The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-01-19
Tells of His Visit to French Troops on Snow Covered Hill No. 5l6 in Bulgarian Mountains
OFFICERS MESS IS
 LIVENED BY SOME
 UNIQUE FEATURES
Little Evidence of Plan for Retreat Seen on the Trip Through the Lines and Back to SalOniki
By RICHARD HARDING DAVIS


 saloniki, December 1s.-Cspecial Core spondence) )-The chauffeur of an army automobile must make his way against cavalry artillery, motor trucks, motor filled with wounded. over road torn by thousand-ton lorries and excavated by washouts and Jack Johnsons It is there fore necessary for him to drive with care. So he drives at 60 miles an hour and tries to scrape the mud from every wheel he meets
 In these days of his downfall. the great est danger to the life of the war corre- spondent is that he must move about in automobiles driven by military chauffeurs The one who drove me from the extreme left of the English front up to hill 516 which was the highest point of the French front told me in peace times he drove . car to amuse himself
 His idea of amusing himself was to sweep around corner on one wheel ex- claim with horror. and throw on all the brakes with the nose of the car project ing over precipice 100 yards deep He knew perfectly well the precipice was there. but he leaped at it exactly as though it were the finish line of the Vanderbilt cup race If his idea of anus ing himself was to make me sick with ter TOT, he must have spent thoroughly en- Ijoyabie afternoon.
 OUTNUMBER ENGLISH
 The approaches to hill 5l6, the base of the hill on the side hidden from the Bul | garians. and the trenches dug into it were crowded with the French. At that point of the line they greatly outnumbered the English. But it was not the elbow touch of numbers that explained their cheer fulness; it was because they knew it was expected of them.
 ! The famous scholar who wrote in our school geographies, The French are 1 gay people, fond of dancing and light wines established a tradition. And on hill 516, although it was to keep from freezing that they danced and though the light wines were melted snow, they still kept up that tradition and were gay They laughed at us in welcome, crawling out of their igloos on all fours
  when we photographed them crowding to get in front of the camera, when We scat 1 tered among them copies of IOpinion, when up the snow-clad hillside we skidded and slipped and fell.
 And if we peered into the gloom of the 1 shelters, where they crouched on the 1 frozen ground with snow dripping from above, with shoulders pressed against walls of icy mud, they waved spoons at us and invited Us to share their soup. Even the dark-skinned, somber-eyed men of the desert, the tall Moors and Alger- l ians, showed their white teeth and l laughed when a 'seventy-five' exploded from an unsuspicious bush, and we jumped.
 l It was like a camp of scouts, picnick- | ing for one day and sure the same night 1 of warm supper and bed. But the best these polus might hope for was months l of ice, snow and mud of discomfort colds, long marches carrying heavy bur 1 dens. the pain of frost-bite and, worst of all of homesckness. They were sure of nothing; not even of the next minute For hill 5l6 was dotted with obiong rows i of stones with at one end and crcoss of green twigs and soldiers cap. ] NO SIGNS OF LIFE 1 The hill was the highest point of a ridge 1 that looked down into the valleys of the Vardar and of Bodjinia. Toward the Bull garians we could see the one village of Kosturino, almost indistinguished against the snow and for 50 miles even with glasses no other sign of life. Nothing but 1 hills rocks, bushes and snow When the 1 tContinued on page TwO)