Promptly at five o'clock, with headquarters troop at the head of the column, Colonel Taylor and all officers on foot, we began our march to Ponteneuson Barracks. Each of us, on leaving the Leviathan, had been rationed with a sandwich. We had hoped to dejeuner on the wharf before beginning the march, but such was not our good fortune--the single sandwich was all the food--or drink for that matter--we tasted until ten o'clock the following morning. The march of eight torturous, hill-climbing, miles, while exhausting in the extreme, was not without interest. It brought us within seeing and speaking distance of the inhabitants. A group of little boys and girls trudged along at our side singing what they no doubt believed to be our Marseillaise, "Cheer, cheer, the gang's all here." The shrill voices of these petit garcons expressed our only bienvenue to France! Their elders, in their quaint Breton Sunday costumes, sitting on doorsteps or grouped along the roadsides, viewed us interestedly, but quietly and without demonstration. Although it was the highway used by thousands of American troops passing through Brest, we heard no word of cheer, nor saw a single banner of welcome in those eight weary miles of back torture under full packs. At nine o'clock we arrived at Ponteneuson. Well might this place be called, at least at that time, the vestibule of hell! If there is any boy of the A. E. F. who has anything good to say--or the slightest happy memory to recall--of Ponteneuson, I have yet to meet him. It was officially called a "Rest Camp"--where we might recuperate from our long confinement on shipboard. But if lying hungry and cold on the fog-drenched rocks of Brittany, with a chill wind sweeping up from the neighboring ocean, freezing the very marrow of one's aching bones, be considered rest, it was a kind entirely new to us. Lying near me on the chill ground that night was Major Winthrop Whittington of Cleveland, Ohio, one of the most efficient, kindest and wittiest of our officers, and who later served as our Chief of Staff. Someone had just remarked that Napoleon used frequently to come to Ponteneuson. "That explains," quietly remarked the Major, "the three-hour sleep theory held by Napoleon--(sufficient for any man); three hours is all any man could sleep in such a hell of a place." How we survived that night and the following six days and nights can only be ascribed to that merciful dispensation of God which has carried us through many a trial. Our habitation was now the open field, drenched in a dust storm that blew constantly. We sat on the roadside and ate our meager fare, making joke and jest of our utter lack of comfort.