The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1918-06-07
PRIVATE c. 4. LAYTON
IN FRANCE

estjng reading 20 the friends OF the
lamiiy who for number Of years
were residents Of this city
March I9.1e18.
/ | have recejved four letters from
you since wrote last. III say that
, they came az the righs time to 90 the
most gooi.
We arr right up to the front living
! in an Old cellar that the Germans TX
ed up as oomb-proof in the early part
Iof the var Il is heavily timbered
with about six feet OF debris on top
IOIr sleeping quarters are as good as
any we have had since We have been
il France. except thar we are some
what crowded For : cellar it is dry
ami warm. and we have straw to
sleep upon But we have 70 sleep
"itd our clothes on and gas masks
handy 50 We can be ready for any
emergency When outside we always
wear our steel hats and two gas
MASKS az alert position When We
get gas signal it takes only about
two seconds to throw on a mask
The Menu Satisfactory
Nes been eating better sinceI
ve'va been az the front than ever
before thin1 I did tell you vel
had turkey for both Ltuc0Ins and
Washingtons birthdays And we've
been getting plenty OF good old army
beans right along. also spuds. bacon,
rice. roast beet Deefsteak. figs and
bread DOM sound bad eli? Our
mail has been coming in fine too I've
received mail every day bur incl
since I've been Up here
The Y NJ {. A has good rooms
here TOO. They have a piano. chreeI
large writing rooms with a good sup
ply OF paper ink, AMI welI-stockedI
.canteen tobacco, candy cakes, figs.
dates, etc They also serve a large|
glass Of hot chocolate. mai.
and bunch OF French bread for q
dime, They use water instead of
milk, but it makes the best drink
i've had since we left the states.
Be4ides all these luxuries we get
paid right on time
Our work here has been building
Idugouts. repairing and making
trenches stringing barbed wire en-
tanglements. etc When we have al
big Job We get a company Or two of
infantry and then we engineers boss
the job My pal and T had charge oil
"a whole company digging trenches
some time ago We often have al
small detail Of infantry to work I'll
a smell destroys a section Of trench
only two or chrea can work in it.
Then we have 70 muck il out putt
in new sets revertment ana duck
boards + worked night shift for al
few nights tunneling through solid
rock some time ago But The hest
job of all IS Swinging barbed wire
at night out On No Mans Land I'll
has q thrill all rs own All this isl
Jour work when lgs are quiet tina
is, as quiet a gets But when
business picks up we nave to patrol
trench ana repair any breaks that
are made
DORIS Nina the Shells
After you get used to it you don't
notice the shells They are always
being passed back aud forth. Even
now out in the rain and dark a BocheI
battery is sending one within 800
yards of our billet every 80 seconds.
The other day real EuropeanI
meade Wlark, the kind that flies upI
meadow lark, the kind that flies up
stopped working 1--WE were repairing
ia break at the time) and watched it.
1t sings much better than the best
of canary birds It was hard to be-
lieve that we were right in the thick
lof war, but a few seconds later al
German shell spoiled the whole ef-
feet.
To talk about shells again. You can
always hear the one that is COINS t0I
light near you, then you execute a.
flop. Unless they land mighty close
you're all right They haven't hit
any closer than thirty feet from me,
but that't close enough.
April /, 1918.
| wrote you several days ago when
we were in the first line trenches
but since that I've travelled quite a
bit on old shank's mare. We came
of the trenches on the day l wrote
and got through the bombardment
all right. Then we started out on
81