Chapter XII: Part 12

But, above all, there was in this place a certain very fine and definitive individuality. I do not know that there were either details or designs in which it found expression. But indisputably this was a hospital on board a ship. It is true that above each cot, suspended, were two long canvas strips to which were attached a bar of wood, very much like a short trapeze. By means of this a patient could lift himself, so that, with his pillows behind him, he could sit up. Also, there were above certain cots strips of white cloth. These were fashioned like big slings, and they had been conceived by genius. For by the simple means of supporting a bandaged arm or a bandaged foot in them the vibration of the ship, the steady throbbing of her engines, was in a very great measure counteracted. But it was not in these things that the character of this white saloon was revealed. I think, instead, that it was concentrated in one quite simple thing. In this big ward there was but a faint, diffused light; for above the beds, and screening the portholes, was a long, unbroken sweep of green curtains, with black shadows marked in vertical lines. And these shadows, straight, deep bars on the green cloth, swayed a little, changed a little, widened and became narrow with a certain rhythmic, recurrent design. It was the movement of the ship. It was the inflowing and the outflowing of the tide.

III--MYSTERIES OF THE WHITE SHIPS

Then I went up on deck, and there I was shown, that I might savor all the small attendant mysteries of the white ship, the officers' cabins and the staterooms for the nurses. These were, like the saloons, well designed, of good proportions. They were, too, inlaid with stained wood, richly patterned.

And I did not like to leave that ship, but a messenger had come aboard with the word that the train in which I was to go to London would start within five minutes. So I went with the captain and with the doctor who was in charge, and we walked along the platform beside the doctor's train, walked the full length of it, passing coach after coach, each with closed doors and a big scarlet cross painted between the blind windows. It seemed curiously unlike a train, this hospital.

At the door of the first compartment we stopped, and I bade the captain good-bye and thanked him. He said something about hoping that I would not be too late in making London, and there was the conviction in his voice that it was, after all, somewhat of a journey that lay before me.

But to the captain the white ambulance trains and their safe passage to and fro were but just a part of the business of the day. While to me, in this momentous step by which I was to enter the forward compartment, I was achieving a new world. So many, many times I had watched the wounded train passing by, slowly, smoothly, with the clear, broad panels flashing in the sunlight. And I had wondered what mysterious, what grave and splendid facts of war, were concealed within that inscrutable interior.

And I was to journey to London in one of those great white trains!

I stepped inside; and because the front of the carriage was two broad windows and because it was the first coach, I saw, framed in sills of dark wood, the black, square bulk of the engine, extraordinarily solid and imposing. Outside, on the platform, the doctor was standing with his hand on the frame of the opened door.

The engineer leaned out of his cab. The doctor turned, looked at him, nodded and said, "All right."

The engineer moved back in his seat. The doctor stepped into the compartment and closed the door. Thus, in the most casual and engaging fashion, the ceremony was completed. We were off.

I saw the concrete flooring of the pier moving past on either side and the columnar supports of the pier roof gliding by our windows. Through the open arched space between them I could see the sunlit water and the gray line of a wharf. Beyond, the tall masts of a ship rose very black against a brilliant and intensely blue sky.

There was in the compartment a curious impression of stillness, which I believe was due in great part to the very size of it. Certainly, it was quite the largest carriage I had ever seen. By the windows, placed on either side, were two big couches done in dark blue, with blue cushions; at the foot of one of them stood a square, closed desk, with a continental telephone above. There were also a table and swiveled armchairs, upholstered in gentian-colored cloth, with gold borders. A vase, filled with bright flowers, stood on the table; an opened book, turned face downward, had been left on the couch. And this was a compartment in a train.

IV--STORY OF THE DOCTOR ON THE GREAT WHITE TRAIN

"We have to do what we can with them," the doctor said, standing by the desk and turning over some papers. "We just about live in them, you know."

"This, of course," he explained, "is only a short trip, comparatively. Sometimes they are rather bad."

"Anything can happen, you know. Now, there was a man we had last night--we knew it was a serious case, yes. An amputation--only just got him off the train in time. There wasn't anything to be done. He died an hour after." The doctor sat in the corner of the couch, facing me, looking out of the window where the gray smoke from the engine whirled against it. "I've never had a man die on board," he said slowly. "But there are times----" he hesitated, waited a little, then shook his head. "Yes, there are bad times," he murmured.

He leaned back, took up the book beside him, closed it and placed it on the desk. His khaki tunic and braided sleeves, with their three small stars, showed very dark against the gentian cushions. "It's the responsibility," he said, the even, meditative tone of his voice carrying quite clearly in the curious stillness, "and the uncertainty--the fact that you don't know. Anything can happen....

"There was the night they stopped us and told us about the Zeppelins.... That was the second time my train had been bombed--there was another night, but that wasn't very bad. But this night the train was filled up, all cot cases, two amputations, possibility of hemorrhage. And what are you going to do? You have to get them to the hospitals. So we went ahead....

