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About Cloverdale courier. (Cloverdale, Tillamook County, Or.) 190?-19?? | View Entire Issue (Dec. 6, 1917)
GOOD ROADS, GOOD HOMES, BEST CHEESE VOL. CLOVERDALE COl'RIE € The Nestucca Valley First, Last and all the Time. NO. 19 CLOVERDALE, TILLAMOOK COUNTY, OREGON, DECEMBER 6,1917 j 3. FOURtEEN MONTHS W AT JJ THEFRONT An American B o y ’» Baptism o f Fire By WILLIAM J. ROBINSON WILLIAM J. ROBINSON During tbe time I was nt the front 1 put six automobiles out of commission. According to an estimate made after a year of war, the average life of an au tomobile is eight days and the life of a horse is about thirty hours. The first auto 1 lost was due to en gine trouble, and I hud to abandon it for the salvage companies to take care of. The second one was destroyed by a shell in the city of Yprcs while I was having some dinner. The third one I lost during the scrap for hill t>0. I got stuck in the middle of a field, arid as it was in doubtful position 1 set fire to it and trusted to luck that I had done the right thing. The other three were used up by the fearful condition of the roads. We knew several days before the at tack came on hill ti t that there was something in the wind. Our mining and tunneling companies had been working day and night, and I noticed that the artillery teemed to be concen trating in that vicinity. Re-enforce ments were brought up. and everything seemed to point toward some doings is the near future. Two days before the attack came off 1 was warned to hold myself in readi ness to take a motorcycle machine gun into action, but 1 was not told any thing about when 1 was likely to be wanted. Hill CO itself had hardly any right to he called a hill, for to me it looked like a little rising ground and that’s all, but we had ninety-two batteries of artillery playing ail over it, and they kept up the heaviest possible bombard ment for thirty-five minutes. When you think of 308 cannon pouring shells Into such a small place as one little hill it may give you some idea of what we gave tlie Germans who were trying to hold it against us. Tlic bombardment stopped as abrupt ly as it started, and as soon as it ended tlie mines we had laid under the hill Copyright, Little, Brown t Co. The most graphic account of the great war that has yet been written comes from the pen of a twenty-two- year-old Boston boy, who has just re turned from France, where as dragoon guardsman, dispatch rider and motor car driver he served fourteen months under the British flag. Out of thirty- one motorcycle dispatch riders he was one of four survivors were set o5. The earth seemed to tremble for a moment, and then came a great rumbling roar, followed by an upheaval of earth which seemed to reach the clouds. The moment the mines had been set off our chaps left their trenches on the dead run, and they charged across the crater where hill CO had been but a few moments before. Tlie heavy artillery fire wo had given rhe Germans had partly demoralized them. Tlie explosion of the mines fin ished the job. and they fled like sheep. Our machine gun was pouring steel into them for a few moments, hilt we had to stop, as our own men were pur suing them, and it was not safe to con tinue our fire any longer. It was all over in a very short time and, while we had to stand by all night, our work did not last long during the actual battle. Soon after this battle I secured my first “leave” to go to England for a rest of seven days, and though this is sup posed to be a story of experiences while'on tlie fighting front, I will re late something that happened while I was in Glasgow. Scotland. Of all the cities in the British isles Glasgow has sent more men to the front than any other in proportion to her size. The business firms of tlie city eucourage their men to enlist and do all they can to make things easy for them to leave their families. In many cases firms continue to pay men their salaries while they are at tlie front. The street car company in Glasgow has sent thousands, and their places are taken by women while the men are away. •' only are there women conductors on the street cars, bul women drive the cars too. When one arrives at tlie sta tion in Glasgow it seems very odd to have a woman step up and ask to carry your bag Women have taken the places of the porters in the stations. Be Trepared to JVcather a Storm. rT"MiIXGS may be going well with you today. You may have I a fine position. Your business may be prospering. You I may be in tbe full vigor of youth and health. Of course none cares to look on the dark side. Rut it always is well to be prepared for a change in the tide. The greatest prep aration is a healthy bank account. Drop in and see us about an account. We’ll gladly talk it over. NESTUCCA VALLEY BANK Cloverdale, Oregon. (# (Boob (protnber for f)ome Scotland has responded nobly to the country’s call. In many of the small villages the entire mil e population lias gone to tlie war, excepting, of course, the men who are too old or those who A widow in speaking of her late husband said: “ He was aiwavv a good are physically unfit. in the British isles during this war a provider." In the mind of this bereaved woman, this was a high tribute to great many of the women have been her husband’s character. It is often true that the best husband is the one “helping recruiting” by walking the streets and putting a white feather In who saves a part of his income for tlie future. By this plan ho is able to the buttonhole of every man they meet provide all necessities and many of the luxuries; but constantly accumulate who is not wearing khaki. and property that will safeguard his family against want when lie is 1 wus standing just outs’de tlie Cen money unable to work or after his death. tral statiou in Glasgow when a woman walked up to a man who was standing near me. and w ithout a word she pulled 4 Per Cent Paid on Savings and Tim? Deposits. Best Banking Facil ities in Town. a white feather through his buttonhole, lie was a great big fellow, and she had to do some reaching to get at him. lie smiled when lie saw what slip had done and said “Thpuk you. madam." very Established in j 902 politely. That wos like waving a red flag be Tillamook, - - Oregon fore a 1ml!. and she grew crimson and started telling him what she thought of him. He listened until she was all through, and then lie asked, "Have you another one of those feathers, by any chance?" “Yes. I have, you coward.” she snap pcd. and she put another feather on him. As slio did so he pulled a Vic toria cross from liis po Uet and pinned it right under tbe feathers. That woman gasped and stuttered and stammered trying to make an apology, and slip reailied out to take the feathers hack, but he stopped her. "No, madam." lie said, "I’ll keep tlies> ns souvenirs, if you don’t mlml, but I'd like to say a few words to you about what you are doing. "Because I am in civilian clothes doe.