The water in the streams is little better, and a bath in one of them gives more moral than physical satisfaction. One French artilleryman told me with great glee of seeing from his observation post a company of German soldiers marched down to a river for a bath. As soon as they were in the water he signalled the range to his battery, and they put a barrage between the bathers and their clothes. * * * * * VERDUN is more than a name now—it is a symbol. France’s glorious fight here with her back to the wall has gone down in history as a golden page. The foe thundered at the gates and the gates held,—held for months while the fate of France hung in the balance, and then opening, the hosts of France poured out and drove the foe back mile by mile, bitter miles. The city does not boast an unscarred building, but these wounds do not bleed in vain. For every one here there shall be two across the frontier when the day of reckoning comes. An awe-inspiring silence broods over the littered streets. There are no civilians here now, but many soldiers, and as one walks an occasional cheer greets him,—“_Vive l’Amérique!_” The enemy has been driven back so far by this time that not more than half a dozen vengeful shells a day are directed towards the violated cathedral, its subterranean vaults blown open and exposed, its walls struck, its windows shattered, and its roof fallen. A walk through this city, divided by the peaceful Meuse, would convince one, if nothing had before, that this war is not in vain, and that no force should be spared, no rest taken until the nation which has perpetrated these million crimes be crushed, that it may never strike like this again. * * * * * A BATTLE is made up of a number of attacks, and a push consists of a number of battles. Consequently, each attack is most important as it is one of the single stones out of which the wall of the push is constructed. The taking of A—— was a small attack in itself, but it was a part of the foundation on which was built the great August push at Verdun. Our section rolled into a town about four miles from A—— three days before the attack proper was scheduled to begin. We established our headquarters there, and our relay station and _poste de secours_ in the Hesse Forest, the latter just behind the third-line trenches. In the Champagne push the year before the French had not had nearly enough artillery support, and it had cost them many lives. It is something one hears spoken of rarely. To avoid a repetition of this disaster they had massed for this attack in one wood six thousand guns varying in calibre from the famous 75’s to several batteries of 380’s, mounted on a railroad a stone’s throw from our sleeping quarters. However, as we had no time for sleep, it made little difference. The 75 is about a three-inch gun, and the 380, a sixteen approximately.