I cannot tell just what hard fates this New Year may have in store for us, but I am sure that no matter how trying they may be they will not make us forget the closing days of 1917. We left our villages in the Vosges the morning after Christmas Day. From the outset it was evident that we were going to be up against a hard task. It snowed on Christmas, and the roads we were to take were mean country roads over the foothills of the Vosges Mountains. New mules were sent to us on Christmas Eve. They were not shod for winter weather, and many of them were absolutely unbroken to harness, the harness provided moreover being French and ill-fitting. To get it on the mules big Jim Hillery had to throw them first on the stable floor. It was everybody’s hike, and everybody’s purgatory; but to my mind it was in a special way the epic of the supply company and the detachments left to help them. Nobody ever makes any comment when supplies are on hand on time. In modern city life we get into the way of taking this for granted, as if food were heaven-sent like manna, and we give little thought to the planning and labor it has taken to provide us. On a hike the Infantry will get through—there is never any doubt of that. They may be foot-sore, hungry, broken-backed, frozen, half dead, but they will get through. The problem is to get the mules through; and it is an impossible one very often without human intelligence and human labor. On this hike the marching men carried no reserve rations, an inexcusable oversight. No village could feed them even if there was money to pay for the food; and the men could not eat till the Company wagons arrived with the rations and field ranges. The situation for Captain Mangan’s braves looked desperate from the start. A mile out of town the wagons were all across the road, as the lead teams were not trained to answer the reins. The battle was on. Captain Mangan with Lieutenant Kinney, a Past Grand Master when it comes to wagon trains, organized their forces. They had experienced helpers—Sergeant Ferdinando, a former circus man, Sergeant Bob Goss and Regimental Supply Sergeant Joe Flannery, who will be looking for new wars to go to when he is four score and ten. It would be impossible to relate in detail the struggles of the next four days; but that train got through from day to day only by the fighting spirit of soldiers who seldom have to fire a rifle. Again and again they came to hills where every wagon was stalled. The best teams had to be unhitched and attached to each wagon separately until the hill was won. Over and over the toil-worn men would have to cover the same ground till the work was done, and in tough places they had to spend their failing strength tugging on a rope or pushing a wheel. Wagoners sat on their boxes with hands and feet freezing and never uttered a complaint. The wagons were full of food but no man asked for a mite of it—they were willing to wait till the companies ahead would get their share.