Tales from a Dugout

by Arthur Guy Empey

"'Yank, we're two bloody fools not to have thought of this long ago. All we've got to do is to write home to one of the New York papers asking the readers to send out baseball stuff to us and it will only be a matter of a few weeks before we will have enough to equip two teams.'

"I offered to write the letter, and with Alex bending over me, I eagerly wrote an appeal to the readers of the New York Evening Telegram, and turned the letter over to the Mail Orderly.

"We then explained to the Tommies that equipment was necessary and that we had written home, but while waiting for the baseball stuff to arrive we would carry on with our instruction classes. The next day Alex and I made a woolen baseball out of an old puttee, fixed up a temporary diamond, and showed the Tommies the general run of the game. Their antics were awful. If we had used regular baseballs I don't think there would have been a Tommy in the squad without a black eye. Did you ever watch a girl trying to catch a ball? Well a girls' team alongside of some of these Tommies would have looked like the winner in our World's Series. It was hard work keeping their interest up.

"Two weeks later we went 'up the line'; then came back again for another rest. The interest in baseball was dying out and we were at our wit's end. Time passed, and we figured out that we should be hearing from our appeal, but nothing came. Then once again we went into the front line trench. The Tommies were getting very skeptical and every time baseball was mentioned they would gaze in our direction with a sneering look. This completely got our goats.

"One evening we were sitting in a dugout of the support trench: it was raining like the mischief, and we were cold and downhearted. Pretty soon the rations came up. As you know, the ration party generally brings the rations down into the dugouts, but the two men carrying our dixie set it down in the mud of the trench and almost shot the chutes down the entrance to the dugout. They were breathless with excitement. One of them yelled out:

"Yank, there's a limber" (small two-wheeled wagon) "full of parcels down in the Sergeant-Major's dugout. They're all addressed to you, and they're from America.'

"Alex let out a shout and I felt warm all over. How we lorded it over those poor Tommies. That night we were to be relieved and go back to rest billets. We could hardly wait for the time.

"The next morning was Sunday, and after church parade we made a mad rush to the Orderly Room to get our mail. The Quartermaster-Sergeant was waiting for me, and behind him stood every officer in the company, trying to disguise the expectant look on their faces. Every eye was turned in the direction of a heap of parcels. I thought the 'Quarter' never would start. Even the Captain could not stand it, and suppressing his eagerness, said: 'Sergeant, you had better issue the mail.' Alex and I were breathless with anxiety.

"Then, stooping down, the Sergeant took up a parcel and read off my name, and threw it over to me. I caught it on the fly. The Sergeant kept on reading out 'Yank' and parcels came through the air like a bombardment. The first parcel I picked up was stamped 'Passed by Censor' and contained twelve brand new balls, or, at least, eleven, and the remains of one. This twelfth ball was stamped 'Opened by Censor,' but search as I could, I could find no stamp reading 'Sewed up by Censor.' We did the sewing up, but that ball looked like a duck's egg when we had finished. Alex and I roundly cussed the Censor. Later, we both cussed the inventor of baseball. There was a reason.

"The readers of the Telegram had nobly responded to our appeal. There were enough gloves and balls for two teams, and even a chest-protector and mask. The mask was an article of great curiosity to all. Some of them thought it was a bomb protector. Everyone in turn tried it on, and everyone, upon learning that the catcher was to wear the mask, wanted to immediately sign up for that position. Alex and I could have been elected to Parliament right there. The next afternoon, the candidates, forty in all, and the rest of the company, turned out en masse on the baseball field, which we had laid out during our previous stay in rest billets.