Vive la France! With all the emotion that must have thrilled the heart of Lafayette, sailing up the Chesapeake to Washington's assistance at Yorktown, we gazed on the rugged coast of Brittany. Our convoy alone, if you will, more than compensated, in point of number of troops at least, for the 20,000 who wore the fleur-de-lis at the surrender of Cornwallis. Mere number of troops, however, was not the question—it was all we then needed. France would, no doubt, have sent us more in 1783, even as we would have sent more to her in the world war, had there been the need.

Brest was the only harbor along the western France coast with sufficient depth of water to accommodate the Leviathan; and, inside her breakwater, on Sunday, August 10, we dropped anchor.

This harbor and city, with a history rich in recorded and traditional lore, antedated the Christian era. The Phonecian, the Carthaginian, the Roman, and the Frank, had each, in turn, left upon its sheltering bay and rock hewn hills the impress of his generation.

Apart and aloof from the beaten paths that lead from London to Paris it held, through the centuries, "the even tenor of its way."

Here had the painter ever found color and form for his canvas; the romanticist, theme and character for his story. In the deep-voiced caverns of these towering cliffs lived the Pirates of Penzance. The solitude of yonder St. Malo inspired Chateaubriand with his immortal "Monks of the West"; and Morlix, just east of Brest, was, in days of peace, the dwelling place of peerless Marshal Foch.

By nightfall all the troops had been ferried to the wharfs and formed by companies in the railroad yards along the water front.

Promptly at five o'clock, with headquarters troop at the head of the column, Colonel Taylor and all officers on foot, we began our march to Ponteneuson Barracks. Each of us, on leaving the Leviathan, had been rationed with a sandwich. We had hoped to dejeuner on the wharf before beginning the march, but such was not our good fortune—the single sandwich was all the food—or drink for that matter—we tasted until ten o'clock the following morning.

The march of eight torturous, hill-climbing, miles, while exhausting in the extreme, was not without interest. It brought us within seeing and speaking distance of the inhabitants. A group of little boys and girls trudged along at our side singing what they no doubt believed to be our Marseillaise, "Cheer, cheer, the gang's all here." The shrill voices of these petit garcons expressed our only bienvenue to France!

Their elders, in their quaint Breton Sunday costumes, sitting on doorsteps or grouped along the roadsides, viewed us interestedly, but quietly and without demonstration. Although it was the highway used by thousands of American troops passing through Brest, we heard no word of cheer, nor saw a single banner of welcome in those eight weary miles of back torture under full packs.

At nine o'clock we arrived at Ponteneuson. Well might this place be called, at least at that time, the vestibule of hell! If there is any boy of the A. E. F. who has anything good to say—or the slightest happy memory to recall—of Ponteneuson, I have yet to meet him.

It was officially called a "Rest Camp"—where we might recuperate from our long confinement on shipboard. But if lying hungry and cold on the fog-drenched rocks of Brittany, with a chill wind sweeping up from the neighboring ocean, freezing the very marrow of one's aching bones, be considered rest, it was a kind entirely new to us.

Lying near me on the chill ground that night was Major Winthrop Whittington of Cleveland, Ohio, one of the most efficient, kindest and wittiest of our officers, and who later served as our Chief of Staff. Someone had just remarked that Napoleon used frequently to come to Ponteneuson. "That explains," quietly remarked the Major, "the three-hour sleep theory held by Napoleon—(sufficient for any man); three hours is all any man could sleep in such a hell of a place."

How we survived that night and the following six days and nights can only be ascribed to that merciful dispensation of God which has carried us through many a trial. Our habitation was now the open field, drenched in a dust storm that blew constantly. We sat on the roadside and ate our meager fare, making joke and jest of our utter lack of comfort.

Immediately adjacent to us was the guard house, a prison camp, pitched in the open field, and surrounded by barbwire fencing. The only shelter these wretched boys had—they were all Americans—were holes they had burrowed in the ground and little shacks they had constructed from odd pieces of boards they had found. Through the days and nights the chorus of their angry, cursing voices was borne to our ears on the howling wind.

One day we were hurried into formation and sent past the reviewing stand. President Poincare of France was paying us a call. His motor car, escorted by an outriding troop of French cavalry, and heralded by shrill bugle calls, came whirling into our midst on the wings of a dust cloud.

