At 7 o’clock next morning we pulled out and marched down to Rety. There we fell in behind the 2d battalion, and started on our first full day’s hike. The packs were still heavy, and those full cartridge belts--Lord, how much 100 rounds of ammunition can weigh after a while! As usual with green troops, the leading element set too fast a pace. Rests seemed but a minute. Finally, on a long, long up grade, we halted for lunch. After chow and an hour’s rest, we pulled on, picking ’em up and putting ’em down. On, over broad white roads; turning off into narrower roads shaded by rows of tall trees, turning into the highroad again. We passed stragglers from the 309th and 310th Infantry, so knew that the whole 78th Division must be in France and on the move near us. The hills were higher, the women were older. We came to a village; three estaminets, two stores, a school house, a blacksmith’s shop, a sign. “Brunembert.” Regimental Hdqrs. and Supply Co. are halted there. We keep on; on the other side of town “C” and “D” companies meet their advance party guides and turn off; we hike on half a kilometer, half way up a hill, turn off to the right, hike around the hill, and finally, at about 3 P. M., plumb tuckered, the company is split, two platoons going to one farmhouse, the other two to another, at Haute Creuse. Haute Creuse itself was only a crossroads, with one poor cottage. Battalion headquarters was there. The company billets were a good quarter of a mile apart. In addition, when I inspected the billet assigned the 3rd and 4th platoons, I found a remarkably dirty old barn, with a cesspool and manure heap outside that was awful, even for France. The only spring was near the pool. So the next morning we moved these platoons over to the other billet, pitching pup tents in a beautiful field just on the other side of the barnyard. That afternoon an old duffer in an English major’s uniform came ambling along. He expressed great anguish at our not using the billets assigned to us. It meant nothing to him that our comfort, health, convenience were served by our using our own tents. The plan was that that lousy old typhoid trap should be occupied, and so it must be done. And he, it appeared, was the “area commandant.” So I said “Yessir,” and tipped Sgt. Ertwine off to have some men make a great show of striking tents, and resolved privately to take a chance yet. Jimmy Johnston came along later and told me that area commandants were a tribe of dud officers who were given that job to keep ’em out of mischief. I was hauled over the coals three or four times about it. The old Major wrote to his General Hdq., and they wrote to our hdq., and it came down the line to our Colonel, whose soul shivered before the wintry blast. But finally Lt. Col. Myers took it up and obtained permission for us to stay where we were.