We had the peculiar experience of seeing the village which we had entered in good condition crumbling about us under the enemy fire. Even the windows were intact when we reached it; the Germans were just out, and our artillery had been outstripped completely in the forward rush. Under the constant pounding of back area fire, designed to prevent ammunition and supplies coming up to the line unmolested, our little village lost windows, roofs and walls, disintegrating steadily into a heap of ruins. One evening we were assigned the task of evacuating some old French peasants who had clung to their little homes through all the world-shaking catastrophe. At last they had to leave, as the danger to them was too direct and, in addition, they constituted a hidden menace to our troops in case even one of them had been left behind as a spy. I went with a party of Australians and a few of our men to the houses in the outskirts of the town, where the greatest danger existed. I remember the utterly disconsolate attitude of two old men and a little old woman in one of them, when they were told they had to leave. They seemed numb in the midst of all the rush and roar of warfare. Their little possessions were there, they were of the peasant type and had probably never been out of the district in their lives. The advance of the enemy in 1914 had been accompanied by no fighting near their homes, and now the allied victory, the one hope of their country, was the one thing that bore destruction to their little village and tore them away from the spot where they were rooted. One evening I joined a ration party going forward and visited the lines and advanced headquarters at St. Souplet, hearing the peculiar whistle of a sniper's bullet pass me as I made my way back after dusk. One of the boys carrying a heavy bag of hardtack had a sore shoulder, not quite well from a previous wound. So I shouldered his bag for a decidedly weary mile of skulking along a sunken road and hurrying across the occasional open spaces. When we came to his unit I was glad to turn the bag over to him; I felt no pleasure in such lumpy burden, and would far rather have worn out my shoulder with something more appreciated by the boys than hardtack,--the one thing which nobody enjoyed but which was eaten only because they were desperately hungry. On the night of October 16th we all moved over, preparatory to the push across the Selle River. We installed ourselves in the large building at the cross roads, where the aid post was stationed. I joined a group of sleepers on the cellar floor, picking my way in the darkness to find a vacant spot. My trench coat on the plank floor made a really luxurious bed.