Beer Mutiny

Her Netherlandic Majesty's Twelfth Regiment marched mile after mile with stolid precision one day last week toward Assen.

Hour after hour the hard clay road bastinadoed their blistering feet. Dutch maids and matrons skimmed by on bicycles--made marching seem the harder. As the blazing unclouded sun poured down, scowls gathered and perspiration trickled slimily upon hot flesh. Only one vision of relief loomed. BEER! At Assen there would be beer for all.

Arrived at Assen the troops rushed for their foamy "marching draught." All too soon this cooling ration disappeared. Unappeased, the men called for more beer. Their officers, frugal, meticulous, refused to sanction further beerbibbing.

For an instant many a steaming Dutch face grew morose. Then a private, thirsty, petulant, vexed, picked up a chair, hurled it through a window of the beer canteen. Defiant, the men" seized many a bottle, grew pot-valiant, daced to chant the "Internationale."

Wrathful, beside themselves, the officers summoned the Assen Barracks Guard, ordered an admonitory volley fired in the air above the mutineers. They, heedless, continued their potations. The guard trained their rifles lower, fired, killed a non-commissioned officer who had taken no part in the mutiny, sobered the mutineers into obedience.