The farther we went the more numerous were the evidences of war. The roar of the cannonade became louder. On both sides of the roads the villages were in ruins. Not a farmhouse was inhabited, and the fields were dotted everywhere with soldiers’ graves; on each cross hung the "képi" of the dead hero. In some of the military cemeteries there were graves without little wooden crosses—only a small fence marked them off from the rest. These, I was told, were the graves of the Mohammedan African troops, whose comrades claimed for them a plot apart from the "unsacred ground" used by their Christian allies. It was almost dark by the time we reached our new camping-site. The fields were soaked with the heavy rain, and we splashed about in the mud for hours before the task of pitching camp was completed. By nine o’clock, however, all was ready and we sat down to a good, warm supper. Then we turned in. It was so cold and chilly that I went to bed in my fur-lined clothes. But tired as I was I could not get to sleep. The roar of the artillery was frightful. On every side of us it crashed and thundered, unceasingly, uninterruptedly. An attack was in process at the Mort-Homme, and every little while there would be a "tir de barrage," or curtain fire as we call it. The small 75’s would sound like the rat-tat of a snare-drum accompanying the louder beats of the deep-bass drums. I got out of bed and gazed toward the battle-field. The earth was brilliantly illuminated by the rockets and flares that were being sent up everywhere. The sky seemed full of fire-flies—in reality exploding shells. On all sides the guns flashed angrily. Search-lights played about in every direction. It was a most superb spectacle, but it was terrible. It was hell. *MY FIRST FLIGHT OVER THE LINES* Unfavorable weather conditions kept us inactive for several days, but as soon as the skies cleared our escadrille immediately went to work again. For some reason my own machine was delayed "en route," and did not arrive for a week. This was time I could ill afford to lose, so the "chef pilote" took me as a passenger in his biplane to familiarize me with the ground in our sector. We started late one afternoon. The atmosphere was extraordinarily clear. Every detail in the landscape stood out boldly, and as we rose the dozens of camps in the immediate vicinity spread out below us like models set in a painted scenery. The valleys, the tents, the guns, the troops, all were visible to the naked eye. On all sides were aviation-camps, which were easily distinguished from the others—there must have been at least twenty of them within a radius of five miles.