m their mark. The battery went up the hill
one carriage at a time. Flat-tops were stretched at once, and in
addition to the trail pit, each section dug a trench for shelter as
well. Shells bursting on the crest ahead lent speed to the shovels and
picks.

Captain Robbins, using a tree-top as an O. P., directed the adjustment
of the pieces, firing only two rounds per gun in doing so.

But that was all the battery fired from this position, although we
stayed there the following two days. The division which had relieved our
infantry could not keep up the pace the latter had set, which formed the
basis of the plans by which we had moved up, ready to support the
crossing of the Vesle.

The roads behind us received constant fire from the enemy. Shrapnel
bursts came near the position occasionally, and gas alarms were
frequent. In the horse-lines just behind lit a shell on the afternoon of
August 8 that caused the battery's first serious casualties. Parkhurst
was instantly killed. Foster was struck in the breast by a large
fragment, and died two days later. Lawrence Gibbs was wounded in the
hand. He refused to go to the hospital at the time, and kept at his
duties as clerk of the firing battery, though later the wound, becoming
worse, compelled him to go. For his bravery in going after medical aid
and under heavy shell fire, refusing treatment himself until the others
had been attended to, he was recommended for the Distinguished Service
Cross by the regimental commander.

This news of death in our own battery--the first enlisted men lost in
action--caused a heavy sorrow and grief that could not be shaken off,
among the men of the battery, whose friendship by this time had become
very close.

On the night of August 10, the battery moved back to a spot within a few
hundred feet of that it had occupied before making the last advance. The
caissons drivers made trip after trip to bring back all the ammunition,
under frequent shell fire on the road. Horse after horse, weakened to
exhaustion, dropped in harness, and had to be taken out of the hitch.

Artillery of the Fourth Division were in position all about us, in the
valley. In the woods were their horse-lines, too, from which they so
openly brought their horses to water that they received ironic inquiries
concerning their "horse fair."

Shelling was frequent, and gas was always noticeable at night. Itching
throats and watering eyes were too common for comfort. When the bat