seemingly impossible. Few duties in the ranks of an army are more alluring to adventurous youth, more fraught with risk, or require more personal courage, skill and resourcefulness.

At last, however, the tedious wait came to an end. Saturday night, July 13th, the usual hour for "taps," passed and the customary orders for the night had not been given. Toward midnight, when the men were at a fever heat of expectancy, having sensed "something doing" in the very air, the regiment was formed in light marching order. This meant no heavy packs, no extra clothes, nothing but fighting equipment and two days' rations. It certainly meant action.

Straight northward through the night they marched. Up toward the Marne the sky was aglow with star shells, flares and shrapnel and high explosives. The next day, July 14th, would be Bastille Day, France's equivalent of our Independence Day, and the men of the 109th commented among themselves as they hiked toward the flaring uproar that it looked as if it would be "some celebration."

The head of the column reached a town, and a glimpse at a map showed that it was Conde-en-Brie, where the little Surmelin River joins the Dhuys. Colonel Brown and the headquarters company swung out of the column to establish regimental post command there. The rest of the regiment went on northward.

A mile farther and a halt was called. There was a brief conference of battalion commanders in the gloom and then the first battalion swung off to the left, the third to the right and the second extended its lines over the territory immediately before it.

When all had arrived in position, the first battalion was on a line just south of the tiny hamlet of Monthurel, northwest of Conde. The second battalion was strung out north of Conde, and the third continued the line north of the hamlet of St. Agnan, northeast of Conde.

Then the regiment was called on to do—for the first time with any thought that it would be of real present value to them—that which they had learned to do, laboriously, grumblingly and with many a sore muscle and aching back, in camp after camp. They "dug in."

There was no sleep that night, even had the excited fancies of the men permitted. Up and down, up and down, went the sturdy young arms, and the dirt flew under the attack of intrenching picks and shovels. By daylight a long line of pits, with the earth taken out and heaped up on the side toward the enemy, scarred the fields. They were not pretentious, as trenches went in the war—scarcely to be dignified with the name of trenches—but the 109th heaved a sigh of relief and was glad of even that shelter as the Hun artillery renewed its strafing of the countryside.

Runners from the 109th carried the news to brigade headquarters that the regiment was at last on the line. Thence the word seeped down through the ranks, and the men of the 110th and 111th and of the engineers got little inklings of the troubles their comrades of the old First and Thirteenth had experienced in reaching their position.

Roughly, then, the line of the four regiments extended from near Chezy, on the east, to the region of Vaux, beyond Château-Thierry, on the west. The 103d Engineers held the eastern end. Then came, in the order named, the 109th, 110th and 111th. The 112th was busy elsewhere, and had not joined the other regiment of its brigade, the 111th.

CHAPTER III

The Last Hun Drive

Our Pennsylvania regiments now were operating directly with French troops, under French higher command, and in the line they were widely separated, with French regiments between.

The troops faced much open country, consisting chiefly of the well-tilled fields for which France is noted, with here and there a clump of trees or bushes, tiny streams, fences and an occasional farm building. Beyond these lay a dense woods, extending to the Marne, known variously in the different localities by the name of the nearest town. The Bois de Conde, near Monthurel, was the scene of some of the stiffest fighting that followed.

The real battle line lay right along the Valley of the Marne, a little more than two miles away, and the men of the Pennsylvania regiments were disappointed again to learn they were not actually holding the front line. That was entirely in the hands of the French in that sector, and French officers who came back to visit the American headquarters and to establish liaison with these support troops confidently predicted that the Boche never would get a foothold on the south bank of the river. The river, they said, was so lined with machine gun nests and barbed wire entanglements that nothing could pass.

That evening, Sunday, July 14th, runners brought messages from brigade headquarters to Colonel Brown, commanding the 109th, and Colonel George E. Kemp, of Philadelphia, commanding the 110th. There were little holes in the French line that it was necessary to plug, and the American support was called on to do the plugging.

Colonel Brown ordered Captain James B. Cousart, of Philadelphia, acting commander of the third battalion, to send two companies forward to the line, and Colonel Kemp, from his post command, despatched a similar message to Major Joseph H. Thompson, Beaver Falls, commanding his first battalion.

Captain Cousart led the expedition from the 109th himself, taking his own company, L, and Company M, commanded by Captain Edward P. Mackey, of Williamsport. Major Thompson sent Companies B, of New Brighton, and C, of Somerset, from the 110th, commanded respectively by Captains William Fish and William C. Truxal.

Captain Cousart's little force was established in the line, Company M below Passy-sur-Marne, and Company L back of Courtemont-Varennes. The two companies of the 110th were back of Fossoy and Mezy, directly in the great bend of the river. The Dhuys River enters the Marne near that point and this river separated the positions of the 109th and 110th companies. Fossoy, the farthest west of these towns, is only four miles in an air line from Château-Thierry, and Passy is about four miles farther east.

The reason for this move was two-fold: Marshal Foch had manipulated his forces so that it was felt to be virtually certain the next outbreak of the Germans could be made only at one point, directly southwest from Château-Thierry. If the expected happened, the green Pennsylvania troops would receive their baptism of fire within the zone of the operation, but not in the direct line of the thrust. Thus, they would become seasoned to fire without bearing the responsibility of actually stopping a determined effort.

The second reason was that the French had been making heavy concentrations around Château-Thierry, and their line to the east was too thin for comfort. Therefore, their units were drawn in somewhat at the flanks, to deepen the defense line, and the Pennsylvania companies were used to fill the gaps thus created.

French staff officers accompanied the four companies to the line and disposed them in the pockets left for them, in such a way that there were alternately along that part of the front a French regiment and then an American company. The disposition of the troops was completed well before midnight. The companies left behind had watched their fellows depart on this night adventure with longing, envious eyes, and little groups sat up late discussing the luck that fell to some soldiers and was withheld from others.

The men had had no sleep at all the night before and little during