"They were dropping them pretty thick that night--oh, yes, we saw it all right. Quite a thing to see, that!"

Then he smiled, that friendly Scotch doctor, smiled and fumbled with the black cord of his eyeglasses which had caught on the button of his shoulder strap. "Pretty show it would have been," he announced, with a certain gentle causticity, "if they had hit us."

Then he stood up abruptly, waited for a moment to look out the window where the broad fields were wheeling past in great squares of color, and said: "There are one or two serious cases to-night. We'll go back now."

And he walked down and opened the door beside the closed desk. I saw before me a little narrow vestibule with mahogany walls. I stepped into this vestibule, one short step carried me across the threshold; but in this moment I entered a wholly new world. It was, in absolute truth, a world complete, self-sustained; there was not even the illusion of its having any concern whatever with what was not contained within itself. It was war.

There were, in certain cupboards and certain little rooms opening off the corridor, bandages, gauze, linen, instruments, medicines. There was, too, a compartment of some proportions where a man at a typewriter was making up the nominal roll. Also, in this extraordinary world of war there was a kitchen; the cook asked me in to show me the generous pots of broth simmering on his stoves. But it was the dressing room, with its enameled operating table and its brilliant overhead light, which was the axis of this compact and infinitely tidy little universe. It was in this room, this room built in a train, that it had been decided whether or not men were to live or die.

"Yes, it's a bit difficult--operating here," the doctor admitted. "What with the motion of the train and all." But he added hastily that it was not on board ambulance trains that the true miracles of science and of medicine had come. It was in the dressing stations, in the casualty clearing stations, in shabby little rooms under shell fire, where the light was a lamp or a candle or anything, where water itself was at a premium. "Nobody believed," the doctor said, "that surgeons could do what _they_ have done."

Then we went down a very narrow corridor and, quite suddenly, I found that we had entered the first coach filled with wounded men. It was deep and narrow, with a white, concave roof. But it was above all a very long coach, and running the full length of it were two double tiers of cots. The aisle between these tiers was of good width and miraculously clean. The cots were wide, with thick mattresses.

In each of these cots a man was lying. They were lying as if they were asleep, with their faces turned away from the light. The coach was very still.

I walked down the aisle, following the doctor. I was afraid of the movement of the train throwing me against one of those white cots where those curious, inert, motionless things were. But the doctor was hurrying along quite briskly, and explaining to me the amazing new diseases of this war, talking in a low, veiled, professional tone and looking at his patients each one, as we passed by.

"There's, of course, shell shocks," he said. "General collapse. Nerves simply give way--can't stand it. The wear and the strain, and the noise, the horror and the rest of it----"

"They come home like this----" We had stepped by one of the cots where a man was lying with his face turned straight toward the light. His eyes were closed, his thin, nerveless hands lay, palms upward, on the gray blanket. The slender veins in his wrists showed very clear.

"He's been like that perhaps for days," the doctor said. "Doesn't see, doesn't hear, doesn't feel. Absolutely unconscious. Total collapse.

"Yes, oh, yes, he'll be all right. It's just time, you know. Time and care and patience. Like any other shock--only ten thousand times greater. It's wonderful to see how their memory comes back, slowly, slowly.... You wouldn't believe what man can live through. You wouldn't believe it--it's only flesh and bone, after all, you know.

"Then there's this thing of trench feet--pretty bad that. Slow rot. Wholly new disease. And for that matter, there are plenty of them--not yet even named, some of them. But, of course, it's mostly shrapnel. Shrapnel and amazing things...."

And so, like this, we passed through coach after coach--ninety-five wounded men there were on board. And the doctor was stopping every few steps to look at a dressing or to ask a question. And I was walking behind him, filled with wonder and amazement. I had not known it was like this--the getting wounded men back from war. They were so patient and so pitiful and so happy. And I think that they, too, were sometimes filled with wonder.

For when I stopped to talk to them they said always that it was a miracle, a miracle being on that train.

"I never knew I was goin' to be 'ere," a Tommy told me. He was lying, both of his bandaged feet propped up at the foot of his cot. "They got me in both legs," he explained. "Fair an' square. Shrapnel. Two days I was lyin' out. Two days. No, you wouldn't believe--an' I wouldn't either, hadn't I done it. Frightful it was. H. E. spatterin' 'round everywhere. They were rippin' things open, them two days. Oh, I was sorter goin' out o' me mind toward the end of it.... Don't know where I'd got to--we was pushin' on. Down I went. Down I stayed. Wasn't no good tryin' to crawl.... Yes, I was a bit out o' me mind, thinkin' all sort-a things out there. Two days, an' a night of it thrown in. 'In the legs I'm 'it,' I said to meself. 'Wish they'd blowed off me arms.... _I'm_ done,' I said. But remember 'em gettin' me hout. Two days I'd 'ad. Two days in 'ell.

"Then I was put in a barn, full up it was, an' they went an' strafed that. Busted out a whole side of 'er. Saw 'er cavin' in--frightful noise. 'That's crocked up,' I said.

