Dugout

“ Approaching the mysterious spot as cautiously as possible, and when within a few yards of the light—which I discovered came from a dugout in the mountain side—I heard voices, and soon I was able to distinguish the words, as they proved to be in my own language. Then I knew that the occupants of the dugout were white men. Thinking that they might be a party of trappers, I boldly walked up to the door and knocked for admission. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The ruins high above us trembled with the vibrations from our own guns. I looked up, and noted that the arched roof of the cement wine-cellar which was the basis for the entire dugout, or rather system of dugouts, where we were quartered did not show even a crack. ”

“ All this was most unfortunate, but it did not end until we got sixteen shells in all. The officers after the first salvo sheltered at the entrance of a deep dugout owned by a Frenchman. Whenever he saw the flash of a gun over the water he shouted "Kum Kale" and pointed to his dugout, when we dived down in beautiful style, tumbling over each other down the dark steps. At last our mine-sweeper came in and we boarded her about 1.30 a.m. to-day. ”

“ The tremendous increase in shelling awakened me with a start, and my first impulse was to go at once into a deeper dugout, which was connected to the one I was in by an underground passageway.
"It was a smaller dugout, built a few feet lower than the one I was in. It had been used as a sort of storeroom and no one was supposed to sleep there. But it seemed safer to me, and, alone, I crept into it. A thousand times since I have wished I had taken another man with me. ”

“ The absence of good bark, dugout timber, and chisels of stone deprived the whole Mississippi valley of creditable water-craft, and reduced the natives to the clumsy trough for a dugout and miserable bull-boat, made by stretching dressed buffalo hide over a crate. On the Atlantic coast of the United States the dugout was improved in form where the waters were more disturbed. John Smith’s Indians had a fleet of dugouts. The same may be said of the Gulf states tribes, although they added rafts made of reed. ”

“ Profiting by his remembrance of the Wards' dugout, Mr. Peniman had decided to make a dugout for the shelter of his stock. He selected a spot where the steep incline of a ravine made a high embankment; he set to work digging back into it, and was gratified to find that the earth sloped downward under a wide ledge of rock, so that by extending the dugout for about twenty-five feet back under the ledge he could take advantage of it and convert it into an excellent natural roof. This plan lightened the labors of building the barn considerably. ”

“ Four stretcher-cases for 42 at once."
At night in a dugout. Five men playing cards about a lamp-flame that blows from one side to the other in the gusty wind that puffs every now and then down the mouth of the dugout and whirls round it like something alive trying to beat a way out.
[48] Each time the lamp blows the shadows of the five heads writhe upon the corrugated tin ceiling. In the distance, like kettle-drums beaten for a dance, a constant reverberation of guns.
Martin Howe, stretched out in the straw of one of the bunks, watches their faces in the flickering shadows. ”

“ The practice they had acquired already with the dugout helped them greatly with the birch bark, and after one or two duckings they handled it with great ease. As amateurs sometimes do, they had achieved either by plan or accident a perfect design and found that they had a splendid canoe. This was demonstrated when the two boys rowed a race, after Dick had recovered his full strength—Dick in the dugout and Albert in the birch bark. The race was the full length of the lake, and the younger and smaller boy won an easy triumph. ”

“ The afternoon sun poured down steadily on little groups of men preparing dugouts for habitation. I had a good many details to attend to before I could look about for a suitable place for a dugout. Men had to be told off for different fatigues. Men for pick and shovel work that night were placed in sections so that each group would get as much sleep as possible. All the available dugouts had been taken up by the first comers. The location here was particularly well suited for dugouts. A mule path to the beach ran along the bottom of a narrow ravine. ”

“ By observing these simple rules you may see a surprising amount with a chance of surviving.
One day I wanted to go into the old German dugouts under a formless pile of ruins which a British colonel had made his battalion headquarters; but I did not want to go enough to persist when I understood the situation. Formerly, my idea of a good dugout—and I always like to be within striking distance of one—was a cave twenty feet deep with a roof of four or five layers of granite, rubble and timber; but now I feel more safe if the fragments of a town hall are piled on top of this. ”

