On June 30, 1917, the Buffalo Unit of the American Field Service set sail from New York to serve as an ammunition train with the French Armies. As the voyage over was entirely void of excitement it merits no description. Sufficient is it to state that we arrived safely in Bordeaux on July 10th, marched triumphantly from the dock to the railway station under a broiling hot July sun, froze almost to death the same night riding third class to Paris, and arrived at The American Field Service headquarters the next morning. Here we spent two days signing strange documents written in a language most of its did not understand, and in making the final preparations before going out to training school.

Late on the afternoon of Friday the 13th we reached Chavigny Farm, near Longpont, which was the training school for all Americans entering the motor transport service with the French Armies. Part of our company stayed here to train while the other half, for which there were not sufficient accommodations, was taken to the overflow school at Dommiers.

July 14th being the French National Holiday was a holiday for us since our French instructors were off celebrating, and we were, therefore, able to spend it in getting settled and exploring the neighborhood.

The following day we were started in on the 7 day a week schedule. There is no such thing as Sunday in the Army when an outfit is on active service. The schedule posted which we were to follow throughout our training read as follows:

Drill was often quite amusing. Our parade ground was nothing more than a very uneven cow pasture with uncut grass. In addition to the natural hazards of the terrain all our commands were given in French. Anyone who has drilled knows that even under the most favorable circumstances it is no easy matter for beginners to execute correctly commands given in one's native tongue. You may well imagine then what tangles we managed to get into in our attempts to execute such commands as "En ligne, face à gauche," and "A droite par quatre," in that mountainous cow pasture. It was especially difficult for those who knew not "gauche" from "droite."

Our hour of drill being over we went down to the farm for our morning lecture. Lieutenant Osteheimer, the officer in charge of the Dommiers camp, in these morning periods explained the nature of our work, rules of convoy, the care of the trucks, French insignia and similar topics. The remaining time before lunch was spent oiling, greasing and cleaning the trucks.

All our instruction was on Pierce Arrow 5-ton trucks of which the Mallet Reserve was entirely composed. The Pierce Arrow Company may well be proud of the record that their trucks made in the war. The French considered them the best heavy truck of any they used and they have given them all a gruelling test.

The afternoons were spent in driving instruction. This consisted of practice convoys over the less frequented roads in the vicinity. The company was split up so that there were five to seven men on each of the trucks and during the course of the afternoon each man had two or three turns at the wheel. Nearly everyone in the company had driven some kind of a car back in the States and therefore it was only a question of adjusting one's self to the handling of a large and unwieldy truck.

During these afternoon runs we visited various points of interest. On July 22d we had our first glimpse of Soissons on our way up to see the old battlefields around Nouvron-Vingré where there had been some very stubborn fighting during the first Battle of the Aisne in February 1915.

We were all greatly interested in Soissons which, in spite of the damage inflicted upon it two years previously and its present proximity to the lines,(2) contained many prosperous looking stores and a fair sized civilian population. The southwestern portion of the town was almost intact, only an occasional house having been demolished by shelling, but as we neared the river the number of ruined houses greatly exceeded the number of those which were still habitable. In many cases the shells had effected strange damage to the structures. One house had only its front wall ripped off from top to bottom, all the furnishings standing just as they had been left. It gave the effect of a doll house whose front had been removed for the arranging of furniture. In the same street was a house with but three walls and a roof left, a hammock and some linen still hanging from the rafters of the attic. In a side street, which had been roped off as dangerous for traffic, a shell had hit a church steeple and turned it on its base so that it seemed as though the slightest breeze would send it crashing into the street below. On the north side of the river the destruction was nearly complete.

Nouvron-Vingré was flat on the ground and the surrounding fields a desolation of shell-holes criss-crossed with a bewildering maze of barbed wire entanglements and trenches. The Boches had made a small military cemetery here and had used as headstones those which had formerly been used in the little village cemetery. The French names had been obliterated and the German names chiseled on the reverse side.

The following afternoon we took a trip whose beauty offset the scenes of desolation of this excursion. We were allowed to wander through the massive Chateau Pierrefonds. This castle stands, pillowed in foliage, on a hill above the small town which bears its name. It was built by Louis of Orleans in 1390 and was one of the handsomest and strongest fortresses of that period. An aged guide conducted us through the small part of the chateau we had time to see. Inasmuch as all movable furnishings had been removed to a place of greater safety the rooms were quite bare.

DOMMIERS TRAINING SCHOOL

PORTCULLIS OF CHATEAU PIERREFONDS

We used to look forward to these rides with pleasant anticipation, even though the dust that rose in stifling clouds from the chalky roads and the jolting we received in the backs of the empty trucks made touring far from comfortable. Then too, our daily progress in learning how to manage our pet elephants gave us great encouragement and satisfaction.

On returning from convoys in the evening, hot and caked with dust, we repaired to an open air shower bath our predecessors had arranged in a little ravine not far from camp. France being a most informal country, we undressed in the barracks and without embarrassment pattered down the road to the shower clad only in a bath towel. This shower was a simple arrangement of a board chute and perforated lard pail through which the liquid ice drizzled. The effect of taking a shower in that water was similar to the effect of the mythical fountain in quest of which Ponce de Leon spent the best years of his life bathing in Florida.

Our two weeks of training ended on July 27th. That evening, as we were packing up in preparation for an early morning departure we heard for the first time the pulsating drone peculiar to the Boche bombing planes. A group of Gothas passed over camp on their way to bomb Paris, and being neophytes in matters of war we were all quite thrilled and insisted on calling it an air raid even though there were no bombs dropped any nearer to us than Paris. This raid was the first which that city had suffered since 1915.

IT was two o'clock in the afternoon---the hottest part of the day---when we arrived at Jouaignes. In contrast to the cool shade of the pine wood at Dommiers our new camp was situated on top of a bare hill with neither trees nor water within a quarter of a mile of us. Our living quarters consisted of eight remorques and a like number of tar paper shacks, all hot as ovens under the glare of the midday sun.

After unloading our baggage we were marched down to our commanding officer's headquarters where we paid him our respects by presenting arms and were given in return a short speech of welcome.

The following morning we were introduced to the trucks which we were to drive. According to the date on the plate attached to the dashboard the trucks had begun service in March 1915 and during their two years' participation in the war had been driven by their French drivers through the battles of Verdun and the Somme. They looked it. Some were minus mud-guards, some tail gates; all were caked with mud and very much in need of attention. One of the great drawbacks was that there were hardly any tools with which to make repairs. The only man who had a full complement of tools was the mechanic who was invariably busy elsewhere just at the time when you wanted him most.

