Read in every West Indian home in the Republic and Canal Zone PAGE SIX THE WORKMAN, SATURDAY, AUGUST 9, 1919 HORRORS OF THE GREAT WAR IMPROVE YOUR SIGHT The Mind of Private Thomas Atkins and the Young British Officer GLASSES TO SUIT EVERY EYE BY PHILLIP GIBBS (Written Specially for the Montreal Gazette. Tested marrowAt first they The Scadron Optical Go.
making a rusti nurseries with Ypres uch charm.
was slow United States Pharmacy laughter silenced the was a young saw in buted it so much bateri can They became the in shoulderbad as watch the we call the needle first phase of the war.
they did not not shouted selves the wax arst time Sailings for Bocas Launch ALBA dre who dovoted himself fearlessly to dirty trick the Boche could play on hit, their bodily and spiritual neede, risking nor by mud and vermin por foul condihis life with them, or some Presbyterian tions. To hell with all that, he said.
minister who brought them hot cocoa Come on, boys!
under shellfire with a cherry word or two So thousands went whistling to their once heard, of Keep your hearts death or singing vulgar music hall songs pay, lads, and your heads down. les proclaiming song want to go Most of the men became fatalists, with homel or Hallo, hullo, it a diferent odd superstitions in the place of faith girl again! They stifled if they could It no good worrying, they said. the devil of fright in their hearts and were your name is written on a German shell most brave when they were most afraid you can escape it, and if it isn written conquerors of fear.
nothing can touch you.
Officers Have Same Problems Superstition That Helped.
The yoʻung British officers shared their Officers as well as men had this fatalis suffering their loubts, and their fears, tie belief and superstitions which used in a full measure and often with more in them and helped them. Have the Huns tease sensation became more sensitive found you out yet? asked some gunner and more given to imaginations and re officers in a ruined farmhouse near Keun lections. Our battalion officers were for nel Hill, Not yet. said one of them, the most part so young that ten years and then they all left the table at which before the war they had been in Engliati they were at lunch, and playing with tio soldier and for some oak beams embraced there ar. reading fairy tales, before going to Pub dently. They were touching wood lie Schools, where they learned to play Take this with you, said one Irin the game according to the English code officer one night when was going into but in spite of cricket were not in the old bad days. It will help hardened for the roughschool of life with you as it it has helped me. Its my lucky its inevitable cruelties. When the war He gave me a little bit of coal began thousands of them were first year which he carried in his tunic and be was mes at Oxford Cambridge. men 80 earnest about it that took it without by courtesy, but bove in their hearts a sale and felt the safer for it. still with their minds set on fancy Tommy hated War.
ties and socks, the pretty tobaconiat girl down in High Street, and amThe British soldier hated war with a bitious to get an oar in the college eight.
bitter hatred be hated its filth, its le War had never entered their heads.
bors, its exile, its boredom for there is Its ghastliness had never touched them.
no such deadly boredom in the world of even even in imagination. But war its beastliness, and in bloodshed. call of England in danger at the first And because he huted it they left be their college rooms with just glance fought desperately to get through with it back at their photographs above the and started each big offensive with the mun the mantelpiece, and strolled into the rehope that at last he would get the Boche cruiting offices with the question of down and out And because he What do?
the trenches where he lived below th first officers of the New Armies, and carth like a rat, and the battlefields when they put on their uniforms for the where he lay under shell fire. he enjoyed first time had a sense of pride in their himself intensely in his ine and made the spells behind the Sun Browne belts and the pip on their most of every hour in chose little villages of France where he badges. They wer: offisers and gentle straps and the regimental vas billeted between the battles the men playing football or cricket, responsibility of commund, and their To nen, in command of inen It was the to hear their shouts and laughter, a few authority over com any of soldiers after their battalion had come out which sotne battle in which perkapne but which made men of them and lifted them they up to the exaltion of had lost half their comrades by casual with great remission in life. It was young inanhood ties, was a revelation of the recuperative life, big with powers of the human mind. They played shrink it whatever the risk und did fate, and as keenly as in the football fields of Eng think land or Scotland.
at first, in the first six with laughter months of their training, that it was the think morbidly at ind enthusiasm, had bright eyes undim way of death. It was only later, after med by the horrors of war.
