d lost their bedding-rolls and extra clothes long since--as
every one did, for it was impossible to keep your belongings with you--and
although authorized dumps were provided and we were told that anything
left behind would be cared for, we would be moved to another sector
without a chance to collect our excess and practically everything would
have disappeared by the time the opportunity came to visit the cache. But
although the horses and accoutrements were in bad shape, the men were fit
for any task, and more than ready to take on whatever situation might
arise.

Our destination was Malancourt, no great distance away, but the roads
were so jammed with traffic that it was long after dark before we reached
the bleak, wind-swept hillside that had been allotted to us. It was
bitterly cold and we groped about among the shattered barbed-wire
entanglements searching for wood to light a fire. There was no difficulty
in finding shell-craters in which to sleep--the ground was so pockmarked
with them that it seemed impossible that it could have been done by human
agency.

This country had been an "active" area during practically all the war, and
the towns had been battered and beaten down first by the Boche and then by
the French, and lately we ourselves had taken a hand in the further
demolition of the ruins. Many a village was recognizable from the
encompassing waste only by the sign-board stuck in a mound announcing its
name. The next day's march took us through Esne, Montzeville, and
Bethainville, and on down to the Verdun-Paris highway. We passed by
historic "Dead Man's Hill," and not far from there we saw the mute
reminders of an attack that brought the whole scene vividly back. There
were nine or ten tanks, of types varying from the little Renault to the
powerful battleship sort. All had been halted by direct hits, some while
still far from their objective, others after they had reached the wire
entanglements, and there was one that was already astride of the
first-line trench. The continual sight of ruined towns and desolated
countryside becomes very oppressive, and it was a relief when we began to
pass through villages in which many of the houses were still left
standing; it seemed like coming into a new world.

At ten in the evening I got the battery into Balaicourt. A strong wind was
blowing and the cold was intense, so I set off to try to find billets for
the men where they could be at least partly sheltered. The t