Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1919-01-17
CHAPTER xIx-continued.

II
/ noticed that all the time he was
riting the word and giving us the
ld having great time with his own
tile self. but l figured he was just
ting German, and that nothing was
lpOrtant about it.
We were all tickled to death to get
chance to let our people know where
e were, and each man thought
ng time about what he would say,
I'd who he would write to, before he
'er started to write. Each man want
to say all he could in the small
lace he had, and we wanted to let
If friends know how badly they were
eating us without saying it In so
ally words, because we knew the
uns would censor the letters, and 1t
ould go hard with anyone who COM
lained much. So most of the men
lid they were having great time
nd were treated very well. and spread
cure they were lying because they
ad to-
One fellow had an idea that was
etter than that, though. He had been
1 Jail in Portsmouth, England, for
lree months, for beating up con-
cable. and he had had pretty rough
lme. So he wrote a pal of his that
had been captured by the Ger
lans, but that everything was going
long pretty well. In fact, he said,
he only other trip he had ever been
n, where he had a better time, was
pent in Portsmouth two years before,
which he thought the friend would re-
member. He said that trip was bet
ter than this one, so the friend could
figure out for himself how pleasant
this one was. Everybody thought this
was great idea, but unfortunately
not all of us had been in Jail, so we
could not all use It, Which was just
as well, we thought, because the Ger
mans would be suspicious if all of US
compared this vacation with others.
A few of the men did not have any
body they could write to, and some did
not know their friends addresses, so
they would write letters to friends of
the other men, and sign it with the
friends nickname.
AS soon as man had finished his
letter, he had to go out to the center
of the camp, where they had built a
raised platform. There the sentries
took the letters, and the men formed
around the square. There were Off
GERS on the platform reading the let
tiers. We thought they read them
there in the open, before us, so that
we would know they were not tamper-
ing with the letters, and we thought
the heaven would fall if they were
getting so unkultured as that
Finally, all the men had finished
their letters and turned them over to
the officers, who read them. And then
We saw why the sentry laughed.
The officers tore up every one of the
letters. They were anxious that we
would see them do it, so none of us
would have any hope that our friends
would get word.
But we said to ourselves that, if it
was information they wanted, they had
ns much as was good for them, which
was none at all, because do not think
one letter in the bunch had a single
word of truth in 1t. But we were all
very angry and pretty low after that,
because it showed the Huns still had
plenty of kultur left, after all, and we
knew there was rough shedding ahead
of us. Also, some of the men were
sore because they had wasted their
time thinking up diffeRe.s- Ezays of tip-
ping their friends off to the real state
of affairs, and all for nothing Why
they should worry about time, could
not sec. Time was the only thing we
had plenty of, and for one, thought
we were going to have still more of it.
Going back to the barracks we tried
to sing Pack Up Your Troubles" but
there was not much pep in it. We
were Lot downhearted. though; at
least, we said we were not.