Near the top of this long hill were two German concrete pillboxes, nicely turfed over. We found one of these occupied as a first aid post; in the other we found a machine gun company hdq. Nobody knew any dope about where we were wanted, but they said that Bn. Hdq. was about a kilo away to the right. Just then Heinie started his morning strafe of Vieville-en-Haye. Three or four whiz bangs came hurtling over our heads, and landed in the east end of the village, right where B Co. was lying. I saw no necessity of our doing a Casabianca, and hastily obtained permission from the Major to take B Co. back to its former position until we knew where to go. As I shuffled down the hill, hitting the dirt now and then when one landed close by, I chanced to look back just in time to see a shell hit the first aid pillbox and pivot it neatly around, so that the door faced us instead of the enemy. It didn’t take long to start B Co. toward our bivvies, very much disgusted with the morning’s work, but glad to stop playing target for a while. Fortunately, no one was hit. The 2nd Battalion located its wandering sheep later in the day, so we were not called on for that errand again. The regiment’s task was now to organize and strengthen our sector of the line. The main line of resistance, as indicated on the map, was being held and dug in by three Cos. of the 2nd Battalion, H Co. holding the outpost line about two kilos in advance. Our kitchens were established in the woods behind Regt’l Hdq., and started work on the old standby, slum. The rough roads leading into these woods were all ankle deep in mud, and the ration detail wasn’t any bed of roses. The day we spent in deepening our bivvies as best we could, though our intrenching tools made little impression on the hard and stony ground. Whoever salvaged a man-sized pick or shovel was lucky. While it was light, we kept down under cover as much as possible, for the German observation balloons were peeping sinisterly over the horizon, and we didn’t care about drawing attention to our position. On Wednesday, September 18th, at about 1 P. M., A and B Cos. received orders to report to the Engineer Dump at 368.3-240.3, as a working party. Several enemy observation balloons were up, and it was a clear afternoon; but orders were orders, and off we filed. At the dump we met an Engineer Lieutenant--very stout, very bullheaded and very incompetent. I asked where we were to work, and he replied he didn’t know--over there somewhere--pointing in the general direction of Germany. Having had enough of that sort of business in the morning, I told him to toddle right off and find out where he was to take us. He got quite huffy at this, but finally set out, and returned with some definite information. We drew picks and shovels, and hiked away after him; I being forced to hurt his importance again by refusing to march the company along in single file on the sky line.