Sullivan letter diary, 27 October 1915-9 October 1917 / Eugene Sullivan - Page 242
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[Page 242]
France
16th. April 1917.
My dear Parents/.
As I stated in my last letter we have made another move and are now billeted in a country village out of hearing of the guns. It is a typical country village. All the houses look as if they had stood for centuries and many of them are on the point of falling to pieces. There is the usual church in the centre of the village with its spire dominating the countryside for miles, and the chiming of its bells seem to bring one back to civilisation and impress on one the peacefulness of the neighbourhood.
The troops are billeted in barns and sheds attached to different farmhouses along the road. As two companies are separated from the other two by a couple of miles Sgt. May and I have been sent to the neighbouring village to attend to their sick. We are very comfortably quartered in a small bare room with a stone floor opening off the kitchen in one of the farm houses. We secured a good supply of straw for our bed and have rigged up a makeshift table and generally made ourselves comfortable.
The farm is run by a young woman whose hubby is a prisoner of war in Germany. She has eight sheep, one goat and two kids, a few rabbits and fourteen fowls. Like most of the french populace in the towns occupied by the troops she augments her allowance by selling eggs and chips. She has one son, a youngster of four years.
Most of the french women are very industrious and do all the