"An' now I'm 'ere--'ere in a train. It's 'eaven, I call it." ...

MY EXPERIENCES IN THE GREATEST NAVAL BATTLE IN THE WAR

_What Happened When the "Bluecher" Went Down_

_Told by a Survivor of the Ill-Fated German Cruiser_

The narrator's name is withheld because at the time of this
writing he is a prisoner-of-war. His story is related in the
_New York American_. Copyright, 1915, Star Company. The armored
German cruiser _Bluecher_ was sunk in the great naval battle off
Helgoland, January 24, 1915.

I--STORY OF THE GREAT SEA BATTLE

We had just had breakfast on the _Bluecher_ when a fast British scout cruiser hovered for a moment on the far-distant horizon and then disappeared. We knew at once that our location was being reported by wireless to the nearest British patrol ships. Orders were signalled at once through the German fleet to turn away from the British shore and steer for home. It was Sunday morning.

About nine o'clock columns of smoke could be seen on the far horizon behind us. The enemy were after us--but not yet could we see them. Suddenly from the blue sky above a shell fell near us, with a moaning, groaning whine. We could see no ship. From somewhere below the horizon had come this shot.

Nowhere visible were there any warships of the enemy which our gunners could find for a target. Still out of the skies above us more shells continued to fall in front of us, beside and behind us.

Finally the observers at the masthead were able to make out through their telescopes the tops of the masts of a ship, but our hull was buried out of sight, and yet those British gunners in their turrets, who could not see even the tops of our masts, were rapidly getting the distance and range of the _Bluecher_ from the fire-control officers far up in their own mast tops.

At this moment was beginning a naval battle the like of which had never occurred before in the history of sea power, for never before have ships of such size and speed, with guns of such great range and punishing power, been engaged. This battle, which began between ships more than ten miles apart which could not see each other, continued to increase in fierceness of action until the British pursuers, who had worked themselves up to the astonishing speed of thirty-four miles an hour, began to overtake us and rake us at point blank range. Although the _Bluecher_ was protected by six-inch plates of armor and six-inch plates on her turrets, we knew that we were doomed. We were at the mercy of five British battle cruisers, faster in speed, heavier in armament and more powerful in guns.

What happened to the _Bluecher_ that Sunday morning is a story unparalleled by anything in the previous history of the world. The _Bluecher_ received every imaginable form of projectile, and as a final kick its end was hastened by a torpedo from the British cruiser _Arethusa_.

A curious fact is that our most frightful punishment came in the early stages of the engagement when the British ships were eight or ten miles away from us. This extraordinary occurrence was due to the British thirteen-and-a-half-inch shells that were fired at such a high elevation that they came down upon as from the sky, piercing our unprotected decks and penetrating on through to the bottom of the ship, where they exploded in the very vitals of the _Bluecher_, doing the maximum amount of damage and destruction.

The British ships, as I have said, were away on the horizon, more than ten miles distant, when they started to fire. Shots came slowly at first. They fell ahead and over, raising vast columns of water; now they fell astern and short. The British guns were finding the range. Those deadly water spouts crept nearer and nearer. The men on deck watched them with a strange fascination.

Soon one pitched close to the ship, and a vast watery pillar, a hundred metres high, one of them affirmed, fell lashing on the deck. The range had been found. _Dann aber ging's los!_ Now the shells came thick and fast, with a horrible droning hum. At once they did terrible execution. The electric plant was soon destroyed, and the ship plunged in a darkness that could be felt. "You could not see your hand before your nose," said one.

Down below decks there were horror and confusion, mingled with gasping shouts and moans as the shells plunged through the decks. It was only later, when the range shortened, that their trajectory flattened and they tore holes in the ship's sides and raked her decks. At first they came dropping from the sky.

This was because the British ships were firing from a great distance and must aim high in the air in order that their shells should reach us ten miles away. Thus it was that the shells falling from above on our decks found our most vulnerable spot--for our decks were not protected by steel armor as were our armor-belted sides.

The shells penetrated the decks. They bored their way even to the stokehold. The coal in the bunkers was set on fire. Since the bunkers were half empty the fire burned merrily.

In the engine room a shell licked up the oil and sprayed it around in flames of blue and green, scarring its victims and blazing where it fell. Men huddled together in dark compartments, but the shells sought them out, and there Death had a rich harvest. The terrific air pressure resulting from explosion in a confined space left a deep impression on the minds of all of us on the _Bluecher_. The air, it would seem, roars through every opening and tears its way through every weak spot. All loose or insecure fittings are transformed into moving instruments of destruction.

Open doors bang to--and jam--and closed iron doors bend outward like tin plates, and through it all the bodies of men are whirled about like dead leaves in a Winter blast, to be battered to death against the iron walls. In one of the engine rooms--it was the room where the high velocity engines for ventilation and forced draughts were at work--men were picked up by that terrible Luftdruck like the whirl drift at a street corner and tossed to a horrible death amid the machinery. There were other horrors too fearful to recount.

