ghs.
Remember that at the time I am writing of, the American boys were new in
France. One of the reasons for the lack of furloughs was that in many of
the towns near the great camps that were set apart for the Americans the
merchants had decided that it was harvest time, and prices had gone very
high. General Pershing himself ordered that no member of the American
force should buy anything in these towns until the matter of prices was
adjusted, and this was speedily done.

[Sidenote: A journey in motor trucks.]

[Sidenote: Making the new quarters sanitary.]

I had been in the training camp about a month, making a special study of
telephone work as carried on between the front-line trenches and
outposts regimental headquarters, and the various gun batteries of the
regiment. At the end of that time I was detached from my regular
battery and assigned as Signal Sergeant to work with another battery
proceeding immediately to the American sector of the Front. We did not
travel forward in gradual stages as is the usual custom of approaching
the firing line for the first time, but made the journey as quickly as
possible, in motor trucks--a never-to-be-forgotten journey. Our
destination was a village between five and ten miles from the Front,
where we were to be billeted, and where the American troops would spend
their time while not actively in the trenches. We got there in the
afternoon, and a batch of the men were detached to make the place clean
and perfectly sanitary. It needed their work. The village had been used
by the French soldiers for some time, and there had been no time or
opportunity for repair work. With the coming of the Americans it was
different. Cleanliness is a strictly enforced rule with the fellows of
our fighting force, and from a standpoint of sanitation we are literally
introducing soap, water and whitewash into France.

[Sidenote: The order to advance.]

Later that afternoon, when it was growing dusk, came the orders to go
forward--and at nightfall I found myself walking beside the French
officer across rough ground, a very occasional dull boom telling us that
there was an enemy before us--but all other sounds seemed natural.

As I said before, it is impossible to accurately describe the sensations
that come over a fellow when he discovers that he is on the firing line,
and I welcomed the work to which I was so quickly assigned, and which we
rapidly accomplished. I marveled at the precision with