All the trucks used by the French Armies have a groupe insignia by which one commander is able to distinguish his trucks readily from those of another while out on convoy. It may be argued that this is not as efficient as having a number. It is nevertheless picturesquely French. The section of trucks we were taking over had as their insignia a parrot; other groupes had rabbits, grenades, swallows, umbrellas, rhinoceros, clocks, monkeys, human figures, Statues of Liberty, etc. In addition to the groupe insignia each truck was marked with its company letter (or letter by which the company went) and numbered consecutively up to eighteen---there being eighteen trucks to a company.

It was not until our second day in camp that we received our first order for cars. We started soon after breakfast with a convoy of sixteen trucks to load ammunition at Fère-en-Tardenois.

It may be well to explain here the manner in which ammunition was handled. Shells for the "75s" came packed nine shells to a case and each truck normally carried fifty-two cases. The larger caliber shells were loaded singly and came unboxed. The powder for these was packed in hermetically sealed tin containers. The fuses or detonators, were boxed in small cases for easy handling.

A corvée of Boche prisoners loaded the shells, but the fuses, which can be set off by a hard blow, were loaded by Frenchmen. It was quite startling to a newcomer to see the rough way in which the shells were thrown about, but after we had seen a case of shells fall off a truck and be run over by the truck following without exploding we were quite at ease. When there was any cause for caution a great deal of care was displayed.

We were loaded shortly after lunch and set out for the shell-dump at Villers-en-Prayères on the south bank of the Aisne a short way from Fismes. A poplar grove afforded natural camouflage for the piles of cases. This park handled 75s only, and in addition to the large stream of ammunition which passed through daily there was a huge reserve supply which could be drawn on in ease of emergency. The truck sections from Jouaignes supplied about ten thousand rounds per day to this one park from which a rough estimate may be made of how much ammunition is used per day on a fairly active front.

The fiasco offensive which the Crown Prince had been waging around Craonne and the Chemin des Dames seven kilometers away was just drawing to a close these last days of July and this park supplied a large part of the ammunition being used in the vicinity. The intensity of the fighting in that sector made Craonne come to be known as a second Verdun. The French repulsed assault after assault made by the Crown Prince's troops.

Noon the following day found us again on the road outside of this same park waiting for the French corvée to finish their luncheon and unload us After we had finished our luncheon some of us walked down to the edge of the wood toward the front in search of excitement.

From the slope of the line of hills that rise on the north bank of the Aisne we could see the occasional spurt of flame from a French battery and now and again the black smokeburst of a Boche arrivée.

Suddenly the whole crest and hillside less than a mile away seemed to be alive with little tongues of flame and the roar of the barrage that had just begun thundered up and down and across the valley with an intensity a heavy thunderstorm only weakly approximates. In a few moments the black smoke-bursts of the German shells began to increase in number, adding their noise to the din, while now and again we could hear faintly above the thunder of the guns the piercing scream of shells which were searching out a big French battery half a mile away from us.

For two hours the ceaseless thunder of the cannonade reverberated back and forth and then ceased as suddenly as it had started, save for a few batteries which kept on plugging away at infrequent intervals.

Shortly after dawn on the morning of August 1st, the three of us in our remorque were awakened by the steady drip of rain on our cots. In disgust we climbed out of bed and went rummaging for tar paper which we were fortunate enough to find.

All day long the rain kept up softening the narrow road on which our trucks were parked to such an extent that passing up and down became more and more precarious. That night by the time our convoy, which had been out since early morning, returned, the ditches were bottomless bogs.

No form of automotive vehicle will skid on less provocation than a truck, and this slippery, high-crowned, narrow road with its long line of standing trucks, by which the returning convoy had to pass, was a natural hazard that would have baffled experienced drivers. To make a long story short it took the convoy just eight hours to make that final half mile to camp, the last car getting into its parking space just about breakfast time.

SECTION M'S COMPANY STREET

IN TOWN---BARRACK IN FOREGROUND

On August 3d our convoy crossed the Aisne loaded with shells for the 75s and took them to a clump at Beaurieux, which was the nearest to the lines that convoys were allowed to go in the day time. The dump was up among the batteries we had seen in action from a distance a few days before and while we were unloading, a battery of 75s just behind us was shooting over the park at the trenches two miles away. If the Boche artillery was active at all at that time it was confining its fire closer to the front for we didn't hear even the whistle of a shell all morning.

During the next two weeks our work took a slump, there being little need for ammunition since the Crown Prince had given up hope of trying to break through on the Chemin des Dames. By the end of our third day in camp without any convoy work all the trucks had been thoroughly oiled, greased, repaired, and cleaned until nothing remained to he done to them. In an endeavor to keep the men busy our chef (company commander, not cook) strained his ingenuity to invent work, but camp chores are monotonous and unbearable when not absolutely necessary. The men saw that it was just a ruse to keep them out of mischief and therefore started to duck work and remain idle, and when men are idle, without work or play to hold their attention, discontent is certain to break out. By the end of the second week of this idling about camp everyone's disposition was badly bent and all were ready to jump at one another's throats on the slightest provocation.

Finally, on August 23d, we were set to the reasonable task of constructing a barrack to serve as our winter quarters. The new camp site was chosen in town at the foot of a pine covered hill. A week later the work was completed and we moved from our barren hilltop into the barrack, and at the same time our work on the road was resumed with new vigor and dispositions were again smoothed out.

DURING the entire month of August we had noticed a great amount of aerial activity on both sides. Boche planes had frequently been as far back as our camp on scouting expeditions but were always kept at a great height by the French anti-aircraft batteries. One day a battery near camp made what appeared to be a direct hit on one of the planes, which fell fluttering like a leaf for a thousand feet or more before it straightened out and disappeared into a cloud.

The pursuit planes were busy too. One day while we were standing in line waiting for lunch we saw a Boche aviator drop out of a cloud and sink a French observation balloon. It is quite a thrilling sight to see one of these big sausage balloons burst into flame and fall to earth a smoking wreck. The observers make their escape by jumping with parachutes, but are sometimes overtaken in their descent and burned to death by the balloon or shot by the enemy aviator.

One evening, shortly after we moved into our new barrack we saw a German plane get three French balloons in less than a half a minute before they could be pulled down. The aviator dodged back into the clouds and made a safe escape.

''Celles via Soissons." We made the trip so often during the latter part of August and September that we became thoroughly fed up with it.

Orders to leave for this trip would rout us out of bed between three and five and after a scant breakfast of black coffee and bread the convoy rattled off in the dark of the chill dawn for the loading park at Bazoches. The genie parc there contained every conceivable article used in warfare: logs for making corduroy roads, lumber of all sizes, beams for dug-out galleries, duck-walks, corrugated iron, barbed-wire and stakes, wire-netting, tarpaper, nails, bolts, picks, shovels, coffins, in short everything the armies might need.

