Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1918-12-29
FLOCKS OF GROWS HAVE SUPPLANTED AIRPLANES
 IN SHELL TORN TOWNS
Winter Will Likely Pass Before Home Reclamation Will Be Actually Un- der Way in Devastated Villages.

Behind the Lines in France, Dee. 20.-(Correspondence of the Asscci- ated Press. )-This land of recent bat ties is queer land now. Over the shell-torn villages and blazcd woods, the pitted fields and the ruin Of a!i that once was, is a strange quiet. The winter sky is lacking ill airplanes and great flOcks of crows have ,aKen their place.
 A few villagers have crept back to see what remains of their homes ana holdings, but they are few and prob- ably the winter will have passed be- fore reclamation and reconstruction are undertaken on a large scale.
 Along the roads repaired and re- bridged for the allies advance into German territory long camion trains move slowly and always southward. They travel leisurely now, for the need of hurry is gone They bring back the salvage of the battlefields, all the things that go to make war, abandoned or captured.
 Truck load after truck load of ri- fles and shells, of water bottles and haversacks, cartridges, machine guns, bayonets and trench knives and pistols, mess kits, overcoats, caps, an endless catalog of paraphernalia are brought in. The battle zone is still full ot it all, ill heaps and racks, wait ing salvage.
 Now and then come trains of air plane camions, burdened with dis mantled flying machines of every type and every nation, engine and fusilase and running gear on the truck ad the great wings on it's specially designed trailer. Some of them are unharm- ed, but many show bullet holes thru the frail fabric or the ruins of crash. A fair portion of them bear the Maltest cross that marks them boche.
 There are trains of captured enemy artillery, particularly of motor bat teries, driven and manned by French men, and these are happy outfits. Often the guns are decorated with evergreen and always the French soldiers laugh and wave a greeting. As they creep through the villages the populace flocks out to view the can- non that for four years sent death and devastation to their land. and the children chamber on the carriages i and out on the grim barrels.
 But it is the troops on the way back that are most interesting, re- turning to rest areas or to their ports of authorization for home. French or American, their behavior is the same Always they are laughing or singing, always they greet every one cheer lily or boisterously and always the French officers salute with smile when they meet an American car, while the men wave and sEout "La l guerre est finis," or a similar greet ing. Even the children cry "finis, flnis,' to the passing car
 Strangest of all are the lights at night. in tho hamlets and villages or shining Friendly from the isolated farm houset in regions farther back. For so long France seemed a desert ed land to the traveller by night. Hour after hour the Associated Press correspondent has travelled at night without glimmer to be seen in :h,, countryside, and now from every hiif and vale the cheery windows slime and the villages are ablaze. The pa pers devote columns to the illumina- i ton of Paris, but it is here in the re. mote part of France where war has been, that lights at night seem most wonderful, even if they aye but a candle or little lamp. Where once camions or staff cars loomed light less in the roads to the imminent threat of collision, and often it's ac- complishment, the brilliant headlights stab the night.
 There is no village now but where the travelling stranger can obtain 1 food, not in variety perhaps, but enough, and very hospitably. The deprecatory polite and necessary re- fusal to requests for refreshments that usually were received ;n little hamlets or single farms has given way to a cheerful offcring of what there is, for the farmers know TOW that the specter of d winter of short rations has disappeared. The ration ing of certain foodstuffs is sill in effect. Bread tickets arc necessary in public eating places, no matter how unpretentious, lbuttar or milk are seldom to be had and cheese is scarce, but of plain vegetables and certain meats, there is plenty, and the chaorfully hoarded stores of the ! light red and white wines Of the country are Forthcoming when asked for.
 1 At this season there is game in the small town markets. mares and | rabbits, vea,sou, red-legged par | tridgcs and the large French quail and wild boar. It is high. but not so high as it always is at home.