's long-range guns, we crossed the small
stream whose line had been so strongly defended by the Germans until our
doughboys had forced them from it. The Ourcq was not more than fifteen
or twenty feet wide at the place where our guns and caissons forded it.
But there was a steep incline on the far-side leading up to a high road.
Taking this road into Fere-en-Tardenois, we turned at a sharp angle at
the outskirts and took the road to Seringes. In the shelled fields along
which we passed, litter-carriers were still at work bringing back
wounded. Some boys came limping back alone, or supported by others with
an arm in a sling or bandaged about the head. Conversation with one of
these turned always to the question of relief: When will relief be up?
Have you heard of troops coming up to relieve us? Some battalions of
infantry were pushing on after having lost fifty per cent of their men.

About 4 p. m. the batteries of the second battalion gained a crest to
the right of the Foret de Nesles.

"How far are our lines from here?" asked an officer in the lead, of a
signal corps man on the road.

"There's only a company and a half of infantry beyond here. I don't know
how far ahead they are," was the reply.

So the battalion turned back and took cover in woods behind the crest.
Here supper--canned corn and stewed dried apricots--was served, and here
were established the horse-lines, which only stayed a day. German
equipment and dead lay strewn through the woods.

After mess came the order to harness and hitch. The Second Battalion
trotted into position for the first and only time in the regiment's
history. The sight of the guns and caissons dashing into action was
stirring, and it sent up the spirits of the fatigued infantrymen to a
pitch that enabled them to carry on when already exhausted. In the
morning we learned that during the darkness the company and a half of
infantrymen, who had been scouting to gain contact with the enemy, had
withdrawn, leaving us the nearest unit to the enemy. But the enemy were
retreating so rapidly that they were beyond our range again by
afternoon. The road forward was swarming with supply trains, artillery,
machine gun carts, and infantry that passed, company after company,
their packs on their backs, pushing ahead to keep the enemy on the move,
giving him no rest in which to organize and entrench himself.

On the evening of August 3 came the order to move forward again,
compelling us to aband