The 103d Ammunition Train also had come up now, after experiences that prepared it somewhat for what was to come later. For instance, when delivering ammunition to a battery under heavy shellfire, a detachment of the train had to cross a small stream on a little, flat bridge, without guard rails. A swing horse of one of the wagons became frightened when a shell fell close by. The horse shied and plunged over the edge, wedging itself between the bridge and a small footbridge alongside. The stream was in a small valley, quite open to enemy fire, and for the company to have waited while the horse was gotten out would have been suicidal. So the main body passed on and the caisson crew and drivers, twelve men in all, were left to pry the horse out. For three hours they worked, patiently and persistently, until the frantic animal was freed. They were under continuous and venomous fire all the while. Shrapnel cut the tops of trees a bare ten feet away. Most of the time they and the horses were compelled to wear gas masks, as the Hun tossed over a gas shell every once in a while for variety--he was "mixing them." The gas hung long in the valley, for it has "an affinity," as the chemists say, for water, and will follow the course of a stream. High explosives "cr-r-r-umped" in places within two hundred feet, but the ammunition carriers never even glanced up from their work, nor hesitated a minute. Just before dawn they got the horse free and started back for their own lines. Fifteen minutes later a high-explosive shell landed fairly on the little bridge and blew it to atoms. The 103d Field Signal Battalion, composed of companies chiefly from Pittsburgh, but with members from many other parts of the state, performed valiant service in maintaining lines of communication. Repeatedly, men of the battalion, commanded by Major Fred G. Miller, of Pittsburgh, exposed themselves daringly in a welter of fire to extend telephone and telegraph lines, sometimes running them through trees and bushes, again laying them in hastily scooped out grooves in the earth. Frequently communication no sooner was established than a chance shell would sever the line, and the work was to do all over again. With cool disregard of danger, the signalmen went about their tasks, incurring all the danger to be found anywhere--but without the privilege and satisfaction of fighting back. Under sniping rifle fire, machine gun and big shell bombardment and frequently drenched with gas, the gallant signalmen carried their work forward. There was little of the picturesque about it, but nothing in the service was more essential. Many of the men were wounded and gassed, a number killed, and several were cited and decorated for bravery. CHAPTER XI DRIVE TO THE VESLE