The letters from the front include missives penned or scribbled by nobles and members of the royal families, high military officials, authors, Socialists, tradesmen, skilled workmen, and writers who, in peace times, have been more expert with the farmhand's scythe or manure fork, or with the street cleaner's broom than with the pen that is supposedly mightier, and certainly to them more unwieldy, than the sword.
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.
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._
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.
