imed
the rest at three-quarters of the hour, we mounted and resumed the
march.

The equipment rode easy on man and beast. Packs had been shifted to
positions of maximum comfort. The horses were still fresh enough to need
tight rein. The men had made final adjustments to the chin straps on
their new steel helmets and these sat well on heads that never before
had been topped with armoured covering. In addition to all other
equipment, each man carried two gas masks. Our top sergeant had an
explanation for me as to this double gas mask equipment.

"I'll tell you about it," he said, as he ruthlessly accepted the
next-to-the-last twenty-five centime Egyptian cigarette from my
proffered case. I winced as he deliberately tore the paper from that
precious fine smoke and inserted the filler in his mouth for a chew.

"You see, England and France and us is all Allies," he said. "Both of
them loves us and we love both of them. We don't know nothing about gas
masks and they knows all there is to know about them. The French say
their gas mask is the best. The British say their gas mask is the best.

"Well, you see, they both offer us gas masks. Now Uncle Sam don't want
to hurt nobody's feelings, so he says, 'Gentlemen, we won't fight about
this here matter. We'll just use both gas masks, and give each of them a
try-out.'

"So here we are carrying two of these human nose-bags. The first time we
get into a mess of this here gas, somebody will send the order around to
change masks in the middle of it--just to find out which is the best
one."

The sergeant, with seeming malice, spat some of that fine cigarette on a
roadside kilometer stone and closed the international prospects of the
subject.

Our battery jangled through a tunnelled ridge and emerged on the other
side just as a storm of rain and hail burst with mountain fury. The
hailstones rattled on our metal helmets and the men laughed at the sound
as they donned slickers. The brakes grated on the caisson wheels as we
took the steep down-grade. The road hugged the valley wall which was a
rugged, granite cliff.

I rode on ahead through the stinging hailstones and watched our battery
as it passed through the historic rock-hewn gateway that is the entrance
to the mediaeval town of Besancon. The portal is located at a sharp turn
of the river. The gateway is carved through a mountain spur. Ancient
doors of iron-studded oak still guard the entrance, but they have long
since stood