“ Buddy saw Hides-the-face glance speculatively toward the dugout, and slipped his hand back where he could reach his six-shooter. He felt pretty certain that they meant to demolish the dugout next, and he knew exactly what he meant to do. He had heard men at the posts talk of “selling their lives dearly “, and that is what he intended to do. ”

“ For my part, I feel more secure in what our people call a dugout, which is made with much labor by the Indians, and is, as Captain Standish says in truth, "a most unwieldy ship."
MAKING A DUGOUT
The Indians hew down a huge pine tree, and when I say it is done without the use of axes, then you will [64] wonder how the timber can be felled. Well, when one of the savages desires to build him a boat, he selects the tree from which it is to be made, and builds a little fire around the trunk close to the ground. ”

“ The facts of distribution make the idea of relationship much more plausible. It is worthy of remark that in California south of Humboldt bay there are no dugout canoes at all. Northward, however, dugouts are in use among all tribes as far as Puget sound. Moreover, in the case of some, at least, of the intervening tribes the shovel-nose or square-ended type of dugout occurs. ”

“ They bent themselves to the task, and put all their energies into keeping the dugout from upsetting. Perhaps the wind was merciful, too, and relaxed its violence a trifle, but, be that as it may, the two lads succeeded in accomplishing the feat of turning the boat head on toward the shore, and with only a few strokes of the paddles they found themselves driven violently against the high bank, against which the waves were already breaking. ”

“ One dugout was a room about 15ft. square, with doors and a window, lined throughout with wood planking covered with cloth, and furnished with leather-covered chairs and a table; in one a quantity of feminine underclothing was found—what it was doing there could only be guessed. ”

“ The major led the way underground, into a dugout. This was the mess. It was hard by the guns, and in a hole that had been dug out, quit literally. Here there was a certain degree of safety. In these dugouts every phase of the battery's life except the actual serving of the guns went on. Officers and men alike ate and slept in them.
They were much snugger within than you might fancy. A lot of the men had given homelike touches to their habitations. Pictures cut from the illustrated papers at home, which are such prime favorites with all the Tommies made up a large part of the decorative scheme. ”

“ Taking a peep into the dugout I found it had already been patronized by several poilus. We sat on the ground and watched the shelling. On the other side of the town we could see Company H flung out in skirmish line, marching over the open fields.
Presently a boy in olive drab came panting and laughing up the hill. The group welcomed him with a shout. He was one of the billeting detail. They had been staying in a house at the cross-roads. When the others had gone out this morning he had been left to clean up and get dinner. ”

“ In the southern part, where large trees are readily obtained, you find large dugouts capable of holding from five to twenty persons. At Yakutat, where the timber is much smaller, the canoes, although still dugouts, have decreased proportionately in size, but from Yakutat westward the timber line becomes lower and lower, until the western half of the island of Kadiak is reached, where the trees disappear altogether, and the dugout gives place to the skin canoe or baidarka. ”

“ The reader will readily perceive the difficulty of constructing such dugout on the field and they can certainly not be provided for the accommodation of the common soldier however precious his life may be. ”

“ To his dugout, or station, are connected wires or telephones and telegraph, so that he can conduct the fight, and receive intelligence of everything taking place on the battle line. Though he is in comparative safety his is a hard position ”

“ The clumsy, heavily laden dugouts, lashed in couples, were unwieldy and hard to handle. The rapids came just round a sharp bend, and we got caught in the upper part of the swift water and had to run the first set of rapids in consequence. We in the leading pair of dugouts were within an ace of coming to grief on some big bowlders against which we were swept by a cross current at the turn. All of us paddling hard—scraping and bumping—we got through by the skin of our teeth, and managed to make the bank and moor our dugouts. ”