The loading was usually completed by lunch time and after eating that meal---lunch on convoy consisted of two sandwiches, one of jam and one of bully-beef or sardine---we set out for the advance depot at Celles-sur-Aisne, 35 kilometers(3) away by our routing.

Because the French were enlarging the roadways across the floor of the Aisne valley and did not wish to attract the Boches' attention to the operations by allowing a lot of traffic to pass over them, we were routed over the much used highway to Soissons where we crossed the river and practically doubled back on our tracks for ten kilometers. The first time we made this trip all were very much interested in the German signs on the houses and the large amount of artillery in the vicinity, but after going over the route for he tenth time it became monotonous.

The last of August came the first news of the American Government's intentions of taking over the American Field Service and from then until the first of October we spent many hours debating whether or not we would enlist. Most of us reserved our decision until Captain Andrews came to Jouaignes on September 9th, and painted golden pictures of life in the American Army---the kind you see on recruiting posters---told us that we were to form the nucleus of the Motor Transport Corps of the Army and said how much we were needed in the offensive which we knew was not far off. What was to become of the men who did not enlist he was not quite sure but he hinted that all kinds of awful things might happen to them. We were told that those who wished to transfer later to another branch of the service would be allowed to do so; further, there were bright prospects of commissions for all dangled before us. When the fateful day of enlistment arrived most of the men signed up as buck-privates. The wise men held out and later joined the French artillery or aviation.

But to get back to the work we were doing during September: our duties and the activity we saw behind the lines all pointed to the fact that there was an attack imminent on the part of the French. That the Boches were aware that trouble was brewing was evidenced by their shelling the roads farther behind the lines than was their custom in the ordinary routine of war. On September 2d, while we were unloading trench mortar bombs at the Leury ammunition park shrapnel was breaking over a cross road a little farther on.

That night, shortly after the first snores had begun to be heard in the barrack, the drone of a motor heralded the approach of a bombing-plane. Nearly everyone used to pile out on such occasions to watch the fun and on account of the great distance a plane can be heard at night there was always plenty of time to get on a few clothes. The plane this evening was flying very low and consequently was not heard until it was quite close. We were, therefore, only just out of the barrack door when it went roaring by overhead and at the same moment an anti-aircraft battery on the outskirts of town let go with a tracer shell which went blazing and screaming by a couple of hundred yards above us. A fire-cracker in a rabbit warren couldn't have caused more excitement. Everyone ducked for the nearest cover thinking that a bomb was about to alight in our midst. As we stumbled back into the dark barrack feeling for our bunks everyone was asking everyone else, "Who the hell started that stampede?"

From the day of our arrival at the front we had heard wild tales about trips to the ammunition dump at Chateau Soupir. It was not until September 4th that our Section received an order to go there. Twenty cars left camp after breakfast for the ammunition park at Bazoches to load trench mortar bombs. It was three o'clock in the afternoon when we crossed the Aisne at Oeuilly and turned to the left along the road following the north bank of the river.

Just beyond the battered little village of Bourg-et-Comin there is a break in the line of the hills to the north. A Boche observation balloon floated lazily in the sky all day long commanding an unobstructed view of about a kilometer of road so that during the daytime it was unsafe for anything but fast moving vehicles such as staff cars to pass. For this reason we stopped in Bourg and parking the cars behind what was left of the houses began a five hour wait until it should be dark enough to proceed.

Aeroplanes taking advantage of the clear, calm afternoon were buzzing around in great numbers and as they circled back and forth the German anti-aircraft batteries were firing at them just closely enough to keep the aviators on their guard, changing their elevation and direction constantly.

At dusk we started on and after three-quarters of an hour of slow running turned off the main road through a narrow iron gateway into the grounds of the Chateau Soupir.

In the high brick wall surrounding the once beautiful grounds were huge gaps made by shells; shattered fragments of the white terra-cotta flower pots lay in the uncut grass beside their broken and overturned pedestals; in the distance the wrecked remains of the chateau glistened dimly in the moonlight and from a nearby grove came the crash of a French battery pounding away at the Germans.

The ammunition park was in another part of this wood and as we entered it we had to turn out around two shell holes which had been made a short time before our arrival.

Many of the convoys which unloaded here had had exciting times but by comparison to the wild tales we had heard about these trips our evening was a failure. We were unloaded without event and had a beautiful trip back to camp in the moonlight.

On Sunday, September 9th, there was held in the little old church of Jouaignes a service commemorating the victory at the Battle of the Marne. Most of the congregation consisted of women and children, all in mourning; the slight sprinkling of younger men were in uniform as were the priest, tenor soloist and organist. The simplicity of the expression of thanks to the Divine Providence which had turned defeat into Victory, so characteristic of the French, added greatly to the impressiveness of the service.

The following morning came a call for more genie materiel to be taken to Vailly. On the way over to Bazoches we were made to wear our gas masks for the practice of driving with them on. They were the clumsy old model used in the first days of gas warfare and smelled like a stale mixture of castor oil and iodoform. Those who obeyed orders nearly suffocated.

On the return trip occurred an accident which brings to mind one of the unsung heroes of the war---the motor-cycle dispatch rider, who, riding his flimsy machine over the roads behind the lines without lights, takes a big chance of being hit by any of the many vehicles which crowd the roads at night and stands about the smallest chance of getting out of such a collision undamaged. There is a great feeling of security when seated behind the wheel of a truck for there are very few vehicles on the road which wouldn't get the worst of a collision.

The night on which this accident occurred was moonless and black as pitch. Our staff car----a Ford---was passing through a wood when they heard a motor-cycle approaching. Having one of those inexplicable premonitions that they were going to have a collision the driver pulled over to his side of the road and was almost at a standstill when the motor-cycle crashed into them head on.

Investigation showed that neither the rider nor his cycle were injured. As he dusted himself oft he apologized profusely for having run into them and assured our anxious lieutenant that he was quite accustomed to such experiences.

On September 16th our Section had its first mild taste of excitement. Two convoys were called out to take ammunition to shell dumps along the Aisne. One of these was to take trench mortar bombs to Ferme St. Audebert a kilometer east of Vailly.

As usual we had to stop in the little wood a quarter of a mile from the bridge at Vailly and await darkness before venturing onto the exposed road leading to the bridge. Having parked our cars we went to the edge of the wood to see if there was any unusual activity going on. As we neared the open a shell came screaming down with a crash a few yards from the bridge and out from under the geyser of smoke and dirt came a French staff car evidently intent on being miles away when the next shell came in.

