  It seemed but a few minutes when I was awakened by Collette and Marcel, who offered me a steaming cup of coffee, half a loaf of bread, and some Swiss cheese. This food had been brought from the rear while I was lying asleep. My appetite was splendid, and when Sergeant Malvoisin offered me a drink of rum in a canteen that he took off a dead German, I accepted gratefully. Just then the agent de liaison appeared, with the order to assemble the section, and in single file, second section at thirty-metre interval, to return the way we had come. It was almost daylight and things were visible at two to three metres. The bombardment had died down and the quiet was hardly disturbed by occasional shots. Our captain marched ahead of the second section, swinging a cane and contentedly puffing on his pipe. Nearly everybody was smoking. As we marched along we noticed that new trenches had been dug during the night, from sixty to a hundred metres in the rear of the position we had held, and these trenches were filled by the Twenty-ninth Chasseurs Regiment, which replaced us. Very cunningly these trenches were arranged. They were deep and narrow, fully seven feet deep and barely a yard wide. At every favorable point, on every little rise in the ground, a salient had been constructed, projecting out from the main trench ten to fifteen metres, protected by heavy logs, corrugated steel sheets, and two to three feet of dirt. Each side of the salients bristled with machine guns. Any attack upon this position would be bound to fail, owing to the intense volume of fire that could be brought to bear upon the flanks of the enemy. To make assurance doubly sure, the Engineer Corps had dug rows of cup-shaped bowls, two feet in diameter, two feet deep, leaving but a narrow wedge of dirt between each two; and in the center of each bowl was placed a six-pointed twisted steel "porcupine." This instrument, no matter how placed, always presents a sharp point right at you. Five rows of these man-traps I counted, separated by a thin wall of dirt, not strong enough to maintain the weight of a man, so that any one who attempted to rush past would be thrown against the "porcupine" and be spitted like a pigeon. As an additional precaution a mass of barbed wire lay in rolls, ready to be placed in front of this ouvrage, to make it safe against any surprise. We marched along, talking and chatting, discussing this and that, without a care in the world. Every one hoped we were going to the rear to recuperate and enjoy a good square meal and a good night's rest. Seeger wanted a good wash, he said. He was rather dirty, and so was I. My puttees dangled in pieces round my calves. It seems I had torn them going through the German wire the day before. I told Haeffle to keep his eyes open for a good pair on some dead man. He said he would. The company marched round the hill we descended so swiftly yesterday and, describing a semicircle, entered again the SchÜtzengraben Spandau and marched back in the direction we had come from. The trench, however, presented a different appearance. The bad places had been repaired, the loose dirt had been shoveled out, and the dead had disappeared. On the east side of the trench an extremely high parapet had been built. In this parapet even loopholes appeared—rather funny-looking loopholes, I thought; and when I looked closer, I saw that they were framed in by boots! I reached my hand into several of them as we walked along, and touched the limbs of dead men. The engineer, it seems, in need of material, had placed the dead Germans on top of the ground, feet flush with the inside of the ditch, leaving from six to seven inches between two bodies, and laying another body crosswise on top of the two, spanning the gap between them. Then they had shoveled the dirt on top of them, thus killing two birds with one stone. The discovery created a riot of excitement among the men. Curses intermingled with laughter came from ahead of us. Everybody was tickled by the ingenuity of our gÉnie. "They are marvelous!" we thought. Dowd's face showed consternation, yet he could not help smiling. Little King was pale around the mouth, yet his lips were twisted in a grin. It was horribly amusing. Every two hundred metres we passed groups of soldiers of the one Hundred and Seventieth Regiment on duty in the trench. The front line, they told us, was twelve hundred metres farther east, and this trench formed the second line for their regiment. We entered the third-line trench of the Germans, from which they ran yesterday to surrender, and continued marching in the same direction—always east. Here we had a chance to investigate the erstwhile German habitations. Exactly forty paces apart doorways opened into the dirt bank, and from each of them fourteen steps descended at about forty-five degrees into a cellar-like room. The stairs were built of wood and the sides of the stairways and the chambers below were lined with one-inch pine boards. These domiciles must have been quite comfortable and safe, but now they were choked with bodies. As we continued our leisurely way, we met some of our trench-cleaners and they recited their experiences with gusto. The Germans, they told us, pointing down into the charnel-houses, refused to come and give up, and even fired at them when summoned to surrender. "Then what did you do?" I asked. "Very simple," answered one. "We stood on the top of the ground right above the door and hurled grenade after grenade through the doorway until all noise gradually ceased down below. Then we went to the next hole and did the same thing. It wasn't at all dangerous," he added, "and very effective." We moved but slowly along the trench, and