"And all the chinks to be filled up with nuts and figs, and sweets. _Voila_, Pierre," and with these words, he had poured the sweetmeats in overflowing measure into the biggest hip boot in the regiment. Amid the cheers of the men, led by big Moriarity, Pierre started toward his seat, struggling with the seven league boot and the wholesale booty, and satisfied with the realisation that in one haul he had obtained more than his companions in five. Company B quartet sang "Down in a Coal Hole," and then, as the band struck up outside the church, all moved to the street. The sun had gone down, the early winter night had set in, and the sky was almost dark. "Signal for the barrage," came the command in the darkness. There were four simultaneous hisses of fire and four comets of flame sprang up from the ground. They broke far overhead in lurid green. "Signal for enemy planes overhead," was the next command, and four more rockets mounted and ended their flights in balls of luminous red. Other commands, other signals, other rockets, other lights and flares and pistol star shells, enriched a pyrotechnical display which was economically combined with signal practice. The red glare illuminated the upturned happy faces of American and French together. Our men learned to love the French people. The French people learned to love us. CHAPTER XV CHATEAU-THIERRY AND THE BOIS DE BELLEAU I have endeavoured to show in preceding chapters the development of the young American army in France from a mere handful of new troops up to the creation of units capable of independent action on the front. Only that intense and thorough training made it possible for our oversea forces to play the veteran part they did play in the great Second Battle of the Marne. The battle developed as a third phase of the enemy's Western Front offensives of the year. The increasing strength of the American forces overseas forced Germany to put forth her utmost efforts in the forlorn hope of gaining a decision in the field before the Allied lines could have the advantage of America's weight. On March 21st, the Germans had launched their first powerful offensive on a front of fifty miles from Arras to Noyon in Picardy and had advanced their lines from St. Quentin to the outskirts of Amiens. On April 9th, the German hordes struck again in Flanders on a front of twenty miles from Lens northward to the River Lys and had cut into the Allied front as far as Armentieres. There followed what was considered an abnormal delay in the third act of the demonstration. It was known that the Germans were engaged in making elaborate arrangements for this mid-summer push. It was the enemy hope in this great offensive to strike a final effective blow against the hard-pressed Allied line before America's rising power could be thrown into the fight.