The shelling continued until dark and when it had ceased we started on. While we were unloading the gun took up its work again and in the quiet of the night the scream and burst of the shells sounded very close and very terrifying.

The other half of our convoy was unloading on the opposite side of the river and had rather an uncomfortable time. One of the shells fell fifty yards short of them and the next screamed over bursting an equal distance the other side of them. For the next few minutes they sat and wondered if the gunners were going to split the difference.

Each time we went out on convoy we witnessed the appearance of more ordnance and ammunition, new gun pits and shell dumps. Hospitals were being enlarged and new ones erected; large prison camps with barbed wire enclosures were erected; day and night the roads were crowded with loaded wagons and caissons moving toward the front and empty ones returning; batteries of all sizes appeared and on September 20th a shallow-draft gunboat anchored in the river near Celles. Five days later we saw two huge 320mm rifles on special railway mountings, waiting at Bazoches.

Every day all available trucks were sent out on convoy carrying ammunition and trench material to the parks at Celles, Leury, Soupir, Chavonne and Vailly. We were greatly interested in the preparations being made and wondered how long it would be before the attack would start. From the magnitude of the preparations we thought that this coming attack would surely be the last fight of the war.

On October 1st we were enlisted in the American Army and two days later all of those who signed up were moved to the camp at Soissons. This camp was situated in "Le Mail," a park by the river just outside of town. The remorques, in each of which four men were crowded, formed a three sided hollow square in the shade of a grove of tall elm trees. There were also two barracks along the river bank in which other companies were quartered.

During the first weeks at Soissons our new regular army drill sergeant, a typical hard-boiled soldier of the old school tried to put us through a few manoeuvres and teach us the manual of arms, but we were doing so much work on the road that the few hours we did have in camp were needed to do the necessary work on the cars and the regular camp chores. On this account we did not learn much about executing squads east and west.

On October 9th, the big rifles we had seen at Bazoches appeared at Bucy-le-Long in very cleverly camouflaged positions. Spur tracks leading from the main line had been constructed and at the ends of these were the guns, each under a huge tent of artificial grass. The tracks for a hundred yards behind them were also concealed with this grass camouflage and fake bumpers erected to make the spurs look like sidings. To complete the effect several empty freight cars had been left standing on the tracks.

Shelling of points far behind the lines was now a common occurrence. On the fourteenth a shell screamed over our convoy and burst harmlessly between two piles of grenades in the park at Bucy a short distance from the road along which we were passing.

Shortly after breakfast on the morning of October 17th the first shell came sizzling down into Soissons, killing a poilu and two horses loading hay in the freight yard. All day long at five minute intervals these shells came screaming into town.

We came to know the gun trained on Soissons very well as the war progressed. It was a strange fact that the report of the gun could be heard very distinctly a short time before the shell began to whistle, giving everyone a second or two to duck for cover if necessary.

The damage as reported to us by a Frenchman that evening was, in addition to the poilu killed at the station, a direct hit on the least important of the three bridges over the Aisne at Soissons, the destruction of several unoccupied houses and five hits within a very short radius of the hospital.

That the suspense, which we all felt, was about to break, was further strengthened by an order from our headquarters that no town permissions were to be granted for a few days and that all were to carry gas masks and helmets with them all the while.

THE sun disappeared behind threatening clouds early in the afternoon of Thursday, October 18, and night fell black as pitch with the feel of rain in the dull air. It was so cool that the four of us in our crowded little remorque either had on our coats or had turned in to keep warm.

At nine o'clock the silence of the earlier evening was suddenly broken by a heavy, rumbling thunder; the ground seemed to tremble and the reverberations of the cannonade made the canvas covering of our little shelter flap weirdly against the wooden frame-work. At intervals the deep-throated boom of the big rifles at Bucy sounded above the roar of the smaller and more distant guns.

Blowing out the candle we stepped outside. The low-hanging clouds to the north seemed to glow incandescently with the reflection of the flashes of the four thousand guns which had been massed for this attack.

The offensive for which we had been helping to prepare during the last three months had started, and the heaviest artillery preparation used in any offensive up to this time was thundering away less than a mile to the north and its intensity was so great that it seemed impossible to believe that anything could stand up against it.

Simultaneously with the opening of this attack a telegram was flashed from behind the German lines to the Austro-German front in Italy giving the signal which launched such a heavy attack against the Italians that the French had to send part of the troops they were counting on using in this attack to cooperate with the Italians in stopping the Austro-German counter-offensive. It was this scheme of the Boches which probably prevented the French from breaking through to Laon, which was their natural objective.

The firing continued heavily all that night. During the following day it let up but began again just as furiously after dark. For two days the German long range gun which had been trained on Soissons was silent.

Saturday night several of us managed to get permission to go into town for dinner. The little dining room at the Lion Rouge was filled as usual with a laughing crowd of American privates and French officers. About half way through dinner we heard above the talking and laughter the shriek of a shell followed by a distant explosion. "La gare," whispered a French officer-simultaneously with the whistle of the shell the dining room had become silent.

Conversation was resumed but the laughing ceased and there was an atmosphere of nervous tension. Another crash followed a few minutes later, somewhat louder and closer than the first. Several of the guests left the tables and walked out to the entrance of the hotel abri in the little courtyard around which the hotel was built.

A third shell crashed down in the direction of the bridge. By this time the courtyard was full of civilians who had come from neighboring houses to take shelter in the big abri under the hotel. All were talking excitedly. The guests who remained at the tables made a pretence at eating but looked rather uneasy. Two of the waitresses remained on duty, the other joining the caissière among the bottles and barrels in the combination wine-cellar-abri.

Two more shells came in, bursting in the direction of the river. The next one screamed over the hotel, bursting in the street behind, the concussion making the hotel rock and the silver on the tables jingle. A moment later the waitress announced that we could not have our after-dinner chocolat, for the explosion of the last shell had knocked the soot down the chimney ruining the food on the stove and scaring the chef into the abri. We then adjourned to the parlor where one of our number played on the piano until the bombardment ceased half an hour later.

The only casualties in town that night occurred at the Pont des Anglais where one of the shells made a direct hit on a truck and trailer loaded with troops on their way to the front. Twenty-three of them were killed and the other seven badly wounded.

As each day passed we wondered how long before the infantry would attack. Our trucks were carrying ammunition daily to the various shell dumps in that sector. The officer in charge of the Leury park told us that 75,000 rounds passed through that park daily. I saw in the "Literary Digest" after the war an article stating that during the six days of artillery preparation there were used 6,000,000 rounds of 75mm shells alone. The figures for the other calibers I have forgotten, but they were proportionally staggering.

