he forest and guided only as to general directions, I made my way
through the trees some distance in search of the road back from the
front.

A number of mud and water-filled shell holes intervened to make the
exertion greater and consequently the demand upon lungs for air greater.
After floundering several kilometres through a strange forest with a gas
mask on, one begins to appreciate the temptation that comes to tear off
the stifling nose bag and risk asphyxiation for just one breath of fresh
air.

A babel of voices in the darkness to one side guided me to a log cabin
where I learned from a sentry that the gas scare had just been called
off. Continuing on the road, I collided head on in the darkness with a
walking horse. Its rider swore and so did I, with slightly the advantage
over him as his head was still encased. I told him the gas alarm was off
and he tore away the mask with a sigh of relief. I left him while he was
removing the horse's gas mask.

A light snow was beginning to fall as I said good-night to the battalion
commander in front of his roadside shack. A party of mounted runners was
passing on the way to their quarters. With an admirable lack of dignity
quite becoming a national guard cavalry major in command of regular army
artillery, he said:

"Good-night, men, we licked hell out of them."

The Toul sector, during its occupation by Americans, always maintained a
high daily rating of artillery activity. The opposing forces were
continually planning surprises on one another. At any minute of the
night or day a terrific bombardment of high explosive or gas might break
out on either side. Both sides operated their sound ranging apparatus
to a rather high degree of efficiency.

By these delicate instruments we could locate the exact position of an
unseen enemy battery. Following that location, the battery would
immediately be visited with a concentrated downpour of hot steel
intended to wipe it out of existence. The enemy did as much for us, so
that in the artillery, when the men were not actually manning the guns
in action, they were digging gun pits for reserve positions which they
could occupy if the enemy happened to get the proper range of the old
positions. In this casual counter battery work our artillery adopted a
system by which many lives were saved.

If a German battery began shelling one of our battery positions, the
artillerymen in that position were not called upon to stand by their
g