New Britain herald., 1917-10-30
THE SEA WAS ROUGH,
 AND THEN BOUCHER
Alberic GaSner Has Trying Ex-
 perienCe With the Atlantic

The following letter has been re- ceiVed by Philias Gagner of APO Main street from his brother, Alberto Gag her, now stationed with the American Expeditionary Forces in England:
 somewhere in England,
 "Oct II, 1917. Dear Brother and Beautiful Sister,
 "A few words to give you some news of me which is very good for I am well and I hope it is likewise with all of you others. We have arrived at last and it is. in England perhaps, that we will be a long time and per haps we do not know it but it does not make any difference where we are now that we are independent. As for our voyage. we made one not too bad but it could have been better for two reasons: We were not well nour- ished and we had |" * of bad weather. The first day we had beautiful wealth CT. Likewise the second day but after that bad weather of every kind. There was windy weather, rainy weather, there was hail and we had a little snow once. 1 was not sick aside from a few passing spells of dizziness. Not a great thing that, for there were sick all the time. We were on the water l it was a long two weeks, always be- tween the sky and the water. During our voyage the sea was rough, once especially, and that time if we had not been used to the sea we would have been afraid of sinking. The sea was rough and not to joke, sometimes the swell showed above the first deck and the first deck is almost l5 or 20 feet from the water 1t is easy to see that the swell was beautiful. But it is the only time that happened and tho others were there on the deck re- garding this and laughing. l have said that the swell came up above the deck but it did not come on the deck.
 "One fine morning toward 5 o'clock. we were all sleeping when suddenly the cry Everybody on Deck!" was heard. You understand *. As for me I was sleeping on the deck that evening and was quite ready so l got up and went to see what it was, ana the guard told me that it was noth- ing: it was a false alarm. The last night that we were on the boat there were several submarines near us but our captains are not fools and they were not deceived * +. Always the main thing is that we have arrived and we are very contented. It Is not funny to ride in a boat, on the high seas when it is cold and when we are always between life and death. AS for me, I prefer dying on lana to drowning. Now I am going to tell you a little of how I find England. l find that the air is funny, the season be- ing that we are not used to 1t but we went out on the carriages that eve ming and the following day when l woke up it was clear weather ana when I looked outside I saw how 1t was. First for the carriages. They are old style. But there are pony car riages in which one can as well sleep as sit. They are short but I assure YOU that they go in earnest. The houses are built a litle lower than ours and the highest that I have seen being three stories. This seems funny to us after having seen the large places as we saw when starting out from *. AS for the difference in time. it, is almost five hours 1t is o'clock as I write and at home It IS almost o'clock. It IS 1unhy' in regard to money, shilling IS A cents a penny cents, one-half penny 1 cent A pound sterling is s4so. Ana for us it is case of being trimmed in earnest. It is hard to say put It beats us on the change. Because one is soldier he does not take pity o!' us others. One is good rulhhl!
 The English soldiers have almost DO a month and they must send some 'o their wives. We are not Tar from London, but we cannot go there ana you ought to suspect why. The food IS very good here but it is not neces- sary to waste anything. An well' 1 am going to end my letter,
 You will tell Pierre and Frahk that I will write them a little later as we'll as to Jas. Goodbye, from your brother.'