Taps and Farewell Volleys for Our Heroic Dead.

Alighting in front of the improvised reviewing stand, he immediately became the center of an animated group; the khaki of our camp officers mingling with the blue, red and gold of the French. No time was lost by the little man in black suit and cravat in starting the review. The long lines of our doughboys, their rifles, with fixed bayonets, flashing and dazzling in the rays of the setting sun, swept by like some rushing, splashing Niagara torrent. The review was evidence, at least, as to our number, stamina and equipment.

The following morning, a full hour before the dawn, we were quietly aroused, ordered to roll our blanket packs and get into line. Glorious news! We were on the move, starting for our training area and thence into the fighting lines! Within forty minutes we were on the march, leaving Ponteneuson, as we had entered it, under cover of the night.

Our immediate destination was the railroad yards at Brest, where we would find our trains. Those wretched days of exposure, lack of food and sleep greatly weakened many. Chaplain Kerr, who had entered the service with me at Governor's Island, New York, died of pneumonia, and was buried at Brest. Although frequent halts for rest were made, many of the troops fell out and were carried to the First Aid Stations.

How shall I describe the cars that carried our boys from the sea coast towns to the fighting fronts of France? Each car, plainly marked "Hommes 20, Chevals 8," offered equal accommodations for 20 men or 8 horses—especially were they equipped for the comfort of horses. It was sans air brake and sans spring; and when the engineer made up his mind, which he often did, to stop that train, he did so in a manner the most alarming to aching limbs and weary eyes. "Let's go," the soldiers' war cry, rang out along the creaking, swaying, grinding train, and we were off on our 400-mile journey to the training area assigned to our Division somewhere in France.

How we enjoyed, at least, our eyesight on that journey! The appeal to the eye was constant—the color and form of scenes unfamiliar offering views of compelling attraction and delight. Each unadorned car window and door became the frame of pictures not a Millet nor a Rembrandt could depict.

The villages, their sturdy houses of gray stone and red tile roofs; their streets, transformed from "routes" to "rules," where country roads came to town; their shopping squares stirred to enterprise by signs of "Boulangerie," "Boucherie," "Cafe" and "Menier Chocolat." Towering over all, the never-failing church, its lofty, cross-surmounted tower, giving to the scene tone and character.

Rolling fields, aglow with harvest gold of wheat, oats and rye; orchards, teeming with luscious fruit ready to be gathered; rivers, threading their silvery way through meadow and wood; splendid roads, binding the beauteous bouquet of landscape with ribbons of silky white.

The outstanding feature of that three-day journey was the apparent utter lack of enthusiasm on the part of a supposedly demonstrative people.

Waiting at crossroads or railway stations, they would look at us in that same quiet, observing manner we had noticed at Brest. We passed through Morlix, home city of Foch; Versailles, and Sennes; and at no place did we hear so much as a single cheer. There were no welfare workers at any point, and if "Cafes" were numerous, we always paid well for our wine, bread and "cafe au lait."

Coming from our own beloved America, where welfare workers greeted and feted us at every station, this apparent lack of hospitality more noticeable was difficult to understand. Possibly their impoverished condition forbade the refreshment part; but cheers and vives are possible, even to the poorest!

Tuesday morning, August 19th, found us paralleling the picturesque river Yonne, which waters the vine-clad valleys of Burgundy. The sound of big gun firing had reached us in the early dawn, and we were all a-thrill at the thought of mighty things impending. Vaguely the words "Toul," "St. Mihiel," "Verdun," and "Metz," had filtered back from the flaming front; and, like hounds tugging at the leash, we were eager for the fray.

At high noon we reached the quaint old town of Ancey-le-Franc, Department of Yonne. Here we left the train and drew up in formation along the roads and back through the lanes and fields. On the platform of the "gare" our gallant Division Commander, Brigadier General Baarth, attended by his staff, who had come on ahead of us by way of Paris, greeted us warmly and reviewed the troops. We were the first American soldiers to enter this area, and the village folks of Ancey-le-Franc, Shacenyelles, Fontenoy, and Nuites sur Yonne, welcomed us to their humble homes, barns and fields where we were to be billeted, with simple and cordial hospitality.