Early evening found the train at Dormans, a short distance east of Chateau-Thierry, and from there a branch line was followed to Braisne, a town less than six months before in the hands of the Hun. War zone rules prevailed here and the unloading was done mainly in darkness but accomplished quickly. At the end of a ten kilometer march the Battalion was billeted in the ruined city of Vailly. To D Company fell a hut of similar type to the ones used as barracks in Certilleux. Sleep was curtailed the next morning by orders to move to the security of dugouts and cellars with which the city was filled. During the balance of the day explorations were in order, for the surrounding country offered limitless opportunities to observe the havoc wrought by war. Twice the opposing armies had battled through this portion of the department of Aisne, so that trenches, observation posts and graves of soldiers of both powers were plentiful. Airplanes passed time and again on their missions over the lines. Men of the Company saw their first struggle between aviators, viewed breathlessly the feat of a German birdman who destroyed a French observation balloon and the escape of the observer from the basket of the "blimp" in a parachute. The camouflage screens used so extensively during the war were much in evidence here as the roads were open to enemy observation. All other artifices of war as it had been developed since the introduction of trench fighting were to be seen in abundance. On the night of February 10 C Company of the 102d Machine Gun Battalion entered the line at Froidmont Farm and took positions turned over to them by the French along the slopes of the famous ridge crowned for the distance of about four kilometers by the Chemin des Dames, from which the sector took its name. Packs were rolled on short notice in the afternoon of the 13th and a march of four kilometers to the east took the Company to the ruined village of Chavonne where the wagon train established quarters and above which the Company was billeted in caves called "Les Grenouilles" (the frogs). Here were electric lights and wooden floors and French Army canteens nearby, but luxuries lost their interest when a German aviator and his machine, felled perhaps three months before, were discovered in a shell-pitted field near the cave. Preparations for the coming trip to the front were continued, the guns polished and oiled to the last degree, carts thoroughly overhauled and personal equipment put in proper order. Aerial activity offered the only distraction from duty. One bright day when the entire Company was viewing a combat between Allied and German planes from the hill above its appointed home, General Peter E. Traub (at that time in command of the 51st Infantry Brigade, of which the Company was a part) made an impromptu visit, resulting in a comprehensive and forceful lecture from that officer on the proper deportment of soldiers when enemy planes came into view.