Page:Ambulance 464 by Julien Bryan.djvu/217

 in prayer, stood behind them. It was such an odd scene that I took several photos of it. Then we found some poiluswho had a number of vases they had painstakingly hammered out from brass shell casings. I gave one of my Ingersolls for a pair of seventy-fives, decorated with a sort of grape-vine design, and five francs for four cute little "37" vases. Then we each bought a briquet, modelled after the French army canteen and exceedingly well put together. They told us it took a whole week to make one; but it keeps them busy during those periods when they almost go crazy from the monotony of the life.

There is a large field between here and Ferme de Piemont where they have machine-gun and hand-grenade practice. Stanley, Sammy Lloyd and myself walked there last Sunday and looked the place over. We got into conversation with some soldiers and soon they were telling us how to throw hand-grenades. We claimed that the American method, the baseball way, was much better and proved it by hurling one of the cast iron bombs about the size of a lemon, fully fifty feet farther than their best mark. But they explained and rightly enough, too, that their over-arm method never tires one very much; whereas ours does, after very few throws.