture a German sentry. CHAPTER V. —-^Continued). It was only November. 1914, but we realised that trench warfare had come to stay. In two months the rifle pits

of the Marne had spread into a complicated system of trenches, dugouts, machine gun emplacements. Finally, a vast web of barbed wire was spun along the whole front. Our new sector was called Oulch on the map, Picadilly Circus by the English volunteers, and the fer a cheval (horseshoe) by the Legion. lie found ourselves in a sort of quarry with well-made dugouts built into the chalk above it. There was no further need of covering patrols at night, thanks to the barbed wire, but the sector was much more heavily bombarded than the last, so we remained under cover when not on duty.

The machine gun section was, naturally* installed in tli§ strongest dug-

out —machine guns cost money. We saw what an H-E 105 could do when a lucky shot passed, through the loophole and burst clean inside. Our squad rushed in to help the survivors—there were none—so we set to work to clear up the mess. I was struck by the practical coolness of an old Legionaire who was transferring a mess of blood, and brains from the floor into a kepi with the late owner’s spoon.

In our off moments we told the stories of our lives—usually mythical—and read our shirts.

IVe had a crude chimney in our dugout and were busy brewing chocolate. Bert, from Kentucky, ex-racing driver, and God knows what besides, was .going all out. He finished, and

there was a moment of awed silence, "is side-kick broke the spell: “Bert,” (scratch) “you know that’s a damned lie.” (scratch) (scratch). The answer was disarming. “Well, who the hell said it wasn’t!” Here Bill's wriggling and scratching disturbed the aesthetic artist beside him. Turning his face from the fire, with a dreamy look in his eye, he summed up the whole cootie question: “Good Lord, Bill! Do you still scratch!” The nights were more fun. The Bodies .used to sneak out and hang baskets of “delicatessen” on our wire. There was always a note with them, assuring us this was their daily fare, and we need only desert to enjoy the

same. Our officers replied in kind. But we felt that Charity began at home, and the baskets were generally empty by the time they reached the German wire.

It gave us comfort and cheer to see the Chateau lighted as we filed through the gates of the park. The glass porte-cochere was Intact, and so little damage seemed to have been done to the facade that it was hard to realise we were only a few hundred yards from the front line. We turned the corner, and as if by black magic the lights went out, and the place became a gutted ruin. It had only been the moon shining through empty windows. The heavily vaulted cellars had resisted shrapnel and fire; and here our company was quartered. One section was immediately posted at points of vantage along the wall of the park where rude-shelters had been built; and the wall itself was loopholed.

Craonnelle must have been taken by surprise in the opening days of the war. I don't, know how the inhabitants fared, but a baleful feeling lurked about the ruins. I couldn’t wait to explore. The gatekeeper’s lodge had not been shelled but the interior was indescribably filthy. The Hun had evidently had one last ban-

quet here. A long table in the main room was piled high with dirty dishes, wine glasses and bottles, and he had left his usual trade mark—excrement —on everything. * In the middle of this debris of debauch, lay a small white satin slipper. Evidently Fritz had been true to his traditions of the Kurfurstendam. Had the owner escaped? My mind went back to my mother’s place, in France —not so far from the tide of invasion—and I was damned glad I was in the show. The position at Craonnelle was somewhat precarious. All the streets were heavily barricaded, as half the town was held by the enemy. During the first month of the Legion's occupation it changed hands repeatedly, but we

gradually cleared it and- "consolidated the position.

A barricade at the end of the street is a tricky thing to hold. The attackers have most of the advantage. They mass their forces around the corner and charge in a concerted rush, giving the defenders time for but’ one shot apiece. Grenades were still unknown, and machine guns too precious to waste on outpost duty. Our major (commandant) solved the problem, however, by raking the country-side for shot guns: and these, loaded with slugs, shot and old nails, proved most effective against sudden rushes.

Then the Germans—it was a regiment of Jagers—pulled their first raid. Half our section had gone down to draw rations for the week, leaving the other two squads to guard the wall of the park. Vetman, and the man off duty, were in a little shelter in a corner of the wall. Kiffen Rockwell and Alan were doing sentry-go along the wall itself—that is to say, on planks supported by barrels. Suddenly Kiff saw a spark come over the wall from outside. “you see that, Alan?” “Yes, X saw that. Do you think it was a bomb?” ' “Yes, I think it was a bomb. We’d better call Vetman—” (B-o-o-o-o-o-m!!) “My God, it was a bomb!”