II--SCENES OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION

If it was appalling below deck it was more than appalling above. The _Bluecher_ was under the fire of so many ships. Even the little destroyers peppered her. "It was one continuous explosion," said a gunner. The ship heeled over as the broadsides struck her, then righted herself, rocking like a cradle.

Gun crews were so destroyed that stokers had to be requisitioned to carry ammunition. Men lay flat for safety. The decks presented a tangled mass of scrap iron.

In one casement, the only one, as they thought, undestroyed, two men continued to serve their guns. They fired it as the ship listed, adapting the elevation to the new situation. The _Bluecher_ had run her course. She was lagging, lame, and with the steering gear gone was beginning slowly to circle. It was seen that she was doomed, but still the gunfire from the British kept up with relentless, incessant fury.

Some of the men on board were rendered deaf. The ship quivered and rocked under the recoil of her own guns. The deadly British broadsides made her reel. The guns were torn from their settings and whole gun crews hurled to destruction. Men hurtled down from aloft, bruised, bleeding, dead.

Men were swept from the deck like flies from a tablecloth. Everywhere blood trickled and flowed. It was a fever of excitement. Men found blood pouring down their legs, but could not locate their wounds. Men in authority lost their heads and confusion reigned. Their nerves could not stand the strain.

A shell would burst in the interior of the ship in a halo of flame and fire would arise from the deck, though there was nothing on the deck apparently that could burn. During the fight one of the sailors noticed the captain pull up his trousers and search for a wound; no one could then say whether he was wounded or not.

It has been generally believed that a ship fighting end-on stands the smallest chance of being hit. That is what our naval textbooks teach us. But that is no longer the case.

The effective target presented by an armored ship end-on is really much greater than when she is broadside-on, besides, in the former position, losing whatever protection might be afforded by her vertical side armor. This is one of the unexpected lessons taught by the ill-fated _Bluecher_.

We knew we had more than a hundred miles to go before we would reach the protection of our mine fields, and we knew that the _Bluecher_ had the poorest chance of any of the German ships, as she was the slowest. Desperate efforts were made to keep the _Bluecher_ at her maximum speed, but no matter how hard we tried to get away we saw the big English ships steadily overhauling us.

We knew what was in store for us as soon as our officers were able to make out the outlines of the approaching ships. We knew the armament and the gun equipment we had to face. We knew that each of those oncoming British battle cruisers could throw a weight of metal 10,000 pounds twice every minute--a total of fifty tons of projectiles every minute. Yet through it all some never despaired of their lives; others from the beginning gave themselves up as lost.

As the nearest of the English ships drew closer, the angle of their gun fire became flatter, but still from far off on the horizon came the shells it seemed to drop from the skies. After a time we were receiving literally a hailstorm of shells--some falling from overhead down through our decks, some penetrating through the stern and travelling half way the length of the ship, and still others coming straight through the sides.

And this was not all. The big British battle cruiser that led the British line thundered on past us and then began to rake us with her stern batteries. The gunners in the stern turrets of the British ship had been standing idle and restless, impatient to have a hand in the fight. As this ship drew on past us the rear guns for the first time had a chance at the _Bluecher_, and they tore our bow and forward works with their heavy shells, while the after guns of the secondary batteries raked our decks at point-blank range.

We were the first under fire in the action and we were the last under fire. Practically every English ship poured projectiles into us. I have never seen such gunnery, and there has never been the like of it before in the history of the world. We could not fight such guns as the English ships had, and before long we had no guns of any kind to fight with. Our decks were swept by shot, our guns were smashed and the gun crews wiped out.

One particular shell from a thirteen-and-a-half-inch gun I remember well. I saw it coming and watched it burst in the heart of the ship. This single projectile probably killed and wounded not less than fifty men. We had our floating equipment handy and soon began to put it on. Many of the men leaped into the water, preferring to trust to getting picked up by the British rather than remain for certain destruction on the doomed and helpless _Bluecher_.

It was early in the action that the concentrated fire of the British guns on the _Bluecher_ landed a shell directly over our engine room. This slowed up the ship and we began to drop back. Very soon a second shell reached the engine room, and we signalled the rest of the fleet, "All engines useless." In another half hour the _Bluecher_ was a mass of flame from fore bridge to stern. One shell pierced the foundation of a turret and set off some ammunition, causing a deafening explosion and great loss of life within the turret.

In the midst of the infernal noise and carnage a strange incident happened. A reserve sailor who stood unoccupied near one of the gun crews followed the details of the battle as they were telephoned to the turret from time to time by the commander. Finally, unable to keep back his feelings, the sailor produced a violin. While the guns roared in the turrets and pillars of water were thrown up by the falling shells he played "The Watch on the Rhine," and from all sides the men joined in the song.

Battered above decks, the vitals torn and twisted, and with many holes in her sides, the _Bluecher_ reeled and stumbled like a drunken sailor. But it was the torpedo from the _Arethusa_ that was the final death blow. She drew alongside, and one of the British officers shouted through a megaphone a warning in German that they were about to launch a torpedo. Our men understood, and many of them took headers into the water.

