The Stars and Stripes Part 3

As if that were not enough in the line of construction, over in a corner of the mammoth reservation is a gas plant, and buster, too. This plant is already in operation and other plants of like size are busy in repairing machinery and in other work. Everywhere about the place there is incessant activity--regular "Hurry up Yost" speed-upativeness--in road building, well driving (some deep ones have been plugged down, too), in track laying, in hundreds of other ways.

Some plant, isn't it, to have been put up in the short time, comparatively, that we have been over here in France? It even puts into the shade the overnight growth of, say Hopewell, Va., the famous munitions city that, unlike Rome, seemed almost to have been built in a day.

Of course it has taken a tremendous force of workers to do all this, and it is going to take more and more and more as time goes on, and as more and more and more troops from the States keep pouring into the French seaports. The size of the plant, with the provisions for making it larger, prove, for one thing, that our Uncle Sam expects to send a lot more troops--and, what is more, intends to keep them well supplied with everything they need as long as they are here.

No Delay About Moving In.

Our Uncle Samuel, be it remembered, is a cautious old gent, and looks well on both sides before getting into a sc.r.a.p; but once he gets in--and the canny old customer always picks the right side--he's in to stay until the whole job is cleaned up, and he's in right up to his shoulderblades. No more convincing proof of America's determination to see the thing through could be had than a sight of Uncle Sam's big storage depot and all-around tool shop. And, to clinch the argument even further, as fast as the shops on the big reservation have been put up, the machinery has been shoved into them and the work in them started as soon as the machinery was in place and oiled up.

No, Mr. Infantryman, Mr. Artilleryman, Mr. Machine-Gun-toter, Mr. Aviator, Mr. Wireless-buzzer, this has not been "the winter of our discontent"--as footless and no-use-at-all as your own work may have seemed to you sometimes. It has been the winter during which your old uncle has been laying a firm foundation for your comfort and safety and for that of the men who will follow you over--and believe us, he's done an almighty big, an almightily far-sighted, an all-around almightily creditable and thoroughly American, workmanlike job.

A NEWS STORY IN VERSE

(The incident this poem describes was told by a British sergeant in a dug-out to the author--an American serving at the time in the British Army, but now fighting under the Stars and Stripes.)

Joe was me pal, and a likely lad, as gay as gay could be; The worst I expected to happen was the leave that would set him free To visit the wife and the kiddies; but they're waiting for him in vain.

All along of a Boche wot peppered our water and ration train.-- You see, w'd been pals from childhood; him and me chummed through school, And when we growed up and got married we put our spare kale in a pool, And both made a comfortable living; 'twas just for our mates and the kids,-- Now the Hun--d.a.m.n his soul--has taken his toll, and me pal had to cash in his bids.

That night when we left the ration dump to face the dark ahead, I can never forget the look on his face when he picked up his kit and said "Another trip to the front, old lad; we'll take 'em their bully and tea; We'll catch h.e.l.l to-night, but we'll get there all right; take that little tip from me."

And Joe swung up in his saddle; I crawled in the trailer behind; The train moved off with a groan and a squeak, for the midnight work and the grind Then Joe looked 'round as we started off, I could see his face all alight; "I got a letter from home," he said; "I'll read it to you to-night."

We pulled along through d.i.c.k Busch, through Fairy Court and Dell.

When word came back from the blokes ahead to give the nags a spell.

Joe slid outen his saddle, with a chuckle deep down in his throat, An' he walked back to me, as gay as could be, and pulled the kid's note from his coat.

Says he, "Listen, lad, for a kid it ain't bad--it's her birthday--she's five to-night-- It's a ripping note this--she sends you a kiss--" and Joe, poor old pal, struck a light.

He held up the kiddie's letter--we were laughin' a bit at the scrawl, All warm inside with a feeling--well, you know what I mean, d.a.m.n it all!

When along come a German bullet, and Joe, he wavered a mite, Then without a word he wilted down. They carried him West that night: A bullet hole in his temple, by G.o.d, but clutching that letter tight.

I've forgot all me bloomin' duties, for me blood is boilin' with hate; And I'll get that sniping rotter what drilled me pal through the pate.

I'll teach the dirty beggar how an Englishman sticks to his friend: I'm saving a foot of cold steel for the rat--so help me G.o.d to the end.

HE OUGHT TO BE GOOD.

"Jim, I see that old Bill Boozum, from home, has been drafted."

"Well, Hank, he ought to pa.s.s out some nifty hand salutes, all right."

"How's that?"

"Why, look at the practice he's had in bending his elbow!"

Don't Forget that War-Risk Insurance. February 12 is Your last chance at it.

