The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-02-20

As rocket would shoot up and then
float serenely along we could advance
about fifty yards, then stick lew
seconds for another rocket.
Then would come a long kissing
whistle, a scream, a great crash and
shower of snow and dirt; the wound
ed man sitting at my side, half asleep
would give a great start, and, peering
into the darkness where the kindling
flash had been, mutter Nom de Dieu!
what is that?"
In the small villages in France
there is the main street running
through the center of the place, lined
with houses, small stores and cafes,
and the streets jutting off from the
sides-streets, but hardly larger than
lanes or what we term alleys. Along
the main streets of the villages be-
hind the lines there are always move
ments of troops and supply wagons,
and the rumbling of gun wagons, and
the ammunition trains, the marching
sounds of the clean fresh looking
troops going up to the trenches and
muddy, tired men coming back for a
rest-"en repose" the French call it,
and it is a rest after trench life, but
not the sort of vacation one would
choose in peace times. A round of
cleaning guns and equipment and liv-
ing in the hay of old barns-and al
ways the rats.
Peace Play in War Time p.
In the villages behind the lines, which
are not wrecked or under heavy shell
fire and which are used as canton
ments for the troops, it is very inter
esting to walk along the main street,
particularly on a Sunday afternoon,
and note the simple customs and
forms of amusement ana recreation
still kept up from peace times by
warning France. The better class
houses along the village streets are
labelled, "Officers g." while the other
houses and barns near the placard,
Men 40' and the barns, men 40,
horses TO-" etc
On a Sunday afternoon, if the sun
is out, the troops idle about the barn
doors or sit in the sunlight, playing
Piquet or some such card game with
/ their funny card decks of only sthirty-
six cards. Many of the officers walk
up and down the street in their smart
chatting of most anything but the
war. The village girls, all dressed in
their Sunday finery, go arm in arm
along the street throwing glances at
at the admiring men, and when they
pass our cantonment coyly look in
and giggIe over remarks about "the
Americans"
Americans Are Always Welcome
| Many of the soldiers are gathered
in the cafes of the village; the cafes
are generally long. low-ceilinged
rooms, clouded with smoke, where
the soldiers are noisily making mer-
ry over their red wine and poor to-
! bacco. The men are supremacy hap
py and always courteous, and should
an American off duty pass by he is
| Immediately bombarded with scores
of invitations to stop in and join the
| joviaI ones.
The rows of houses along the main
street generally seemed to have fol-
| lowed no particular line of architec-
tural beauty; one house is level with
the street and juts out on to the
sidewalk; another has two sets of
chairs to it and is pushed back from
the other houses. Here and there
is a very good old stone well with
a real Undiscovered bucket and
long rusty chain and windlass at
tachment. But the water in these
wells is not always good to drink, es-
pecially near the lines. The wells
are regularly inspected and marked
with, signs on-drinkable-p poisonous
| 1-s-
signs don't interest the ordinary
French soldier, for as a beverage he's
! not overly interested in water.
! The cafes often look like any of
the ordinary French dwellings and in
! order to advertise themselves they do
not have large signs hanging about,
but over the door of each cafe is a
sort of bush of twigs, just like the
peasant broom; this in France is the
ancient sign of the swinging door.
Air of Cathay in Fair France
There are quite a few of the Chi
nese (called Indo-Chinos) troops
from French colonies working on the
roads behind the lines and wherever
they are quartered they add mater
tally to the general good looks of the
French villages for when they are
bi1leted they fix up their own houses
of bamboo and make little bamboo
bridges gates, and fences around
their places, so that their canton
ments have the appearance of a Chi
nese tea garden. The poor French
people after holding house and
grounds for generations are very I'M
willing to leave. even when their vii
: lage or town is daily under shell fire.
The little children have no concep-
ton of life in peace times are
bound up in war; their routine life
is being out of cellars and running
into cellars; lodging shells and bombs
and they go to school with gas masks
slung over their shoulders.
One night when a German aero
plane bomb fell on a civilian house
1 carried the wounded. And by the
, light of a candle in the wreckage I
saw the body of the woman who had
lived in the house; the top of her
head and one eye were gone and the
remaining eye was glazed and wide
with fear; and her little boy, with. his
legs blown away, lay in the debris by
her side and he still clutched to his
poor little breast his school primer
My ambulance, before it was made
q i'll by a coal box shell ON the ives
l tern front, was known as and Off
6 cially christened "Girlie," because il
4: was a car from San Francisco and
n the name plate said Presented by
the Young Girls of San Francisco"
a Hence the shortening of the officia
r title to "Girlie' and, being from Sar
| llxy no am,