been taken and that Washington
was threatened and its fall imminent.

Our men behaved exceedingly well. Of course there were individual cases of
drunkenness, but very few considering that we were in a country where the
wine was cheap and schnapps plentiful. There were the inevitable
A.W.O.L.'s and a number of minor offenses, but I found that by making the
prisoner's life very unattractive--seeing to it that they performed
distasteful "fatigues," giving them heavy packs to carry when we marched,
and allowing them nothing that could be construed as a delicacy--I soon
reformed the few men that were chronically shiftless or untidy or late.
When not in cantonments the trouble with putting men under arrest is that
too often it only means that they lead an easier life than their comrades,
and it takes some ingenuity to correct this situation. Whenever it was in
any way possible an offender was dealt with in the battery and I never let
it go further, for I found it made for much better spirit in a unit.

The men were a fine lot, and such thoroughgoing Americans, no matter from
what country their parents had come. One of my buglers had landed in the
United States only in 1913; he had been born and brought up on the
confines of Germany and Austria, and yet when a large German of whom he
was asking the way said, "You speak the language well--your parents must
be German," the unhesitating reply was: "Well, my mother was of German
descent!" The battery call read like a League of Nations, but no one could
have found any cause of complaint in lack of loyalty to the United
States.

The twelfth day after we had crossed over the river from Luxemburg found
us marching into Coblenz. We were quartered in large brick barracks in the
outskirts of the city. The departing Germans had left them in very bad
shape, and Hercules would have felt that cleaning the Augean stables was a
light task in comparison. However, we set to work without delay and soon
had both men and horses well housed. Life in the town was following its
normal course; the stores were well stocked and seemed to be doing a
thriving trade. We went into a cafe where a good orchestra was playing and
had some very mediocre war beer, and then I set off in search of the
Turkish bath of which I was much in need. The one I found was in charge of
an ex-submarine sailor, and when I was shut in the steam-room I wondered
if he were going to try any "frightfulness," for I was the only perso