"The weather is surely rainy here this time of the year,
it rains four days out of five nearly all of the time. We are
located
down in a valley, just a narrow ravine, with roads that seem
never to have an end; they wind around one way and then another
and you do not know you are at the top of a hill till you get
there.
"Where the country is rolling or almost mountains, the
people live in the little ravines and generally have their houses
in a
bunch. Then they have little tracts of land upon the hill.
One sees a lot of the hillside worked, a little patch here and
a little patch there, and occasionally a house all alone where
the country is more level.
"We have been in this camp a little over a week. We
have pretty good eats and a warm place to sleep; plenty of wood
for fires by going up and getting it from the hillsides.
We have to get down our own wood. It is a penitentiary offense
to cut a tree over here. The people are allowed just so much
wood to burn. I guess there is but one stove in this little village,
as everyone has old-fashioned fireplaces."
Belfort, France, Jan. 11, 1919.
"We were lying around the base camp at Ferrieres with
nothing much to do. A call came for volunteers to go to the front
to fill up some of the old S.S.U. sectors, so a fellow by
the name of Brown and myself signed up to go."
Monday night, January 13.
"Well, we reached camp O.K. Left Belfort at 4:09 on
the train and rode about an hour. Then took French trucks and
came to Mulhouse. I can tell you that was some ride.
"We have good barracks and the men seem to be fine.
I am in the same sector that John LITEL of Albany is in. This
is
an old sector - one of the first to come over. The men of
this sector have been here since a year ago September and they
have everything from a German button up in the way of souvenirs."
Southime, Alsace, France, Jan. 21, 1919.
"I was put on post duty, went out Friday noon and got
back yesterday forenoon. My post was Pannemaire, between
Belfast and here. There were two cars there and we were evacuating
from Pannemaire to Belfort, or anywhere the French wanted us
to go. I had quite a few trips, and it seemed good to get something
to do again and to get hold of a wheel. I have seen something
worth while since I have been here. There are the German trenches
and dugouts, observation posts and barbwire entanglements. I
went through No Man's Land, the French trenches, several in number,
and all the barbwire and they are about forty or sixty rods between
the first line trenches. There was not very much heavy fighting
in this section at the close of the war, but in 1914 there was
quite a lot.
"I feel a lot more at home here than at the base camp.
"I got a three day pass this week and went up to Strassburg.
It is a fine place, and there is quite a lot to see."