Evening star., 1918-12-01
spseiil Correspondence; Of The Star. -. -
III - THE WONDER, s.,
\ \ SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE,

X w., Today 1t is four and a half
i,s square miles of factories and
4 warehouses. troop camps and labor
ers' barracks. with 400 miles Of track
sse. served by 1000 separate switches.
Daytime. monster hive AS sign
says; BUSY Bees. making Honey for
the Kaiser!"
At evening, when every street is
packed with passing troops and labor
companies of German prisoners, gangs
of coolies and Annamites and Spanish
eand French labor, making room for
giant trucks ten in file. crammed
full or laughing American darkies. all
bound for their good american sup
per" Qncluding the smiling prison
\ ers--whosc smile is quarantined), 1t is
scene that beats imagination. The
Spanis4, delegation said "Yes, we see
It. but no force on earth could have.
built IT up in six months!"
Il A train of fiat cars full of structural
! steel, f +. .r
n; Another full OF Grated machines,
!; covered with tarpaulins. ga, .f+.
Three trains of general merchan-
disc in box cars. t-.,
X "A train OF Quartermaster clothing
Stun:
These SIX tracks. hidden by noun
tains Of Wales coal (where German
prisoners In salvage green are shovel
fng) ).appear "a lost and tiny spot. Vast
corrugated iron warehouses (5.000,00O
square feet of covered storage) frame
the horizon. Some measure 500 by 240
feet.. and there are nearly 200 of them
built or buiNing. Today they are
half full Those of the @. M. C. con-
tain rations for 100000 men for
+ twenty days, All are fireproof. with
concrete foundations, steel girders
and beams and corrugated iron roofs
Apd sides. 80
1--WE wander among mountains of
railroad ties. rails. frogs and endless
i trains piled high with lumber. Be-
immense storehouses. Strong French
girls wheeIthe sackss
No. confusion. Every gang is on Its
JOB; :, =
straight into quartermaster ware
35 houses, unload the cases inside from
the trains. Piled to the roof are,
& boxes of metal bacon cans, barrels of
pickles. cases of mock turtle soup.
pork and beans. baking powder. sugar:
SOAP, homtny. granite candles. ground
foffee. lard. roast beef. brown pepper
hfd ananilla rope. Il. t.
on.a trarkside platform, in the open
we have Il wide view. Stti7;l -
Tracks. tracks. tracks. -
~You see the plan, how the tracks
ian out" said the yeung officer de-
tailed with US by Col. Sewell. Some
sof the. warehouses have 100000
pairs OF shoes or 100000 pairs Of
! s rubber boots in them. Another is full
shewins tobacco, They load from
nifty to seventy cars per day for the
'front.' and they pull out all-American
trains, made up In all-American
gines. hauled by .all-American road
4 locomotives and with all-American
crews.' tt5F 80
Yet. re- ,cmber. the wonder, great as
7 is. remains only one of the six
american wonders of. the s. o. s., In
France. The other five are all doing
60methin similar
Chamber over more tracks, past
mountains OF barbed wire, steel rails,
corrugated iron. expanded iron used
tn trenches and dugouts. iron screw
posts for barbcd wire, wire mesh to-
line trenches and dugouts and half a
mile. of materials for temporary
buildings. This viii be great stuff
for comforting the martyred cities of
Heigium and the north. I=f
Christmas. darky's voice sings,
hel! heaven'or Hoboken by Christ
very. high chief last summer has be-
come byword these days.)
Laughing colored boys inside n
warehouse were wrestling with bar
rels or canned salmon, coffee and corn
meal. There were cases of rolled
oats,and sirup and grape jam.
The coffee Is ready roasted and
ground said our guide, the young
arrllleryman: Lieut.. Will Hessan,
formerly Of Portland. Ore, tenn
norarily in from the front and par
ticularly useful on such detail he
cause he was once in the newspaper
game. "Iiow would there be time 10
roast coffee when an order comes to
1000 barrels of 1t and 900 sacks OF
sugar? But II is packed in oiled
paper a'hr cars go to depot dumps,
70: which each unit comes and gets its
Hungry faces peer in as gangs Of
German prisoners. ESQ strong. fiIe
past to their good American dinner"
from shovcling coal. They shovel
both-,they'rc always hungry. "They
nave three years hearty food to make
in says II good chaplain, "and ali
SNey write i'm their diaries is: T ntc
To-Day american breakfast-hasE.
bread, pickles. Coffee apple sauce and
so on, for pages"
Now comes the astonishing nroces
sions OF the noon hour. We see new