to the shoulder in the instrument's innards and brought forth two
apples, a small tin of blackberry jam and an egg wrapped in an
undershirt.

The man who played the "umpah umpah" in the band was heartbroken. The
clarinet player, who had watched the operation and whose case followed
for inspection, saved the inspector trouble by removing an easily hidden
chain of sausage. I noticed one musician who was observing the ruthless
pillage but, strangely, his countenance was the opposite of the others.
He was actually smiling. I inquired the cause of his mirth.

"When we packed up, those guys with the big hollow instruments all had
the laugh on me," he said. "Now I've got it on them. I play the
piccolo."

All the mounted men under the rank of battery commanders were dismounted
in order to save the horses for any possibilities in the war of
movement. A dismounted artilleryman carrying a pack and also armed with
a rifle, is a most disconsolate subject to view just prior to setting
out for a long tramp. In his opinion, he has been reduced too near the
status of the despised doughboy.

It really doesn't seem like artillery unless one has a horse to ride and
a saddle to strap one's pack on. In the lineup before we started, I saw
two of these gunners standing by weighted down with their cumbersome,
unaccustomed packs. They were backed against a stone wall and were
easing their burdens by resting the packs on the stone ledge. Another
one similarly burdened passed and, in a most serious tone, inquired:

"Say, would either of you fellows like to buy another blanket roll?" The
reply of two dejected gunners would bar this story from publication.

We were on the march early in the morning, but not without some initial
confusion by reason of the inevitable higher orders which always come at
the last minute to change programmes. On parallel roads through that
zone of unmarred beauty which the Normans knew, our columns swung along
the dusty highroads.

There were many who held that America would not be thoroughly awake to
the full meaning of her participation in the war until the day there
came back from the battlefields a long list of casualties--a division
wiped out or decimated. Many had heard the opinions expressed in France
and many firmly believed that nothing short of such a shock would arouse
our nation to the exertion of the power and speed necessary to save the
Allied cause from defeat.

On this march, that thought recurre