teries were ordered to go up to Pont a Mousson to assist the French in a Coup de Main. During the night of May 19 our drivers came up from the echelon and pulled the guns out to the main road at "Hill Top Crossing" where motor trucks were waiting. Each battery had five,—one for each gun and crew, and one for the kitchen and special detail equipment. By means of I-beams, the guns were quickly loaded aboard, and in thirty minutes the "Flying Battalion" was on its way. About midnight we arrived at a little town called Gezoncourt where we stopped for the night and next day. We found it full of Senegalese negroes who were to go over the top in the coming raid. With great glee they showed us their sharp knives from the forests of Senegal and demonstrated how they were going to scalp all the Boches they met. A river which ran by the town afforded everyone a chance to get his first real swim since coming to France.

                On the night of May 20 we again went forward on the trucks, this time to the little deserted village of Mamey, about 5,000 yards from the front lines. Limbers of the 269th French Artillery picked up our guns here and hauled them to an open position just south of the St. Dizier-Metz Road. There were many old, abandoned positions on all sides of us, but they were all well known to the Boche and would be sure to draw retaliating fire. Ours was little more than a dummy position, with just outlines of the gun pits hollowed out. Our mission was to stay unobserved until "J Day." Consequently we covered the guns with camouflage, after "laying them in," and went

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