Page:History of the 305th field artillery (IA historyof305thfi01camp).pdf/145

Rh very late the night before, but our aflair was quite simple.

One produced from a cupboard in the dark paneling a cobwebbed bottle.

"It is forty years old," he said, pouring a white liquid into glasses.

Coffee appcared. These officers were in no hurry to dis- cuss our affair. We experienced a sense of guilt while we waited for thein to come to business. Our restlessness grew. We wanted to be doing something.

At first that was the attitude of the average American soldier towards his job. Experience taught him eventually to take the day's work a trifle more sanely. But on the whole he was in a hurry. In quiet sectors he was up and at work earlier than the French, He took about one-fifth as much time for meals as they did. He went to bed a good deal later and seemed seldom to have had enough sleep; yet, until he learned something of the tricks of war, he was always surprised at the end of a day to find that the French, while apparently loafing, had accomplished a good deal more than he had done.

When the coffee was finished our Frenchmen were inclined to smoke and chat. Since we were in their hands we could only hint our anxiety.

They pointed out the paneling of the room.

“The house belongs to a rich man. Your soldiers call him the Count of Pexonne," One picked up the dusty bottle.

"He had a taste for such things. You haven't seen his cellar. You know in French a cellar is a cave, and a cave has come to mean a shelter from bombardment. When we saw the cave we decided never had war led us to such a shelter, and we didn't care how long the Bosches kept us there. It was filled with such bottles as these. They're about gone now, for the town is to be abandoned,