The Big Drive (Argonne Offensive). Artillery fire continued during the day. We were waiting for order to move the supply train up to follow the advance. Meanwhile, the 92nd Division (colored) moved in the woods in back of us as our support. So many of the colored boys came to our kitchen for something to eat that our supply threatened to give out until a big colored Major came {up chased } them back to their own area. News about the progress of the drive wa[s] eagerly sought. We were informed toward ^evening that the general advance from Verdun to the Forest was succeeding and that we were to follow up to Varennes. At night we started and followed the same road {thru} the forest some had been on[Page]the night before. Our progress was very slow since there was so much traffic. Supply trains of the whole Division were on the same road. A Field Hospital had sprung up along the road where ambulences and trucks brought their cargoes of wounded. The road, except on the corduroy was soft and muddy. Frequently we had to push and lift to help the horses move them. At dawn we arrived at Bourneilles, the first village captured by our men the morning before. Here we got on the main road, ^{a well built highway.} Many high Division officers were frantically {trying keep} traffic moving. This road had been badly battered by shells and we found as we moved up the Germans had blown it up in a small gully causing a great crater possibly 50 ft. wide and 30 ft. deep. Our engineers were busy constructing a bridge over it. Meanwhile, we drove around it over soggy field. There were two ^solid lines of traffic from Bourneilles to {Varrennes} moving very slowly in the broad day light. If the Germans had opened up with artillery on this road, it would have been too bad, but,[Page]fortunately for us, their attention was kept elsewhere. Their more immediate concern was to try to stop the general American advance. It was noon when we arrived at Varennes. It had taken us six hours to move about three kilometers. This was an important rail head for the Germans for four years. They had dug caves on the steep side of the hill {able accomodate} thousands of men, safe from shell or bomb. Our infantry had taken several hundred prisoners here on the first morning of the drive. We followed ^along narrow gauge railroad up a narrow small valley and {bivouaced}. A picket line for the horses was made. The men dug in on the hill side sloping away from the enemy. I selected a ^fresh shell hole made by our own barrage a few nights before for my quarters. I put my shelter tent over it and spread my bedding roll. This was not bad until it rained, when I had trouble keeping my feet ^within the limits of protection offered by the pup tent. As it developed, we were {destined stay} in this position for almost two weeks.