Sunday, November 24th, reveille sounded at 6 o'clock. Orders were given to make rolls preparatory to moving. When the soldiers were ready to move the order was changed. It was discovered that the motor trucks would not arrive until the following day. The motor transportation squad was expected to arrive early on Monday morning. It was 9 o'clock at night when they arrived. Departure was delayed until next morning, but this did not keep back an order that called the battery out in detail during a heavy rain at 9:30 Monday night to pull the guns and caissons through the mud, from the field where they had been parked to the road, so that they could be attached to the motor trucks. There was a great tendency to "duck detail" that night. Ville sous La Ferte was finally left in the distance, Tuesday, November 26th, at 10 o'clock. The soldiers and their packs had to pile in the few motor trucks that were furnished. A few of the boys rode the materiel attached to the trucks and had a wild ride. The rolling kitchen of the battery, with ovens blazing away, covered the roads at a fine clip behind a motor truck, with George Musial having his hands full trying to manipulate the brake. The trip continued through Maranville and Bricon. Chaumont was circled about 4 o'clock and stop was made about twenty-one kilometers from A. E. F. Headquarters, at a sleepy little hamlet of about fifty houses and barns, called Blancheville. [Illustration: A BATTERY D KITCHEN CREW Photo Taken at Mess Tent at Camp La Courtine, France.] [Illustration: GROUP OF BATTERY D SERGEANTS Capts. Clarke, Smith, and Hall in foreground.] CHAPTER XVIII. MUD AND BLANCHEVILLE. Blancheville, mud and mules are associated in memory of the holiday season of 1918-19 that Battery D spent in France. It was Thanksgiving week when Battery D arrived in Blancheville. The auto convoy deposited the battery paraphernalia in the vicinity of the old stone church and graveyard that stood along the main highway as the landmark and chief building of the village. Nearby stood the only other building of import--a stone structure that housed a pool of water in the manner of the ancients. This was the public pool where the women of the village came to do the family washing, as the village was deprived of the natural advantages of a river. Watering troughs surrounded this wash-house on two sides. Twice daily the cattle and live-stock from all the village barns were led to this watering place. Water for drinking purposes was also supplied the village from a special fountain on the exterior side opposite the water troughs.