Leaving the account of each Corps' and division's part in its sector to future chapters, I shall conclude this chapter with the results of the fighting of our army as a whole for the succeeding days to October 1st, when we were to realize that Saint-Mihiel was the quick victory of a field maneuver compared to the realism of war at its worst in the Meuse-Argonne. When night fell on the 27th, our transport direction appreciated still more pregnantly the limitations of our roads for our deep concentrations. Each road, where it passed over the old chasms of the trenches,--where the rats now had the dugouts to themselves, and the silence of a deserted village prevailed except for the rumble of the struggling trucks over the new causeways--was pumping the blood from the veins of the by-roads to the rear, through its over-worked valves, into the spreading arterial system of the by-roads in the field of advance. Once on the other side, the drivers felt the relief of a man extricated from the pressure of a crowd at a gate, who finds himself in the open. Lights being forbidden, night was less of a blessing and more of a handicap to the transport than to the infantry. The argument that it secured the roads from observation, which might mean artillery concentrations, had little appeal to the average army chauffeur. He was not worried about shell-fire. If he had not been under it before, he was curious to know what it was like. Darkness only made road repairs more onerous and slow. The engineers could not see to gather material or where to place it to do the most good. Unexpected difficulties appeared in the midst of the shadows of men and vehicles. The most calculating of staff heads, who wished to neglect no detail in his instructions, had not suggested that anyone connected with artillery, signals, or transport should sleep until he had overtaken the infantry, except as drivers might take cat-naps between the fitful pulsations of traffic. Men at the rear who were mere passengers waiting on others to clear the way felt a certain disloyalty if they slept in the face of the hurry call from the front. The partisanship of the spectators "pulling" for the home team is a faint comparison with the partisanship of war, with comrades asking for more than your cheers. The cry of "Come on! Take hold here!" in the darkness would instantly awaken any man, nodding in his seat on a caisson or truck, into welcome action. Now he had a chance really to help, instead of exercising telepathic pressure on the Germans. He ceased to feel that he was a slacker. Shoulders to the wheel with the last ounce of your strength! Timbers taken out of dugouts, stones dug out of the earth with bare hands to be filled into sloughs! Break a way, make a way,--but "get there!"