ning of June the tenth. We were a very tired and
hungry bunch for our rations had run low that morning and we had eaten
nothing but hard tack all day.

We detrained there and marched through the town to an old military
prison of Napoleon's time. We were told that we would spend the night
there. There were several large buildings surrounded by a high stone
wall with only one gate and that was guarded by a French soldier. There
were about one hundred German prisoners in the building next to our
quarters. As we were not permitted to go up town the French people
thought that we were prisoners also. We were given our barrack bags that
night for the first time since we left the states. We were without any
funds so some of the boys who were fortunate enough to have some "Bull
Durham" stored away in their barrack bags disposed of it to the French
soldiers for a franc a package. It was an exchange where both parties
were satisfied.

We learned that the division was billeted a few miles south and the next
morning we received orders to move to Eloyes at two P. M. Trucks were
furnished to haul our barrack bags and packs and we started out hiking
with our company in the lead of the train. We were half way there when
we saw our first aeroplanes in action along the front. There were five
of them in battle formation returning from the direction of the front.
We noticed that houses and lumber piles along the road were camouflaged.
This began to look like the war that we had heard about. We passed
through Arches, division headquarters at that time, about mess. We
thought that we were at the end of our long journey and could almost
taste our supper but we did not stop there. Just as we came in sight of
Eloyes it began to rain. It did not rain long and the sun came out just
as we were climbing the hill to our kitchen. There was a very pretty
rainbow with the end of it, so it seemed, right at our kitchen. That
was one time that there was something better than a pot of gold at the
end of the rainbow, for the cooks had supper almost ready for us. It
certainly tasted good to us after our long hike.

It began raining almost immediately after supper and rained most of the
night. We stood around in the rain until almost eleven P. M., while the
Major de Cantonment was explaining that he had no billets for us. We
were tired enough to pitch our pup tents and sleep in the streets but
finally we marched about a mile out of town and were put in a bar