Night fell; and the long troop trains like monstrous serpents creeping on their prey crawled steadily, silently forward into the abysmally black unknown. Slower and more uncertain they moved, feeling their way; and at midnight came to a final stop at the near approaches to No Man's Land. Quickly we detrained and took cover in a near-by forest; the empty cars trailed off rapidly to the south; and dawn found neither a car nor a soldier in sight. All that day we remained hidden in the shadowy solitudes of Bois l'Evque on the banks of the Moselle.
Beautiful was this softly flowing river, mirroring azure skies and radiant in the colorful glow of early autumn. How hard to realize that death lurked in the quietude of its borders; that Man had chosen this bosom of shade, tuneful with the voice of sweetly calling birds, as a fitting shambles to slay his fellow men!
If day for the soldier was for rest, night was for the march; and a new dawn found us in the sheltering woods of Gonderville on the Toul-Nancy highway.
Turquoise, palest violet, tender green and gold, the country lay before us. Then, even as we watched from covert, our ears made acquaintance with a new and ominous sound. From an infinite distance the morning breeze from the north carried with it a deadened thumping sound, now regular as the muffled rolling of drums, now softly irregular with intervals of stillness. It was the dominating monotone of cannonading. No need to tell the boys what it meant!
"Guess we're in time for the big show all right," Buddie quietly remarked; and from that moment an expression overspread his countenance and a note crept into his voice I had not noticed there before. It was not one of nervousness, but of seriousness; a clearer vision and apprehension of big manly things henceforth to be done.
"When I was a boy I lived as a boy; but when I became a man I put away the things of boyhood and acted the part of a man."
_Boys_ went _into_ the trenches, but _men_ came _out_ of them!
[Illustration: OUR DUGOUTS AFFORDED SHELTER AND HABITATION.]
PUVINELLE SECTOR--BOIS LE PRETRE--VIEVILLE EN HAYE
Gallant Pershing was even then maneuvering his masterly all-American offensive in the San Michel. Our Seventh Division, with the 28th on the left and the 92d on the right, now reached the high full tide of martial responsibility; merging from the reserve into the attack; and taking its place with the Immortal Combat Divisions of proud Old Glory.