Milford chronicle., 1915-07-23


dental laboratories are located in Mil
ford, has received a letter written b,
one of the employees of their Europ
can representatives, who is now in tn
trenches in France. The letter is in
&erestings and follows:
20-6-15.
"A de Trey, Esq,
London.
Dear Sir: As we are resting a
present, have the time to reply more
or less at length to your kind letter
eof the 18th inst.
/ will always endeavOr to keep you
we'll posted as to my movements, by
letter when l have the time, or by
postcard when we are busy AS you
SAY, when we have a rest period, one
does not feel inclined to write much
and of course my first letters are al
ways to my parents, and then to you
~aud those at the Office. | must find
time also to WI ite few lines to my
numerous other friends here in
France, and at home in England. Hap
pjly, however, letter writing is not so
difficult a task for me as it is to 9TH
1ers. / am writing in English, as nat
-sITally it is easier for me to write in
my native language. l have plenty of
0k0ANuAANANo " AhAPAOFG NY II GhNh
out here.
When we were in the trenches for
IA hours, of course we were in a safe
part of our line, the Germans were
500 yards away, and / had a sense of
security all the time, in fact / couldn't
realize we were lin the trenches" /
never saw a German, although their
bullets came over pretty often By
keeping ones head well down, and us
ing the peIiscOpe however, one was
quite safe. At night they sent up
lot of flares, (they do this everywhere,
iR fact at night we can see the flares
quite plainly miles behind the lines.
They seem to be always afraid of a
night attack. We, of course, use the
rockets also, but not to the extent the
Germans do. The most risky work,
other than making a charge, is going
out with working party to cut grass,
put up wire entanglements in front of
our lines, or go out on listening |
patrol" This means that men are
posted in pairs about half way be- |
tween the opposing trenches, to listen |
Tor an enemy working party, prepara- !
tiOns for an advance on the part of /
the Germans, or for engineers sapping |
out in the intervening ground with |
the object of laying mines under our
trenches. OF course, when working |
parties are out a covering party is put
out in advance for protection, as nat
urally the fire of the men in the
trenches is muzzled An hour before
dawn, everybody Stands to arms"
otherwise, we get as a rule 4 hours
on and hours off when in the trench
es. They are generally comfortable
dug outs to sleep in. At times, how
ever, if the enemy have blown up a
part of our trench, all hands are at
work repairing, and Strengthening the
defences. When we were in the
trenches, we were troubled by snip ]
srs behind our lines; these must have
been civilians (spies) who come out S
lf the towns behind our lines at night. I
lr else lie under cover somewhere all I
lay. We have had our turn of dig
ying trenches and carrying ammuni- 2
ion These are dangerous jobs, but
me gets used to hearing bullets and I
hells whistling overhead, and if when
he flares go up (they always show a
sail of light as they go up) everybody G.
hrows themselves down fiat, the only Il
anger is from stray shots. / should c.