One New England boy passed through the enemy barrage seven times to carry ammunition to his comrades. A courier who was twice blown off the road by shell explosions carried his message through and dropped as he reported. A lieutenant with only six men patrolled six hundred yards of the front throughout the day, holding communications open between the battalions to the right and left of him. A sanitary-squad runner captured by the Germans, escaped them and made his way into Seicheprey, tending the wounded there till help came. A machine-gunner found himself alone with his gun, and on being asked by a superior officer if he could hold the line there, replied that he could if he were not killed. He did. A regimental chaplain went to the assistance of a battery which was hard pressed, and carried ammunition for them for hours, then took his turn at the gun. These make no roster of the heroes of Seicheprey. There were hundreds of them. But the censor's passionate aversion to details of all battles has scotched the narrative of heroes for the present. Cantigny will warm the cockles of the American heart as long as it beats. There was a battle that for spirit, flare, brilliancy, came up to the rosiest dream that ever was dreamed, in Washington, or London, or Paris. Cantigny, like Seicheprey, was not an engagement of great numbers. It was a little town that was hard to capture. It commanded a fine view of the American lines for miles back, and it had been able to withstand some violent attempts earlier, so it was particularly desirable. And it was in a salient, so that it formed an angle in the line. Its taking straightened the line, heartily disgruntled the Boches, who lost 200 prisoners and many hundred wounded and dead in defending it, and it gave the American troops their first taste of the offensive. But more than all that, it gave these same troops a record of absolutely flawless workmanship which, if not large, was at least complete. The capture of Cantigny and 200 yards beyond it, which included the German second line, took just three-quarters of an hour. In the niggardly terms of the communique: "This morning in Picardy our troops attacked on a front of one and a fourth miles, advanced our lines, and captured the village of Cantigny. We took 200 prisoners and inflicted on the enemy severe losses in killed and wounded. Our casualties were relatively small. Hostile counter-attacks broke down under our fire." It was on the morning of May 28. At a quarter to six a bombardment began. At a quarter to seven the troops went over the top. The barrage went first, a dense gray veil. Then came twelve French tanks. Just behind the tanks stalked the doughboys.