It got through; but sometimes it was midnight or after before it got through; and meanwhile the line companies had their own sufferings and sacrifices. They hiked with full packs on ill-made and snow-covered roads over hilly country. At the end of the march they found themselves in villages (four or five of them to the regiment), billetted in barns, usually without fire, fuel or food. They huddled together for the body warmth, and sought refuge from cold and hunger in sleep. When the wagons came in, their food supplies were fresh meat and fresh vegetables, all frozen through and needing so much time to cook that many of the men refused to rise in the night to eat it. Breakfast was the one real meal; at midday the mess call blew, but there was nothing to eat. When they got up in the morning their shoes were frozen stiff and they had to burn paper and straw in them before they could get them on. Men hiked with frozen feet, with shoes so broken that their feet were in the snow; many could be seen in wooden sabots or with their feet wrapped in burlap. Hands got so cold and frost-bitten that the rifles almost dropped from their fingers. Soldiers fell in the snow and arose and staggered on and dropped again. The strong helped the weak by encouragement, by sharp biting words when sympathy would only increase weakness, and by the practical help of sharing their burdens. They got through on spirit. The tasks were impossible for mere flesh and blood, but what flesh and blood cannot do, spirit can make them do. It was like a battle. We had losses as in a battle—men who were carried to hospitals because they had kept going long after their normal powers were expended. It was a terrible experience. But one thing we all feel now—we have not the slightest doubt that men who have shown the endurance that these men have shown will give a good account of themselves in any kind of battle they are put into. LONGEAU _January_ 10th, 1918 The Regiment is in five villages south of the old Fortress town of Langres in the Haute Marne; Headquarters and Supply in Longeau, 1st Battalion in Percey, 2nd in Cohons, the 3rd in Baissey and the Machine Gun Company in Brennes. They are pleasant prosperous little places (inhabited by _cultivateurs_ with a sprinkling of _bourgeois_) the red roofs clustering picturesquely along the lower slopes of the rolling country. None of them is more than an hour’s walk from our center at Longeau. The men are mostly in the usual hayloft billets, though some companies have Adrian barracks where they sleep on board floors. Apart from sore feet from that abominable hike, and the suffering from cold due to the difficulty of procuring fuel, we are fairly comfortable.