Most of the inhabitants of St. Michel and St. Pol slept at night in long dugouts tunnelled underneath the hills. They were very damp, foul close holes, with little cubicles scratched out of the walls to sleep in. They weren’t taking any more chances with H. E. Our “intensive training” was continued here. We were rejoiced that we hadn’t that awful hill to climb, and somehow we got away with using the field to drill on. The mornings were taken up with problems, and before long we were well acquainted with those woods; then there was bayonet drill, bombing, the everlasting gas mask drill, musketry, physical drill, and so on. The afternoon was devoted to special drill for Lewis gun, V. B. and hand bombers, runners, etc., while the rest of the company did problems or musketry. We stood retreat and reveille along the lumber road--oh, yes, and that 15 minutes of manual of arms before retreat every night. Usually it rained here. Drill went on just the same, though. We could hear the thunder of the big guns at night, and the crash and roar from the droning bombing planes let us know that this was in grim earnest, and it behooved us to make the most of our time. Regimental, brigade, and divisional problems began to be all the rage. Since nobody below majors ever get any information as to what these are all about, the troops were usually represented by flags. In good weather these things are just a bore; when it rains, they’re considerably worse. On August 3d, the H. L. I. detachment left us, and we completed our training on our own. About two weeks after our arrival at St. Michel, the word was passed that Elsie Janis was coming to visit the division. Of course that afternoon was marked by a good old Northern France soaker. How it rained! We hiked about three miles through it, and were packed into a courtyard with five or six thousand other shoving, soaking doughboys. Miss Janis had our band to help her out, and a little platform with a bit of canvas overhead, which kept off a little of the rain. Half of us couldn’t see her except for occasional glimpses; officers and men were drenched right through and through. Besides, Miss Janis was physically about all in from overwork, and had a peach of a cold--a real A. E. F. cold, not the kind that amateur singers always use for an alibi. The bunch was sore at being hauled out in this weather for anything short of going into action. And yet, from the first moment that girl stepped on the platform, she had the crowd with her. We were fed up, lonesome in a strange land, sick of hearing a foreign tongue, longing to see a regular girl again. And here was a bit of real America before our eyes; pep incarnate--a snappy, clean cut, clean girl from home, laughing with us, making us laugh at ourselves and in spite of ourselves, jazzing it up in the rain. And we sloshed and squnched back to St. Michel, singing: “Beautiful Elsie, beautiful Elsie, “You’re the only, only girl that I ado-o-re.”