Steaming within 200 yards of the reeling _Bluecher_, the British warship discharged her torpedo, which went home. The explosion had an appalling result, and none would have survived if they had remained clinging to the wreck.

The wounded _Bluecher_ finally settled down, turned wearily over and disappeared in a swirl of water.

"TODGER" JONES, V. C.

_The Man Who Captured a Hundred Germans Single-Handed_

_His Story as told by Himself, set down by A. E. Littler_

"How the dickens did you do it, Jones?" asked King George, when
he invested Private Jones with the well-earned Cross; and our
readers will echo the question. Here is the answer--"Todger's" own
modest account of his amazing feat, as told to our representative
at a special interview. It is a story that will live, a record of
dauntless pluck and unfailing cheerfulness in the face of death
that has no parallel even in the glorious annals of the Victoria
Cross. Told in _Wide World Magazine_.

I--"TODGER" JONES TELLS HIS TALE

"If I've got to be killed I'll die fighting, not digging."

It was with these words on his lips that Private "Todger" Jones leaped from the British trenches.

This is the spirit of the soldier who killed several Boches, and by a wondrous piece of bluff, combined with consummate valor, took no fewer than a hundred and two Germans as prisoners. One of the most highly-placed men in London has described it as "the doughtiest deed of the war," and the description is fully merited.

It was with the object of obtaining the story first-hand from Private Jones's own lips that the writer visited the little Cheshire town of Runcorn, a place proud of its historic traditions, but prouder still of Jones, V.C.

Brown-eyed, lithe, clean-cut, and on the slim side is "Todger," keenly intelligent, with a streak of fatalism in his composition that has sustained him through untold trials, modest as the true hero always is, humorously tolerant of the worship he is commanding, lavish in praise of his comrades, yet reluctant to speak of himself.

"Surely," said he, "there has been 'nuff said,' more than enough, of a thing that was done on the spur of the moment by a man who kept his head and knew how to use his gun. But if you want to know what I did, let the official account speak for me."

And "Todger" handed the cold, matter-of-fact narrative set forth in the _London Gazette_ as follows:--

The Victoria Cross has been conferred upon Private Thomas Alfred
Jones (11000), Cheshire Regiment, for most conspicuous bravery.
He was with his company consolidating the defences in front of
a village, and, noticing an enemy sniper at two hundred yards
distance, he went out, and, though one bullet went through his
helmet and another through his coat, he returned the sniper's
fire and killed him. He then saw two more of enemy firing at him,
although displaying a white flag. Both of these he also shot. On
reaching the enemy trench he found four occupied dug-outs and,
single-handed, disarmed one hundred and two of the enemy, including
three or four officers, and marched them back to our lines through
a heavy barrage. He had been warned of the misuse of the white flag
by the enemy, but insisted on going out after them.

"Won't that fill the bill?" observed Jones, but when told that our readers wanted the story in full, and that it ought to be set down for the benefit of posterity, he resigned himself with a sigh. Then, with a smile like a benediction, he spoke as follows:--

It was on September 25th that we took a village that I am forbidden to mention by name, and were just beginning to dig ourselves in near a wood, when bullets commenced to whiz past us, wounding one of our men in the head, and making things decidedly uncomfortable. I felt the bullets ping-pinging by me, and I said to the officer, "They're going to make it hot for us, sir, if we don't get after 'em. Can I get out and have a packet at them?"

"My orders are to consolidate this position," replied the officer. "You must not go an inch farther, and you had better get on with your digging."

And dig I did, but as I got up again I saw a chap hit through the head and another through the thigh. Looking ahead, I saw what appeared to be a white flag, and that fairly riled me. My dander was up, and I shouted to the officer, "What do you think of that, sir?"

"You must get on with your digging, Jones," said he; but up I jumped, and called out, "If I've got to be killed I'll die fighting, not digging."

I waited no longer, but dragged out my rifle, flung down my entrenching tool, jumped out of the trench, and went across. The Huns were a couple of hundred yards away, and they could see me coming. One bullet went "sss" through my steel helmet and four more through my jacket. There was a sniper in a tree, but I soon counted him out. On I went, and reached a "bay," or traverse, leading to the German trench. There were three men in it, but, jumping in at the end of the trench, I had only one at a time to deal with. I got my back to the wall, and they whipped round on me. I always believe in firing from the hip, and very quickly number one dropped dead.

Before the next man could recover his senses I had shot him as well, slipped another cartridge in the breech, and got the old magazine going on the third at a yard range. The other men fired at me from the entrance to the dug-outs, but I managed to "get there" first every time, which is a great thing in jobs of that kind. In the second traverse there were five chaps standing behind one another. One of them made for me with his bayonet, but I bowled him over like the others by the old trick of shooting from the hip.