Clearly outlined above the top of the wall, they drew a fusillade front the raiders outside, which drove them off their platform. Before they had time to do anything the garden door, on their left, was blown in. Then there was quick action. The corporal turning out with the rest of the guard, was met by a howling rush of Germans pouring through the shattered gate. A short hand-to-hand; and Vetman, seeing he was outnumbered, ordered his men to the cover of the park skirting the inside of the wall. As he gave the command his brains were dashed out by the butt of a Boche rifle. The Germans had just time to strip the dead of all their papers, regimental badges, etc., before the section returned from the food detail and drove them out. Sentinels were doubled and everybody in the section was on guard duty along the wall. About an hour later, we heard something new, but very old. Down from the German lines, on the crest across the valley, came a long wolf-like howl, half human, half beast—derision, triumph, and re-venge-straight back across the ages from apeman and wolf-pack. They had found out that Vetman was a deserter, and war and exultation had stripped the Hun of all veneer and boasted Kultur. Phelizot said it first. “Well, fellows, we’re in it for keeps. Let’s start a little raid of our own.”

Toward morning I disgraced myself. As dawn broke, I was looking through a loophole with the wind blowing in my face, and I made the fatal mistake of resting my chin on my arms. A sniper's bullet smacked the wall just over the loophole, and off I toppled, rolling on the ground. The concern of the sergeant who ran to pick me up changed to wrath when he realised that I had been dozing. Fortunately, the regulations of the French Army insist that you cannot be shot for sleeping at your post after four hours’ continual guard, but there is no regulation to prevent every filthy detail of a company being heaped upon you for "weeks afterward.

Two nights later we moved up to the “sky parlour,” as we dubbed the sector on the hill over-looking the chateau. Here Phelizot organised his raid but did not see fit to inform the sous-officiers of his intentions. I have said before that Phelizot was an elephant hunter, and •a successful one, for he had made a fair-sized fortune in ivory. As he explained it the difficulty and danger was not in shooting elephants, but in dodging the Belgian, French and British game wardens over their respective borders in the process of poaching, which crime he freely admitted. His only fear seemed to be of himself, yet he was e~traordinarily tolerant of weakness and failings in others. The first time Phil went out, he tried to bring back a German sentry, smothering his yells in a blanket. There were too many others nearby, however, and he almost got shot up for his pains. He would use all his skill as a hunter to bring himself within striking range of the quarry, but once there, would risk his own life, rather than chance killing a man with a crack on the head. I told him he was crazy to try such stunts, but he only smiled — “You see, Dave, in the game I was in, you’re killing, or spilling blood every day. If it isn’t an elephant, it’s game for the boys, or just slaughtering a goat for meat. It seems to get Into you, after a while, the ever-

lasting shooting and blood; and men get wliat they call Blood Fever. Some ot my triends got it—The natives get on your nerves and you start knocking them around with a jambok and draw blood. Then one day you lose your temper and shoot one. I felt it coming on, so I quit and came home.” The horror of it was so strong that he could not bring himself to kill a man single handed, even in war. CHAPTER VI. The next night he took me with him. It was eerie work, crawling toward the German lines, especially when we came to the zone where the corpses of the first big battles lay. still unburied. On we went, freezing when a star shell went up, crawling forward again immediately afterward, in the accentuated darkness. I was no big game hunter, but, by putting my hands and feet exactly in the tracks of Phelizot, managed to slide along quite quietly. Would we ever reach the German lines —? The answer was a. sharp clank twenty yards behind me. Looking back, my heart almost stopped. There, large as life, and twice as ugly, was I a German sentinel, standing with his

back to me. I shook Phil*s foot and j pointed. But the only reaction was j a whispered explanation: “Yes, I i know. That’s the second one.” My teeth chattered with reassurance. * Finally we came to a communication trench and here Phil got much excited. He pointed out a fresh spoor of German feet in the mud and proposed to wait, one on each side of the trench, till he, or they, returned Then I was to crack the last man over the head as he went by, and we would take him back to our lines. Unfortunately this plan was upset by the lateness of the hour, so we started back. Nothing happened till we got within thirty yards of our out post, when considering all danger past we rose to our feet and started walking in. talking as we went. Ordinarily it is easy enough to distinguish between English and German; but after two hours of guard duty, an excitable Italian is apt to confuse the two. especially coming from the direction of the enemy’s lines. We were greeted by a hasty “Halte la! Qui vive?” giving us just time to flop, before it was followed up by a bullet. Recognition finally established we got back to the lines. Here the plot thickened.

Jaeger, the man promoted to replace Vetman, was a red-headed hottempered Alsacian who took his new stripes seriously. “Where have you two been?" “Oh, just over the German lines to have a look around." "Oh, you have, have you! You think you can go out and come back when you Tike in this Army? Did anyone give you orders to go on patrol? Silence! Did you ask anybody's permission even? SHUT UP! Am I commanding here, or do you think you are running it? What have you got to say for yourselves? SHUT UP! I’m talking now. I’ve a good mind to report you as deserters. Never heard of such crust. So you two think you are commanding this post and I count for nothing. In other words. I’m a flat-footed, lop-eared jackass, hein?” To be continued tomorrow.