The infantry did not attack until dawn on Tuesday, October 23d. At eleven that morning the first prisoners came through and all work in camp was stopped temporarily while we went up to watch them as they were marched back to the prison camp. They were covered with mud and were a very tired, dishevelled looking lot. For the most part their expressions were of haughty contempt, but here and there was a broad smile indicating that its owner was heartily glad to be alive and out of the fighting.

In addition to the long columns of prisoners that filed through there came also trucks and ambulances loaded with the wounded. On Wednesday a hospital boat tied up at the dock near our camp and many of us out of morbid curiosity went over to watch the transferring of the wounded from the ambulances to the boat.

As the doctor in charge called off their names from a roll each answered "présent," and hobbled or was led or carried aboard after being tagged with a card bearing his, name and medical report. None of the men in this lot had body wounds. Some had their heads in bandages---one poor poilu probably doomed to go blind the rest of his life, was led aboard, his eyes covered with an ugly looking blood-soaked bandage; another walked aboard with his arm in a sling, its bandage covering the stump of a wrist. A wild-eyed Algerian, his face pale from loss of blood and tense with pain, answered weakly to his name and hobbled forward on crutches. His left trouser leg had been cut away just below the hip and revealed a leg wrapped its entire length in a bandage which still oozed blood. He pluckily tried to get aboard unaided but accidentally hit his wounded leg on the gangplank and fainted.

The papers each day were full of the success of the attack, giving the number of prisoners and cannon taken and the extent of the advance. At first we were very much elated, but as time went on and no calls came which took us up to the newly captured territory our hopes sank lower and we began to think that it wasn't such a big advance after all.

It was over by the first of November. On that day our convoy returned to camp after a shell haul by way of Soupir, Vailly, Celles and Bucy. The French were removing the greater part of their artillery from the Aisne and the roads were crowded with all sizes of cannon moving to the rear, the artillery which was remaining keeping up a very heavy fire.

The following day our company had its last convoy for three weeks, taking a detachment of machine gunners back from the front to a rest camp from which they were to go a few days later to the Italian Front.

During the following weeks we stayed in camp performing the thousand and one duties and jobs that our officers thought up with a view to keeping us out of mischief.

About this time the Y. M. C. A. started in Soissons and entertained us from time to time with movie shows, concerts and local talent in vaudeville sketches. One Sunday afternoon, which was declared a holiday by the Major, there was an impromptu football game among the companies of our groupe. As there were several players of no mean ability the game proved to be of real interest. The French population of Soissons came in large numbers to watch and returned to their homes that evening thoroughly convinced that Americans were crazy.

The bright spots in our otherwise dull existence were the evenings on which we could get town leave. The usual program on such occasions was to leave camp as soon as possible after the day's work was done and go to the Public Bath House to indulge in the luxury of a tub of hot water.

The Salles des Bains had come in for its share of the bombardment in the earlier days of the war and at this time contained more ventilation facilities than had been provided for in the original plans of its architects. Bathing was, on that account, numbered with us as an outdoor sport.

The bath was merely an incidental on these trips. The real reason for going to town was to eat. There was little to complain about the food we were getting in camp, but a change was always welcome. There were two hotels open in Soissons at this time-the Lion Rouge and the Croix d'Or---both of which had excellent cuisines and (which mattered as much to us) china and silver, and someone else to wash the dishes. The management of the hotel we frequented finding us good customers adopted us. We always regard Soissons as our home in France.

THE great convoy classic in the annals of the Reserve was the trip to Montdidier. There were other convoys later in the war which would have been remembered as classics if they had come to us as the Montdidier Trip did---the first real test of our physical endurance---but this has the priority over the others and therefore goes down in the history of the Reserve as the convoy.

On Monday night, November 19th, shortly after everyone was in bed and asleep we were routed out with orders to get the trucks ready for a two day convoy and then turn in with all our clothes on and be ready to roll on as short notice as possible.

At three-thirty the order came and an hour and a half later all the available trucks in the Reserve rattled out of camp in the chill dawn of the late autumn morning. Our French commander was in such a hurry to get us started that what breakfast we had---one bacon sandwich---was given us just as we left camp.

All morning long the convoy rumbled along from Soissons down through Chateau-Thierry and the Marne valley until about two o'clock we split up and went to various little towns in the vicinity of Meaux to pick up some French infantry regiments.

The entire Reserve, nearly six hundred cars strong, was there loading with troops. It was, therefore, well into the afternoon by the time all the groupes were loaded and had taken their place in line. At five word was passed around that we were to eat---the first food since our bacon sandwich twelve hours previously. Visions of steak and french-fried potatoes vanished with the appearance of our evening meal---a can of cold salmon and half a loaf of bread to be divided between two men.

A few minutes later the convoy started on and the grind began. The rest of the trip remains in the minds of all as a nightmare and will not bear a detailed description because of the variety of experiences occurring.

At the time this convoy was made there was but one driver to each truck and every man, on this account, had to do all the driving alone.

As night fell a drizzling rain set in, greatly reducing the visibility of the roads and adding immensely to our personal discomfort. All night long the convoy bumped along over the slippery roads, many of the trucks sliding into ditches where they stayed until hauled out by the mechanic's car.

Dawn found us replenishing our fuel tanks with gas and oil by the roadside on the outskirts of Ham, and from here, without stopping for breakfast, we started on again through the desolate, rolling country across which a high wind was driving a penetrating, misty rain.

A little before noon we unloaded our troops in the vicinity of Peronne and without rest or food started out for Montdidier by a roundabout route.

At five that afternoon we stopped on top of one of the bleakest hills in France in the heart of the old Somme battlefield where the British had literally blasted their way through the German lines. Here we waited and shivered while our cooks prepared coffee and sandwiches.

Our next stop was at eight o'clock that night at Bray where we were given an hour and a half to rest. Here we learned the reason for our making this trip. On the morning of November 20th the British had made the well known attack at Cambrai in which tanks had been used in great numbers for the first time. The troops we had brought up were to help hold the ground which the British had captured. Bray was full of English cavalry who were waiting with saddles on for orders to go up.

At nine-thirty we were on the road again and from then until we pulled into Montdidier at five the next morning it was one continual battle against sleep. Every man had been driving almost continuously for two days and two nights and all were so tired and hungry---three meals such as we had had during those forty-nine hours were not enough to satisfy our appetites---that it was almost impossible to keep awake. A collection of the hallucinations and illusions of the various drivers during that second night would furnish a psychologist with much interesting material.

