“We must have had a reputation as chambermaids for mules, ’cause they put the battery to work in another corral, cleaning it up and feedin’ the animals. Sometimes they used to wake us up in the middle of the night and send us down to ships that had just come in so that we could lead the mules up to the corral. That was some job. The mules would be wilder than ever after bein’ penned up on a boat so long, and time they’d hit the street they usually started tearin’ off. If any of us happened to have hold of them mules at the time, we mostly went with the mule. “After a month of that kind of work we were sent to Camp Coetquidan to learn how to fight the _guerre_ with real cannon. When we got to camp the other batteries had already found out how to fire the guns and were blowin’ away at anything for a target. It didn’t take us long to find out how those six-inch howitzers worked. The French called ’em _sonn sankont-sanks_, which means one hundred and fifty-fives. “I’ll never get in another _guerre_ again as long as I live, but if I do get mixed up in another I’ll keep clear of France and especially Coetquidan. Rain—mud—mud—rain. All day and all night at that hole. We slept in the barracks that Napoleon and his army used to _cushay_ in. No wonder he always had his hand in his shirt. Guess he was scratchin’. No, there wasn’t any cooties there. But they had some kind of bed-ticks or ground rats that used to bite us up pretty bad. Bein’ about the first fightin’ troops over we couldn’t expect to have gloves, shower-baths, and warm barracks. The only thing that was issued was _beaucoup_ reserve officers. “I got a pass to be away from camp for two days and went down to a place called Rennes, ’bout thirty-eight kilofloppers from camp. It took six hours to get there on the little narrow-gauge, and I spent all my time down there in a big house where I got a _bain_—that’s what the Frogs say for bath—tryin’ to get clean. Didn’t get another _bain_ until two months later at the front. “Saw a lot of Boche prisoners down there. Course we seen quite a few at St. Nazaire, but didn’t have a chance to say anything to ’em. They must have knew we was green at this _guerre_ stuff, as they asked us for cigarettes and chocolate, and we was fools enough to hand ’em some. Catch me givin’ them dirty sausage-meats cigarettes now. ‘_Caput_’ for ’em all, that’s what the Frogs say. “After Christmas passed and we got our first real batch of mail—Say, O. D., I guess you get a bunch of mail from your ma and sis, don’t you?” asked Jimmy. “I’ve been getting about four letters a week, but guess I’ll have to wait until it gets forwarded to me now,” acknowledged O. D. “_Mon Du!_” was the ejaculation, “four a week. Gosh, you’re lucky. Why, I’ve only got seventeen since I hit this country. Course there’s nobody to write me but a few of the boys down at the newspaper office who couldn’t pass the physicals——” “Is that a fact, Jimmy?” “_Oui._ Bet your tin hat.”