Those who had come out like dead each young officer knew that his chances the ghastly cruel piled up high, that men dug out their graves cleaned them of escape were not of mnch account, and up, polished their buttons and that when he put on his uniform for the strolled down the village street with a first he was putting on sicrificial jaunty air and glad eye for any pretty clothes.
French mademoiselle who might pass came oåt to the war zon in France and After the spell of training they their way. Young Tommy Atkins was Flanders. went into dirty ditehes, and fond of kids and fond of women. He their baptisen of fire, left behind the found a comfort for his soul in playing decencies and comforts and luxuries of about the back yard of his billet with the the life they had known for this new life children of of French peasants and in help in cratered fields in hules in the earth, ing to fetch and carry for any woman with the smell of dead bodies in the air with a cheeful smile and a comely face about them, and with doad in the fields Our men made friends for life with these where they walked: Even then for French the lines if they time they were uplifted by enthusiasm did not charge them outrageously for for the adventures of life.
will things of all the men wil ish tongues. Generally the British troops They Liked the Game, vere immensely popular in Picardy and Artois, and when they left women kissed This was a great adventure, horrible and cried in and joked in its physical conditions, but with na queer jargon of English French. spiritual glory. They were keen on the All your English soldiers behave like job. They liked its technique, the handgentlemen with the hearts of boys. said ling of that pretty little instrument of one French woman, and think that was death be machine gun th, business true saying, in a general way. Certainly of shaping a platoun oi koud fecws the they retained their boyishnet rough seience of commind. The comradeship of all the black days of war unless they the otti: armes Couation of ere blinded or mangled or dazed by the old college spirit, fi ise in quality shell shock. have found roars of laugh stronger in loyalty and friendship. These ter go up when shells burst near a group boys learned to knw their sergeants and of lads and they had to run like hares to leaned on them and learned from them.
lodge them. In the estaminets of France They were proud of courage and good and Flanders anders they danced with froway beh behaviour of their ressant girls to the tune of a penny in afraid at first of their fear he slot piano or, failing the girls, danced dangera boyish dread of showing. vith each other like school boys on a fake in bad place. but were relieved holiday. Yet they knew this was only a by the sureness of their own courage.
aspite between other spells of fighting However much afraid, they could always Make hay while the sun shines, We give a lead to th: ma They found a here the chance of life was against them put on a mask of ch sarful carelessness to spice even in danger if if it were way of every old thing; including the not too terr. ble ani tmk more ric than igh mwalitis laight in the Sunday was needful in Nomui Lland trench chools of peace. it don blame raids. For the first few months they hem knowing their way of life in the about the fields of death with with pres salient.
shining eyes, as used to see them with admiration in my heart. It was the Why Tommy Fought length of the War which broke my them dowa, the inter ainable length of The mind of Tommy Atkins was in this war a queer compound of simple but, and their abnornal way of life beit, so that the spirit of adventure died thoughts, notions and desires. He came normal, and it seemed that the thought a good deal about his food and valor of men, all their desperate endeavif his rations reached tim safely found or of courage was unavailing against the comfort herein. He learned simple code of esprit de corps for This battalion struggle and resistance and gun power of battalion the enemy. The slaughter of many comor division. He an undisguised con rades wore on the nerves of the boy tempt not always justified for staff of who survived.
and young gentlemen in red, blue and green tabs who came into trenche Twenty Officers Gone After now and again on a visit of inspection Each Battle and wrote out orders which generally were ridiculous. He loathed patriotic After each battle 20 officers would sentiment, any reference by Generals to disappear from battalion moss Teaving two the the glorious British Empire or the good next draft of officers. And these two old Union Jack left him stone cold. His knew that their turn to disappear patriotism was unconscious and unex would come next on the law of evera pressed, and mostly of a local character ges. It was tard to keep cheerful, to cter ha everlasting faith in the vietor limited to some small village in an Ent fots issue of the war, to renew the net lish county. He fought stubbornly, par. of sacrifice which every morning and ticularly, with heroic courage, in victory every night duts made in their hoarts.
or in defent, not for any high motive of young officers kept their ontward of Tae marvel is that to the end our safeguarding the liberties of the world or cheerfulness as well as their rallantry revenging brave little Belgium or sar. in dagouts and billets many of tom ing France, but out of sheer individual revealed to me the secret of despair pride of manhood and his dislike of leb walah assailed them.
ting down his pals. He was resolved not Is this war going on forever?
