And there we were sent into the battle. It being our first, our impressions are somewhat confused. In theory, our own particular part in the enterprise was a simple one. A wood lay upon our front, and we were ordered to capture it. And we did so—all save the far edge. But at a price. When our barrage lifted in the early dawn, and we dashed forward to the assault which we had rehearsed so often, our consciousness was mainly of barbed wire and machine-gun bullets. These were in unholy alliance everywhere, and took grievous toll. Buck Stamper, the biggest man in the Battalion, was the first one to go down. He was shot in the legs, and another bullet passed through his heart as he struggled forward, crippled but game, on his hands and knees. But a hundred men had seen him die, and the gun which had knocked him out was in their hands three minutes later. Still, formations were broken up, communication with the rear was cut, and the brunt of the battle began to fall upon the individual. Now it is as an individual fighter that the American soldier excels. He has his faults. To-day attacks have to be carefully rehearsed; battles are fought on a strict time-table. The eager young fighter is too apt to jump off the mark before the signal is given, and overrun his objective when he reaches it. This gets him into trouble with his best friend, the Gunner; for under these circumstances the latter must either forbear to fire or else risk hitting his own Infantry. But it is a fault on the right side, and is soon corrected by painful experience. On the other hand, it develops in its owner that most priceless quality of the soldier, initiative. Some of the finest work in this War has been accomplished by small bodies of troops—particularly British and American—working forward under a young officer, or a sergeant, or very often under no leader at all, to the capture of some vital point long after they have lost touch with the directing force behind. The upshot of it all was that after a week of hand-to-hand fighting and bloody murder we cleared the tenacious Hun right out of the wood—at this point more than a mile thick—leaving him possessed of nothing but the far edge. We are terribly exhausted, and our losses do not bear thinking of; but we have begged, before we are withdrawn, to be permitted to capture that far edge and consolidate the whole position. Our prayer has been granted. We attack to-morrow, refreshed by a lull of four days. “And,” observed Colonel Graham to his assembled officers, “if we Americans on the right can do our part, and swing our horn of the line clear around through Metz and Sedan, we shall have the whole German Army in a pocket. And then—may the Lord have mercy on them, for we will not!”