The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1919-02-13
LETTERS FROM
HAND CO. BOYS
CONTINUED from FIRST page)

1 UiEnt diiu III oOath
the next morning about four o'clock.
We had 20 stay all day and part OF that
| evening in the warehouses at the
docks. Some OF us got passes to go
| up 70 the city with the mess sergeant
to get rations enough to last until our
equipment came into port. We man
| aged to see quite a little Of the city
| for the short time we were there,
The cities Of England are quite an
Client In the eyes Of an American. and
Also The real English with their mono-
cies or one glass and their sqager
sticks.
The Canadians. Australians, Scotch
and Irish are fine. The Scotch and
Irish are some hard nuts. When they
are not in the trenches fighting the
Huns they are fighting among them
selves for pastime or amusement. But
they are jolly and good hearted fell
lows The Australians are exactly
like the Americans In every way and
the Belgians are very much like Am
orleans. The French are more serious
than any of them. They are SO slow
that Il is wonderful how much they
have accomplished in this war. IL we
stayed yer here ten years they would
never learn to speak English. Some
of them that have been with the Can
adams and English for the last four
years can speak but a few words.
/ am getting ahead OF the ship
though. We crossed the English
Channel and ii was a rough and
stormy trip. We went across in the
night and landed In LeHarve the next
morning. From there we marched to
what the French called a rest camp.
II was away ~ in a kind of a noun
tain and it took us most OF the day to
get there. This camp consisted of a
bunch of little round tents about
twelve feet across. Ten of us had to
sleep in each one of these tents and do
our cooking and eating outside. There
was about four or five inches of now
On the ground and II must have been
twenty degrees below zero and being
ON the coast it seemed like forty below
Well we stayed there about a week
and there Is where we saw our first
enemy prisoners. They were living in
tents inside a large corral about eight
feet high made of barbed wire. They
looked like a big herd Of animals in
! side a high wire fence. There were
| also about one thousand Africans that
refused to fulfill their contract to work
for the British government, and they
were a gloomy bunch.
We stayed there a few days and got
orders to 10 20 we marched back
down to LeHarve where they put us In
box cars (horse cars) and we started
for st. Maxient. We were on the
road two days and two nights and
landed there about three o'clock in tho
morning. 1t was showing and storm,
like 1t does at home In February. W.
waited around the station two or tire,
hours and then marched up to a grea'
fort.
The French called 1t the Concloe. ]
it the fort where Napoleon took hi
last stand. IL was built in the thir
;eenth century and is a monstrous pill,
OK stone and iron. There rel thou
sands OF INT carved into the stone
mostly OF Americans and Scotch sol
diers Some OF the French oficeri
showed us the cells where Napoleon
kept his prisoners and also the apart
ments he himself occupied.
We stayed there that night and tn;
next day. Then we moved to anothei
camp called the Conjecture Barracks
II was a fine place equipped with mo
dcrn buildings, three stories high will
baths, and fire lawns and cemen
walks.
We stayed there two or three weeks
and then came to lssendun in tn,
state or sector OF Indre. II is abou
two hundred miles south Of Paris. 4
IL In q sector where they all poos peas
ants, They consist mostly OF old wo
men and little children with a few OLE
men and very few young men an,
girls. The old people that are abl,
are working in munition factories
The girls and widows are all working
in the airplane and gun factories an,
In the WOODEN mills.
they raise . little wheat and oat
fc0ntinued 70 nara a