Wertheimer, a sergeant, is a sort of informal and unadmitted chief of the _sous-officiers_. It is he that speaks English and has helped us a lot in getting settled, etc. Very much of a gentleman he is, and understands a bit Anglo-Saxon customs and eccentricities, always gay and an indefatigable worker. We have all been arranging the one big room of our barracks--dining room, reading room, and probably eventually American bar. The walls are covered with green cloth, green paper (of two different shades and neither quite the same as the cloth), red cloth (on top as a sort of frieze) and red paper. The ceiling is done in white cloth to keep in heat and lighten the room. A monumental task it has been, especially as materials are hard to get and expensive. Wertem (as Wertheimer is called) and Deborte have done most of the work. Deborte is also _chef de popote_, which means housekeeper, and a very efficient man. For four francs per day we are fed amazingly well, especially when one realizes that we are near the front in a country which has had three years of war. Deborte hasn’t the pleasantest manner in the world at times, but usually is very agreeable, willing to tell me things about flying or the _escadrille_, always ready to work, and a dependable man in the air. And Verber who rooms with Wertem,--he speaks a little English, has a great deal of trouble understanding it, but is picking up. Wears a monocle all the time because he’s got a bum eye, carries a stick and has an extremely eccentric appearance, but withal is very agreeable and a very valuable man. He has the habit of taking long trips all alone far into Germany just to see what is going on. Pinot is the name of the little roly-poly chap everybody calls Bul-Bul, who used to be a mechanic and now is a very good, merry pilot. He has a great _pension_ toward Pinard, is violently but not at all objectionably non-aristocratic, is forever laughing or kidding some one, walks on his hands to amuse people, and is the delight of all the _mécanos_. Demeuldre is a very quiet sort of school boy type who has been a pilot of biplanes and reconnaissance machines for a long time. He came to the escadrille recently with a record of two Boches as pilot of a biplane (that is, his machine gun man did the shooting and they both get credit), and a few days ago brought down a German in flames, his first as _pilote de chasse_. There are two others away on permission, whom I don’t know yet. XVI SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE, November 13, 1917. Dear Father: