The Benson signal., 1918-03-09

nave dUIucu uGIO dlu SOuS. OuI oa
the soldiers do not fare so. We are
lucky! A relative of a soldier ''billeted
out" was looking for him recently. The
headquarters of the company were in
former private dwelling house.
Take look upstairs" said broth
er soldier. eff you don't find him there
look out in the carriage house and in
the barn loft. If he's not there he'll
be in the chicken house."
Our room doesn't afford even that
relic of the castle and pride Of the
bungalow, fireplace. But our next
door neighbOr's does, and we are Of
ficially assigned to hang out around
his CRATE. That solves the heat prob
lem, and also the batn1ng question.
Bathing facilities are limited in
F'rance-at least that. In all of France,
for example, there is probably not one
Of those Doors who bothers you about
statistics on his daily matutinal inun-
dation. / do not know the favorite
Saturday night paStime of the people,
either, but can say that if there is
modern bathtub in this particular town
the Americans have not yet found it.
So we merely heat a kerosene canful
Of water-at our neighbor's fireplace
and take "bird BATH" AS there are
eight men who must perform this ablu-
ton about one fireplace, and a good
soldier takes bath twice week, and
there are only seven nights in the
week, this CRATE is busy place.
Drinking water is obtained only after
difficulties sometimes. The American
doctors are taking no ones word about
the supply but their own, and we are
allowed to partake only after samples
have been tested. Frequently, when in
a town. the municipal supply is avoided
and the supply Is brought in in trucks
from distant points. But I am not so
skeptical of water as was.
Our last station was near a hospital.
In front Of this hospital always hung
big canvas bag full of invitingly cool
water. I cannot speak for the whole
company, but my squad I know used
always to drink thereof. We had kept
one day a doctor in tortoise-shell
glasses and a white apron espied SOL
dier partaking at the bag. He became
Immediately very vociferously appre-
hensive and expostulatory.
"For the great jumped-up Holy
Moses, man." said he, don't drink that.
That's where we keep all the samples
of contaminated water from this part
of France"
Find Disease Germs.
In the last II days we've found
germs of 13 deadly diseases right in
that container. There are nine million
bacteria to the square inch in that
enough germs in that bag to kill the
whole German army. should say that
my squad consumed several cubic feet
of that water, and I don't know enough
about mathematics to compute the
number of germs. But we're all alive.
and that was two months ago.
But enough of this gassing. I re-
solved to be brief in my letters, and
here I've brimmed over onto the third
page. 1t has been cold where am,
but the last few days have been like
springtime. Where I was last was up
in the snow belt, where it gets on the
ground and stays there, the only hope
full word the natives can give being
that "it goes off the ground in April"
Without going into details, though,
learned one hopeful thing. While away
I had an opportunity of talking with
lot of Americans who have been in
the trenches. They were from diff
ferent groups of troops and had been
"in' at different times. And they all
were confident that the Americans can
whip the Germans at every stage of the
game. This isn't the boast of a few,
but the consensus of the calm opinion
of about 40, guess, that l talked to.
1t was very encouraging, coming from
men who have had a mOuthful OF the
front. Most of the fellows were from
the old American regular army-from
the units over here, which are the only
ones still intact, I believe. They are
being trained to the highest point Of
Lul1lLdIy Sl1C1CuCy pOSS1OlC1 ClAO, IAOJ
say, are to be used as the crack units
Of the United States forces, correspond
ing with the famous "shock" units Of
the German and other armies. I guess
the same is true of the Rainbow divi-
sion of the National Guard, which got
such a send-off in the States.
Regulars Fare Worse.
The old regular army fellows
seemed to have Jared worse than the
rest of us. They came over early in
the game, most of them straight from
the border with only a few days in
the East, and went into training inn
mediately. They were quartered up
where the war has left an obvious
mark and taken most of the superb
cialties. They've been going hard ever
since, learning everything of the latest
weapons, maneuvers, signals and mill
tary science that the French British
and Americans had to teach them.