SHELL ON HIS
HOUSE; TELLS
HOW IT FEELS
Lieutenant Zanghieri Calmly Re
cords His Impressions of
the Moment.
BOMB IS LITERARY ASSET
Most Exciting Adventure in Officer's
Career Occurs While He Is Quietly
Seated in His Home Engaged
in Literary Pursuit.
By TANCRED ZANGHIERI,
Lieutenant in the Italian Army.
fecial Correspondence to the Chicago
v v Daily News.)
Goritz, Austria.—Heine tells in one
of his poems how he sought happiness
all over the world without e\ er find
ing it; returning home disconsolate, he
met it seated on the hearth of his own
house. It is an adventure which may
happen even to a newspaper corre
spondent. A city like Goritz is an El
dorado for the sensation seeker. Yet
I had the most interesting adventure of
my sojourn today, without moving from
my table.
Permit me to tell you about it in de
tail and with precision, divided into
three chapters of varying length, and
admit that even when one is the prin
cipal personage of a story one still has
the right to consider oneself from more
than one viewpoint.
Chapter I.—The Setting.
Up till September 21 the weather
was bad. It was not rain; it was a
deluge. The Italian trenches, like those j
of the Austrians, are all cut into the |
slopes of mountains and hills; despite ;
the shelters, the rain pours in, forms
ditches and Hows through them; the
trenches become small noisy torrents.
To fight in these conditions is not pos
sible. The official bulletins express the
situation in the words: “Bad weather
hinders the operations.”
Hence a forced truce to the work of
destruction. Nature takes care of the
destruction by a sudden cold wave,
dampness that penetrates one’s bones
and slows up the vital functions.
But on the 22d the weather deter
mines to better itself. The clouds, con
founded in a gray veil, take on forms,
thin out, show bits of sky. The day
becomes divinely beautiful; the air is
limpid as crystal. One can distinguish
every tree, every bush of Podgora, a
green mass. The Sabotino, more bare,
veils its reddish scars made by hun
dreds of thousands of shells, in the
violety vapor of a cloud, vast but tenu
ous, interposed between it and the sun.
Monte Santo, San Gabriele, San Dan
*o e, gathered up beneath the crest of
ie Selva di Tarnova, seem to smile at
mr unhappy brother, the Carso,
'' ich innocently stretches its low arid
no s to the sun, as though to intoxi
a e itself with warmth and Quiet.
o sound of cannon is heard; no
1 e crack disturbs the silence of this
EPnng, like florescence.
lessen23ltI DOt a cloud in tlle spot
the solar warmth raises light
nnw^ licil tiut distant mountains,
Palest azure.
ontn!hn0t ° coacussion, not a shot;
little tke airPlanes are flying and
them c ^'Hets of white smoke follow
Z?1* it is not “our’
down
war; we are
tying Ull :110 ear*k’ breathing the vivi
doe nf ;Tm great gulps* Like the little
cast n , aoterlinck we do not deign to
deenierf" wevat that sky which is not
Proving ,atal3le” by our desires. The
3.000 tw 1 tIie air’ the theater of war
The hnl above, does not interest us.
bursting shrapnej ls so_far away.
that one has to pay attention to near
This “truce of God” is strange, so
strange that it seems the armies have
forgotten the war. I have never felt
my soul more peaceably Inclined, more
bourgeois, less warlike. I forbid my
orderly to wake me early tomorrow.
I And in truth this morning I got up at
i 8’ ful1 of crazy ideas, with the desire
to climb up, up over the wooded slopes
of a mountain, to throw myself on the
ground upon a carpet of moss, to look
at the trees, hear the chirping of
birds, enjoy all the beauty of this en
chanted region. And the Austrians?
But do the Austrians still exist?
Some books lying on my table tempt
my fancy. I half close the curtains of
the two windows, which are filling the
chamber with light, raise the shutters
and sit down, taking up the reading
of a study of Alphonse Daudet by Doc
tor Balke. And 1 read, read until a
curious statement strikes me:
“Whereas, Daudet as a bachelor
wrote only when the inspiration struck
him, after his marriage he acquired the
habit of daily work.”
This fact interests me. I go over to
the table and make a note of Doctor
Balke’s statement.
Chapter II—From Another Angle.
Lieutenant Puviani, an officer in the
same battalion to which your corre
spondent has the honor of belonging, is
attached to the local command at Go
ritz. He is a strong man, rather heavy,
getting on in years (he completed the
fortieth a few days ago), a good father
and a brave soldier, who has been at
the front and in the immediate neigh
borhood since the. beginning of the
war. At present he has a rather quiet
post and takes advantage of it to make
horrible photographs for which he goes
about begging compliments, and copies
>f which he distributes to all his
Iriends. 1
It is 11:45 a. m. and he is late for the
jfficer’s mess which is located near the
ipen door of a courtyard, in the same
street where stands the house of your
correspondent.
Lieutenant Puviani arrives la^e at
:he mess. This tardiness is not neces
sary considering that he has nothing
:o do from morning till night, but it
?ives him a certain air of being a
‘slave of duty,” which he cultivates.
So Lieutenant Puviani walks along
svith firm and measured step toward
:he mess. Behold him in Via L—, be
iold him in Via A—, two steps from his
?oal. The street is quiet as though
iulled to sleep in the heat of a summer
ifternoon.
Suddenly, at the end of the street, a
lundred yards in front of him, he hears
i sinister whistling, an explosion, a ter
rific noise. Pieces of wall, beams,!
iroken glass rain upon the street, while
i great cloud, first reddish, then whit-'
sh, rises into the sky.
