Various incidents, amusing or tragical as is the way of war, broke the comparative monotony of these ten days. There was a captive observation balloon just outside the village which evidently must have had a good view of the enemy because they were most anxious to get it down. No aeroplane succeeded in setting fire to it, so the Germans got after it with long range guns. One afternoon the fire got so hot that the chauffeur of the truck to which it was attached started down the road to get out of range with the big sausage still floating in the air at the end of its cable, the Germans increasing their range as their target moved. Sergeant Daly, the mess sergeant of the Machine Gun Company, was peacefully crossing the field on a lazy going mule unaware of what it was all about, when a German shell aimed at the aeroplane down the road passed with the speed and noise of a freight train about twenty feet above his head. The mule gave one leap forward, and Daly was not trying to stop him; and two thousand soldiers who had been watching the flight of the balloon burst into a tremendous laugh. On the night of September 23rd, a large calibre German shell made a direct hit right into a shelter pit in the woods where five of the best men in our machine gun company were lying asleep; Sergeant Frank Gardella, who had won the D. S. C., Sergeant Harry P. Bruhn and Sergeant J. F. Flint, with Privates H. McCallum and William Drake, who was one of three brothers in the company. All five were blown out of the hole by the concussion as high as the lower branches of the trees. Sergeant Flint landed, bruised and stunned, but untouched by the fragments. He gathered himself together and found Gardella killed instantly and the other three terribly wounded. He bound them up, calling for help, which was brought by Lieutenant De Lacour, and the three wounded men were gotten back to the hospital by Major Lawrence and Captain Dudley, but we had little hopes for them, and have since heard that they died of their wounds.