A mile farther and a halt was called. There was a brief conference of battalion commanders in the gloom and then the first battalion swung off to the left, the third to the right and the second extended its lines over the territory immediately before it. When all had arrived in position, the first battalion was on a line just south of the tiny hamlet of Monthurel, northwest of Conde. The second battalion was strung out north of Conde, and the third continued the line north of the hamlet of St. Agnan, northeast of Conde. Then the regiment was called on to do--for the first time with any thought that it would be of real present value to them--that which they had learned to do, laboriously, grumblingly and with many a sore muscle and aching back, in camp after camp. They "dug in." There was no sleep that night, even had the excited fancies of the men permitted. Up and down, up and down, went the sturdy young arms, and the dirt flew under the attack of intrenching picks and shovels. By daylight a long line of pits, with the earth taken out and heaped up on the side toward the enemy, scarred the fields. They were not pretentious, as trenches went in the war--scarcely to be dignified with the name of trenches--but the 109th heaved a sigh of relief and was glad of even that shelter as the Hun artillery renewed its strafing of the countryside. Runners from the 109th carried the news to brigade headquarters that the regiment was at last on the line. Thence the word seeped down through the ranks, and the men of the 110th and 111th and of the engineers got little inklings of the troubles their comrades of the old First and Thirteenth had experienced in reaching their position. Roughly, then, the line of the four regiments extended from near Chezy, on the east, to the region of Vaux, beyond Château-Thierry, on the west. The 103d Engineers held the eastern end. Then came, in the order named, the 109th, 110th and 111th. The 112th was busy elsewhere, and had not joined the other regiment of its brigade, the 111th. CHAPTER III THE LAST HUN DRIVE Our Pennsylvania regiments now were operating directly with French troops, under French higher command, and in the line they were widely separated, with French regiments between. The troops faced much open country, consisting chiefly of the well-tilled fields for which France is noted, with here and there a clump of trees or bushes, tiny streams, fences and an occasional farm building. Beyond these lay a dense woods, extending to the Marne, known variously in the different localities by the name of the nearest town. The Bois de Conde, near Monthurel, was the scene of some of the stiffest fighting that followed.