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Six Days on the American Firing Line

CORPORAL H. J. BURBACH We reach the front. "WE have arrived!" The French Army officer, who, skilled through years of actual artillery service on the French fronts, had been my instructor through weeks of training, and my guide up to the Front, stood still and spoke most casually, as if our destination had been a Chicago restaurant. We reach the front.

My comrades are hidden in the fog. "Yes, sir." I tried to be as casual, but could not disguise the excitement that filled me. "Shall-the guns-" and I stopped, startled at the tone of my own voice. It sounded as if it were coming from some person a dozen feet away. And as I stood there a sense of elation, that was possibly partly fear, swept over me. I looked about me, toward the direction of the French officer who had spoken, toward the fellows of my battery who had accompanied me up to the Front. I say toward their direction, for I could not see my comrades-the fog that had come over the land at sunset was too heavy to allow one to see an arm's length.

The firing line seems a lonely place.

The officer snickered. "Is this all that there is to it? Are we really on the firing line?" I asked aloud. "Why, it's as quiet here as the Michigan woods!" The officer laughed again. "At this minute, yes," he said; then, "Wait here, I will be back directly, and no noise!" He went off through the fog, and I have never experienced such a feeling of loneliness as swept over me at that minute-loneliness, and I really believe disappointment,-for I had imagined the firing line to be a place of constant terror. "Gee, this is what we've been training for all these months!" I heard one of the fellows say. "Well, all I've got to say is it won't be so quiet over on the Boches' land when we get started," and they all laughed. An experience of many sensations.

It is absolutely impossible to describe the sensations that come over a fellow when he realizes that he is going under fire. I think that you pass through various stages that include every sensation in life. You are frightened, you are glad to get into the fight. You are anxious to begin-you wish you had a few weeks' longer training to become a better shot.