CHAPTER X NORTH OF VERDUN Stopping for a day in Ancemont west of the Meuse River for improvised baths and haircuts by the Company barbers refreshed the men, although clean clothes were not to be had. The night of October 9 the Battalion took up quarters in the Caserne de Bevaux, a large cavalry barracks just a kilometer east of the famous fortress of Verdun. Paris had its charms for the American soldier, but he looked with more favor upon the arts of war, worshipped more at that time before the shrines of military greatness than the creations of great architects and sculptors, so the world-famed ruins of Verdun were attacked with a full-hearted avidity which carried the men to its most remote passages. From the parapets of its outer defenses to the recesses of its great tunnels they walked and marvelled that a city could withstand artillery bombardment of such intensity for so long without being crumbled to a heap of dust. Verdun was the point of a terrific attack which lasted for months, in the defense of which tens of thousands of French soldiers had made their last stand and before which Huns in far greater numbers had given their lives blindly for a hopeless cause. For six days the Company stayed in the barracks, repairing equipment and getting into shape for the coming period of activity, the severity of which was foretold by units which had been relieved. Austrian prisoners sent back from the line spoke only of peace, giving as their belief that the war was fast coming to a close, but the many varieties of rumors were put aside on the night of the 15th, when the Company moved north through the outer defenses of Verdun, through Belleville and Bras to the Ravin d'Andremont, not far from Samogneaux, a little village about twelve kilometers north of Verdun east of the Meuse River. All signs of shelter had been demolished here and the men slept in the open while the inevitable rain of a hiking day soaked their clothes and blankets. The following morning brought visions of what shell fire had done to much of the artillery and wagon trains which had started for the line. Although the latest advances had made it practically safe for troops and it was now used for a camping place for all branches of line troops, at one time not far passed Hun artillery had accounted for large numbers of American horses and mules, whose dead bodies were lying all around the area.