every once in a while there was a halt while some of the men investigated promising "prospects," where the holes packed with dead Germans held out some promise of loot. Owing to the order of march, the first company was the last one in line, and my section at the very end. The head of the column was the fourth company, then the third, the second; and then we. By the time my section came to any hole holding out hopes of souvenirs, there was nothing left for us. Yet I did find a German officer with a new pair of leg-bands, and, hastily unwinding them, I discarded my own and put on the new ones. As I bound them on I noticed the name on the tag—"Hindenburg." I suppose the name stands for quality with the Boches. We left the trench and swung into another communication trench, going to the left, still in an easterly direction, straight on toward the Butte de Souain. That point we knew was still in the hands of the Germans, and very quickly they welcomed us. Shells came shrieking down—one hundred and five millimetres, one hundred and fifty, two hundred and ten, and two hundred and fifty. It's very easy to tell when you are close to them, even though you can't see a thing. When a big shell passes high, it sounds like a white-hot piece of iron suddenly doused in cold water; but when it gets close, the sw-i-ish suddenly rises in a high crescendo, a shriek punctuated by a horrible roar. The uniformity of movement as the men ducked was beautiful!—and they all did it. One moment there was a line of gray helmets bobbing up and down the trenches as the line plodded on; and the next instant one could see only a line of black canvas close to the ground, as every man ducked and shifted his shoulder-sack over his neck. My sack had been blown to pieces when I was buried, and I felt uncomfortably handicapped with only my musette for protection against steel splinters. About a mile from where we entered this boyau, we came to a temporary halt, then went on once more. The fourth company had come to a halt, and we squeezed past them as we marched along. Every man of them had his shovel out and had commenced digging a niche for himself. We passed the fourth company, then the third, then the second, and finally the first, second, and third sections of our own company. Just beyond, we ourselves came to a halt and, lining up one man per metre, started to organize the trench for defensive purposes. From the other side of a slight ridge, east of us, and about six hundred metres away, came the sound of machine guns. Between us and the ridge the Germans were executing a very lively feu de barrage, a screen of fire, prohibiting any idea of sending reinforcements over to the front line. Attached for rations to my section were the commandant of the battalion, a captain, and three sergeants of the État-Major. Two of the sergeants were at the trench telephone, and I could hear them report the news to the officers. "The Germans," they reported, "are penned in on three sides and are prevented from retreating by our artillery." Twice they had tried to pierce our line between them and the Butte de Souain, and twice they were driven back. Good news for us! At 10 a.m. we sent three men from each section to the rear for the soup. At about eleven they reappeared with steaming marmites of soup, stew, and coffee, and buckets of wine. The food was very good, and disappeared to the last morsel. After we had eaten, the captain granted me permission to walk along the ditch back to the fourth company. The trench being too crowded for comfort, I walked alongside to the second company, and searched for my friend Sergeant Velte. Finally I found him lying in a shell-hole, side by side with his adjutant and Sergeant Morin. All three were dead, torn to pieces by one shell shortly after we had passed them in the morning. At the third company they reported that Second Lieutenant Sweeny had been shot through the chest by a lost ball that morning. Hard luck for Sweeny!2 The poor devil had just been nominated sous-lieutenant at the request of the French Embassy in Washington, and when he was attached as supernumerary to the third company we all had hopes that he would have a chance to prove his merit. In the fourth company also the losses were severe. The part of the trench occupied by the three companies was directly enfiladed by the German batteries on the Butte de Souain, and every little while a shell would fall square into the ditch and take toll from the occupants. Our company was fully a thousand metres nearer to these batteries, but the trenches we occupied presented a three-quarters face to the fire, and consequently were ever so much harder to hit. Even then, when I got back I found four men hors de combat in the fourth section. In my section two niches were demolished without any one being hit. Time dragged slowly until four in the afternoon, when we had soup again. Many of the men built little fires and with the Erbsenwurst they had found on dead Germans prepared a very palatable soup by way of extra rations. At four o'clock sentries were posted and everybody fell asleep. A steady rain was falling, and to keep dry we hooked one edge of our tent-sheet on the ground above the niche and placed dirt on top of it to hold. Then we pushed cartridges through the button-holes of the tent, pinning them into the side of the trench and forming a good cover for the occupant of the hole. Thus we rested until the new day broke, bringing a clear sky and sunshine. This day, the 27th,—the third of the battle,—passed without mishap to my section. We spent our time eating and sleeping, mildly distracted by an intermittent bombardment.
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