which the townspeople possessed. After this mortal blow, the villagers scattered to the four corners of France, and lived the pitiable life of refugees, till the fall of 1918 when a few of the oldest inhabitants returned, preferring to face the hardships of life in their old homes in the advanced zones than to finish their obscure careers among strangers. We also learned later, though not from the Town Major, that the departure of the kindly Hun had been at the urgent request of a battalion of French Territorials, and that a score of the unwelcome guests lie in a tiny cemetery behind the town.

                As a billeting town Seraucourt left much to be desired. Quarters for men and horses were hard to find; a dozen men in a loft over Mme. Goulet's, a section of horses in her shed; thirty men in the empty house across the street, and a few single-mounts in the tiny stable below, and so on.

                Ten o'clock at night, a bitter wind sweeps the wide white road, the moon shimmers down on the red roofs, casting a frigid frosty radiance over the village; a rumbling and clanking which grows and swells, fills the wide street; tired voices battle against the high wind and the Battery is here. A hasty supper is prepared and the men, cheered by the prospect of an early start on the following morning, stumble into their billet to sleep the sleep of the just.

                Morning, bright and gusty, and the Battery is on the road again, the drivers hunched forward in their saddles to lessen the angry buffets of the wind, while the cannoneers, "sac-a-dos", plod stolidly along, sheltering themselves as best they can in the lee of the

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