Norwich bulletin., 1918-05-29
SOLDIERS AND SAILORS What Eastern Connecticut Boys Are Doing ln Various Branches of the Service. .......
D.. esser Expects Active service.

hrs Na9er ESpeeeS ActiNe SefNce,
 Ths following letter has been re- ceived by Mrs. Lucia Gager of Ston- inBton from her son, Dr. Leslie T. Gager, now with the A. E. F. some where in France:
 April 2S. 1918.
 Dear Mother: Sunday evening: rainy. Nothing at all has happened since my last writing-a very quiet life here. An excellent time to get down to Aix-La- Rains. but unfortu- nately leave has been cut off indef- nitely by a general order from head quarters. Too many soldiers clogged tho trains, interfered with military enc1ency. Walking is, however, left as a means of conveyance, and took one twenty-miie hike the other afternoon.
 Quite unexpectedly I ran into a struggling company of Algerian sol- diers working on a highway-red- capped, swarthy- faced chaps. who hailed me as camarade. Up on the summit of steep hill bit further on, q had another surprise when I stum- bied on a group of French infantrymen at an old fort where they told me they had a couple thousand Boche prison CTS. saw a number of groups of the held grays busy at fatigue work, al- ways under the eye of a French guard and always with his rife armed with that long and shining and wicked looking bayonet. Around the fort were entanglements of wire and a trench was dug on the side away from the valley. On the valley side the hiil rLses sheer and unbroken. and from its height you get one of those glori- ous sweeps of country for which higher mountains or richer parts oi IFrnmRa h1Ta T-nf
 I was out on another chateau hunt and after various friendly directions ] found myself across another little val ley and on another hilltop. At the very end of this hill on a nose stick ing out into the valley, I found the picturesque spot was searching for; great stone arch to let me into a spacious courtyard. roughly triangu- lar, with the dwelling on the far side workshops on a second side. the barns on the third. In the thrifty, clean stone-fagged kitchen, the ferrnier-o, head farmer for the count who ig of at the from-and an ouvrier, or farm hand-tiAe latter had left his half-fin. isiTed rabbit hatch to show me an an. cienf prison tower-and I had a bottle of wine. and it vas indeed refreshins after the climb. That prison was prob. ably pretty depressing place abou' 1900 A D.. and for some centurie: thereafter. IL is a great tower o- stone-60 feet high perhaps, 90 in dia. meter. walls 10 feet through, and 1T the arched roof a small openins through which the prisoner was low cred down into his dungeon. It mus have been a regular place" Now an entrance has been cut through, ana ft Is a first rate stone house for othel things than human bones.
 Another thing there that the 'boss fumer" who was in the heavy arti1 iery until he got a wound in the righ hand a year ago and was put in tn, auxiliary class-which means he' gone back 10 the game that feeds u all-was a sort of subterranean pass age that l should prefer not to es cape by if there were any other pos Efh1e way out. For the demonstration he uncovered what looked like a well curbfng, lit big bundle of straw and dropped it into this black hole Tfiaf flaming mass of straw drpppe, Etraf<an down for a thousand fee along that rocky age-down.
 srrppose. to the floor of the valley
 hape seen subterranean passages be fore that ran in a fairly decent paral fel to the ground course, but this on was straiEht up and down, with lot of noe 31f7ing points of brick to ge you if you start going too fast. Really if cue Of those trobber barons or mis