to be beaten by the liberty slaves The old regular soldier of whom Rud. banda more evading than their les. sir, Carefully Properly No, Shur Shelltet peared from the British Army when Ger Charcoal Fire Fitted many declared war on the world. Speci. remember a group of them met a mens existed in the shape of Sergeant night in Ypres, when the enemy was Majors with many service ribbons their breasts who trained the raw recruite shelling the town, as usual. They were for the new Armies with a flow of terri making cocoa on little charcoal stoves, ble sereened behind some buried walls, and language which froze the sat with them and bones of boys from little suburban homes sat talked. At talked in England, and with a sense of disci that peculiar light hearted And regimental officers relied as their one of Post Office Rifles announeed to his pline and duty upon which the adjutant irony with which as a rule they maaked all deeper thoughts. One boy in this group PANAMA CITY NEW YORK COLON hope of pulling a battalion of amateur comrades, who laughed very heartily. 23 Central Avenue woldiers into shape. The sergeant major that he was going to chuck his job.
44 Front Street of the old chool preserved the old tra.
ditions. He could drink neat whisky The wages weren good enough and prolike water from a well and turn Another boy said motion up to parade next morning with the complex am a citizen of no mean Empire, but ion of a Ribstone pippin and tungue of what to Hell is the Empire going to do freel and rasping quality which would for me when the next shell blows off both This remark was tear the soul out of a boy who had been my bleeding legs?
careless in the polish of his buttons. also received by a gust of subdued for a moment by a quarter master sergeant with service in India, South Africa and Egypt, would roar and upheaval of masonry some JUST ARRIVED!
sacred stores of blankets when the where by the ruins of the Cloth Hall. It fellow with a clean cut face battalion over the way had lost theirs in the glow of the charcoal fire LARGE ASSORTMENT OF NEW AND FRESH moysterious ways.
He maintained the All fair in love and who later in the night revealed sorneheroic traditions.
PATENT MEDICINES war, had an immense pride in the hon thing of his soul and the thoughts workFor use both internally and exter ally never faltered when all Hell was let our of the regiment, a courage which ing in the minds of his pals. It the length of the war. he saidt SIMMONS LIVER REGULATOR, FOUR FOLD LIVER loose, and a patriotism based upon a which does one down. At first in TONIC, Dr. SIMMONS SQUAW VINE COMPOUND, ligious reverence for the memory of seemed like a big adventure and the ex, Queen Victoria, and a profound contempt citement of it, horrible though it was, DARBY PROPHYLACTIC FLUID, FOUR FOLD for all foreigners in whom he included kept one going. Even the first time LINIMENT, Dr. SIMMON VEGETABLE any poor blighter not born within the went over the top wasn so as LIVER MEDICINE British Isles. He was the last of a pus thought it would be was Jave and ing caste and not many specimens now drunk with all sorts of emotions, includ All these preparations have been used successfully by the remain as glorious survivals. The old ing fear, that were worse before going people of the United States for more than 20 years.
Regulars died in great numbers in the over. had what we call.
Even the little They all have it. Afterwards one didn For Sale at Pharmacy army of of Conternptibles who fought know what one one was doing even the (Opposite Railroad Station)
down from Mons did not contain many killing part of the business, until one of Kipling type of soldier. They were reached the objective and lay down and LOPEZ, Proprietor.
boys a younger generatron, who liked had time to think, and to count the dead On and after August 1st, this store will remove to candies better than strong drink and be about Now the excitement has gone 149 Céntral Avenue, opposite El Sol Silk Store.
haved like young gentlemen from private out of it and the war locks as though it academies (though their language was would go on for ever. At first we all not of a drawing room quality) in towns searched the papers for some hope that behind the fighting lines On the whole the end was near. We don do that they were cleaner, brisker, brighter and now, We know that whenever better lads than the hard drinking, hard ends, this year or next, this little world swearing hard mouthed men who in the will be mostly wiped out. Bound to be.
old days took the Queen shilling in ex And why are we going to die? That change for a scarlet coat and the chance what all of us want to know what it all of death in one of England little wars. about? Oh, yes, know the usual anA New Type Succeeds Kipling the Empire. But we ve all lost our wers: In defense of of liberty, To save Soldier.
We re under Leaves Colon for Bocas del Toro It was the New Army man that met And as for the Empire don give a in hundreds of thousands in the fields of curse for it. m inking only of my France and Flanders during those years little home at Streatham Hill. The hor.
