Norwich bulletin., 1918-04-27

probably our Paris papers that get here day late have less news than you have at sheme.~ We get rumors-t but facts are less numerous
 But over on my present ward-which Is surgical ward and I can't help | mentioning it--the first surgical ward | that was oEened in our army zone-l since rhe first of the year. there are some things I know about. There is 9 sergeant with his right arm gone [ midway between elbow and wrist It | was arnputAted by a Boche shell; all | the surgeons had to do was to clean | up. He was s blacksmith before the | war but he's not worrying about the | war In his blouse he carried a letter to | Col Theodore Roosevelt and in it Cap tain Archie Roosevelt tells his ser- geant,s story and recommends him for a one-armed job.
 Alter that particular hospital train came in the other day from an evacua- ton hospital or clearing station up behind the lines, I found a little bright faced chap running around the ward in a big, nulatto colored sweater. You couldn't help asking him where he got that stuff'' and the reply, with some. pride was that Captain Archie gave. it to him. He was Capain Roose-
 
 in the same .strof" The orderly got I a shrapnel wound in the shoulder, but Archie was hit in the knee by a shell 1 fragment and had his upper arm frac- tured by another. The Boche barrage kept him for. fourteen hours from get l ting to the operating station, where
 the operator, or enc of them, was my
 ward surgeon who went up with ] surgical team" several weeks ago.
 And lsie story is told that Archie" has
 ordered a new uniform to replace that
 cut up by the she'll We expect him to-
 be removed to this base as soon as he
 can be moved. But this morning I had l his orderly cleaning out my office
 Apart from hospital life, where we see as great diversity of creatures [ and conditions as you do in newsp&per
 l1fe-nly latest patient on. the ward
 was lion-taner on the old days and 1 has a lot of good stories on his tongues end-and there is. even better
 copy from the chaps who are back from the trencheS-I have one chap
 whose wounds are from a. grenade in the German trenches, that means over 1 the top and past the wire through No Mans Land and then the Boche lines
 and a. fight in the dead of night Apart from what we see and hear and do on the wards, there is the army life of a military post, so we'll ordered by buele call and the rule of what we can and what we. cannot do that terrible days are plainly ahead of us wien we get back, apies la guerre est hnie, "oD
 our own" But for us, in a wonderful ly. beautiful. valley away over. in the northeast corner of France in the cen
 ter of a region that is renowned in the
 history of all Europe, there are many
 things around us to make this present intensely interesting and worth while.
 The other afternoon I set out in front
 of peasant home, the lodge of the
 forester Of great chateau, high up
 on the hillside at the edge of the woods with the valleys stretching out
 below one after another, until far away a line of hills cut off the view.
 Beyond that, the battle line. We had rafnbled over the country all the aft
 ernoon, had stopped to chat with peas ant and poilus,: had. run into a group of artillerymen back en vepos after
 hard campaigns i'll the Champaign and
 at Ferdun--had skirted a little red roofed village atethe foot of the noun
 tain and then climbed up to the 18th century castle at its summit we heard
 the story of it's founding centuries ago by the brother of 8 nearby abbot
 the chateau remains but there is not 8 trace of the ancient monastory-we visited the chapel and saw the effigies
 beneath - which are buried the an cestors-chevaliers and fair ladies of old France; we heard how the prince of our day is off at the front as g commandant. From the battlements we looked up the valley to shrine that is famed through the world-the com monplace little village where a peas
 ant girl was born to lead armies tc
 victory Then from this grandeur ot . the past, we went down to the humble hospitable lodge of the forester, where , he and his wife prepared US d meal ot z potatoes, fried as the French love 7 them in Trance, and onnetlette anc 2 ham. There was also one last big vel
 low apple. the sole survivor of the win i ter, and of wine a bottle that wen Q back to a vintage before the war Wt i. ate. ir a nose charming kitchen i, small: pained windows-things of thu
 hunt on the walls, an old grandfathe
 clock ticking behind us; almost all O 5 the picture might have been yer T much the same a hundred years ago
 or two hundred. It was 8 picture o f. l peace-that home and that valley, bu = they had paid a price at Verdun an q as I sat in front of that peasant home Y a squaSSon of aerop}anes flew dow V the valley, and troop trains and car y- bearing field pieces and nunnition i, and supplies rolled frontwards.
 There are many places already i Y France to which I want to come bac - some day-to see people and place 1t when the burden of. the heaviest wa II in history is no longer on them. Tn ,- home of this forester is one of then k There $ another home half-wap up e steep road that leads. to. village 0 e top of a hill that kings fortified i Il years past as 8, citadel against enc -l mics of the plain. There is a littl d group of boys and si>ls in a town onl 1t few miles behind the lines. I'd lik ,e to see them grown up-every,. one ( ,r them has a father prisoner of wa L. in Germany. Their homes were occu ID pied by, the Roche in the early day ,r of 1914. There is a restaurant in tn to shadow of a great cathedral in grea l. city that was bombed three times l. 8 night when tried to sl.ep there 0 IS a visit in the army one, and in it, I at IS some of the most delicious meals I'y j. had in my life You had to consu IS a dictionary when you get Eome lg find ont what you had eaten and u d saying is--the nearer the trenchN, u t. better the food
 ,n At home within the grounds of or a- hospital, there are many things to kee a the soldier, sick and well. in zoe c. spirit The Y. af c. A. and Red Gro. C. hut" is a busy p1ace-serves mar as purposes. I've been trying for abo, ,d four nights to get this letter write i'd over at the "irut' It was interrupte ye that many times-and Pm finishir d. it now on a rainy Saturday afternoo CT One night there was a lot of must Id The next night there was a lecture l