ram in one corner. Inside the box were two squash-shaped grenades
about nine inches long and filling the whole center of the box. In
the big end of the box was a compartment filled with chaddite, a
yellow powder, eight times as powerful as dynamite. Attached to the
grenades were four friction handles so connected with the alligator
handle on top as to explode the bombs when the box was lifted. In
event of the frictions failing to work, or the intended victim opening
the box some other way there was a two-second fuse inserted in the end
of each bomb, and extending into the chaddite compartment, to be set
off by the removal of the lid.

A hand grenade was used by them which our boys called potato-mashers.
The head of the potato-masher was a can made of one-sixteenth-inch
brittle steel. The can was about seven inches long by four and
one-half inches in diameter. Around the inside of the can was a layer
of small steel cogs. Inside these a layer of small steel balls. The
next layer was of small ragged-edged scrap steel pieces and the next,
poisoned copper diamonds. The center was filled with chaddite. On
one end of the can was a hollow steel handle about eight inches long.
A string passing through this handle was attached on the inside to a
touch fuse imbedded in the chaddite; the other end of the string was
tied to a button on the handle. By pulling the button the fuse was set
off.

[Illustration: GERMAN WEAPONS]

Imagine the destruction wrought by one of these exploding in a company
of soldiers. I have seen many of them through the Argonne, but we had
been warned of their danger and chose other weapons as souvenirs.

A YANK TAKEN PRISONER

This story was from the lips of a doughboy whose home was in
Philadelphia. I had piloted Mr. Cross, of the Providence Journal,
through the surgical wards of Base Hospital No. 18. This was the Johns
Hopkins Hospital Unit located at Bazoilles (pronounced Baz-wy). One of
the nurses said, "Have you seen Tony in Ward N? He has a wonderful
story."

So we went to Ward N, and in a private room at the end of the ward
found our hero, who was rapidly recovering and anxious to be of
further service to the land of his adoption. His right eye was gone. A
German bullet was responsible for its loss. Thus wounded and unable to
escape he had been surrounded and taken prisoner by the Boche who
forced him to walk on ahead of them.

"When I was unable to drag along as fast as they demanded, I