Every Tuesday.
of war. They were the boys who an en rible Hun? ve no quarrel with the swered Kitchener call for the first hun poor blighters over there by Hoege. Taking Freight Passengers dred thousand, and for the second and They are in the same bloody mess as we third, and who stared up at those posters are. They hate it just as much. We re For Further Particulars Apply to on the walls of English towers Your all under a spell together which some and Country need you. What devils have put on us. worder if will your best girl say it you re not in there a God anywhere.
khaki and said Well, suppose ve Under Black Speil and went round to the nearest recruiting agent, guessed that it was the This sense of being under a black spell 25 BOTTLE ALLEY Phone 325 COLON way to death. They guessed right, in found expressed by other more than half a million cases. and by German prisoners who used These boys came from London shops the same phrase. remember one of and warehouses and Government offices, them in the battles of the Somme who from city clerkships and small business said in good English, This war was not houses in Liverpool, Manchester, Glas made in any sense by mankind. We gow, and other big towns, and from vil under This belief was due mis lages and farmsteads in rural England, think to think to the impersonal character of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. They had modern warfare in which gunfire is at so FOUNDED IN 1881 had no military training before present long a range that shellfire has the qualing themselves to the recruiting officer, ity of natural and elemental powers of THE OLDEST DRUG STORE IN PANAMA they had never envisaged the idea of death like thunderbolts and men CITY, AND THE MOST MODERN ONE.
beit killed twenty miles behind the lines wildest dreams that killing was to be while walking over sunny fields or in Just in Stock a large Assortmen: of their job and they didn like the idea busy villages had had no thought of a of it. They had no particular hatred of human enemy desiring their individual Brook Powdered Ba ley the Germans except as people of a power death.
SMALL AND LARGE TINS who were trying to put it across the What the Chaplains had to world for some unknown purpose and BROOK GROAT very deadly means.
meet.
Specially recommended for children and persons The Longing for Blighty God and Christianity raised perplexities in the minds Convalessing.
Then they came into the battlefields life and not death. They could not sof simple lads desiring and found themselves cut off from all reconcile the Christian precepts of MANUEL ESPINOSA the civillsation they had known, with its the chaplain with the bayoneting decencies and cleanlinese, cateu alive by of Germans and the shambles of the Central Avenue, 33 vermin in foul trenches, with dug outs, battlefields.
Opposite La Merced Church Panama.
and face face All this blood and were in the trenches, with the menace of and Flanders seemed to them to many wery day while they mangled flesh in the fields of France They learned to know, very and Flan JUST OPENED quickly, that their beet hope of escape of them, know certain proof thay from death was a wound which not as they were told, a God of Love, not exist, or or if He did exist was would maim just enough to keep hot as they them in Blighty (as they called Eng but a monster glad of the agonies of was gland from the Indian word Balati men. That at lect thought until the war was over. Failing this expressed to me by some London lads 122 Central Ave. Panama who argued the matter with me they knew if they helonged to the iufan before the German drive in March and one day (near late Continental Bank)
try that on the law of averages they that was the thought which our Army wonld have to die.
chaplains had to meet from men who BROWNE McALMON, Prop What was in the minds of those men, would not be put off by conventional 80 young most of them, and so unpre words. It was not good enough to tell large assortment DRUGS and CHEMICALS pared for death? What was working in them that the Germansfwere guilty of the brain of thls new type of Tommy all this crime and that unless the Ger PATENT MEDICINES Atkins? have often tried to find out, mans were beaten the world would lose TOILET WATERS, PERFUMERIES, SOAPS and it was not easy for wore the uni its liberty and life. Yes, we know all form of an officer and intimate conversa that, they said, but why did God allow tion was difficult on the roads of war and the Germans, and how is it that both in dug outs and trenches at odd sides pray to the same d for victory? Prescriptions carefully compounded. soldier doce not wear his heart on his sleeve seen there must be something wrong some BROWNE DAVIDSON give himself away, as he calls it, to It was not often men talked like that, Druggist Druggt any passer by. But now and then except to some chaplain who was a huPhone 939 gained glimpses of the thoughts of these man, comradely soul, some Catholic pnshellfire.
people behind them too King CARLOS HENRIQUEZ spite of of laughter, and got to go, men Central Drug Store are not spell.
mon They had been in kreat in many of death.
them The Chemical Hall He had the ficers