beat the men up out of the strawstacks and puddles. In
half an hour they were on the road.

This was the Battalion's first march over really bad roads, where
walking was a question of pulling and balancing. They were soon
warm, at any rate; it kept them sweating. The weight of their
equipment was continually thrown in the wrong place. Their wet
clothing dragged them back, their packs got twisted and cut into
their shoulders. Claude and Hicks began wondering to each other
what it must have been like in the real mud, up about Ypres and
Passchendaele, two years ago. Hicks had been training at Arras
last week, where a lot of Tommies were "resting" in the same way,
and he had tales to tell.

The Battalion got to Joachim farm at nine o'clock. Colonel Harvey
had not yet come up, but old Julius Caesar was there with his
engineers, and he had a hot breakfast ready for them. At six
o'clock in the evening they took the road again, marching until
daybreak, with short rests. During the night they captured two
Hun patrols, a bunch of thirty men. At the halt for breakfast,
the prisoners wanted to make themselves useful, but the cook said
they were so filthy the smell of them would make a stew go bad.
They were herded off by themselves, a good distance from the grub
line.

It was Gerhardt, of course, who had to go over and question them.
Claude felt sorry for the prisoners; they were so willing to tell
all they knew, and so anxious to make themselves agreeable; began
talking about their relatives in America, and said brightly that
they themselves were going over at once, after the war--seemed to
have no doubt that everybody would be glad to see them!

They begged Gerhardt to be allowed to do something. Couldn't they
carry the officers' equipment on the march? No, they were too
buggy; they might relieve the sanitary squad. Oh, that they would
gladly do, Herr Offizier!

The plan was to get to Rupprecht trench and take it before
nightfall. It was easy taking--empty of everything but vermin and
human discards; a dozen crippled and sick, left for the enemy to
dispose of, and several half-witted youths who ought to have been
locked up in some institution. Fritz had known what it meant when
his patrols did not come back. He had evacuated, leaving behind
his hopelessly diseased, and as much filth as possible. The
dugouts were fairly dry, but so crawling with vermin that the
Americans preferred to sleep in the mud, in the open.

Afte