After the maneuvers we received definite orders that we were to go to the front. The equipment was checked and verified, and everything put in apple-pie order. The trucks arrived; we got in and started, all of us feeling that now at last we were to be real warriors. All day long the truck train, stretching out along the road, jolted forward in a cloud of dust. Toward evening we began to pass through the desolated area over which the Hun had swept in 1914, and about five o'clock we detrucked at a little town about fourteen miles behind the lines. Here we stayed a couple of days, while our reconnoitering details went forward and familiarized themselves with the position. On the evening of the second day the troops started forward. As usual, it was raining cats and dogs, and our principal duty during the ten days we spent in the sector was shoveling mud the color and consistency of melted chocolate ice cream from cave-ins which constantly occurred in the trench system. We were all very green and very earnest. The machine-gun company arrived, bringing all its ammunition on the gun carts. The guns were uncased and the carts sent to the rear with ammunition still on them, leaving the guns with hardly a round. Only about five or ten shells were fired daily by the German artillery against the portion of line we occupied. One man was hit, our signal officer, Lieutenant Hardon, his wound being very slight. The adjutant, when this happened, ran to tell me, and we both went down and solemnly congratulated Hardon on having the honor to be the first American officer hit while serving with American troops. A number of ambitious members of the intelligence group sniped busily at the German trenches. These were about a mile away, and though they reported heavy casualties among the enemy, I believe that the wish was father to the thought. [Illustration: THE SIGNAL CORPS AT WORK Drawn by Captain Harry E. Townsend, A. E. F.] The French were on our right, and we had some very funny times with them. One officer of mine was coming in after inspecting the wire and ran into one of their sentries. "Qui est la?" called the sentry. My officer then gave in his best American what he had been told was the French password. This was incomprehensible to the Frenchman, who immediately replied by firing his rifle at him. The officer jumped up and down and gave the password again. BLAM went the Frenchman's rifle the second time. Nothing but the fact that the Frenchman regarded the rifle more as a lead squirt rather than a weapon of accuracy prevented him from being hit. The officer eventually got through by shouting repeatedly at the top of his voice, "Vive les Américains!"