II--HOW THE GERMANS SURRENDERED

I got the five of them, and some of them made awful noises, screaming and squealing. I stalked through the trench, storming and shouting, and, hearing the firing and the commotion, the rest of the crowd bolted into the dug-outs. Soon they had all "gone to earth," and I was there alone. When they got into their dug-outs I had them. It was just as if you were in a coal-cellar and I was in the street waiting to pot you as you came up. They were shouting and screeching, and every time I saw a movement I let fly.

Eventually they quieted down, and seeing some of their bombs, a pile of them, on the floor of the trench, I picked up a couple and sent them flying down the first dug-out, and they went off all right. Did I tell you that I was a bomber? I think they felt that the game was up when the bombs began to drop amongst them, for out rushed three fine specimens with their hands up and the usual cry, "Mercy, kamerad!" They had left their equipment behind them to show there was no monkeying, and though I felt like laughing at being there all on my own, I demanded, in a stern voice, if any one of them could speak English.

One of them called out, "I can."

"Well," said I, "what's it to be? Do you want to be killed or taken prisoners? You can have it either way you like, for I'm not particular. In fact, I would rather kill you."

And all, with one consent, actually cried out that they wanted to become prisoners--and with Private Jones as their jailers, too!

I looked round and saw a hollow, so I told the English-speaking German to order his two mates to get in there. They had to climb up to do it, and I knew our chaps would see them from our trench as they got on top.

"How many more are there down the dug-out?" I asked, and the Boche answered, "About fifteen."

"What about it?" I said, and he replied, "What do you mean?"

"Do they want killing or what?" said I, and he gasped, "I don't know."

"You know they're no use?" I said, and he replied, "Yes, they're helpless now."

"Well, then," said I, "go and tell them what I have told you--that they can either be killed or taken prisoners, and they can bloomin' well please themselves about it."

And, by gum! he went and told them, and came back to say they would all be taken prisoners.

"Well, then," said I, "tell them they can come out when you call, but only one at a time, remember, and any one of 'em that has as much as a penknife on him, or any equipment, will be shot dead straight away. Fetch 'em up one at a time, and tell them that my mates are coming across in thousands in a couple of minutes, and if they find anything wrong with me they'll cut you to bits."

I heard him yowling down the dug-outs what I had told him, and, meanwhile, I got round the cover. Presently he came back, and said, "Are you ready?" "Yes," I replied; "call them up, and only one at a time, and no rushing." He shouted the message, and ordered them out without equipment. There were eight or nine dug-outs in all, and they kept tumbling out, and, as they came, I sent them out of the trench into the hollow I've told you of.

Lord! I'd expected fifteen and out they came in scores, and went into my "compound." When they were all out, I threw some of their own bombs into the dug-outs to make sure that there was no sniper left behind to "do me in." And then I said to myself, "Great Scot! What am I going to do with this little lot?" I knew I could eventually rely upon somebody coming from our trenches, but it was necessary to gain time.

It's not that I want to brag, but I didn't turn a hair; I just kept my head-piece going. I told them it would be a very cold night at the place where they were going to, and suggested they had better get their great-coats. I graciously permitted them to fetch them--"two at a time, and no rushing." They ran, and came in and out, and each time they passed me they saluted me--Private Jones!--and I sent them to their places. I didn't like the look of one bloke, and kept half an eye on him. "I think I'll shoot that chap," I said to the interpreter.

"Don't," he exclaimed, "he very good man." But presently the "very good man" went for his great-coat, and when he had got a short distance he made a dash for liberty. I swung round, clicked my rifle, and got him fair and square. He rolled over and over just like a rabbit. It was a snap-shot, but I put one through his head. Then I turned to the German by me. "Ask them if any more would like to try to escape," I said. He did so, and they all jumped up--they were seated on the ground--flung up their arms, and shouted "Kamerad!"

III--"HANDS UP! I COULDN'T STOP BAGGING GERMANS"

It fairly tickled me to death, that did, and I couldn't stop laughing. Why? Well, a bit of fun I once saw at a pantomime flashed through my mind. A comedian who played the part of the squire, revolver in hand, rounded up all the servants, male and female, butlers and gardeners, and up went their hands. Then he came to the grandfather clock, pointed his revolver at it, shouting, "Hands up!" and immediately the hands of the clock whizzed round.

Well, I tell you I roared with laughter at the thought coming into my mind at such a time, when I was playing a lone hand, for it looked so comical to see them all with their hands up--over a hundred of 'em, hoping against hope that Private Jones, Kamerad, wouldn't shoot.

I wondered what was going to happen next, for it was out of the question that one chap could keep them there for any length of time. But the bowling over of the chap who tried to escape was the best thing that could have happened for me, and it fairly put the fear of God into the rest. The official report speaks of me bringing in a hundred and two, but, though I didn't check their numbers, there must have been nearly a hundred and fifty of them when I got them into the open, including four or five officers and any number of non-coms, or whatever the Germans call them. But before they got into our lines, over forty of them were killed by our shells, which were sweeping the ground and clearing things up generally.

