SAMMY IN BILLETS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 21, 19 October 1918, Page 2

SAMMY IN BILLETS

HOW AMERICAN SOLDIERS AMUSE THEMSELVES •'(By Rifleman Patrick M'Gili.) ■ The Doughboys wore holding a concert in a barn in Mud-wallow, and the men of tho U.S.A. Army were there, and all were enjoying -themselves with the mad abandon of soldiers who had a short respite from tho trying life in the trenches. All States in the Union were represented, and the Doughboy was getting to know more about his own country than ho had ever 'known before. War .and tho life of the trenches is doing much to bring the States together and cement national friendship.

The barn in which the concert was held was an old dilapidated building, roofed with tiles which had been- of ten scarred by. tho splinters: of bursting shells. It was .a. roomy building, stretching, out on all sides into dark unfathomable. corners, which the rays of tho lighted candles failed to pierce. At one end 3tood a platform, and on tins a mess sergeant stood playing ragtimo on his troncli-niado fiddle—whittled out.of ration boxes during idle moments-jn tho sojourn up-front, a rojburii which came to an. end only the clay before. -•■ -• • '■

■ The room was crowded. The.men sat on boxes, oh rickety chairs;- and a number were squatting on :the floor. The mess sergeant, looking down h-oni bis platform, could see the- faces in front of him clearly defined, but fading away and'becoming one nebulous mass of white rising from the' dark brown khaki near the door. . The faces made a wonderful picture seen in the smoky barn, tanned Healthy faces, topped with tho overseas caps and rising from the'badged collars of tho buttoned jackets. . And all the murky' atmosphere was. headed with sparks, that moved up and "down and backwards and-forwards like ■'• loosened .stars. 'These little 'will-o'-the-wisps Were, the eternal cigarettes which the men smoked:'.' ■-.-.■■ . , . ' .

...The. sergeant, finished. playing everything he knew and turned to make his exit, but the men clamoured for an encore.

"I've come to the end, so I'd better quit," said the sergeant. i.'Tve nothing fresh," ' ' . ..-..'

"Then do it all over again," clamoured the inen, and" the sergeant' complied with their wishes. ; The next turn was given by an Irishman, a bar, tender from a New York saloon, and the possessor of a brogue which had'appareutly become uiore pronounced as lus exile from his native land became, longer. He sang the i>ong "Cagharacree." It's a townland iv plenty, and all who

live: there . '" ' .\ . ■ Through tlip whole iv-their-life they will never go 'bare— :• And. the girls are.so pretty that , the ' saints, people say. • - Come,down. for.to listen.to .them when • they pray— '■ And the children thate born do all laugh with glee . ■ When thoy hear that they've landed- in Cngharacrco. . A-soldier of eighteen followed with <i dance, executed with wonderful grace, although his field shoes were heavy and his putties still bore in little dry plasters the mud of-the trendies'.;., In the orderly room he was shown a§ -twentyone, but in the American Army there are many lads who lied barefacedly to get into, the force which is now fighting for the freedom of the world. A momont's quiet followed the. applause which tho doughboys offered abundantly" to the dancer when his turii came to an end, and in that .'lull somothing ■ shrill' and- menacing could be heard outride. ' It was tho "sound of. a shell .travelling through, the,upper reaches.of the sky on its journey towards;'some distant objective...' And lower in volume _ came tho distant crackle : of machine-guns, spraying tho trenches up front. But lions of the reveller's paid any heed to these sounds of war, which had become part of their daily life. They wero now., as indifferent .to. the clatter

of rifles and tho thunder of guns as a jeweller is to the ticking of .clocks iu his shop. The concert went on, and the audience lived out their night of gladness, forgetting everything else—the dripping trenches, the shell-gutted roads,- the leaky dug-outs. They were men of all ages and all parts of the United States. Their callings were many; the hobo sat by tho side of the millionaire's son,-the farm worker on the damp floor, leaning his head on the shoulder of. a young man who had been a student in Yale University. But iu spite of the diversity of education and position,, in spite of tho former conventional gulfs which kept them apart,( * ne were 110,,r hound together in the great brotherhood of war. Two things were certain now:' Each man had "the same duties to perform, and all had the same enemy to face. The narrowness of tho common life hound them close, merging one man's lifo into that of another.

The Star-Spangled Banner was the last item on the programme, and all joined iii the singing of it, their young lusty voices rising to the roof, and dulling the sounds of battle which raced away to eastwards. Then they dispersed to billots, and slept the sleep "of happy men. To-morrow' night they will go up again to the trenches, through the peril. which t the night holds, the shelling and firing, over sodden, fields and slippery duck-bonrds, into the dark areas of war. They are out now for a spell of rest, and to-morrow, night they will go in agaiu for. a spell of .fighting. , ■■ .'■