Page:History of the 305th field artillery (IA historyof305thfi01camp).pdf/231

Rh casualties during a burst of harrassing fire the afternoon before. There was always harrassing fire it seemed, where we were going. Ve would have lo take up new positions, we said confidently. Back from the gossipping groups slipped the depressing word that there were no positions much better than the ones already occupied.

The Colonel came in. He said at first we would have to go forward from thal point on foot. Those of us who had studied the maps groaned, for the road went diagonally toward the front line. By it our positions were many miles away. The Colonel reconsidered. He talked again to some of the officers of the 4th. Doubtfully he decided we might ride as far as regimental headquarters with an interval of 200 meters between pairs.

No officer or man that took that ride cared much for it. We curved up the lill past the half destroyed Romanesque church, and turned into a main road on the crest. Thcre were, of course, no shell screens, and, to the left, we could look all the way to Jerry's temporary home. One of the men expressed the general emotion.

"I feel all undressed up here," he grinncd.

Everywheres along that road were nice fresh signs left by the enemy, pointing the way to dressing stations, to ration and ammunition dumps, to short cuts for the vari- ous villages. And there were nower French signs, regula- ting traffic, repeatedly calling attention to the exposed naturc of the highway.

In the vicinity of a small group of buildings ahcad large high cxplosive shells were vomiting blackly. We guessed that the group was Chartreuve Farm, the regimental head- quarters of the 16th Field Artillery.

We waited in a lane, behind the shelter of a wall until the rest of the party had come up, then burried across a courtyard into the farmı. Two or three habitable rooms down stairs were packed. The colonel and the majors