New Britain herald., 1917-10-16

short two or three miles over the brow of the hill.
 Surely our French comrades are sure of their holding and pushing forward their lines with such opera tions.
 An Exploring Expedition. Here at the park. all doubt is dis pelled as to whether the war contin- ues or not for there is a constant, l never ceasing booming of guns. We arrived at D. m., which is supper time and had to wait until 6:3O for men to unload. Having nothing to do in the meanwhile, a number of us decided to go on an exploring party : and climb the hill which at this point is almost a precipice. The top Is reached by an old winding trench, very steep and tortuous but as the sound of the guns came apparently from the woods at the top. we had an idea it would be well worth our while and might possibly give us an opportunity to observe a battery in action.
 "It was worth our while but all of us saw more than we expected for we found on reaching the top that the explosions were not all or even the minority, the result of French bat tories but they were coming rom the Hoche Here and there French gun was firing but the most of the noise was caused by gun shells
 "The woods here are honeycombed with batteries, mostly 7o's, a fairly small gun which the French nave standardized and turn out in some- what the same way that Henry Ford does his f1ivers and they are used chiefly in "barrages' or curtains or fire, which have proved so effective. Apparently they have caused MT. Boche lot of discomfort for he was making great efforts to ferret them out.
 Sept 12, 1917.
 "sometimes the shells would strike the ground before breaking, while sometimes they would break in mid air. scattering shrapnel in all direc- tions. And all this was from quar- ter of a mile to a half mile away and on ground which I had walked over twice before when a few old shell holes were the only signs of La Guerre.
 "It was at this spot that l visited 9 battery some weeks ago which in a previous letter.
 ''The lieutenant told us he had been there for several weeks but no shell had landed near there. Perhaps his boast Is not so good now for if he IS at the same place it is we'll in the shell zone.
 Eighteen Planes in Air.
 "We had been so interested in this sight that no one had thought of any thing else but someone happened to glance up at the sky and noticed that the activity was in no way monopol- ized by Mother Earth. Look! there are five planes someone said. NO. six, seven and so on until the count reached total of eighteen. some low and plainly visible while some were like little specks in the sky. Some were circling around and around un- ceasingly and were quite evidently sig naling to those French batteries which were working. Some were glid- ing back and forth along the line, probably making observations. Some darted back and forth and up and down, patrolling the park and keeping an eye open for enemy planes while the remainder were way over the German lines bent on either bomb ing or observation expeditions.
 we stayed in this spot, fascinated for about half an hour when shout from below told us the lieutenant had arrived wiht supper. With his ad- vent into command we have a suit able dining place and he recently pur- chased, with is own money, fireless cooker so that where we formerly had a cold canned meal on convoy we now have a hot one. Tonight we had a dinner which was made to order for me. Just imagine. mother mine. your son sitting down on pile of lumber at this point of activity and having dinner of beefsteak, french fried po- tatoes, string beans and peaches, to- eether with fresh bread and butter, which one of the fellows managed to get while passing through g. town on the way here. The meals have gone back to their old standard now and there is no kick heard.
 The Scngalese.
 "The unloaders here are Sengalese from Africa and fascinate me inn mensely. Tn appearance they are eX- actly like the American negro but of the blackest variety. In action they are like a lot of chattering monkeys. They all talk together without pauS- ing to draw a breath and all have g. very high falsetto voice. which to- gether with smiles, giggles and roll ing eyes, causes a lot of fun.
 "In spite of their continual talking, they make wonderful willing workers and we can be sure of being unloaded quickly when they once take hold. They all of them have from two to ten rings on their fingers and as each one