ur supplies to the hut we went out to where a gang
of soldiers who were off duty had gathered in the forest. One was
playing a harmonica and another was "jigging" and telling funny
stories. Instantly and gladly they swung the gathering into a
religious service, with songs from the "Y" hymn book and a fine snappy
address as a speaker stood on a hummock surrounded by the silent,
thoughtful bunch. The sky was our canopy and with the moonlight
filtering through the branches of the pines, an indelible impression
was registered on every fellow there.

The boys were happy to have us come and showed us about their camp,
including an ingenious little chapel which had been built by the
Germans during their occupancy of this territory in the early part of
the War.

* * * * *

My first near view of the Boche trenches came one day when, waiting
for our movie man at one of the huts, I went out "masked and helmeted"
to a hill between our first and second lines. The peculiar "chills"
and "thrills" of first sensations are indescribable. Cautiously and
with some inward trembling I followed Private Van Voliet, of the 146th
Infantry (Colonel Weybrecht's Regiment), across a shell-torn field
where twisted wire entanglements told of former fierce encounters. We
passed a Stokes mortar battery of the 147th Infantry concealed in low
bushes. The boys, lying idly in their dog-tents, wove canes from
willow branches wound with wire and capped with bullets. I was
presented with a cane by Private Boothby and a swagger stick by
Private Rhoades.

A five minute walk brought us to the "alert zone," where gas masks
must be adjusted and ready for instant use. The guard at the crossroad
allowed us to pass with the warning, "Keep under cover or you will
draw the fire of the Boche snipers." So we crawled through a hole in
the camouflaged screen which protected the road from German observers,
and keeping behind clumps of bushes we peered through at the trenches
just across the valley, in which Hun rifles lay cocked and primed for
any American who would dare become a target. I confess I breathed
easier when we got safely back to the "Y" hut.

NIGHT BOMBING

For four nights in succession Boche planes had been trying to drop
bombs on the rail-head where troop trains were being loaded near our
Headquarters. On the fourth night, when returning from a front line
hut with Secretary Johnson, who in America was a professor in Vas