Meantime, the regiments had gone plugging ahead with their training work--rifle shooting, bayonet work, hikes and practice attacks succeeding each other in bewildering variety. The work was interrupted July 5th by the arrival of messengers from brigade headquarters. The regiments were to move up in closer support of the French lines. Marshal Foch had shepherded the Germans into a position where their only possibility for further attack lay almost straight south from the tip of the Soissons-Rheims salient. The French forces there were expected to make the crossing of the Marne so hazardous and costly an enterprise that the Germans either would give it up almost at the outset, or would be so harassed that the push could gain little headway. In any event, the American support troops--including our own Pennsylvanians--were depended on to reinforce the line at any critical moment. And for that reason it was imperative that they be within easier striking distance. So, very early on the morning of July 6th, the bugles roused the men from their slumbers and word was passed by the sergeants to hurry the usual morning duties, as there was "something doing." No larger hint was needed. Dressing, washing, "police duty" and breakfast never were dispensed with more rapidly, and in less than an hour after first call the regiments were ready to move. The 110th, the 111th and the engineers moved off without incident, other than the keen interest aroused by the increasing clamor of the guns as they marched northward, to the new positions assigned them. Parts of their routes lay over some of the famous roads of France that had not suffered yet from the barbarous invaders, and made fairly easy going. At times they had to strike across country to gain a new and more available road. A doughboy, pressing close to where a fine old tree leaned protectingly across the sun-baked road, reached up and pulled a leafy twig. He thrust it into the air hole in his hat, and laughingly remarked that "now he was camouflaged." His comrades paid no attention until he remarked later that it was a good thing to have, as it helped keep the flies away. Thereafter there were many grasping hands when trees or bushes were within reach, and before noon the men bore some semblance to the Italian Bersaglieri, who wear plumed hats. The going was not so smooth for the 109th, however. The farther the regiment moved along its northward road the louder and more emphatic became the cannonading. Both the officers and men realized they were getting very much closer to artillery fire than they had been. A spirit of tense, nervous eagerness pervaded the ranks. The goal of the long months of hard training, the achievement of all their dreams and desires, seemed just ahead.