We, of course, got little but rumor. In the trenches you are only vitally concerned with what happens on your immediate right and left. What goes on ten kilometers away you know little about, and generally are so busy that you care less. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," is a proverb that holds good in the line. In this last instance we were more interested because we believed that as a result of this attack the next point to stand a hammering would be where we were holding. Our policy, which held good through the war, was developed and put into action at this time. The orders were, all troops should resist to the last on the ground on which they stood. All movement should be from the rear forward and not to the rear. Whenever an element in the front line got in trouble, the elements immediately in the rear would counter-attack. This extended in depth back until it reached the division reserve, which, as our general put it, "would move up with him in command, and after that, replacements would be necessary." During the time when the Huns were making their Château-Thierry drive, Blalock, afterward sergeant of D Company, distinguished himself by a rather remarkable piece of marksmanship. Noticing a pigeon fluttering over the trench, he drew his automatic pistol and killed it on the wing. The bird turned out to be a carrier pigeon loosed by one of the attacking regiments the Germans were using in their drive toward the Marne, and carried a message giving its position as twelve kilometers deeper in France than our higher command realized. At the same time it identified a division that we had not heard of for three months, and indicated by the fact that it was signed by a captain who was commanding the regiment that the Germans were finding it difficult to replace the losses among their officers. Instances occurred constantly which showed the spirit of both officers and men. A recruit, arriving one night as a replacement, got there just in time for a heavy strafing that the Germans were delivering. A dud--that is a shell that does not go off--went through the side of the dugout and took both of his legs off above the knees. These duds are very hot, and this one cauterized the wounds and the man did not bleed to death at once. The platoon leader, seeing that something had gone wrong on the right, went over to look and found the man propped up against the side of the trench. When he arrived, Kraakmo, the private, looked up at him and said, "Lieutenant, you have lost a hell of a good soldier." Another time, when we were moving forward to reënforce a threatened part of the line, a sergeant called O'Rourke was hit and badly wounded. As he fell I turned around and said: "Well, O'Rourke, they've got you." "They have sir," he answered, "but we have had a damned good time."