tre for our first "rest." We went by way of Neuve Eglise
but, as it was night, we could see but little of that much shot-up
city. It commenced to rain before we started out and kept it up until
we went back again, four days later. At that time it was customary to
carry in and out everything, including ammunition, and we soon learned
to dread the days when we had to move. We would have preferred to stay
in the front line for a month at a time rather than carry all that
heavy stuff in and out so often. However, we managed to get a bath and
some clean clothes, which made everybody feel better. We had no
regular billets at Dranoutre but rigged up little shelter tents,
somewhat similar to those used in the U. S. Army, by lacing two or
more rubber sheets together. Our cooking was done by gun crews,
somewhat on the order of a lot of Boy Scouts, in that no two crews had
the same ideas or used the same methods. My squad dug out a nice
little "stove" in a bank, and by covering it with flattened-out
biscuit tins and making a pipe of tin cans of various sorts, managed
to get along very well. Here we received our first pay since arriving
in France; fifteen francs each. It doesn't sound like much but,
believe me, we made those "sous" go a long way and bought lots of
little delicacies we could not otherwise have had.

While at Dranoutre we associated with the inhabitants, in the stores
and estaminets. The Germans had taken of whatever they needed in the
way of live stock and foodstuffs, but the town itself happened to be
one of the many scattered up and down the line, which had miraculously
escaped even an ordinary bombardment.

[Illustration: French Paper War-Money]

There were refugees, hundreds of them; from the towns and cities
farther to the eastward, whence they had fled with little or nothing
besides the clothes on their backs. There were children who had lost
their parents; wives who knew not what had become of their husbands,
and men whose wives and families were somewhere back in the
German-occupied territory. They told of enduring the direst hardships
and suffering; of cold and hunger.

Every town behind the lines that had escaped destruction was crowded
with these poor homeless people. Every habitable house sheltered all
who could find no room to lie on the floor. Those who could, worked on
the roads or in the neighboring fields. Many of the women worked in
the military laundries. They all received some assistance from