Colonel Hjalmar Erickson was commander of the Twenty-sixth Infantry during this action. He was a fine troop leader and a powerful man physically. During a battle the higher command naturally want to know what is going on at the front. It is very difficult for the officer at the front to furnish these details; often he is busy, sometimes he knows nothing to tell. Once, during the first Argonne battle, the higher command called upon Erickson. Nothing was happening, but Erickson was equal to the occasion. "Yes, yes, everything is fine. What has happened? Our heavies have just started firing and it sounds good," was Erickson's reassuring message. Meanwhile I had been given a Class B rating and detailed as an instructor at the school of the line at Langres. After I had been there a short while I saw an officer from the First Division and told him I was awfully anxious to get back and felt quite up to field work again. A few days after that General Parker called up some of the commanding officers in the college on the telephone. I had one obstacle to overcome. I still had to walk with a cane, and, although this did not really make any difference to me from a physical standpoint, it was a question if I could get the medical department to pass me as Class A. We decided that the best way to do was to take the bull by the horns and go anyhow. I said good-by to the college one night and went with Major Gowenlock, of the division staff, directly back to the division. I was technically A. W. O. L. for a couple of weeks, but they don't court-martial you for A. W. O. L. if you go in the right direction, and my orders came through all right. On reporting to General Frank Parker, who was commanding the division, he assigned me to the command of my own regiment. When my orders finally came to the school directing me to report to C. G., of the First Division, for assignment to duty, I was commanding the regiment in battle. At about this time three cavalry troopers reported to the Twenty-sixth Infantry. They said they came from towns where they had been on military police duty. They stated that they had heard from a man in a hospital that the First Division was having a lot of fighting and so they had gone A. W. O. L. to join it. They were attached to one of the companies, and a letter was sent through regular channels saying that they were excellent men and we wanted their transfer to a combatant branch of the service. We phrased it this way in order to tease one of our higher command who belonged to the cavalry. A long while later, as I recall, an answer came back directing me to send the men back to their outfit, but they were all either killed or wounded at that time.