“We harnessed the old _chevaux_ up, hooked ’em to the guns and got all the other junk, includin’ them _fourgeons_—French wagons, you know—started. ’Bout dawn we rumbled through a town that looked as if it had been shut up for the winter. Wasn’t a light goin’. Not a pup on the streets. Nothin’ but us. There was _beaucoup_ houses all shot to hell—roofs gone, windows out, walls cavin’ in. Some places were nothin’ but rubbish. There was so little left of a few houses that you couldn’t have salvaged a thing even if you had a pull with the guy at the salvage dump. I found out later that the name of the place was _Swasson_ (Soissons). Must have been some battlin’ ’round that joint. “After leavin’ _Swasson_ we hit a road that led right up to the trenches, or damn near it, anyway. Anybody, even an S. O. S. bird with six months’ experience in Paris, would have guessed that we must be somewhere near the front. There was old trenches runnin’ every which way; at that time I thought the detail that dug ’em must have been zigzag, as all of the trenches was crooked like a bunch of old dead snakes. I saw _beaucoup_ barbed wire stretched ’round. But I’ve seen lots more since that day. “As we hiked along a gun would boom out some place up along the front. Wasn’t none of that war stuff that you look for after readin’ some war books. Just now and then a boom and a flash or two. “It was mighty cold ridin’ a horse that night. Bein’ from Florida, I ain’t used to much cold weather, and my hands and feet come pretty near bein’ ice before we finally got to our _échelon_ near a tumbled-down village called Chassemy. Listen ’bout that _échelon_ stuff. It was somethin’ new to me before I got to the front, as I never took Greek at school. Well, it seems that _échelon_ means the place that ain’t quite at the front, but just about as bad, bein’ as how the Boche can always shell _échelons_ with big guns. The men, horses, and other things that ain’t needed at the front all the time stay at the _échelon_ till they send for them. Time we made the _échelon_ everybody was so sleepy that we didn’t wait to unroll, but just sprawled about on the barrack floor and _cushayed_. “I came to about four o’clock in the afternoon and we started to hunt somethin’ to eat, naturally. Everybody was damn curious to know just where the front was. Nobody seemed to know just exactly what way to take to get to it and to our positions. You see, we were to relieve the French. There was nothin’ else to do but wait ’round. “Finally, two days later, three French officers came over and got the Cap to go off with them to reconnoiter. He came back that night and told us that we would move the guns into position next day.