- not signify that 1 am a coward For all you knew I might have been med ically unlit for service. I might have been a married man with ten or a doz $875 T. O, B. Factory en small children depending on me. 1 might have been any number cf tilings that would have prevented me from w h y joining the army, but you didn't even wait to inquire. Because it Inis a Six-Ovlituler, overhead yalye motor— “You simply thought that because 1 mosr milts on gallon gas. was not in khaki I was a coward, and you thought to shnnie me into joining Warner Two Unit Starting and Lighting System the army. As a m atter of fact. 1 have Remy Special Ignition been at my home recovering from wounds I received when I won this lit Stromberg Carbureter tie cross, and ( am now ou m,\ way back to join my regiment. Stewart Vacum Feed "If you will accept a suggestion from Full Floating Rear Axle a man who knows men. you will stop this silly business, for yon are doing Extra Strong Steering dear more harm than anything else, and if Toue Cantelever Springs ! were is civilian and you had done it to me then. I would have faced a fil ing One Man Top party before I would join tlie army. 1 Extra Strong Frame trust you have learned something Good afternoon." W ¡Hard Storage Battery, and I found out later that he was a ser geant piper In one of the most famous Firestone Demountable Rims that will give you more Scottish regiments and that he won miles than any other—no squeaking. Change tire in five the cross for saving throe officers when "minutes. wounded himself. Gel full information and see the car at CHAPTER ViII. Second Battle For Calais. W. KUPPENI3EINDEK Y rest jf seven days seemed very short, and I was back on the T illam ook , Oregon job at Poperinghe all too soon. Ypres, which was six miles away, nad been comparatively quiet all win ter. In fact, it had been so quiet that lia.l gone to the city on horses, and we our Twenty-seventh divisional head unturally expected to come back that quarters had moved In there. As the way. I suppose was about 2 o’clock spring drew near the Germans began when we arrived It there, I put the to shell around tlie city again, but horses in the yard behind and several build very few shells landed directly In the ings. city proper. I was still on duty, I didn't dare There was a big gas tank on the out go As very far away, for l didn’t know at skirts down toward Krustadt. and wliat moment tlie office? might show around this place the shell fire would up. The first Inkling I got of anything be rn h e r heavy at times. The city unpleasant was when I beard the was much knocked aliout even then, scream of several shells coming through but it was nothing to wliat it was at the air at once. the end of the “second battle for Ca Right then I acted on the impulse lais.” that seizes every one at such a time Before the beginning of this battle and went through tlie nearest collnr the kniser was quoted as having said w indow, where I landed on a pile of that if lie failed to lireok us Mils time potatoes. I was content to stay there, he would Iny the chy of Ypres to the too. until an orderly found me and told ground street by street. He failed to m" that my officer wanted me. The break us, all rigid, and lie kept his German* had been bombarding us word, for tislay the line old city of alM>ut half an hour then, and there was Ypres Is nothing but a shapeless heap n > sign of any letting up yet. of broken bricks. Tlie orderly to'.d me that the shells For weeks before the attack our air w «re dropping in at the rate of forty men were bringing in reports that the one to the minute, and I remember Germans were massing heavy bodies j w ondering w-ho on earth would be fool of fresh tro p s just in front of our po enough to count the number of shells sillon. All our transport trains went falling. I reported to my officer and through the city, our men were billeted found him a* cool as a cucumber. He tLore. and one of our divisional head asked me where the horses were, anil when I told him he said for me to leave quarters had m o'ed into the city. The Germans still continued to bom them there and to go and find a car of bard our positions in this vicinity, but some kind. T h a H o u se s W e re G o in g D o w n in E v - try Q u a rte r. they left the city itself severely alone. I knew it wa* mighty sertoua when All winter it had been as safe to go he would abandon the horses, and I one had built a couple of little bucket through Ypres as it would lie to go to started out with tbe fe«r of God in my out of empty bacon boxes. church, consequently an order to go to heart snd wondering where in tbe dif k scats boxes or not, if certainly look, Yj Yes. did not bother anybody very en* I would find a car in that inferno j ed Baron As a m atter of fact, L did find one, or - like a million gold dollara to me at much. I was at the divisional headquarters at least it bad been a car at some tlni" ' that moment, and I wasn't so slow in Ypres with a staff officer on the oft or other, ft w as an ambulance w hich 1 aliout nabbing It. The engine wns all ernoon the bombardment started. We had bad the body bjowo off, and aome Continued ou last page. TILLAMOOK COUNTY BANK 7 M