The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1919-03-20
SOLDIERS LETTERS

The following letter from Sergt.
David M. Coker was sent us by J.
Ralph McElveen Of the Hebron COM
munity for publication:
France, January -. 100.
Hciip old SPORT
I will answer yN.,r letter which |
received this afte. ,oon. Sure xos
GLAD to hear from you too. You said
You hoped | WAS we'll and erjoving
lie. Well, | am ali y. <. except /:
bad cold, and as for enjoying myself,
| should say am For you know that
this is some place to enjoy ones self,
but then l guess after all you don't
know much about this place over
here, for as we'll as remember you
said it had been some time since you
had been here. | guess there has
been a lot of improvements made
since you were here, anyhow, / guess
| might as we'll tell you something
about the place. | do not know which
you had rather hear about, this place
OF the places / have been so will
begin at the commencing of our trip
to France.
Well, we landed one day late in
the afternoon at the bottom of a
great big thing which they call a
hill over here, we would call it a
mountain back home, but never mind
about that, we were anxious to know
what was on the top of that hill, so
we started out about IL or Is hun
dred of US, and what do you think
we found up there? We found a
whole lot of tents, and we were so
we'll pleased that we stayed there all
night. The next day we started out
to find a railroad for we had heard
that there were railroads over here.
Late in the afternoon we found one
with a long string of Pullman cars
with side doors about ska feet sit
ting on the track with an engine
fastened to them so we piled in,
about forty of us to the car. After
two nights and one days travelling,
we decided We had rather walk and
got off and after going down the
road a little ways we came to a
large hotel where there were some
soldiers just leaving. Near by was a
large wheat field with a river run
ming through it, which made an ex-
cellent bath house so We decided to
20 in, take a bath and have break
fast. Well, after we had taken a
bath and had breakfast of canned
beef and bread, we started out again
and after walking about two hours
we came to a large town of about
seventy five inhabitants and a lot OF
hotels which had formerly been oc-
cupied by horses, cows, hogs, rabbits,
chickens and such like.
After we had stayed here about 4
weeks we began to grow a little
tired of the city, so we decided to
leave one Sunday afternoon. We got
up all of our belongings and packed
them on our backs and started out.
After we had travelled about five
hours we came to a small town with
a lot more of the same kind of hotels
we had Just left, after staying here
all night we concluded we did not
like the town at all, so we moved on
and about one o'clock in the after
noon we came to another town, but
all of the hotels there were already
full of soldiers. We passed on
through, but lust as we got through
on the other side we saw another
big hotel with a green floor and a
barbedwire fence for the walls. fou
can imagine what kind Of hotel
this was, for it was on the banks of
another river like the first one.
1t was a rather interesting place,
so we decided to stop and take din
ner.
While we were here we heard that
train was coming through that
night about midnight so we waited
for it. Well, about 1870 here came
the train; we all piled on and
in few minutes we were off again
and after travelling the rest of the
night and all of the next day until
about 8 o'clock in the evening we
were getting kind of tired and
sleepy. We found ourselves in anoth-
er town and after looking around
for about one hour we found a large
building with a good many cots in
it. Well, we piled in, and in few
minutes we were off in "dreamland".
a