By this time it didn’t take us long to make ourselves at home in a strange place. We had bagged a good place for the rolling kitchen, and the billets weren’t so bad. Between showers we got in some drilling, and a couple of hours on an extemporized 30-yard range that Lt. Schuyler put up one morning before breakfast. Everyone tried his hand at the Chauchat for a magazine full. This was the only chance we had to fire this gun before we had to meet the enemy with it. The men armed with pistols punctured a few tin cans after a vast expenditure of lead. There was a beautiful meadow below town, and on Sunday, the 8th, we staged a couple of good ball games. On Monday we had a company problem through the woods beyond the meadow, and Tuesday we got in the target practice. Wednesday morning the Major assembled the Co. cmdrs. and ordered us to be ready to march at 1:30. After the usual bustle all was ready for the road, two days’ rations being carried. Our kitchen and cooks were attached to the regt’l supply train. It had been raining all the morning, but old J. Pluvius had only been practising for the real show. We started off in a steady downpour, which speedily became a regular deluge. The wind rose to a gale, which drove the sheets of water directly at us, penetrating right through slickers and clothing. In 15 minutes we were all wet to the skin. It was only an hour’s march this time. At 3:00 P. M., we came to a crossroads just outside Chatenois. There stood a long line of motor trucks, stretching away in either direction as far as the eye could see. The embussing was well handled, and in 20 minutes we were packed in, 20 or more to a truck, jammed as tight as they could be, every man wet through and chilled. Even our incorrigibly optimistic regimental history says, “We shall never forget this day because of its miserable and nasty weather.” These busses were driven by Chinese in the French service. With their impassive Oriental faces looking out over their great sheepskin coats, they looked fitting agents of destiny; grave Charons, bearing us on the last lap of our progress toward our fate. At 4:00 o’clock we were off, with a jerk and a clank of gears and a steady rumble. On and on, over the long French road, rolling on through rain and wind, steadily, inevitably; each lorry nearly touching the one in front. Darkness fell; the long gray train rolled on, not a light, not a sound save the rumble of the trucks. We got colder and colder; more and more cramped. Capt. Fleischmann and I spent most of the night each cherishing the other’s icy feet in his bosom. On and on, through gray, silent towns, past the ghostly figure of a lonely M. P. at a crossroads; through fields, woods, villages, all wet and quiet in the falling rain.