rgotten, which will not be resumed until the Germans are on
the run. When it comes it will be a welcome relief to the men who have
been battling, like rats, in trenches not fit for human beings to inhabit.

Well, to get back to what happened to us, the first "contemptible little
army," in France and Flanders.

The 19th of August found us billeted in a town called Boue. We had to
remain here a few days because the roads were blocked with transports
going toward the front. The entire regiment was allowed to go swimming in
a near-by canal and, as my chum and I were dressing, an old Frenchman gave
us each a half-franc piece, saying that it would give us good luck and
bring us through alive. It was the first money he had made as a boy and he
had kept it ever since. The last I heard of my chum was that he had been
discharged from active service because of wounds, and so it would appear
his half-franc piece really did bring him through, just as mine did me.

We left Boue on the twenty-first at three o'clock in the morning, and we
marched until three o'clock the next morning. All the time we could hear
the muffled booming of the German heavy artillery. It sounded just like
the noise they make on the stage when a battle is supposed to be in
progress in the distance. It excited the men and buoyed them up
wonderfully, but twenty-four hours is a long time to march without sleep,
and whenever we halted the men lay down in the mud of the road and lost
consciousness--but not for long. Within a few minutes after every halt,
the officers would come among us and rouse us, saying that we were badly
needed up where the guns were growling. It was hard, tiring work, but it
wasn't half so bad as what we got later, when we were retreating.

We didn't know it, but we were on our way to Mons to hold the left flank.

It was during a short halt in Grande Range that we had our first sight of
a German airplane. We were billeted in the houses and stables of the
village, and every one came running out to look at the plane when the
thrumming of the engine was heard. When it was right over our heads it let
fly a rack full of steel darts and they came clattering down into the
village streets. One stuck into the pavement in front of our quarters. It
was so deeply imbedded that not a man in the company could pull it out. [I
have seen one of these missiles go right through a house from roof to
cellar. They have been known to go through a horse and then bu