For the last few days I have been swinging a heavy pick and axe and playing chauffeur (with some other fellows) on a handcar. Believe me, it is hard work pumping one of those cars heavily loaded against a head wind or on an up grade. However, the work is doing me worlds of good. I am feeling fine and getting stronger every day. There is something doing on our front to-night. From all the banging noise Tommy must be strafing Fritz good and plenty. We have had several issues of tobacco since we arrived in this part of the world. I do not know where the tobacco comes from, but imagine it is part of the money collected from our good citizens in New York. The only trouble is that it is English tobacco and not the good old American kind. It would surprise many of our curio seeking friends to see what we do with those that we pick up. Our poker is an old French bayonet, something that many a person would put in a cabinet under lock and key. On Leave.--Immediately after breakfast I started for a very famous city some nine or ten miles from our camp. I stopped in for a friend of mine, in one of the other companies. We started to walk to town in hopes of having a motor lorry (just plain motor truck in America) overtake us, but we had covered some five miles before we were overtaken by a horse-drawn wagon. This particular city (censor forbids my giving name) was never reached by the Huns except at long range bombardment. One can hardly believe the amount of destruction the Huns are capable of doing when they start out on their career of hate. In this town they seem to have centered their vengeance on a most beautiful church and one of the fine old cemeteries that France is noted for. The church was not entirely demolished, but I think it is beyond repair. As for the cemetery, many a poor Frenchman returned to the surface before the Angel Gabriel had blown his trumpet. Just next to this old cemetery is a new one. Instead of old tombstones and marble crypts, this plot is marked with many small white wooden crosses. Here and there one can find a more pretentious cross, indicating an officer. One cannot realize the tug at the heartstrings until one has seen the hand marks of "Kultur." The only consolation, a brutal one, is that on the way to the town are many graves with German names on the crosses. But let's get cheerful and talk of the main object of my trip, to get something to eat. The real fun of the day came while we were eating. Fritz paid us a visit by aeroplane and dropped a few visiting cards in the shape of bombs. A couple of Tommies were eating in the same room, and as they showed a great deal of _sang froid_ I was compelled to do the same. However, my real fear was that I wouldn't be able to finish my eggs, but would have to dive for a bomb-proof. Fortunately he was driven away before much damage was done and I finished my eggs in peace.