Nevertheless, even among the privates, it is extremely rare that a letter shows illiteracy to any marked degree. In the letters written by high and low alike, there is to be noted a certain theatrical consciousness of the stage on which they are now engaged in battle before the world. WAR STORIES. THREE MONTHS IN THE TRENCHES. AMERICAN WHO SERVED WITH THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION, NOW AN AIRMAN, GIVES VIVID ACCOUNT OF "DITCH" LIFE. _Bert Hall, who wrote the article printed herewith, is an American, and has had experience both as a racing automobile driver and an airman. At the beginning of the war he joined the French Foreign Legion, but was afterward transferred to the French Aviation Corps._ BY BERT HALL. There was no hands-across-the-sea Lafayette stuff about us Americans who joined the Foreign Legion in Paris when the war broke out. We just wanted to get right close and see some of the fun, and we didn't mind taking a few risks, as most of us had led a pretty rough sort of life as long as we could remember. For my part, auto racing--including one peach of a smash-up in a famous race--followed by three years of flying, had taken the edge off my capacity for thrills, but I thought I'd get a new line of excitement with the legion in a big war, and I reckon most of the other boys had much the same idea. We got a little excitement, though not much, but as for fun--well, if I had to go through it again I'd sooner attend my own funeral. As a sporting proposition, this war game is overrated. Altogether, I spent nearly three months in the trenches near Craonne, and, believe me, I was mighty glad when they transferred me (with Thaw and Bach, two other Americans who've done some flying) to the Aviation Corps, for all they wouldn't take us when we volunteered at the start because we weren't Frenchmen, and have only done so now because they've lost such a lot of their own men, which isn't a very encouraging reason. But anyway if the Germans do wing us, it's a decent, quick finish, and I for one prefer it to slow starvation or being frozen stiff in a stinking, muddy trench. Why, I tell you, when I got wounded and had to leave, most of the boys were so sick of life in the trenches that they used to walk about outside in the daytime almost hoping the Germans would hit them--anything to break the monotony of the ceaseless rain and cold and hunger and dirt! It wasn't so bad when we first got there, about the beginning of October, as the weather was warmer (though it had already begun to rain and has never stopped since), but we were almost suffocated by the stench from the thousands of corpses lying between the lines--the German trenches were about four hundred yards away--where it wasn't safe for either side to go out and bury them. They were French mostly, result of the first big offensive after the Marne victory, and, believe me, that word just expresses it--they were the offensivest proposition in all my experience.