The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1918-07-25
AMERICA BEGINS.
Letter From the French Front BY an
American Soldier.

France, June 28.-' In a
queer little room at the top of a cot
tage, there's rickety table and a
chair. The ceiling is very low, and
you have to bend your head. There's
a view of fields and woods from the
window. It's country untouched by
war, although there is plenty to re-
mind you of it.
There's a British battalion back
here resting. They go up again to-
morrow, and are busy cleaning up
equipment and making their prepara-
tions. One had expected, somehow,
to find certain amount of war weari-
ness among men who had been out a
long time, but don't seem to know the
meaning of it. They're as lively as
'crickets, and our chaps seem to get
on excellently with them. They're
beginning to pick up bits of cockney
French, and phrases from the Indian
army.
cts getting late and the guns can
be heard quite plainly. Just a con-
tinuous rumbling in the distance, like
the voice of Fifth avenue coming
through the closed windows of my
office. 80.
'tSlept like top. We all turned
out to give the British battalion a
send-off, and to tell them we'd be with
them soon. They set off at a good
pace, singing one of those songs they
pinch from US. 1 think our boys
would have liked to follow after them
there and then. Something in the
way they went off, young and old
alike, made you see what a great ad-
venture it all is. After they'd gone
we got kind of feeling that our drill
parades for the day were bit fiat. But
of course we know that all that sort
of dull routine has helped to turn out
these Tommies, so we're sticking at
1t >.
II got a lift in lorry today after
parade, and went into the nearest
town. There were crowds of troops
about, and some of our own boys
who'd been up to the line. They'd
been put among French regiment,
just till they began to get wise to
their job. I went back to the village
in the evening with two others from
the battalion. We walked; and all
the time we could hear the guns 60
ing. They never seem to stop at all.
When we got back to the mess we
found everyone very excited at the
news just received that we'd got our
marching orders. We move off in
three days time. It's queer to feel
one is actually going to be part of
what all the papers have been full
of for so long; real, integral part
of the war at last .....
"Of course everything is in fever
heat of preparation, and we're won
dering where we're bound for. May
be we'll strike some place where all
the fghting's going on now. We're
good way from the line, so We'll
most likely go into billets again for
night on the way up. We're all
mighty anxious to get peep at
things. Naturally we don't see much
way back in this village 80.
"Most of the villagers seem to have
friends and relations serving. They
give us scraps of news from their let
ters now and then. They're real fine
folk, the women of this village, and
pretty we'll as strong as men, through
the hard work they do in the fields.
On Sundays they chunk off their old
muddy. working clothes and blossom
ou. in all kinds of finery, with their
hair neatly arranged, and real shoes
On their feet. You can see them go
ing of to mass at the funny old
church, carrying their prayer-books
and looking altogether different folks.
There's a great stir when one of the
men from the village comes back on
leave They make no end of fuss over
him, and he just sits quiet, enjoying
it all, now and then telling them a
yarn of two....
:I'll try and find time to write a
line or two before we push off, but it
will be a pretty busy time now.
It's only at night, when the works
over, that you start wondering what
it will be like up there, where all the
noise is going on -"