We reached the end of our journey at five o'clock on Thursday morning, November 22d, and after a brief two hours of sleep started to consolidate ourselves in our new camp. How long we were to be here our officers did not know, but they hinted that it might be all winter.

The afternoon of our arrival we were reinforced by a truck train of drafted men from the 26th Division and were thus insured against having to drive alone if another such emergency should arise.

During our five day sojourn in Montdidier we lived in the backs of our trucks and though we were constantly expecting to be called out on convoy there were but very few cars sent out.

On the Tuesday following our arrival we were called out to transport troops from the front to a little town in the vicinity of Clermont and at nine-thirty that same evening we were back again in our old camp at Soissons.

OUR work during the winter months here at Soissons was too monotonous and dull to merit any detailed description, but there are certain phases of our camp life which cannot be forgotten.

Owing to a delay in our turkeys reaching us our Thanksgiving celebration was postponed till the day following, and even then a perfectly good holiday was ruined by the Reserve having to take part in a decoration ceremony. There was little we disliked more than having to get all dressed up and carry packs and guns around on parade.

This decoration ceremony was for the presentation of the Médaille Militaire to Bob Lamont, a member of the Reserve whose hand had been shot off while unloading under fire at the ammunition dump at Jouy early in the summer.

What convoys we went on were principally to carry trench material to a new park on the road to Laffaux, a town at the western end of the Chemin des Dames. Getting started on these early morning convoys was greatly complicated by the winter weather which had set in. Every night the water had to be drained from the cars and to refill these in the morning meant from five to seven trips between the trucks and the Aisne, our source of water supply, with a leaky canvas bucket. Doing this job in the chill dark morn many slipped on the steep bank leading down to the river and, depending on their clumsiness, fell in up to their ankles, knees, waist or neck.

Furthermore it was a long and laborious job getting the motors started when they had been standing out all night with the thermometer well below freezing. Only one or two trucks in each company were equipped with storage batteries and it was, therefore, necessary to spin the others to get them started. To work the stiffness out of a motor in cold weather so that it can be spun by hand requires an hour of the most strenuous sort of labor.

On particularly cold nights---the average temperature was about 20° Fahrenheit, though it occasionally was as cold as two or three degrees below zero---the low grade gasoline, which often contained water, would freeze in the pipes and have to be thawed out by applications of rags soaked in hot water. On one of these cold mornings one of our brighter and more promising young mechanics tried to thaw out a frozen gas line with a blow torch. The charred remains of his experiment were put before the company as Exhibit A.

On December 10th a detachment of drafted men joined our ranks---the men from the 26th Division had left us soon after the Montdidier trip---and the day they arrived they were paid for the first time in four months. Being recruits from the "Toid Avenue and Toity-toid Street" district they all proceeded to get uproariously drunk in town that evening and raised such a row that for a while it seemed as though town leave would he taken away from all.

How the Reserve spent Christmas I do not know. I was on furlough with Scoles at the time and we had our Christmas dinner at the University Union in Paris where officers and buck-privates forgot for the moment that they were in the Army and as college men gathered together around the tables of the Union without thought of rank to eat and drink and sing college songs. One of the brighter spots in the evening was furnished by the Yale delegation who had for this occasion adapted "Bright College Years" to the tune of the "Marseillaise." It brought down the house.

Our furlough was over December 30th and that evening we were back in the barracks, which by contrast with the luxuries of the Parisian hotels seemed more smelly, noisy and uninhabitable than ever. We were the last men from our outfit to go on furlough under the French system; at this time G. H. Q. started the leave centers for officers and enlisted men and from then on furloughs were prescribed rather than chosen.

The night following our return the old year went out and the new one came in with no blowing of whistles or tooting of tin horns.

The months of January and February were the two most uncomfortable and monotonous of the entire war as far as we were concerned. A company averaged one or two convoys per week, most of which were to uninteresting parks. The rest of our time was spent in camp doing the dull routine work which our officers strained their ingenuity to invent.

The day after a convoy was usually spent in working on the trucks, a job which was made the more unpleasant by reason either of the cold or the mud. Crawling around in the mud under the cars many of the men caught cold and then passed their ailment on to the men sleeping in the same barracks with them.

During November we had moved from our remorques into a large barrack which we had built for our winter quarters. This flimsy structure with its many cracks to leak wind and rain, had no other floor than the ground it was built on and was, therefore, very damp. The three tiny stoves, in spite of the fact that they were kept red-hot most of the day, had little effect on the general temperature.

At night the air in the barrack was vile. Those who slept near the doors and windows nearly froze to death whenever they were left open and consequently saw to it that they were kept closed. A door half open and three or four windows opened just a crack was all the ventilation there was for the hundred and twenty men sleeping in double-deckers set as close to each other as they could be and still leave room to pass between.

Failing other occupations to keep us busy we were made to crack rock to fill the many holes in the road on which our trucks were parked. Doing this work---an occupation given convicts at home---was most discouraging.

To describe camp and camp life without mentioning the army of dogs which attached itself to us would be to neglect my duty. At one time there were seventeen with us at Soissons only three of which had any visible owners. Every breed of dog in the universe was represented in these seventeen mongrels. A more nondescript collection of pups has never been gathered together. They overran the barracks and parade ground and were constantly getting into mischief in the one place and under our feet in the other.

The prize dog of them all was one of fox terrier and dachshund genealogy, who, on account of his general contour, was unanimously dubbed Eddie Belly Walrus. Eddie, though still a puppy when we knew him, had once had a tail. Whoever amputated it had done such a thorough job that there was nothing left but an inch and a half of unwaggable skin, which had almost the consistency of rubber and therefore aroused in everyone an overwhelming desire to give it a pull. Even his canine playmates were attracted by it. After his first week in camp Eddie found that life was happiest for him when he was sitting down.

About the middle of January, after one of our drills during which we had had more than the usual amount of trouble keeping the dogs out of the way, an order was issued that all dogs save those who were definitely claimed by someone were to be disposed of. Who the dog-catcher was we never knew, but he was heartless. One evening Eddie didn't return to the barracks as was his custom and we knew that he had gone the way of the others. We mourned his loss.

Of all days in the week it was easiest to find men to take out a convoy on Saturday no matter what ungodly hour before dawn it was booked to leave. Saturday was inspection day and after the first inspection by Major Robinson we were glad of any excuse to get away from the camp.

The Major, who was subsequently promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, was a really military officer in every sense of the word. He had been schooled at West Point and was well equipped by training and experience in all departments of the game. In addition to that, there are few men who are so richly endowed with the gift of striking fear and respect into the hearts of their subordinates as the Major. To hear him really bawl a man out was an education in itself.

