The Canon City record with which is consolidated the Canon City cannon., 1919-01-30

ter from Private David Ringle of Com.
pany A, Thirty-seventh Engineers,
who is with the American army OF oc-
cupation on the Rhine, will be pc
rused with much pleasure by his
friends here. The letter is dated
Cochem, Germany, December IS. 1t
reads:
1T has been a long time since l
have written any of you letter, and
i will try and write long, ,newsy one
now in an effort 10 make amends for
my apparent lack of interest in such
matters. Yesterday ! received some
mail, six letters from home folks and
five from casual acquaintance. This
was the first mail that had reached
me since leaving the Verdun front.
i was busy last night reading it by
the light of candle i bought in
small town in Lueemburg. 1t cost me
a mark. Candles and oil are very
scarce here in Germany. We can
buy four candles of our quartermas-
ter for a franc.
81 had a very bad cold when we
pulled into this town with our little
portable electric light plant, and after
we got through stringing our wires
to military headquarters so the off.
GERS could conduct their business in
dependently of the lighting facilities
the place afforded, ] was chilled
through. The next night, after doing
my bit at our little gasoline electric
plant / was on the bum right with
the cold. Ny right eye was even
swelled up because of it. When
went to the house to which had been
assigned to sleep the German lady
there noticed that i was not very well
and she did lot of sympathetic jab-
bering over me, none of which ! could
understand. ] slept on the floor of
the parlor with my blankets, of which
i had plenty. The oldest daughter
brought me big glass of hot Moselle
wine, and they stood over me while
j drank it. Then in came a second
glass of wine after ! had drank the
first and it was good, too. They fixed
me up bed with a stove in the room
and ] slept like dead man until
about 8 O'Clock the next morning.
They had me cup OF imitation cof-
fee and some potatoes for breakfast.
potatoes is about all they eat over
here now. It certainly broke up
the cold for me, and / have been feel
ing fine ever since.
You know i am now with the head
quarters troop. Fourth Army Corps. I
have been with it since November "a.
After the armistice was signed our
company assembled at headquarters
at Suely, back of Verdun. and we then
made a seven-days' march around
Verdun, through Alsace-Lorraine, and
through Luxembourg, hot on the Ger
man trail. At place, that If ! spelled
it like il is pronounced, would be
Bouse,I was again ordered on de-
tached service with the Fourth Army
Headquarters. ] was glad of this, as
! escaped much hard marching. On
detached service though one does not
get either his mail or his pay regu-
larly. i have been on detached serv-
ice most of the time since ] have
been over here it seems TO me.
u left the States on May 8, en-
barking for overseas at Hoboken. We
steamed out of port at O'Clock in
the afternoon on the transport George
washington, magnificent ship OF
former German ownership. We were
Joined the next morning by the old
German raider, Prince Ethel Fred
erick, and the Americus. also a Ger
man boat. We had nice voyage,
but were scared stiff at 3:45 the last
mn sre VI
on deck and it was still dark. II
turned out all right and at daylight
we were ordered back to our sleeping
quarters. The last four days of the
trip we never took off our clothes and
always wore a life preserver, even
in bed. We landed at Brest, France.
May is, at 10 o'clock in the morning.
at was in the Bay of Biscay that
we had our scare. but our destroyers
were on the job, and must certainly
be given credit. We were supposed
to have been quietly awakened from
our sieep while in the submarine zone
every morning little before day
light. march on deck and stand there
quietly until sunrise This is the
dangerous time for the transports.
The slight mist close 10 the water
and the uncertain light affords the
subs great advantage to get in their
work. Well, at about 4 O'Clock we
should be awakened, but the last
morning at 3:45, by hearing gun and
the whistling OF the sirens on the
other ships. The siren on our vessel
answered in a tone that made US all
jump up in hurry. Then our alarm
bells rang and we could feel the
frausnQrf lurch and roll Thia u.oL