The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1919-02-05
StRGT. TON BACOT I
WRITES OF HIS
TRAVELS SINCE
LEAVING LAKELAND

Mr.. W. s. Moore is in receipt of
the following letter from Sergeant
Tom Bagot, which he kindly allows
us to print, knowing that it will be of
interest to Sergeant Bagot's multi
tude OF friends in this community:
! guess you think that I have for
gotten my promise when I told you
that I would be sure. and write, but
we left New York city on the 18th Of
October and did not get settled down
again until about two weeks ago when
! was assigned to this company.
We certainly had a lovely voyage
all the way over; no excitement what
ever and very little sickness. We were
one of the lucky ones to sail on the
Olympic, and, believe me, she is a
floating dream. You could not wart
to sail on better boat; in fact, there
Ia just one larger and supposed to be
better than the Olympic and that is
the Leviathan that used to belong to
Germany. Well, to 60 on with our
trip we were seven dal on the water
and all by ourselves. We never saw
land or another boat for six days and
the seventh we could see both land.
boats and aeroplanes, and I want to
tell you that the land did look good
tn me and, in fact, nearly all the
boys. Well, we landed in South
Hampton, England, on the oath about
6 p. m, unloaded and hiked out to a
rest camp about six miles, which 7
thought we would never reach; slept
there that night and waited the next
day for orders so we got them about
noon. Well, we had dinner and back
to the docks we hiked, loaded on an
ether boat and across the English
Channek>to lie Havre, France, the
first step into France. ] would have
given anything If 1t had been my last
that day for I thought we would
never get out to the rest camp. Gee,
but we had some hike and up the
worst hill there is in France. This
was on the 26th of October. Well, we
slept that night there.
Now comes the fun and then all sad
ness. The next day we hiked back
to the railroad station and were load
cd on cattle train, forty-two to box
car. which was about Sx2O, and we
had forty-eight hours ride in them.
Then we arrived at lie Maris,
France. Well we were broken up
there-one company this way and an
other some other place. Our officers
we're taken away from us and also
Ted, our first sergeant. Well at 0
o'clock that night we were started
through there and had our full equip
ment ready to move out at II o'clock,
so they marched us down to the sta
ton and shipped us to Ecomoy,
France, about a three-hours' ride in
those cattle cars. again, so when we
arrived there they unloaded us at 3
a. m. in the morning and we stretched
cut for a ten-mile hike. Now figure
up how much sleep and res we go.
so far. Well, then we left Ecor1oy on
this hike. We were sure that we
would all drop dead for the. fellows
would go to sleep on the road walk
ing along, and that pack we had on
our backs. We arrived at a little vii
lage named Yore LIE Polin about
breakfast time and they allowed us
to sleep until dinner; then we began
to go through a few gas and other
kinds Of drills which lasted two
weeks for US non-coms, for they held
us there and shipped the rest of the
boys on to the front. Well, We soon
were shipped, too, but we were drop
ping one OF at every stop and the
first stop when we left there was the
rife range where we spent week:
then We landed back into Ecomoy
again after three weeks Of travel, but
in the meantime the armistiee had
BEEN signed Well they held a. in