Daylight remained abroad for the first two hours of the journey; while the cars jolted over the rails the boys sang and kept alive the spirit. Then came darkness. No lights in the car. Forty men stretched out in a small box-car. Incidently it might be added that a French box-car is about one-half the size of similar type of car used on the railroads in the United States. It wasn't fair to kick your buddy in the face or get on his ear. The night, however, gradually wore on and the towns of Valognes, Isigny and Manche St. Lo, were passed. Thence out of the Manche department, through the railroad center at Vire, in Calvados, the special, with its side-door Pullmans, rolled on, enroute through Flers, Coutenne and Pre during the early hours of the morning of August 6th. Daylight dawned as Alencon was reached and at 11:30 a. m., Le Mans loomed in sight. A half-hour's ride from Le Mans and an half-hour lay-over was ordered. The troops were allowed to alight for the time. A supply of iron rations was also furnished each car from the supply car of the special. The next stop was made at Tours from 6 to 8 p. m. A short lay-over was also made at Poitiers at 11 p. m. The troop special was then nearing its destination. But few on board were aware that at the end of the next thirty-four kilometers was Montmorillon, in the department of Vienne, which was to be the stopping off place of Battery D for a stay of several weeks. The troop special of thirty-five coaches and box cars, pulled into the station at Montmorillon at 1 a. m.; all was quiet about the station. A majority of the soldiers were too tired to care about location. They slumbered on as best they could in their box-car berths, while the special was pulled in on a siding, to remain until daylight when the order to detrain was to be issued. [Illustration: MONTMORILLON STATION Where Battery D Detrained in France After Leaving British Rest Camp at Cherbourg.] [Illustration: MONTMORILLON STREET SCENE Building Marked X was Billet for Half of the Battery During the First Month Spent on French Soil.] CHAPTER XV. WHITE TROOPS INVADE MONTMORILLON. Dotted with quaint architecture of 12th and 13th century Romanesque and Gothic design, the hills of Vienne department, France, cradle the crystal-clear and drowsy-moving waters of the Gartempe, a river, which in its course winds through the town of Montmorillon, where four thousand French peasantry, on August 7th, received their first lesson in American cosmopolitism. Montmorillon, where the boys of Battery D were billeted for the first time in the midst of the French people; where they received their first impressions on French life and mannerisms, lives in memory of the boys as the prettiest, cleanest and most-comfortable place of any the outfit visited during its sojourn in France.