The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1918-12-02
Lieut.. Paul Trout
Writes of Life On
The Battlefront

Rev. and Mrs. Chas H. Trout hav'
received the following interesting
letter from their son, Lieutenant Pau
Trout, who is a Chaplain In France:
| Somewhere In France, Oct. goth.
Dear Home Folks:-
This is Halloween night and I an
thinking of the many good times
have had on these nights on previous
years. ] sent you some copies Of
The Star and Stripes, which gives a
very good account of the great bat
ties in which we have been, for the
last month and over. Coming from
Nancy sector, by forced marches, we
had very hard time. The big drive
| in this forest has been one Of the
bloodiest of history. l have seen
some horrible things.
We came in one night into the
woods and pitched our tents in the
dark, we'll 1t was so dark most Of us
could not see to pitch tents, so we
spread out our rolls and went to
sleep. During the night ! rolled over
against some one, and thought they
were crowding me out of my bed, |
jabbed him in the side with my ell
bow and told him to get over.
l awakened In the morning and
found myself sleeping beside dead
German, who had been dead two or
three days, when the Infantry had
captured this part of the woods. Be-
lieve me this gave me some queer
feelings. have buried quite mum
Der of Germans, buried A Germans
in one day, so l know there were that
many less anyway. In this drive ]
have come across some startling sit.
uations each of which would make
quite a story in itself. A machine
gun nest of the Boche, machine
gunner, German pinned to earth
with an American bayonet, stuck
through his neck and into the
ground; and German little further
away with skull crushed in, between
them in the pit an American dough
boy Infantry with seven machine
gun bullets through him in line
showing that he had gotten the devils
after they had riddled him with bull.
lets.
Another scene, also a machine gun
nest, (for that is all the Boche fight
with, that and large amount of ar
tillery) this scene showed seven of
our boys riddled with machine gun
bullets, all lying in a string, as they
had endeavored to advance on the
gun.
In the nest, one dead German, be.
hind the gun little way, dead Ger.
man behind the gun with hand still
on the trigger, with his head bowed
over on the gun, at the muzzle end of
the gun was dead American with
a trench knife in his hand: the
knife with his hand still gripping 1t.
was sticking In Boches side. The
Boche had gotten the rest of his
squad e mem and had shot him but
with his last fall he got his enemy.
Scenes, these are, that | will never
forget Our infantry have gone for a |
rest but We are still in the line, and
had no relief for six weeks.
Nothing doing the last 5 days ex.
cept long distance Smelling. | have
a wonderful German dugout, with
stove in 1t with nice dry bed and a
lantern, so | am very comfortable
and plenty to eat. One day In hunt
ing over the ruins of a town to find
stove for my dugout, and finding
two-thirds of one, then hunted
wood, Very near little building I
found large pile of wood all cut
Tor winter (as Boche had expected to
stay there). loaded some On my
arm and pulling one stick out, no
iced a string on it, and said to fell
ow, we had better see where it goes.
following the cord we found it fast
ended in fuse to hand-grenade (pota.
|