ARMY'S MOTOR ARMADA TO BE 50,000 STRONG

Uncle Sam's Garages and a.s.sembling Shops Demand the Services of 150,000 Chauffeurs and Repair Men

FIRST AID AMBULANCES FOR BREAKDOWNS

Experts from American Factories to Take Charge of Efficiency Problems

Uncle Samuel has gone into the garage business here in France. He has gone into it feet first. He knows the importance of the automobile game in modern warfare; he realizes that if Napoleon the Great had only had one "Henry" at the battle of Waterloo, Marshal Blucher's famous advance through the mud would have been in vain. So he is determined, by aid of all the up-to-date motors, all the up-to-date mechanics and chauffeurs and technical experts he can muster, to prevent any of Marshal Blucher's Prussian successors from stealing a march on him.

Fifty thousand motor vehicles, roughly speaking, represent Uncle Samuel's immediate needs for his charges in France. Of these, some 38,000 will be trucks, some 2,500 ambulances, some 3,000 "plain darn autos," and some 6,500 motorcycles. To take care of this vast motor fleet, to run it, keep it in repair, and so forth, our Uncle will need about 150,000 men--a young army in itself.

When one stops to consider the factories, repair shops, rebuilding stations and what not that will be required, one can see that Uncle Sam's garage is going to be no five-and-ten affair. It is going to be a real infant industry all by its lonesome; and already it is a pretty husky infant, with a loud honk-honk instead of a teething cry. In fact, in the few months since our collective arrival in France Uncle Sam has built up such an organization to keep his cars on the roads as to stagger the imagination of the men of big business, both of our own country and of our allies who have come to look it over.

These Are Real Experts

The A. E. F.--and this is news to many of its members--has, right here in France, a fully equipped automobile factory which is able not only to rebuild from the ground up any of a dozen or more makes of motors, but to turn out parts, tools, anything required from the vast stores of raw materials which has been shipped overseas for the purpose, with the special machinery which has been torn up in the States and replanted here. The factory is going to employ thousands of expert mechanics, and is going to have a capacity for general repair work unequalled by any similar plant back home.

People who dwell within the desolate region bounded by the Rhine on the west and the Russian frontier on the east have been in the habit of considering our national Uncle as a superficial sort of an old geezer; but the way he has taken hold of his automobile business proves that they have another good think coming. He hasn't overlooked a thing. Hard by his big new factory there is an "organization ground," a "salvage ground," a supply depot, and what is perhaps most important of all, the headquarters of a highly trained technical staff.

This is a staff of experts; not self-styled experts, but the real thing--big men in the automobile business representing all the important motor factories in the United States. Some of these experts inspect the broken down machines and pieces of machines in the salvage grounds, and report whether the wearing out process was due to a chauffeur's mishandling of the car, to the use of poor material in its construction, or to something wrong in its original designing.

Working "On the Ground"

If it is the chauffeur or mechanic who was responsible, he, wherever he is, is hauled up on the carpet. If the fault is found to lie with the factory in the States that turned out the machine, the representative of that company on the board of experts reports the facts to the home office himself, with recommendations for future betterment. In making out his recommendations for a car of a new design, peculiarly fitted to traffic and combat conditions in France, his co-workers on the board lend him their a.s.sistance. In this way defects in cars are detected "on the ground" and the responsibility placed at once, so that future errors of the same sort will be avoided.

This is, in brief, the journey that lies before an American made auto shipper, say "F.O.B. Detroit." Knocked down, or una.s.sembled, it is packed and put aboard a transport at "an American port." It makes the same voyage that we all made to "a French port," gracefully thumbing its nose at any pa.s.sing submarines. At the port it is a.s.sembled, painted, duly catalogued and numbered, and given a severe once-over and several finishing touches by the experts of the technical staff and their a.s.sistants.

For Emergency Calls

Having pa.s.sed this examination, it is loaded with supplies--for even a car has to carry a pack while traveling--and headed towards the interior under charge of a picked crew of mechanics, who try it out under actual traffic conditions and adjust it. On the way it is held over at the "organization grounds," where it is given its supplementary equipment of tools, water cask, and the necessary picks, shovels and tow cables to get it out of the mud. This done, it is turned over to a new crew of men, and, as one of the component parts of a train of cars in charge of a truck company, it is sent "up front" if the need is urgent, or, in case there are cars aplenty in that interesting locality, it is run to a reserve station to await call.

When the car, after days or months at the front, begins to show, by its coughing or wheezing or other signs, that it is about due for a new lease of life, the journey is reversed. If the car is able to get back under its own power, it goes back that way; if it is not, a hurry call is sent for the auto-doctoring-train, which is nothing more nor less than a repair shop on wheels. There the blue-jeaned doctors of the train do their best for the car, and if it doesn't come around in a day or so, it is towed back to be overhauled from A to Izzard.