Evening star., 1918-08-09
PIG AND SICK COW.
SOLDIERS 'BUNK|ES
American Officers and Men
BilIeted in France Under
! Strange Conditions.

How American troops are billeted
in French villages near the front Is
described by Herbert Corey in COM
munication 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
a dark village in northern France
say dark, but the word does not prop
criy set forth the conditions. There
was no moon and there were no
stars.
1T had been raining and In few
minutes it would be raining again
The street had once been paved
about the time of the Roman occupa-
tion, perhaps-and few rounded cob
bles were still imbedded In . soggy
mud that sucked at ones boot soies
as one walked.
No Lights Showing.
NO light came from the windows.
one knew that inside the houses
american soldiers were gathered
about the candles. reading or shoot
ing craps: or wondering why the Y.
NJ c. A was not performing total I'M
possibilities in getting its chocolate
and-cigarette-laden trucks over ROADS
that were gummed and cluttered with
the camions of an army In move
ment
Tho windows were curtained, 30
that not the slightest CLEAN escaped.
In this part of France the peasants
favor solid wooden shutters outside
the windows. Inside the soldiers had
tackled up blankets.
Hostile airplanes are always on ne
hunt for villages In which soldiers
II, ~
hamlet was within range of the Ger.
mans big guns and no chances might
Only those who have been lost. in
night can properly appreciate the ut
ter blackness of that street. l ran
head-on into soldier.
visibility low he remarked' m
grirnly humorous quotation from tho
report often made by the aerial OBJ
The laughter came from the one
room in which the officers Of the
1 knew that room. In 1t the BEDS
were laid so thickly on the brick
floor that they overlapped like shin-
Elss on roof. aoor only co,ld 1ae ret at 10 Wis his
bed without walking over the beds Of
the other men. All others walked
over his bed in going and coming.
They distinguished tss from ovnsfs sass
chalked on the dingy wall:
'When an American outfit enters
a town in which it has been newly
biIieted. It finds that the billeting
ofhcers have preceded it. Upon the
doors of houses or the gates OF courts
such legends as this are written:
Company i, one officer and twelve
men,
that barn an officer and twelve men OF
Company are free to find such accom-
modations as they may.
Strange BedfellowA
ssometimes the oficer sleeps between
sheets and sometimes the men roll IN
their blankets on clean, sweet-smeiling
hay. Sometimes the lodgings are more
Not long ago I visited a major whose
bed was only divided from the bed OF
the household pig by a board partition.
ventilated by huge cracks. Another om-
Ger shared a room with sick COW. In
another house the chickens and men
roasted together. No ono complained;
for this Is war.
ut was in burlesque Of these chaIked
bilieting orders that on the walls OF tne
bedroom of the headquarters company
had been written the names Of the BED
owners.
France!
'1 know them we'll
'aThey average twenty-four years Old,
for l took a census of their ages. Ono
owns rich mines in Mexico. One says
he VIII be elected sheriff in his county
in central Tennessee when tho war Is
over Another was an officer in the
Philippine constabulary and resigned
his commission to get into the greater
game.
..One is a six-foot-four younsster
from a clean home in Nebraska. He
does not speak Of his home. but one
can always tell Another was Kansas
Cafv newspaper man and another had
been in business in Milwaukee when We
declared war.
.That is the sort Of men they arc
clean, lively, energetic Americans.