It took us a week to get over the effect of one inspection and ready for the next.

During the night of January 28th came the first of a long series of air raids which were to disturb our sleep during the following nights. Our record week was six nights out of seven.

The barracks in which we lived were situated between an anti-aircraft battery of two 75's, which we dubbed "The Twins," and a huge searchlight. On account of our location---the guns were about two hundred yards away and the searchlight a hundred yards---we always knew when a plane came over.

On this evening the French were evidently expecting a raid, for in addition to the Twins there were two machine-gun crews in the field near our barracks.

A few minutes before ten the far-off throbbing drone, characteristic of the German bombers, broke in on the quiet of a perfectly beautiful moonlight night. A moment later the motor generator of the searchlight started and the long finger of light began to sweep back and forth across the sky. In the direction from which the plane was coming five or six other searchlights were vainly trying to outshine the moon and spot the plane, while tracer shells and shrapnel from all the anti-aircraft batteries in the vicinity streamed skyward.

Suddenly the Twins opened up, firing just as fast as they could, and were soon joined by the two machine-guns blindly pouring their stream of lead up into the sky.

Abruptly the motor of the plane ceased as it coasted silently down to a more effective range to drop its bombs. The Twins, aimed at night by an instrument which detects from the noise of the motor the direction of the plane, ceased firing for lack of something to aim at and a little later the searchlight closed its shutters and waited for the plane to turn on its motor again. During the summer a plane had coasted silently down and nearly wiped out the searchlight crew.

After what seemed an interminable time, during which we stood gaping skyward, straining our ears for the sound of the plane, the roar of the motor suddenly broke forth very close and very low. Simultaneously the Twins and the machine-guns opened fire with renewed ardor and in the direction of the bridge, less than three hundred yards away six bombs crashed down in rapid succession with a livid red flash and an explosion which momentarily drowned out the racket the anti-aircraft batteries were making.

The marauder circled over town and once more made an attempt to hit the bridge, the batteries pouring forth a stream of shells all the while; and then, having dropped its bombs it winged its way back to Germany and we started back to the barracks and sleep. Half an hour later there was another, though less noisy raid.

None of the bombs had scored a hit on the bridge. The only one that took a life, hit the Cantine des Dames just across the river from us, killing the woman in charge and setting fire to the building.

There were many nights when these raids were nothing but false alarms as far as we were concerned. Whenever there was a raid on Paris, Compiegne, Meaux or any other town to the south of us, the planes always passed over Soissons. So between the Twins barking up until midnight or after and the noise of one of the four companies who shared the barracks going out on convoy in the early hours before dawn there were many times when we longed for an undisturbed night of rest.

On February 2d the 101st Field Artillery went through Soissons on its way, to the front. This was one of the first American artillery units to get into action and one of the few American outfits for which we ever hauled. Two days later several of our trucks were sent to haul feed and Q. M. C. supplies for them at Missy-Conde.

For the most part these winter convoys were quite devoid of interest and excitement. About the middle of February, however, we became aware that there was something afoot. Our convoys with trench material were all to parks in the general vicinity of Coucy-le-Chateau in the Aisne-Oise sector to the northwest of Soissons. The towns through which we passed were occupied by Italian troops engaged in the construction of trenches, barbed wire entanglements and abris. It seemed incredible to us that the French were preparing to fall back before the Germans and yet it was evident that they were making extensive preparations for a defense. This was the first indication we had of the approaching German offensive.

One beautiful Sunday afternoon while we were loading in the ammunition park at Bucy our attention was suddenly attracted skyward by the faint popping of anti-aircraft shrapnel breaking high overhead. There, fifteen thousand feet above us, were three French Spads after one German observation plane, all so high that they could hardly be distinguished from one another.

All work in the park stopped momentarily while we watched the progress of the battle.

The German plane being too slow to escape its pursuers dodged back and forth putting up a running battle with each of them successively. &---as we watched he dove headlong for the earth, the three Frenchmen following him down firing at him all the while.

Suddenly there was a burst of smoke from the Boche plane, the wings ripped loose from the fusilage and the machine was torn into a hundred pieces which were fluttering to earth for the next fifteen or twenty minutes. The fusilage, containing the pilot, observer and engine fell the distance in a little more than a minute, landing by the roadside about half a mile from the park.

From all over the country side the spectators of this battle flocked to see the wrecked machine and to gather souvenirs from the debris.

In addition to the day's work there was much of interest and pleasure connected with our winter at Soissons. The "Y" did its best to keep us amused with movies and entertainments of one kind or another. And then, too, there were delightful places to go to eat when we had town leave.

One of the pleasantest of these little restaurants was in a side street just off the main square. The proprietress was a well-born woman who before the war had sung in the cathedral. She had a grand piano in her salon and occasionally, when the crowd was small enough so that her services were not required in the kitchen, she would play and sing for us.

One of the matters of greatest interest and concern in our lives was the question of transfers. When we had changed over from the Field Service to the Army we had been told that if we did not like the motor transport service we could transfer later to another branch of the service. We were innocent enough at that time to believe this was the truth!

By March nearly every member in the outfit was so fed up with trucking that there were applications on file at headquarters which would, if they had gone through, have transferred the entire outfit into other branches.

Night and day little groups could be seen with their heads together comparing notes and computing chances of transfer. Nearly everyone had a cousin or an aunt who knew someone who knew somebody else who might be of influence in bringing about his transfer and was pinning his hopes of escape on the chance that this 'pull' might be worked. It was hopeless.

Three or four of the transfers did go through and, if my informant is correct, those men, whom we considered so lucky, later wished they were back with us again. From the time they left us they did trucking for the artillery, or whatever branch they had transferred to, in the S. O. S.

And thus the winter wore on and with the coining of milder weather the mud thawed out and it started to rain again.

WITH the approach of Spring it became more and more evident that something was stirring up there behind the line of hills to the north. In addition to the preparations for an impending defensive which we had seen while out on convoy there was an occurrence in camp which indicated that some great activity on the part of the Germans was imminent. One day a party of French artillery officers visited camp in company with our Major to inspect the old trenches and dugouts in that vicinity and a few days later we were set to work constructing a large sized abri.

About the middle of March the weather cleared up and at the same time our activity began to increase. A series of fine nights made air raids possible and on the night of March 11th six groups of planes passed over us on their way in and out from Paris. During one of the twelve spasms of spitting their hate up into the sky the Twins scored a hit and brought down one of the marauders. The plane landed upside down in a field on top of Leury hill and either caught fire or was fired by the aviators who had, by some miracle, escaped being killed.

