Jim Cassidy, Frankie Maguire and Jimmy Kelly found some German flour which they brought into the Headquarters Kitchen. They are a guileless looking trio and I cannot say to this day how deep a part they played in this affair. They gave the flour to Joe De Nair. Now Joseph Patrick De Nair has knocked around this world for more years than he will acknowledge to anybody—long enough at any rate, to have learned how to turn his hand to anything; and he announced his intention of making pancakes for all hands, especially me. Everybody was set to work under Joe’s direction. Fred Miller and Anderson salvaged some molasses. Al Ettinger was hustled off on his motorcycle to Pannes to use my name with Lieutenant Scheffler for some oleo, of which we were short. Pat Sharkey rustled wood; Frank Clason built a fire and John Brickley flattened and polished a tin for Joe’s cooking. Bill Hanley and Humphrey were appointed assistant chefs. There was a group around me consisting of Proctor, Holt, Katz and Proudfoot, and Joe came over: “All you ginks have got to work. There are no guests around here except Father Duffy.” I told him they had been reading an article in the “Daily Mail” on the Irish question and were asking me about it. That saved them, for Ireland counted more with Joe than even the success of his pancakes. The bustling preliminaries were finally completed and Joe proceeded to make his batter. He poured it on the tin and waited, turning-spoon in hand until, like St. Lawrence, it should be done on one side. Then with the air of an artist, he turned his first pancake with a flourish. It landed on the pan with a bang like a shell striking an elephant hut. “What the——,” muttered Joe, as he picked up the results of his labor. “Well I’ll be——!” “What’s the matter Joe?” I asked, conscious that something was going wrong and that my presence deprived him of the normal outlet for his feelings. “What’s the matter. Where’s those dummed kids?” “Well, what is the matter?” “What’s the matter. What’s the matter? The stuff they gave me for flour is plaster of Paris. That’s what’s the matter. Where the—— Oh for Heaven’s sake, Father, go inside until I can let myself spill.” BOIS DE MONTFAUCON _October_ 10th. On September 27th, we relieved the 84th Brigade in the line, taking over the positions of the Iowas in subsector Marimbois, Major Anderson’s battalion being in the forward position. It was the usual business of patrolling until September 30th, when our Division was relieved in the Sector by the 89th, and withdrew to the Bois de la Belle Ozière, a little south of where we were before. Next morning, October 1st, we marched about 10 kilometers to our embussing point, where we found a tremendously large fleet of camions driven by the little Chinks whom our fellows now call the undertakers, because they associate them with deaths and burials.