xt journey by
daylight on September 4, rising at 4:45 and pulling out on the road at
8. Our way led past the many camps where the French troops had been
assembled to engage in the terrible struggles about Verdun, and past
fields, at Vadelaincourt, where the red crosses of French dead seemed to
grow thick as wheat. A little beyond Rampont, we pulled into another
camp, in Brocourt woods, where we spent the succeeding day greasing the
carriage axles and cleaning the firing mechanism. On October 6, the
brigade moved forward up the hills from Recicourt, through Avocourt,
razed to a mere pile of bricks and mortar, over roads still in process
of mending by engineer battalions, and that afternoon into a wide
valley, pock-marked with shell holes and bearing a desolate look,
emphasized by the stark black tree trunks, stripped of their branches,
as though the whole area had been swept by a blaze. This was what was
left of the forest of Avocourt. Occasional shells burst on the ridge
ahead, and orders were strict for every man to dig a hole for his bunk
that night.

CHAPTER VII

THROUGH THE ARGONNE TO SEDAN

At nightfall October 7, the battery took the road over the hill toward
Cierges in the rain and darkness. The position lay on a hillside not far
from gun pits where a wrecked gun carriage and other debris showed how
thoroughly a preceding battery had been shelled out. From these gun pits
the cannoneers carried abandoned ammunition all next day, while the
pieces in turn kept up a bombardment of fifty rounds an hour.

At mess, October 8, in the thicket near the windmill, the men first saw
the newspapers bearing the news of Germany's acceptance of President
Wilson's "Fourteen Points". Many rumors had come to their ears of the
Kaiser's abdication, of separate peace by Austria and Turkey, of
Germany's surrender, etc. This was the first intimation of the facts,
and gave rise to much speculation. There was little opportunity for
speculation that night, however, for mess was scarcely over when shells
bursting in the field and along the roads drove everyone to cover. A
couple of hours later, the limbers came up, and the guns pulled out on
the road. But the caissons were not loaded and drawn through the miry
field so easily. Teams, after pulling out one caisson, had to go back to
assist another. Day was breaking when Captain Robbins, calling the
sergeants together, announced that the battery's mission was to
accompany the adva