But I'm over-running my story. I had scarcely finished laughing about the clock putting its hands up, when I saw somebody start from our lines. It was my chum coming to look for me. He had been asking where I was, and, when they told him, he said: "If Todger's across there I'm going to fetch him, dead or alive!" They all thought I was a "goner," but, when they saw my chum start, three more chaps--a sergeant-major, a corporal, and a stretcher-bearer--came across with him. Seeing I was alive, my chum gave me a smack on the face, and couldn't stop larking.

They helped me to "round-up" the "bag," and we marched them back to our lines. All the time our guns were knocking the position to bits, and, as I've said, some of the shells dropped amongst the prisoners and killed them. I got a shrapnel wound in the neck from our barrage, but it wasn't much. Strictly speaking, I suppose I ought never to have been in the game, but I wouldn't have missed it for worlds. When I went over my arm was a bit painful, for I was wounded on September 5th, and had refused to go into hospital.

Looking back, and thinking over the incident, I feel that I must have had what the poets call "a charmed life," for after jumping out of the trench, and before I had accounted for the sniper in the tree, a bullet went through my helmet, and was buzzing round my head-piece like a marble in a basin, finally galloping down my back and burning me during the journey. Four or five other bullets passed through my tunic, but I wasn't aware of it until afterwards. It never entered my mind that I should be killed, and I didn't think my time had come.

Asked if he could explain how he was led into the exploit, "Todger" said, with a grin, "When I saw the first three men in the bay I knew I was up against something, but I had been in more than one tight corner before, and I had learned that the art of warfare--for the individual, at any rate--was to size up a situation quickly, to fire without hesitation, and hit your man."

"And," inquired the interviewer, "was there no period during the incident that you felt that the proposition was too big for you?"

"I should be lying," was the answer, "if I didn't admit that I was glad, jolly glad, to see my pals come over, but I was cool as cool could be, and the lesson I applied was never to lose this (significantly touching his head). The man who loses his 'nob' is done for. I knew if I had to go I should, for everybody has his time, that's what I believe, and I meant to sell myself at a good price. But when I got the first men in the traverse, and drove the others back into the dug-outs, I felt that the game was in my hands. I had them at my mercy; they didn't know I was unsupported; I cowed them into submission to my orders; I pictured the end that awaited them if a hair of my sacred head was singed, and my trump card was played in making them come out one by one without any equipment."

IV--JONES TELLS ANOTHER STORY

Pressed--and it should be understood that the man whose deed Sir Frederick Norman has described as "big stuff" was terribly reluctant to speak of himself--pressed to recount some other vivid experiences which have been hinted at, Private Jones was compelled to admit that on two or three other occasions prior to the capture of the hundred and two Germans he had been promised special mention, but the officers who had noted him were killed before the opportunity of recommending him for honours arose.

"It isn't every heroic deed that is noticed," said the soldier. "Many's the chap who earns the V.C. who never gets a 'Thank you.' Every lad out there is winning, though not receiving, glory; they are brave, noble, clean-fighting, staunch and true men, and if they haven't had my luck they've deserved it.

"But if you want to know what further part I have played in this war, and my preparation for the big slaughter, I may say I was an old Volunteer of the Cheshire Battalion, and that the skill I acquired as a marksman sixteen or seventeen years ago led to me being employed at the Front as a sniper and bomb-thrower. By trade I am a fitter, and am thirty-six years of age, and I tried to join the Engineers at the outbreak of war, but as a Territorial Reservist was eventually posted to the Cheshire Regiment, and found myself at the Front in January, 1915.

"Amongst the narrow shaves I have had may be included a bullet through my pouch, the heel of my boot blown away, and an explosion of a shell which lifted me ten yards in the air and lodged a piece of shrapnel in my shoulder and another piece in my knee.

"Hill 60 was one of my hottest trials, and there I had my first experience--second hand, fortunately--of the German poison-gas. We had only been relieved the night before, and wanted a rest badly, but at ten o'clock in the morning we received word that something had happened at Hill 60, and it was up to us to try to set it right. We got through Ypres town to the railway cutting, and there came under heavy shellfire. Bad wasn't the word for it, for they were bowling the lads over right and left, and as we got closer and closer their machine-gun fire was mowing us down something cruel.

"Eventually we took cover in the railway cutting and met the Germans coming along four deep. We received orders to charge, and cleared them off the railway line, and then we had to start with the trenches. No sooner had Colonel Scott given the word, as he stood by my side, than he dropped mortally wounded. We didn't wait for further orders, for we saw red, and cleared the second line of trenches. Then we made another charge, and took the original trench, which had been held by the Dorsets.

"There they sat, staring at us. 'Matey, you're relieved,' we said to one, but there was no answer. 'There's some hot tea waiting for you in Ypres,' we said to another. No answer. They were dead--gassed, and we didn't know then of the diabolical device that had killed them. I was one of forty-three that went out that night to bomb the Germans, expecting that another regiment would take over the trenches from which we had driven the enemy.

