New Britain herald., 1916-07-31

1 Troop H, First Cavalry, camp at Lo- chiel, Arizona. The letter was mailed 1 in camp on July 23:
 As I am having an experience lit- 1 tie different from most of the Con- 1 necticut fellows, I am writing, think ing that some of the readers of the 1 Herald might be interested.
 Erects Telephone Line. l At present these are only two Sig nal Companies in Nogales the First Connecticut Field Company Signal Troops, commanded by Capt George E. Cole of Hartford and Company B, California Signal Troops of San Fran cisco. Captain A. s. Cowan, Signal Corps, U. s. A., is in charge of the signal work for the district. On last Thursday he asked for a detail of an officer and five men from my com- pany and five men from the California company to erect a telephone line be- tween the camp of Troop H, First Cavalry and the office of the mining company at Duquesne which is con- nected by a private wire with the Nogales exchange. The length of the line to be erected is about five miles.
 Men were picked out who had had experience in telephone work and the detail was given to me and had to arrange for all the necessary supplies and equipment. I obtained for trans pOrtation six 3-ton auto trucks as the road from Nogales to Duquesne is very bad and it was necessary to load the trucks light. There are two truck companies of thirty-three trucks each at Nogales, all 3-ton Kelly Springfield. My train of six trucks left Nogales at o'clock Friday after noon and we encountered some bad sand after very few miles. At nVe o'clock we reached the Santa Cruz river which is about two hundred yards wide at that point; it has sandy bed and at that time had 9eV- eral channels where the water was over foot deep. It was quite proposition for trucks the size of ours with a load of ton and a half each, so we laid blanks, a pair at a time and spent twenty minutes in getting the first truck over. That was too slow so we rushed the second just as it was, without tire chains but with the men pushing in the bad spots so that the wheels could keep their grip. If the progress of the truck had stopped the water would have carried the sand out from under the spinning wheels but we hal blanks ready for that emergency and one truck on solid ground to pull it out if anything happened.
 FOrty-eight minutes saw all of the trucks through the river and Q half hour later we stopped for water for the trucks and mon at the first of only two wells for the entire distance of twenty-five miles from Nogales to DUquesne.
 At 7:30 halt was called on high plateau, the trucks pulled up closely, one behind the other in the road and we prepared to spend the night, as we did not expect that anything would be on the road to pass us in which we were correct.
 Camped In Roadside.
 The men boiled coffee and made themselves comfortable for the night some in the trucks and some on the grounds. There are tarantulas, centi- pedes, scorpions and rattle snakes all through this region but none of them will harm you if you let them alone. Four men from my company were designated as @ guard on the first truck one to be on duty at a time and the same arrangement was made for the last truck, four men from the California company. The road is probably perfectly safe, as civilians travel over it every day, but no chances were taken. The night was un eventful save for the fact that some of the men claimed to have heard the growing of a mountain lion.
 Some Mountain Climbing.
 We were up at 4:15 Saturday morn ing and on the way before 5:3O. At 7:3O we reached the second well at the second house known as the Bee hive House." because of the nuner- ous beehlVes. Here we replenishod our water and started a climb of seven miles up a road, cut into tho side of the Patagonian mountains and winch climbs fifteen hundred feet in the seven miles. In many places the road was so marrow that the truck wheels came within six inches of tho edge and only at long intervals was there room to pass another vehicle but the road was visible, a red streak on the mountain side, for miles ahead, drivers could see each other in plenty of time. At length we reached the top of the pass and halted long enough for the water to cool off which was boiling in the radiators Then we went a few hundred feet through Washington, a mining camp, and into Duquesne, the larger camp and stores of the mining company owned by Westinghouse.
 After reporting back to Nogales over the private wire of the company we came through to the camp of Troop H which is on the border. All the supplies for this troop are hauled from Nogales by two four mule teams over this same road, going in one day and out the next We reached the 1 camp at eleven o'clock or in ten |