which sent the echoes chasing one another through the dark
recesses of the forests that conceal them.

The targets, of course, were unseen. Range elevation, deflection, all
came to the battery over the signal wires that connected the firing
position with some observation point also unseen but located in a
position commanding the terrain under fire.

A signalman sat cross-legged on the ground back of each battery. He
received the firing directions from the transmitter clamped to his ears
and conveyed them to the firing executive who stood beside him. They
were then megaphoned to the sergeants chief of sections.

The corporal gunner, with eye on the sighting instruments at the side of
each gun, "laid the piece" for range and deflection. Number one man of
the crew opened the block to receive the shell, which was inserted by
number two. Number three adjusted the fuse-setter, and cut the fuses.
Numbers four and five screwed the fuses in the shells and kept the
fuse-setter loaded.

The section chiefs, watch in hand, gave the firing command to the gun
crews, and number one of each piece jerked the firing lanyard at ten
second intervals or whatever interval the command might call for. The
four guns would discharge their projectiles. They whined over the damp
wooded ridge to distant imaginary lines of trenches, theoretical
cross-roads, or designated sections where the enemy was supposed to be
massing for attack. Round after round would follow, while telephoned
corrections perfected the range, and burst. The course of each shell was
closely observed as well as its bursting effect, but no stupendous
records were kept of the individual shots. That was "peace time stuff."

These batteries and regiments were learning gunnery and no scarcity of
shells was permitted to interfere with their education. One officer told
me that it was his opinion that one brigade firing at this schooling
post during a course of six weeks, had expended more ammunition than all
of the field artillery of the United States Army has fired during the
entire period since the Civil War. The Seventy-five shells cost
approximately ten dollars apiece, but neither the French nor American
artillery directors felt that a penny's worth was being wasted. They
said cannon firing could not be learned entirely out of a book.

I had talked with a French instructor, a Yale graduate, who had been two
years with the guns at the front, and I had asked him what in his
opin