“ They were followed by Companies B and A, Company C being in support. Off duty the men live in mean little dugouts thinly roofed, poorly floored, wet and cold. But they are happy at being on the front at last, and look on the discomforts as part of the game. ”

“ Lagerlöf, S. Empey, Arthur Guy, 1883- "Blighty!—What hopes?" In Tales from a dugout Christmas in a dugout In Tales from a dugout Fusilier giants under fire In Tales from a dugout "Horses for France" In Tales from a dugout Jim—soldier of the king In Tales from a dugout Lone tree sentinel In Tales from a dugout Empey, Arthur Guy—Continued Pacifist In Tales from a dugout Private Ginger In Tales from a dugout Rounding up spies In Tales from a dugout Siren of the Boches In Tales from a dugout Winning the D. C. M. In Tales from a dugout Empire builders. Rinehart, M. R. Empire of death. ”

“ If dugouts have to be entered owing to heavy shelling, this should be done with the utmost caution, and gas helmets put on at the slightest trace of gas. The clearing of dugouts should not be carried out by men who have been even slightly affected by gas. ”

“ Down on the waterfront the broad, smooth quays offer a tempting place for baseball, especially on Sundays and summer evenings, when they are generally bare of freight. But it has one serious drawback, that a foul ball on one side invariably goes into the river, and the players must have either several balls or a willing swimmer if the game is to continue long. One Sunday game, for instance, between two fourteen-year-old teams, played near the water, cost five balls, varying in price from 50 cents to $1.00 each. ”

“ "Go out and buy me a set of clubs, a red jacket, a cloth cap, a pair of spiked shoes, and a ball."
"One ball?"
"Certainly. What need is there of more?"
"It sometimes happens," I explained, "that a player who is learning the game falls to hit his ball straight, and then he often loses it in the rough at the side of the fairway."
"Absurd!" said Vincent Jopp. "If I set out to drive my ball straight, I shall drive it straight. ”

“ Many baseball fans look upon an umpire as a sort of necessary evil to the luxury of baseball, like the odor that follows an automobile. ”

“ You can always tell the old river hand by the way in which he stretches himself out upon the cushions at the bottom of the boat, and encourages the rowers by telling them anecdotes about the marvellous feats he performed last season. ”

“ Sir, — Now that cricket has been put aside for some few months to come, and cricketers have assumed somewhat of the chrysalis nature (for a time only 'tis true) , but at length again will burst forth in all their varied hues, rather than allow this state of torpor to creep over them, and stifle their new supple limbs, why can they not, I say, form a foot-ball club, and form a committee of three or more to draw up a code of laws? If a club of this sort were got up, it would be of vast benefit to any cricket-ground to be trampled upon, and would make the turf quite firm and durable; ”

“ Things never turn out at cricket as one expects, however, and the second innings of the Sixth was no exception to the rule. ”

“ But cricket was no mere game. Cricket was important. He could never help reading about cricket. He read the scores in the stop press first, then how it was a hot day; then about a murder case. ”

“ The gruff murmur, irregularly broken by the taking out of pipes and the putting in of pipes which had kept on assuring her, though she could not hear what was said (as she sat in the window which opened on the terrace) , that the men were happily talking; this sound, which had lasted now half an hour and had taken its place soothingly in the scale of sounds pressing on top of her, such as the tap of balls upon bats, the sharp, sudden bark now and then, “How’s that? How’s that?” of the children playing cricket, had ceased; ”

“ A deafening explosion shook the dug-out, and a shower of earth and stones rained down in the trench outside.
"They're very active this morning, sir," said the Sapper, stepping forward. "Lot of rum jars and things coming over."
"Are you the Sapper officer? Good morning. I wish you'd get this accursed instrument to work."
"There may be a line broken," he remarked tactfully.
"Well—I shall have to go back; I can't hear a word. The thing does nothin' but squeak. Now it's purring like a cat. I hate cats. Most annoyin'. I wanted to come round the front line this morning." ”