Lieutenant Puviani looks at the
stricken house and utters a cry. In
me jump he reaches the mess, where
ill the officers of the battalion are
unching and talking about the shell,
‘which must have fallen very near,”
md with a sentence causes them to,
start to their feet. i
“Lieutenant Zanghieri s house has
'alien in!”
The officers leave the mess and run
:oward the spot where lies perhaps the
>ody of their brother officer.
Chapter III—What Really Occurred.
“After his marriage he acquired the
labit of daily work.”
At the word “marriage” a dull, far
iway boom, half obliterated by dis
:ance. One hears thousands like it
jvery day; today none have been
leard and this is the only reason why
;he ear distinguishes this. At the word
‘habit” the whistle of a shell. The
customary noise. The whistle of a shell
aegins shriller and again sinks as the
shell passes over. When it explodes
aear you it seems to stop at its shrill
est point, as if to collect its forces in
i great howl of rage, which is the ex
plosion. But the shell of which I speak
lifters from all the others. The low
tone, the shrill tone, ever nearer, ever
I__
nearer, nearer, near—here it is!' My
pen stops at the word “daily” in ex
pectation of the horrible thing. The
house receives a shock that makes it
tremble to its foundation, there comes
an immense roar as of a hundred can
aon firing together. The plaster falls
from the ceiling everywhere in the
room, which fills with a white powder,
while a hail of fragments strikes the
shutters. Something caves in with a
?reat rumble. Everything rattles,
trembles, jolts and seems to fall down
ward into chaos, into an inferno of
broken things. Then silence.
The word “work” is traced hastily,
' almost illegibly, by the nervous hand.
1 write across the sheet: “11:45, a shell
an my house.” Then I go to the win
flow and throw it open. Two military
policemen and four or five soldiers are
looking up, showing round eyes, and
pale, almost idiotic, faces.
At the left I see my dear colleagues
coming toward me. One of them ar
rives on a bicycle, the others on foot,
j They too, are pale, and look at me
silently, as though I were a ghost,
j An entire corner of the house has
l fallen in, but it is an uninhabited cor
ner. The shell entered through the
roof and exploded inside. The ceiling
of my room shows two great holes in
the front part and two smaller ones
above the bed. But the room, though
partly crushed, is intact.
“What are you doing up there?”
shouts Lieutenant Fusco, the adjutant
major of the battalion. “The upper
floor is on fire.”
Really it is a false alarm; it is only
the dust of a fallen ceiling. This does
not keep me from hurrying down to
my colleagues, happy in the escape
from danger, and even more so from
having read on their faces affectionate
solidarity for their friend. This satis
faction is worth at least a 12-inch
shell, especially when it shows itself
as well-bred as that whose untimely
end I have described.
Champion Melon Eater.
Berkeley, Cal.—Thomas S. Vanaszk,
world’s chanjpion, is in training. Van
aszk, a senior in the College of Let
ters and Sciences at the University of
California, says that next summer he’ll
either break his own record or bust
something trying. He holds the title
of world’s champion cantaloupe eater.
Last summer he worked in Imperial
valley. Before his tent he put a
marker, and every time he ate a canta
loupe he added a notch. When he got
through there were 789 notches, an
average of 26 a day. Now he’s prac
ticing on oranges and cup custard, just
to keep his hand in.
GENERAL DIRECTORY
CITY OFFICIALS.
G. W. Barber.Mayor
C. Porter Best.Recorder
J. G. Pulley.Day Marshal
G. G. McCrory.Treasurer
Dr. H. P. Hargis.Health Officer
Aldermen: J. A. Cullum, R. A. Drew
ery, Oc Jeffries, G. G. McCrory and C.
E. Riggs.
Council meets first Monday night of
each month in the Council Chamber in
the Farmers & Merchants Bank Bldg.
COURTS.
NORTHERN DISTRICT
CIRCUIT COURT—Third Monday In
February and August.
CHANCERY COURT—Second Mon
day in January, May and member.
COUNTY COURT—First Monday in
January, April, July and October.
PROBATE COURT—Fourth Monday
in January, April, July and October.
SOUTHERN DISTRICT
CIRCUIT COURT—First Monday in
March and September.
CHANCERY COURT—Third Monday
in January, May and .member.
COUNTY COURT—Second Monday in
January, April, July and October.
PROBATE COURT—First Monday
following that of the Northern Dis
trict.
PROFESSIONAL CARDS
DR. G. F. MAYNARD
Licensed Deputy State
Veterinarian
AUGUSTA, ARKANSAS
Sick and emergency calls answered
Promptly
In McCrory first Saturday of »ach
month.
B. BREWSTER
PHYSICIAN AND SURGEON.
Office phone 39, Residence 16
Office in rear of Farmers &
Merchants Bank building.
J. H. WEST
PHYSICIAN AND SURGEON.
Calls answered promptly
day or night.
Grays, Arkansas
DR. R. L. FRASER,
IS READY TO ANSWER
CALLS, DAY OR NIGHT.
Phone Number 2,
McCrory, Arkansas
L. B. WINFREE, J. P.
CONVEYANCES
G. W. BARBER
NOTARY PUBLIC
AND INSURANCE
The Cost of
Living High
is LOW in
Colorado
And reduced fares are in effect
via
"The Colorado Line"
Why not spend vour summer
vacation out there? It will cost
no more and it will be far more
enjoyable and profitable than an
outing nearer home. Get the
details from your nearest Rock
Island agent or by addressing
C. B. SLOAT
Assistant General Passenger Agent
Little Rocka Ark.