"We used up all our bombs, and the Germans began to bomb us in turn. Our lieutenant was the only man with a revolver, and he used it until he had no more ammunition left and was shot. All except three of us and a corporal were either killed or wounded, and the corporal asked me if I could lead them back. I did it, and reported to the company officer, who said he had received reports on which he was going to recommend me for honours. A brave officer--reported from that very day as missing, as was the lieutenant.

"We also went through the Battle of St. Eloi, which lasted three weeks. We were at Hill 60 when it was blown up, and we remained in the trenches for twenty days, and after just one night out put in another forty-three days, which constitutes a record either in the French or British Army for continual fire-trench work. We were even reduced to the necessity of sewing sandbags together to serve as a change of 'linen.' When the hill went up it was a sight one can never forget, while the shelling of Ypres was more like a mighty firework display than anything else."

V--"HOW I GOT A GERMAN CROSS"

"The first trenches I was in were only thirty-five yards from the Huns. We caught a squad of them working in the rear of their trench. We soon downed them, but the others spotted us, and rattled at us for forty-eight hours. We dared not show our heads above the trench, but I was acting as guide, and one night I turned out to look for a N.C.O. who had been sent with a message and had failed to return. He had had to go through two woods in the dark, and I made sure he had lost his way. I took the turn he would have done had he gone wrong, and after going about two thousand yards I stepped through a gap in the hedge and got a nice little shock.

"Lying on the ground about a yard from me were three Huns with helmets, rifles, and full kit! I whipped my rifle from my shoulder and butt-ended it, meaning to make a good fight for it. I noticed they did not move, so I stepped closer in, and saw the frost on their packs. Then I knew they were dead.

"My first thought was souvenirs. I got in between the dead men, and was going to begin collecting, when a star-shell went up, and I soon found I had landed between our own lines and the Germans. They spotted me, opened rapid fire, and sent up light after light. I flung myself into a ditch and waited about ten minutes. I don't know how I escaped being hit, for the bullets struck all around me. All thought of souvenirs had gone out of my head. When they ceased I made a sprint for it. I did 'even time' that night, and was mighty glad when I found the missing N.C.O.

"At another place we had a very rough time of it. Hell seemed to be let loose, for shells were dropping into our trenches, mortars blew the bags down, we were under rapid fire from the German trenches, and to cap the game they had mined the trench and tried to blow it up, but they had gone too deep, and only one or two of our lads were buried, and were safely dug out again."

Side by side on the table Private Jones placed his V.C. and a silver-edged German Cross of the "second degree," one the very embodiment of modest worth, the other blatantly arrogant.

"And yet," said "Todger," looking upon the two emblems, and then turning his eyes upon a large official photograph of himself and his flock of a hundred and two Huns, and anon taking in at a glance a gold watch, a silver teapot, an illuminated address, and other public tributes to his valour--"and yet, next to the V.C., I think more of that Iron Cross than of all the rest, and God knows how much I appreciate all that my fellow-townsmen have done for me.

"But it's quite another story," he protested, when asked for an explanation. "I won that Cross in a single-handed joust with a company commander of the First Prussian Guards. And I don't think the poor chap had ever had the chance to wear it! But he had to go, for there was only him and me for it, and I didn't see why Jones should be turned down.

"The fact is, it was the last scrap I was in before I won the V.C., and it was there that I got wounded in the shoulder. I don't think there's any harm in telling you it was at Guillemont--Mouquet Farm and the stronghold around. The Germans had beaten back all attempts to take it from them. Division after division had tried to wrest it from them and had failed.

"Then they brought up our division, and once again we were told that we had been called out to do what others had failed to do. It was a terrific struggle, and we were repulsed four times. Our company had to take the lead at the fifth charge. The bombers won through and leaped into the trench.

"We knocked the machine-gunners over and helped the following waves to get through with little loss. It was a terrible journey--the worst, I believe, that I have been through.

"Yes, I'm coming to the Iron Cross by degrees. I had a wild three minutes, a rare good do. We got rid of those about us, and I rushed into the next traverse and met my man, a fine big chap, full of fight, a commander of the swell crowd, the First Prussian Guards.

"He made for me with bayonet, but I knew too many tricks even for a Prussian Guard, and I soon settled him. The Iron Cross, in its little case, fell from his inside-pocket as he dropped. It's new; I suppose he'd just received it from the Kaiser. Poor beggar! I'll never forget him when I look upon the Cross I won from him in fair fight.

"We were then reinforced, and advanced another three thousand yards past Guillemont and dug in, being too exhausted to go any farther. We stayed there until relieved in the early morning, when we went into support about six hundred yards behind, and the shelling was very heavy. It was here I got wounded. It happened in this way.

"A party was lost, and I told them I would take them down for a drink, as they had been without food and water for over sixty hours. I got them to the place they had to stay at, got the water, and was making back when one of the big shells plumped alongside me and lifted me about ten yards, a piece getting me in the right shoulder and leg.