e channel at 8:30 p. m., on the night of the day that the Walrilda
met its fate.

The troops huddled together in the small hatches of the King
Edward did not have much thought where they were or whither bound.
They did not recall at the time that they were passing the Isle of
Wight and the spot in the English Channel that witnessed the defeat of
the Armada in the same month, back in the year 1588.

Sufficient unto the night was the misery thereof. Sea sickness came
over quite a few, which was duly abetted by the stifling air. Those
near the hatch-ways were fortunate in getting to the deck rails when
their inner recesses were most severely tempest-tossed. Those who were
hemmed in on all sides by human forms, who lay stretched on the
stairs, in hallways, benches and wherever there was an inch of space,
had a difficult time when they attempted to find a passage way through
the closely matted carpet of humanity.

Col. C. G. Mortimer, the regimental commander, came down from his
station on the deck and found it well-nigh impossible to get through
the corridor of the forward saloon.

Through the hours of the long night the King Edward was convoyed
across the channel at a speed nearing 25 knots an hour. Early morning
of Sunday, August 4th, drew the King Edward near the shores of
Northern France. At 2 p. m. the ship approached a harbor, but it was
not until daylight that those on board could see a sign on a warehouse
of a pier, bearing the name Cherbourg.

CHAPTER XIV.

SO THIS IS FRANCE!

"So this is France!"

For the first time the boys of Battery D repeated this phrase in all
its reality as they stood upon elevated ground in the vicinity of the
British Rest Camp at Cherbourg and viewed the vista of harbor, four
miles distant, where, from the gang-plank of the King Edward they set
foot on French soil on Sunday morning, August 4th, at 8 o'clock.

The panorama presented the naval and commercial harbors, from which
Cherbourg, the seaport of Northwestern France, derives its chief
importance. The eye can see the three main basins, cut out of the
rock, with an area of fifty-five acres, which forms the naval harbor
and to which are connected dry-docks; the yards where the largest
ships in the French navy are constructed; magazines and the various
workshops required for an arsenal of the French navy.

A glance about reveals surrounding hills, in which batteries are
located in fortification of the works and the to