This was the incident of the "Lost Battalion." Technically, the battalion was not lost. It knew where it was on the map. Practically, it was isolated from the rest of the division--surrounded, besieged. Whether they are described as lost or not, the men of the battalion will not soon forget their experience. When they went into action, they had two days' rations. As most of them had eaten one day's on the morning of the 3rd, they had the other day's to last them--they knew not how long. They did not have to expend much energy, except on patrols and outposts. The thing was to avoid drawing fire and wasting their ammunition. If they rose from their fox-holes, where they were dug in among the roots of trees on the northern slope of the ravine below the road, a spray of machine-gun fire, or the burst of a shell, convinced them that sedentary habits are best when you are fasting. At the bottom of the ravine was a swamp which protected them on that side, while the crest of the ridge above the road protected them on the other. Their pleasantest diversion was watching shells which missed their aim, harmlessly throwing up fountains of mud in the swamp. Some of the shells were supposed to have been fired by the French, who were said to be under the impression that the battalion must have already surrendered. The Germans held the view that it ought to surrender, according to rules. When they sent in a messenger with the suggestion, supported by the gratuitous information that the battalion was hopelessly surrounded, it was received not even politely, let alone sympathetically, by the reserve major in command, who had gone from his law office to a training camp. The major shaved every morning as usual. He never let the empty feeling in his stomach communicate itself to his head; he was as smiling and confident when he went among his men as if their situation were a part of the routine of war. He had disposed them skillfully; they had learned by experience where to dig in to escape fire; and they were amazingly secure, though they were surrounded. It became bad form to be hungry. When they put out panels to inform our aviators of their location, the panels only drew fire, and seem to have failed in their object as lamentably as the dropping of rations from American planes, which probably the Germans ate.