One of them used to be a Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Joseph Wilson, of Wheeling, W. Va., another is Bud Lehr, of Albion, Neb., who played center on a basketball team that won the State championship. The others are Charles Kinsolving and Charles Kerwood, of Philadelphia, and George Kyle, of Portland, Ore. They are corporals in a French flying squadron situated within an hour"s flight of an American infantry training camp.
Seated around the rough mess table in their popotte--a tiny building stuck away on a ledge of rock under a cliff--they told all about the bombing of the railroad stations and ammunition factories at Rombach and Ludwigshafen.
"The old Boche almost got me that time," said Lehr, lifting the oil cloth table cover to knock wood. "The engine of my boat died on me just over Rombach. I pulled everything in sight and kicked every lever I couldn"t see. Nothing doing; anti-aircraft sh.e.l.ls bursting right on a level with me. We began to drop. I turned around to the observer and pulled a sea-sick grin.
A Sneeze Spelled Joy.
""It"s all off, kid," he said. "Looks like we"re through."
"We dropped from 5,000 meters to 3,000. Then the engine sneezed, coughed and took up again. My heart and the boat came up 2,000 meters in one jump. The rest of the formation had gone on, dropped their bombs on Rombach and were beating it for Ludwigshafen. By the time I got back to my right alt.i.tude I could see the effects of their bombs. The railroad station was burning like a haystack and smoke was coming from the munitions plant. I circled the town and the observer released the bombs.
"Then I turned nose back towards Verdun and crossed the lines. A couple of miles behind the line the engine ran out of gas, so we came down in a field."
They circled several times on the French side of the lines before crossing in order to reach the necessary alt.i.tude. Kyle dropped eight bombs, most of them on the munition plant at Ludwigshafen.
"The sky was full of cream puffs," he said, "but it didn"t bother us very much because most of the stuff was breaking above or below us. We took our time, aimed for the objective, and dropped the bombs.
Can"t See Bomb"s Results.
"You can"t hear them explode or see the results unless you"re flying quite a distance behind the squadron because we go so fast that by the time the fire gets under way we are miles off. Except for Lehr"s machine, we maintained our formation and came out flying in the same position. If there were any Boche patrols out in our neighborhood they knew better than to tackle us.
"When we came down I found my observer unconscious. I thought he had been hit, but he had only fainted from the cold.
"You big rummy," turning to the observer and swiping one of his cigarettes from the open box on the table--"You big rummy, I told you you had better surround something hot before starting--a bowl of oatmeal or coffee.
"Gimmie a light now."
All five are awaiting their transfer to the American flying corps.
STARS IN A HERO"S ROLE.
Movie Actor Plays Sapper in a Real Rescue.
Among the candidates for officers" commissions at the A. E. F."s training schools is a former movie star who has served his apprenticeship with the British Army. To see him now, few would recognize him as one of the high steppers under the bright night lights of Broadway as he was a year ago. Seized by a sudden impulse, he enlisted in the British army without waiting for America to get into the war and now in return for faithful service, has been given an opportunity by that government to fight under his own flag. Several other Americans who have also worn the British uniform, and who were sent to the school for the same purpose, tell this story of one of the former screen star"s experiences:
In the darkness--locomotives, auto lights in the fighting zone--a heavily loaded truck was struck by a train. The truck was overturned down an embankment, imprisoning the two men on it, killing one almost instantly and seriously injuring the other. Spurred by the latter"s groans and appeals for help an officer was directing a squad of men with crowbars and sticks in an effort to lift the truck when the former actor came up. The men were making no progress in budging the heavy wreck while there was a possibility, if they did, that it would crash down on the still living man.
"I think I can get the man out, sir if I may try," the New Yorker said saluting the officer.
"Who are you?" the officer asked surprised at the interruption.
"I"m a Yank, sir," he replied, using the popular designation for Americans in the British army.
"What"s your rank?" continued the officer, determined that the man be rescued properly if at all.
"Master engineer, sir," the American answered.
Evidently that was sufficient for the officer, for he at once a.s.sented with:
"You may try. Lend him a hand men."
The "Yank" took a shovel and started tunnelling under the truck. As he wormed himself into the little hole, the shovel was abandoned for a bayonet and he pushed the dirt back with his hands to others, who threw it aside. After an hour"s work, he had the dead man out. Another hour, and he had burrowed molelike, to the side of the other man, who still was conscious.
"Do you want to take a chance? It"ll be torture getting out," he said to the truck driver.
"Anything to get from here to die outside," the man gasped.
A rope was shoved in and the American tied it around the man"s legs.
Slowly, while he guided the battered body of the now unconscious man, comrades pulled them both back through the narrow tunnel.
"I"ll see that you"re mentioned in regimental orders for your efforts,"
said the officer to the exhausted "Yank," and he did.
The truck driver had an arm broken, a shoulder crushed and a fractured skull. He was rushed to a hospital on a chance that his life might be saved after so much effort. The work was not in vain, for a few days ago a letter was received from him, well again at his home in England, saying to the former movie star:
"The latch string of this home in Leicester is always hanging out for you."
"WELL, I"LL BE--!"
THEY"RE ALL HERE.
"Fat Casey!"
"Well, I"ll be--!"
After seven years Gabby and Fat Casey came face to face on a snow-covered country hillside in France. Gabby played right tackle on the football team out in Chicago in his soph.o.m.ore year. Casey, a senior, was center and a bother to the trainer because he would surround two bits" worth of chocolate caramels every day, adding to the dimension that won him his nickname.
Somewhere in France Gabby swung his right mitt and clasped Casey"s. They hung on in a kind of reminiscent grip, searching one another"s face for changes.
Casey wore a smudge on his upper lip. Gabby"s face was still un-hairy, but a little lined by the last few years of bucking the business line for a living. Casey has no cause for wrinkles, having a wealthy Dad.
And, anyway, Fat"s disposition proofed his map against the corrugations of money problems.
We find them shaking hands again.