[Page]to sleep in the field nearby under the stars as we often had done before. No sooner had we rolled in our blankets than we heard vigorous jabbering in French just behind us. It only took only seconds to find out what it was about. A flash! A trembling of the earth, coupled with a deafening "Boom". It felt as though the old earth was trying to shake us off. We had made our bed under the muzzles of a battery of 6 inch guns. We had failed to take notice of this in all between darkness and camouflage. We gathered outselves together and lay down again, hoping that would be all. To our dismay they repeated the process about every twenty minutes. At first we jumped every time the guns went off, but gradually our nerves tired of this and we snatched a little sleep between salvos. In the morning we looked for the din-makers. They were quiet now and well concealed. We had slept about fifty yards in front of them. They were fired at a high angle at distant objectives. For several days we kept busy digging in and placing our kitchens and supplies at most convenient places. We were now located near Coude-eu- Brie, south of the Marne River and east of Chateau- Thierry. The 3rd Division (Regulars) were was on our left. One evening we heard continuous cracking of what[Page]sounded as like rapid musketry firing. Scouts were sent over in the direction of the sound to asscertain the cause. A German shell had struck an ammunition dump in the 3rd Div. area and set it on fire. The landscape from our hill was beautiful. The tops of the hills were wooded. The sides and valleys were spotted patched with green fields and yellow ripe wheat which ⟨was⟩ ripe for harvest but no one was there to harvest do it. These fields were full of scarlet poppies which grew as weeds among the grain. The soldier poet McCrae was inspired by fields like these when he wrote "In Flanders Fields." The Surmelin River followed down the valley toward the Marne. Coude lay along this stream about a kilometer to our right. On the afternoon ofJuly 14 Sergeant Byerly and I went over to Coude to see what we could find. The town was mostly deserted. We saw a few old women with worried faces. To our great delight we found two young ladies who had refused to follow the line of refugees away from the danger zone. Little did they know what was in store for them. Twenty four hours later then village was in the midst of a fearful battle and in ruins. These Since girls knew no English and we knew practically no French. making our we could not, therefore, could not start much of an argument. Beyond the town we found a field of growing potatoes. We dug out some[Page]plants and found tubers, the longest of which were about the size of a small walnut. We kept on digging until we had filled our helmets. Now who was going to fry them. Our mouths were watering for delicious new potatoes. We took them to the stream and washed and scraped them with stones. The skins came off easily. We walked back to the village and sought out an old lady and persuaded her (by gestures and francs) to fry them for us. This she did. They were delicious. We paid her and gave her some of the potatoes. They tasted better than anything we had had for months. What a relief from army grub!
A Terrible Night. At about sunset a French flame came low over the hill in back of us and dropped a message for the French General. The content of it was that the Germans were massing troops in large numbers for the long expected attack. It had been so quiet for several days that the very quietness was ominous. Very few shells came over from the enemy. I had dug a small hole about 2 by 6 ft. and a foot and a half deep at the edge of the woods. This was my sleeping place, and I felt protected against anything except a direct hit. I had stretched my shelter tent half over it to protect.