Many times our car came to a sudden stop as a stentorian "Halt!" pierced the darkness and our second chauffeur went forward to give the countersign. One weak-voiced guard failed to make himself heard until our car was almost past. Major Hazlett was instantly aroused: "What is the matter with your voice?" "Nothing, sir." "Then shout it out. If this happens again I'll have you court-martialed." "Yes, sir!" And with a salute we proceeded. Our last mile with the car was over shell-torn roads and past guards who dared to pass no man without full proof of his identity. Many German spies had been caught recently. Through the ruined village of Heberviller we passed to the old chateau. Here we left the car with the chauffeurs, and having been armed we started with two guides for the trenches. Every gun emplacement was inspected to see if orders had been faithfully carried out--and woe betide the man who failed. The Major's intimate and technical knowledge of every detail in machine-gun fighting, won the admiration of the men. For three hours we walked "duck-boards"[1] through a maze of connecting trenches, stealthily and silently following our guides and stopping "dead" when a star shell burst near us. We had secret hopes of taking prisoner some of the "Heinies" whom we could almost hear breathing out there in No Man's Land. As we talked with the men in Petty Post No. 10, the German 77's were feeling for some vulnerable point just back of our line. We could see the flash of the gun and hear that peculiar, fascinating "whine" as it passed over our heads, and finally its mocking challenge as it found its target. One of the men who was off guard, lay curled up in a shell hole beside the trench, sleeping peacefully to the music of the guns. Conversation here was whispered, and even the illuminated faces of our wrist watches were carefully concealed in our pockets. And every man knew well the reason why. The sergeant in charge had a "hunch" that Fritz was coming over at a certain hour of the early morning. We knew that "dope" coming from enemy sources is often misleading and decided not to wait for the "party." The next day we learned that the "party" was not "pulled off," and our return to camp gave us a few hours of perfectly good and needed sleep. AN AIR BATTLE Boche planes overhead were so common as to excite little interest, but when in the midst of a heavy anti-aircraft barrage, the French children playing outside our garage excitedly announced "Trois Boche avions," we left off "tuning up" our engines and went out to watch them--three specks high overhead and out of range of our guns. Suddenly, from somewhere in the sky above, two Allied planes shot toward the German "birds," and a battle ensued which we could clearly see, although they were too high for us to hear the sound of their machine guns.