The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1919-01-04

to go to the front. We left there about
the I'd of July. Spent u Fourth of
July riding in "Side-door Pullmans",
eating bully beef, tomatoes, baked
beans, bread and jam. We had a good
time though at that. The worst part
of it vas We were running on a road
under French despatchers. l guess
they never have an accident on a
French Railroad, especially if they al
ways run their trains like they do
troop trains. They only made about
ten miles an hour, and every couple of
miles they would lay over for three or
four hours to allow another train to
get out of the block. If a fellow was
in a hurry to get to his destination he
would have gotten there quicker by
walking. Those trains sure have
swell bumpers. 1t is impossible to
sleep on them. About the time we
would doze off, the train would stop
and such a jolt as we would get. If
your head happened to be within a
foot of the side or end of the car, you
were in for a good solid bump and a
headache for a week.
Well, in about four or five days we
had travelled from the western coast of
l. dilOC " q DlatC AoL "a
the wal zone. We detrained at
a place called Maatz, and hiked
about five miles to the village
of Leffond. Here we remained about
two weeks putting in time drilling,
etc. 1t was in this place that l was
made a corporal. l was placed on
liasson work, and from hen until l
was transferred to the c. R. o. 1 was
a liaison agent, or runner From LET
fond we hiked Is kilometers to the
railroad center, scrambled on some
more "side-doors" and rode all night.
There were forty of us in one car.
We slept, Dr. tried to sleep rather, like
sardines. When the train came to a
sudden stop it was a lucky boy who
didn't have somebody's foot in his
mouth, or something like that. The
next morning we found ourselves in
Belfort, a pretty large city right near
the German border in Alsace-Lorraine.
We then hiked twelve kilometers Is
miles) to a small village named Lee
puix. That was an awful hike. When
the battalion reached the village 1t
looked as If it had been shot to pieces.
Barely a third of the battalion finish
ed the hike. The rest were picked up
by motor trucks. We stayed at Le-
puix for about a week. From this
place we could hear the artillery fire
at the front, and we saw quite a few
German aeroplanes come over and get
chased back by the anti-aircraft guns.
| saw one of them come down during
one of these fights. During all this
time we had been putting in the time
drilling like the dickens. l used to go
up in the mountains with one party OF
liaiSon men and we would signal to
another party on another mountain.
After a weeks stay in this place we
left one evening at dusk and hiked
till 200 the next morning. We had
reached a rest camp. This turned out
to be a real rest camp. We fixed up
hunks for the night and stayed there
all the next day. That evening we
again packed up and hiked to a place
about three kilometers behind the
lines. We reached there in the wee
small hours of the morning. That was
another pretty hard hike, and l was
sure glad when we reached there. The
place where we stopped is named Vau-
thiermont, and was right on the edge
of a large dense wood. We were TAX
en- to billets right in these woods. This
is where my company made its head
quarters while | was with them. Of
course, being engineers, we did not
live in the trenches, but went out at
nights in working parties to repair
wire, put up new barbed wire entan-
clements, build up, or rather repair,
trenches, dig dugouts, and such work
as engineers are called on to do. The
infantry regiments of u Division
were holding the front line trenches
in that sector at the time. | was still
on liaison work and had to carry de-
spatches and papers from one place to
another. 1t was certainly wonderful
how near this place was to the Ger
man lines and yet they did not find it
with their artillery. We had several
air raids by the enemy planes, but
nobody in the company was hit, al
though shrapnel was exploding all
around our billets.
While there | had the pleasure of
witnessing a great air battle between
one French aeroplane and two 'Boche"
planes. The Germans were out for OBJ
servation, and were also trying to de-
stroy a French observation balloon,
which was up not far from where we
were. The French plane dropped
down out of a cloud on the nearest
Hun. There was a fierce machine-gun
fire for a few minutes, then we saw
one of the machines pitch downward
headfirst, and when about a hundred
yards from the ground the machine
burst into flames and the driver, on
one of them, jumped out. 1t was
found later that 1t was the mechanic.
The aviator stayed with the machine
till the last and fell out only a few
feet away from the machine. Both
were dead when picked up The other
"Boche" plane turned around and went
full speed toward the German lines,
but he never reached there. An anti
fCnnclnded ON Fifth PapeA