erval of silence to a
position on the road not ten feet from a darkened, camouflaged howitzer
just as it would shatter the air with a deafening crash. The suddenness
and unexpectedness of the detonation would make the marchers start and
jump involuntarily. Upon such occasions, the gun crews would laugh
heartily and indulge in good natured raillery with the infantrymen.

"Whoa, Johnny Doughboy, don't you get frightened. We were just shipping
a load of sauerkraut to the Kaiser," said one ear-hardened gunner.
"Haven't you heard the orders against running your horses? Come down to
a gallop and take it easy."

"Gwan, you leatherneck," returns an infantryman, "You smell like a
livery stable. Better trade that pitchfork for a bayonet and come on up
where there's some fighting."

"Don't worry about the fighting, little doughboy," came another voice
from the dark gun pit. "This is a tray forte sector. If you don't get
killed the first eight days, the orders is to shoot you for loafing.
You're marching over what's called 'the road you don't come back on.'"

A train of ammunition trucks, timed to arrive at the moment when the
road was unoccupied, put in appearance as the end of the infantry column
passed, and the captain in charge urged the men on to speedy unloading
and fumed over delays by reason of darkness. The men received big shells
in their arms and carried them to the roadside dumps where they were
piled in readiness for the guns. The road was in an exposed position and
this active battery was liable to draw enemy fire at any time, so the
ammunition train captain was anxious to get his charges away in a hurry.

His fears were not without foundation, because in the midst of the
unloading, one German missile arrived in a nearby field and sprayed the
roadway with steel just as every one flattened out on the ground. Five
ammunition hustlers arose with minor cuts and one driver was swearing at
the shell fragment which had gone through the radiator of his truck and
liberated the water contents. The unloading was completed with all
speed, and the ammunition train moved off, towing a disabled truck. With
some of the gunners who had helped in unloading, I crawled into the
chalk dugout to share sleeping quarters in the straw.

"What paper do you represent?" one man asked me as he sat in the straw,
unwrapping his puttees. I told him.

"Do you want to know the most popular publication around this place?" he
asked, and I replied