The platoon was marching cautiously over the hill to the town in front of them. “Stand fast!” Sergeant Ryan called out sharply. A rocket was fired, rose high in the air, and then, the parachute spreading out, floated slowly to earth, lighting up the ground for several hundreds of yards on each side. As soon as it had reached the ground the platoon marched on. They passed through the town, and, as they were leaving, a covey of shells whirred softly over their heads and landed among the ruins with a terrific explosion. The remaining walls seemed to reverberate. It sounded as if they were rocking back and forth from the concussion. At the military crest of the hill the platoon stopped, joined on its left by the rest of the company. The company commander walked along the line, repeating, so that each man could hear: “You’ll have to hurry and dig in, men. It’s three hours until dawn, and if you haven’t got yourselves a place of safety by that time you will be unfortunate.” The men threw off their packs, unstrapped their trench tools, and set to work to make holes in the ground sufficiently deep to protect their bodies from rifle fire and from pieces of flying shell. As there were only four men in each squad equipped with trench tools, the other half commenced digging with their bayonets and scraping the dirt from the hole that they were making with the lid of their mess gear. But they worked furiously, and with the aid of the company commander and all of the subofficers, which consisted in telling them that they had just so much longer until dawn, each pair of men had made for themselves a hole in the ground from which they could manipulate their rifles without exposing their bodies to direct fire. When dawn broke the company presented to the enemy a slightly curved front of newly made holes, with the dirt thrown up in front of them for further protection. Across the valley, perhaps five hundred yards, was a thickly wooded hill, from which, as the light strengthened, the platoon could see figures running out into the field and then back again among the trees. Then, to the right, the Hotchkiss machine-guns began their wavering patter. From another woods, in front and to the left of the platoon, ran soldiers in frayed and dirty horizon-blue uniforms. Harriman pointed to the wooded hill where the scurrying figures had been seen. “Boche?” he asked. “Oui, Boche,” the men in the soiled uniforms answered. “Boche, Paris?” some one asked. “Oui.” The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders. “Ce ne fait rien.” Doubtless the Frenchmen, Hicks thought, did not care; for seven days they had been forced to fall back, slowly and with heavy losses. There was little opportunity for sleep; and food, despite the conscientious efforts of the French cooks, was difficult to procure. They felt beaten. Another group of French soldiers hurried out of the woods, and, as the others had done, disappeared through the ruins of the village.