The officer snickered.

“Is this all that there is to it?  Are we really on the firing line?” I asked aloud.  “Why, it’s as quiet here as the Michigan woods!”

The officer laughed again.

“At this minute, yes,” he said; then, “Wait here, I will be back directly, and no noise!”

[Sidenote:  The firing line seems a lonely place.]

He went off through the fog, and I have never experienced such a feeling of loneliness as swept over me at that minute—­loneliness, and I really believe disappointment,—­for I had imagined the firing line to be a place of constant terror.

“Gee, this is what we’ve been training for all these months!” I heard one of the fellows say.  “Well, all I’ve got to say is it won’t be so quiet over on the Boches’ land when we get started,” and they all laughed.

[Sidenote:  An experience of many sensations.]

It is absolutely impossible to describe the sensations that come over a fellow when he realizes that he is going under fire.  I think that you pass through various stages that include every sensation in life.  You are frightened, you are glad to get into the fight.  You are anxious to begin—­you wish you had a few weeks’ longer training to become a better shot.

I am not sure how long we stood there waiting for the return of the French officer who was tutoring us for our baptism of fire, but suddenly he was at my side.

[Sidenote:  The first need is a signal station.]

“The battery is to be over there,” he pointed through the night, “and we will set up a signal station right here.  The first thing to do is to dig in the telephone wires, for headquarters reports that there is considerable rifle fire about here in the daytime.  Order a detachment of men to help you!”

[Sidenote:  Digging in the telephone wires.]

“Yes, sir,” and I went quickly back toward where I knew the men were waiting, happy to think that there was work to be done at once.  I gave the orders that had been handed to me, and in about twenty minutes we were turning over the earth.  While we were working others were just as busy, for our battery was being placed in position, and some fifty feet behind the battery the others of the signal service detachment, of which I was a member, were setting up a receiving station.  As I helped in the digging of that small trench for telephone wires my heart sang, and I lived again the months that I had served in order that I might be fit for the service I was performing that minute.

It might be well, before going further into this narrative, to say that the fellows who had accompanied me were the first American troops to take charge of a sector of the French line, a sector which some day will be moved into the heart of Germany and make old friend Hun wish that there was a way for him to change his nationality and viewpoint.

[Sidenote:  The artillery training camp.]