The raids on Paris that night were the most disastrous of the war. One of the bombs scored a direct hit on a Metro 53 (subway) station in which several hundred people had taken refuge. The papers reported that one hundred people were killed and seventy-nine wounded.

During the morning of March 21st an "alert"---an order to be all ready to leave on a moment's notice---was received and the entire groupe sent out to the trucks to make sure that everything was in readiness to be gone on the road for two days.

In the midst of this work the howitzer, which had shelled Soissons from time to time, started in firing more rapidly than ever before. Instead of its usual five minute interval ---the German artillerymen fire on a regularly timed schedule, which is much more convenient for those on the receiving end than random firing---the gun was pumping them over at the rate of one shot a minute.

At first the shelling was concentrated on the roads leading in to town from the front. Then three or four landed in the Place de Laon just across the river, after which several screamed all the way over town bursting in the railroad yards.

Then the gunners shortened their range and the next shell sent up a shower of earth and rocks at the near end of the Pont des Peniches less than fifty yards from the head of our line of trucks. Everyone in the vicinity ducked under a truck while the pebbles came rattling back to earth. Two more came crashing down near the other end of the bridge, another burst in the river and the fourth missed the bridge by fifty yards knocking the side out of a house facing the river. They were hitting so close that every time we heard the gun go off we ducked, for in addition to the showers of rock each one scattered around, the pieces of éclat were clipping twigs and branches off the neighboring trees. 'What happened in the next few seconds I remember only as one remembers a vivid nightmare. I heard the gun and as I started to duck I was knocked flat by a blast that seemed to blister the universe. For a second or two the world went black and as the darkness lifted everyone in the vicinity was slowly picking themselves up---all but one who lay writhing in the dust holding on to his leg and calling out with pain. A shell fragment had passed entirely through Knockenhauer's leg, breaking the femur mid-way between his hip and knee and leaving a nasty bleeding wound.

Before those who were in the immediate vicinity were able to collect their dazed wits enough to assist the wounded man, Lieutenant Browning came running up, whipped off his belt and made a tourniquet to stop the bleeding, sent after his staff car and soon had Knockenhauer on the way to the hospital.

The shell had hit a tree beside the last truck, bursting twenty feet in the air and scattering over the ten or fifteen men in the vicinity. Fortunately the drivers of the last three trucks had returned to the barracks, how it was that those who were in the immediate vicinity escaped with only the one casualty, and that not fatal, will ever remain a mystery.

All day long the firing kept up, but only two more shells seemed to have been aimed at the camp. Both of these came in at supper time. The first lit in a field across the river doing no harm, and the second burst harmlessly in the middle of the river less than thirty yards from two of our lieutenants.

It was evident that the artillery preparation for the attack had begun, for from the northwest came the continuous thunder of the cannonade.

The following day orders were received to evacuate camp and early that morning we moved out by the roadside on the main highway from Soissons to Villers-Cotterets just outside of town, leaving our old camp with nothing in it but our heavy baggage and four or five men to guard it.

The papers reported a herculean attempt by the Boches to gain a decision before America could become a real factor in the war. The fight was on and in the face of it the morale and discipline of our outfit became perfect. Everyone was on their toes and orders were executed quickly and without complaining.

On March 23d convoys were called out from the groupe to transport several batteries of field artillery. At five that afternoon the convoy pulled up by the roadside on the outskirts of Noyon and waited until midnight before orders were finally received concerning where the guns were to be taken.

Four hours later, after a slow journey over the congested roads, we reached Guiscard. On all sides of this town the French artillery was blazing away in their efforts to stop the Germans who had already in two days of fighting penetrated at the juncture of the English and the French Armies to a depth of fifteen miles.

There were positions already prepared for the 75s we were carrying. The guns were hauled out of the trucks and before the convoy had pulled out on its way back to camp they, too, had started in firing.

We left them at four-thirty and two hours and a half later the gunners, having no means of removing their batteries, blew up the guns and retreated before the advancing Huns.

During our absence the men in camp had also seen a bit of excitement. The howitzer had been busy with Soissons all day long and had paid a bit of attention to the camp we had evacuated the previous morning. One of the mess halls had been hit; two or three shells had burst along the road on which our trucks had been parked; and another had hit almost on top of the new abri we had constructed.

Another interesting bit of news was the report in the papers of a new cannon monstrosity with which the Germans were shelling Paris from the Forest of St. Gobain---an incredible distance of seventy-five miles.

Two days later the Reserve made the trip which was later characterized by one of our enthusiastic press agents as a convoy in which "troops were borne to the very rim of battle." We picked up a regiment of French infantry at Maizy with instructions to take them to Noyon. At four that afternoon the convoy toiled up the hill above Vic-sur-Aisne and started out across the plateau toward Noyon. We hadn't gone but a few kilometers before a French officer came tearing down the road from Noyon in his staff car and stopped the convoy where it was, saying that the Boche were already in that town and it was expedient for us to get off the plateau and out of sight in the valley below "very damn queek!"

An order received during the night of March 28th illustrates how much on its toes the Reserve was at this time. At midnight an order came for all available trucks to go out at once. Ten minutes later the convoy rolled out of camp. In that short space of time the trucks to go had been selected, the men called, beds slung---we were sleeping in the backs of the trucks at this time---the cooks had given the men coffee to drink and rations to eat on the road, and the companies had lined up in their proper order.

That afternoon one hundred men from the Reserve were sent down to the Base Depot of the Service Automobiles at Versailles to bring out new trucks. They were gone on this trip three rainy days and nights and arrived back in camp on Easter Sunday fagged out with twenty-eight hours steady driving on the way back.

It was on this same day, March 31st, the announcement appeared in the papers that General Foch was to have the supreme command of all the Allied Armies on the Western Front. The news put confidence of ultimate victory in the hearts of all.

The next morning at roll call the lieutenant after complimenting us on the work we had been doing during the past two weeks read us the following Décision. This corresponds to the General Orders of the American Army. If you have ever read a G. O. you will appreciate the simplicity and appeal of the following and will perhaps understand why it was that the French would not be beaten at the Marne or Verdun.

27 Mars, 1918.                         GRAND QUARTIER GENERAL.

DECISION No. 104. The enemy has hurled himself upon us in a supreme effort.

He is trying to separate us from the English in order to throw open the road to Paris. At all cost he must be stopped.

Keep your ground: hold firm.

Your comrades are coming; united we will hurl ourselves upon the invader.

Soldiers of the Marne, of the Yser, of Verdun, I appeal to you! The fate of France hangs in the balance!

A few days later it was rumored that we were to move from our roadside camp to more permanent billets farther back.

Chapter Eight
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