"Thanks," said the Captain. "It is certainly a relief to me." He leaned back in his chair, stared up at the ceiling, and commenced to dictate.
"The pages sent under this cover were jotted down by me some time ago. I can not give you the exact date, and up to the present time have not had the opportunity to put my notes in readable order or to get them mailed. We are now doing very interesting work at the front, living underground. We have very comfortable and well ventilated quarters, and are sleeping in bunks, on clean bed sacks filled with clean straw. The only objection is the rats, of which there are great numbers, but we have a cat and two dogs. The cat is a crackajack. I don't know how many rats he averages a day—would be afraid to say, in fact—but he is on the job all the time, and is wearing himself thin over it. The two dogs, small and of no known breed, run the cat a close second.
"I have never seen the boys happier than they are now. They feel as if they were really doing something worth while. I have heard the German shells and have seen German territory, and it certainly puts pep into a fellow, but as yet I can't say I've been scared.
"This place has seen some very heavy fighting, and the ground is covered with all sorts of debris. For many square miles there is not a single tree to be seen which has not been hit and killed. The ground is torn up to such an extent that there is no grass to be seen, and the only way I can describe it is to say that it looks like the ocean on a very rough day. The shell holes run into each other, and are often ten or twelve feet deep and thirty feet across. This place, which was once a French village, has been taken from the Germans, and the ground is covered with unexploded shells, hand-grenades, German helmets, old rifles, and all sorts of things that would make wonderful souvenirs if we could only get them home. In every little village around here, there is not a house or tree standing. I am writing in a room in the wing of what was once a magnificent old castle. It was evidently saved from destruction by the Germans, who wished it for the accommodation of their higher officers. We are using it for that same purpose.
"One of the most interesting things here is to watch the airplanes, both ours and the Germans. They are very hard to hit, and they usually don't pay much attention to the firing, but we watch the little bursts of white smoke from the French shells, and the black smoke from the Germans. I have often seen twenty-five or thirty little puffs of smoke at the same time around one machine, but have never seen one hit. The other day a German came over in a cloud while other German planes attracted the attention of our guns.
"He went right up to one of our observation balloons and fired his machine gun into the balloon, setting it on fire. The two men, an American and a Frenchman, came down in a parachute. They said they didn't mind it. Perhaps they didn't, but both were about as pale as they could be. I watched the whole performance. To-day we sent up another observation balloon with exactly the same result, except that the balloon didn't burn, but both men jumped out, coming down in two parachutes.
"It was exciting and a very pretty sight to see the white silk parachutes open up and glisten in the sun. Both landed safely, and wanted to go up again immediately, but could not, owing to the damaged balloon.
"There is some firing going on most of the time, even when there is no pitched battle, and our guns shake the dugout a bit, but we are supposed to be safe here underground and, anyway, the Boche shells don't seem to come this way, though we often hear them. By the way, our machine guns drove the Boche planes off this afternoon, and the balloon was pulled down safely.
"Another day, if I remain unhurt, which I have every intention of doing, I will give you further details of the life and work. As I said in the beginning, the men are well and happy. Strange as it may seem, there is much less illness than there in the training camps at home. I can't make this out unless the men as a general rule reach here greatly benefited by the sea voyage. Certainly the work is much harder, the conditions no better, and I guess 'sunny France' is an invention of the poets. However that may be, our splendid fellows are fit and fine, trim, and hard. We are going to win!"
The Captain leaned over and clapped Porky on the shoulder. "Kid, you're a brick!" he said. "That's all, and thank you a thousand times. It ought to hold 'em for a while, don't you think?"