Page:History of the 305th field artillery (IA historyof305thfi01camp).pdf/137

Rh Drawn by Capt. Starbuck F. and S. "A group of gaunt walls suggested a devastating fire"

Up through Bordeaux, Perigueux, Limoges, Chateauroux, and Auxerre we journeyed towards the front. We expected our definite orders at Is-Sur-Til, but at noon on the 8th when we paused at Nuits Sous-Ravière we received a telegram which changed our route, and promised us orders at Chaumont. We got them there in the evening. We would detrain the next morning at Baccarat.

It rained that night. It was in depressing and gray weather that most of the regiment reached its destination.

Exactly as the entraining of one battery is much the same as another, just so the arrival of each organization at Baccarat differed only in the hour.

Escaping from sleep, we glanced from the cars at a strange France. The change was due to more than the dull sky, the drifting rain, and the deserted appearance of the little station.

Opposite stretched a row of depressing stone barracks, oddly scarred as if they had been for a long time neglected. Nearby a group of gaunt walls suggested a devastating fire. A large sign depended from the front of the station.