Allen likes to tell stories on Donovan, for whom he has great admiration. One afternoon he came in from patrol very hungry after being away since early morning, and he dropped into Captain Buck’s shack near Hassavant Farm, which was also occupied by Colonel Donovan. “Captain Buck’s orderly promised me a roast beef sandwich and left the room to prepare it. I repeat I was very hungry and was anticipating with great pleasure the coming roast beef sandwich. In a few minutes the orderly returned with the food. It was a large sandwich with a luscious rare slice of roast beef protruding from the slices of bread, and with it the orderly brought a cup of coffee which he placed with the sandwich on the table. Precisely at this moment a soldier entered with two prisoners; one a small Roumanian about sixteen years of age, and the other a tall, gaunt, dirty looking soldier, both members of a labor battalion. They had been lost in the retreat and had wandered several days in the woods, until encountering one of our patrols they had surrendered. Donovan grabs the sandwich with one hand and the cup of coffee with the other. The small boy got the sandwich and the old man the cup of coffee. I immediately protested ‘Colonel,’ I said, ‘it is against regulations to feed prisoners before they have been questioned at Division. You should not feed these men.’ ‘Allen,’ he said, ‘you ought to be ashamed of yourself. This poor little boy has been, wandering around in the woods for two days with nothing to eat.’ ‘Besides,’ I said, ‘that was my sandwich.’ ‘And you,’ he continued, ‘a great big healthy man, would take his meal away from him.’” LA MARCHE _September_ 26th On September 17th our regiment was relieved by the Alabamas and the men were encamped altogether in the town of La Marche, which consists of one large _ferme_ with a few extra stone buildings and a number of wooden shacks which were constructed by the Germans. In the big farm house we are a happy party. Colonel Mitchell likes to have his officers around him and they share his feelings to the full. We have plenty of provisions, a good many of them German, and Staff and Field Officers are messing together. At table are Colonel Mitchell, Lieutenant Colonel Donovan, Majors Reilley, Anderson, Kelly and Lawrence, Captain Meaney, Adjutant, Captain Merle-Smith, Operations Officer, Lieutenant Rerat, Lieutenant Spencer and myself. If my fancy leads me to the open air I can walk down the road to Pannes where Captain Mangan with Kinney and Frank Smith are working away with their doughty mule-skinners, unless perchance the German shells chase them underground; or across the open field to the woods where our men are leading a lazy though muddy existence.