New Britain herald., 1918-08-16
SOLDIERS BELIEFS
 NOT EXPECTATION
Americans Seek in Vain for Push
 Button for Ice Water

Washington, D, C., Aug. 16.-How French villages near the front is de- scribed by Herbert Corey in a com nlunication to the National Geo. graphic society, a part of which the society issues as the following war geography bulletin;
 "I stumbled along a dark street in dark village in northern France. I say dark, hut the word does not properly set forth the conditions. Therc was no moon and there were no stars. It had been raining and in q few minutes 1t would be raining again, The street had once been paVed-about the tino of the Roman occupation, pcrhaps--and few rounded cobbles were still imbedded in sogsy mud that sucked at ones hoot-soles as one walked.
 NO light camc from the win doWs. One knew that inside the houses American soldiers were gath cred about the candles, reading or shooting craps or wondering why tho !. M. C. A. vas not performing total lmpossibilltfcs in getting it's chocolates cigarette laden trucks over roads that were summed and tluttCrcd with the camions of an arrlE ir movement.
 The windows wore curtained. so that not the slightest gleam escaped. IT, this part 0i France thc peasa nts favor -soliG wooden shutters outside tIo windows, and Inside the soldiers lad tackled 1p blankets. Hostile air planes are always on the hunt for villages ih which soldiers may be | 7ub2A. I his particular hamlet was within range of the Germans big >E'0s ard no chances might be taken.
 "onN those who have been lost j9 thA midst of a forest on a rainy right can properly appreciate the ut t,r h'aCkness of that street. I ran Atah-ON into a soldier.
 "NiSihilitv low he remarked in giir1ly humorous quotation from the report often made by the aerial ob- servers.
 The laughter came from the one room in which the officers of the Headquarters company were beddcd. l knew that room. In it the beds were laid so thickly on the brick floor that they overlapped like shingles on roof, Only the man who slept next the door could get to his bed without walking oyer the beds Of the other men. All others walked over his bed in going and coming. They were dis tinguished from each other by the rames of tho owners chalked on the drgy wall.
 When an American outfit enters 3 town in which it has been newly -hileted. it finds that the bil1etng off cers have preceded it, Upon the doors of houses or the gate. of courts such legends as this arc written:
 Company I. one officer and 12 men
 Inside that house or that court or that barn an officer and 12 men of Company l are free to find such ac- commodations as they may.
 Sometimes the officer sleeps be- tween sheets and sometimes the men roll in their blankets on clean, sweet smelling hay. Sometinefs the Iodg- inss are more primitive. Not~ong ago I visited major whose bed was only divided from the bed of the house. hold pig by a board partition, ven tilated by huge cracks. Another off cer shared a room with q sick COW. In 'anothr house the chickens and mon roasted together. No one complained; 1 for this is war. Tt was in burlesque of these chalked billeting orders that on the walls of the bedroom Of the head quarters company had been written the names of the bed owners. Type of American Officer in France. "I know them well. They average 24 years old. for took q, census of their ages One owns rich mines in