ard were aware that at the end of the
next thirty-four kilometers was Montmorillon, in the department of
Vienne, which was to be the stopping off place of Battery D for a stay
of several weeks.

The troop special of thirty-five coaches and box cars, pulled into the
station at Montmorillon at 1 a. m.; all was quiet about the station. A
majority of the soldiers were too tired to care about location. They
slumbered on as best they could in their box-car berths, while the
special was pulled in on a siding, to remain until daylight when the
order to detrain was to be issued.

[Illustration: MONTMORILLON STATION
Where Battery D Detrained in France After Leaving British Rest Camp
at Cherbourg.]

[Illustration: MONTMORILLON STREET SCENE
Building Marked X was Billet for Half of the Battery During the First
Month Spent on French Soil.]

CHAPTER XV.

WHITE TROOPS INVADE MONTMORILLON.

Dotted with quaint architecture of 12th and 13th century Romanesque
and Gothic design, the hills of Vienne department, France, cradle the
crystal-clear and drowsy-moving waters of the Gartempe, a river, which
in its course winds through the town of Montmorillon, where four
thousand French peasantry, on August 7th, received their first lesson
in American cosmopolitism.

Montmorillon, where the boys of Battery D were billeted for the first
time in the midst of the French people; where they received their
first impressions on French life and mannerisms, lives in memory of
the boys as the prettiest, cleanest and most-comfortable place of any
the outfit visited during its sojourn in France.

Despite the fact that a feeling of strained hospitality attended the
reception of the 311th Artillery, the first body of white American
troops to visit Montmorillon, the cloud of suspicion was soon lifted
and four weeks of smiling August sunshine days, undarkened by
rainclouds, were spent along the banks of the Gartempe.

When the 311th troops alighted from the troop special early on the
morning of their arrival, the station and avenues of approach to the
town were guarded by American negro M. P.'s, members of the 164th
Artillery Brigade, who had arrived in the town several weeks previous
and had made themselves at home with the natives.

The 311th was not in Montmorillon many days before the explanation of
the half-hearted reception came to light. An element of negro troops
had started the story on its rounds among the guileless French
peasants