shield them from observance by the enemy planes that whirred overhead in the bright afternoons, the gun pits were dug. Platforms and “circulaires” were installed as each pit was dug. The guns of the second platoon were brought from Lunéville on the evening of March 7, and caissons of ammunitions followed during the night. The rapidity and excellence of the work on the position were partly due to the French officer, Captain Frey, whose battery was near, who gave his advice and counsel, and to the little sergeant, nicknamed “La Soupe” (the words with which he always signified his intention to depart for mess, for he acquired no English), who constantly supervised the work.

At 9:50 a. m., March 8, Battery E fired its first shot at the front, the Third Section piece having the honor. The gun crew was composed of Sergeant Newell, Corporal Monroe, and Privates Sexauer, Ekberg, Farrell and Kilner. The crew working on the Fourth Section piece, which registered the same morning, included Sergeant Suter, Corporal Holton, and Privates O’Reilly, O’Brien, Ladd, Colvin and Kulicek.

Until the first platoon’s guns came up, the gun crews of that platoon alternated on the pieces with the crews of the second platoon, who could sleep in the billet in town on their nights off. The men on the guns had two watches to keep, one at the guns, and one at the “rocket post” on top the hill, to notify the battery if a red rocket, the signal for a barrage, appeared at points laid out on a chart. At first there were two barrages, Embermenil and Jalindet, the names of two towns in whose direction the different fires lay. If the sentinel on the hill-top shouted either of these names, the sentinel at the position was to fire the guns and awake the crews. The names, unusual and difficult to ears unfamiliar with French, were not easy to remember. From that difficulty developed the “Allabala” barrage which made Mosier famous.

Seeing a rocket rise in the vicinity of Embermenil (whether white or red is a mystery), he started to shout the name, but in his excitement could not pronounce the French word, and stuttered forth a succession of syllables like some Arabian Nights’ incantation. Whatever it was, “Allabala” or something else, it worked. The guns were fired—until an order from the O. P. called a halt, declaring the alarm false.

The First and Second Section pieces were brought from Lunéville on the evening of March 15, and registered the next day. The First Section gun crew was composed of Sergeant Bolte, Corporal Fred Howe and Privates Nickoden, Freeburg, Mosier, Wallace and Hodgins; the Second Section crew of Sergeant McElhone, Corporal Clark, Privates Donald Brigham, Meacham, Nixon and Herrod.

March 17, 1918, was remarkable not because it was Sunday or St. Patrick’s day so much as because on that day Battery E’s camouflage burnt. In the course of a 10-round reprisal fire, about 4 p. m., the flame from the muzzle of the Second Section gun set ablaze the grass woven in the wire netting overhead. In a second the covering was in flames. The dry grass burnt like tinder. The men beat the blaze with sand bags, but could check it but little in the face of the intense heat and thick smoke. By tearing off several strips of netting, they succeeded in preventing the fire’s spreading to the other end of the position. Within a short space of time the first platoon’s camouflage was changed from yellow grass to black ashes. The work of seven or eight days was undone in as many minutes.

On so clear and bright a day there was grave danger that the position would be betrayed to enemy observation by the flames, or by the black scar they had left, or even by the men’s activity in repairing it. A few bursts of shrapnel gave warning of the danger. Immediately as much of the burnt surface as could be was covered with rolls of painted canvas on wire netting, such as the French artillery used. Then all the men were set to gathering grass in the fields back of the position. Not long after, about fifty men from D and F batteries came over to help, and all the available men were brought out in the chariot du parc from the battery’s horse-line at Lunéville. So eagerly and rapidly did all of them work that the old netting was restretched and woven full of grass by midnight.

During the next two days the firing was small, only a few rounds occasionally. The chief work was digging the abris and carrying up beams and concrete blocks from the road for their construction.

On March 20 the battery was engaged in tearing down enemy barbed wire, firing 216 rounds per gun during the day, in preparation for an attack that night. At 7:40 p. m. commenced the actual bombardment. A few minutes before that time 75’s began to bark from the woods to our left and in the rear of us. The reports gradually grew in number. At the appointed moment, our guns began to bang away. For the next two hours and forty-five minutes, the noise was deafening. Batteries of whose existence we had not the slightest suspicion were firing near us. Every hillock and clump of trees seemed to blaze with gun flashes. Joined with the constant bark and bang of the 75’s near by was the deep thunderous roar of heavier cannon in the distance.

At 10 o’clock the firing began to die away. Half an hour later only a few shots at long intervals could be heard. Fatigued with their strenuous and racking work, the men eagerly attacked the mess just then brought up to them. Nearly all were a little deaf from their guns’ racket. A few, on the gun crews, were totally oblivious to all sound whatsoever, and could comprehend only signs.

B. C. Detail at Observation Post near Ancerviller		Cook Boisacq Hears Thrilling Tales at the O. P.
Horseshoers’ Shop at the Merviller Horse-lines		Aeroplane Scouts Wouldn’t See this Pup-Tent

The first published account of an engagement of the 42d Division was brief and anonymous. In the Paris edition of the “New York Herald” of March 22, 1918, at the end of a column on the first page telling of the decoration of Corporal Alexander Burns and other members of the regiment appeared this paragraph, under date of March 21:

“Members of the American force made a raid last night. Following a long barrage, the boys went over in good shape, but the German trenches were deserted, the long heavy Allied barrage having driven every one out. No American was hurt or killed.”

The enemy’s reply to us did not come till the next morning. Roused at 4 to stand by the guns, the cannoneers had scarcely occupied their posts when shells began to drop dangerously near. Captain Robbins ordered everyone into the abris till the shelling ceased. Half an hour later we went out to find that a gas shell had made the officers’ abri and vicinity untenable, all our telephone wires were cut, and shell fragments had torn up things here and there. How