chilled us through, and to wash down the hard-tack and corned "Willie" that were distributed as travel rations.

The next afternoon found us moving towards Soissons through country scarred by crumbling trenches and rusted wire. A little before sunset we detrained just outside of Soissons. Unloading is a much quicker process than loading, but the lack of proper ramps here forced us to lower the guns from car to ground by hand, without any loading platforms. Here the familiar winding roads and hedges of Brittany were exchanged for long, straight roads, flanked by tall, slender poplars. Houses shattered by shell fire and air raids, and signs "Abri 20 Personnes," "Cave—40 Personnes" showed that we were truly in the war zone. As we entered the city in the early darkness, an air raid alarm sent French soldiers and civilians scurrying to shelter. In the darkness and cold we parked guns and wagons. Then the drivers rode off to stables, located they knew not where, to unharness, water and feed the horses. Eventually the whole Battery made their way to the Abbey of Soissons Cathedral. In this historic building, which had housed troops through a score of wars, we spent the night.

Preceded by a reconnaissance detail, the Battery left Soissons early next morning. As we marched along the road between the borders of poplars that are so much a part of every French landscape, some one shouted and pointed toward the sky. High over­ head, surrounded by white puffs of shrapnel, we could just discern several German aeroplanes. Soon the

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