I kept a diary on that hike. It was a thing forbidden, but I
managed it. One manages many things out there. I have just read
over that diary. There isn't much to it but a succession of town
names,--Villiers du Bois, Maisincourt, Barly, Oneaux, Canchy,
Amiens, Bourdon, Villiers Bocage, Agenvilliers, Behencourt, and
others that I failed to set down and have forgotten. We swept
across that country, sweating under our packs, hardening our
muscles, stopping here for a day, there for five days for
extended-order drills and bayonet and musketry practice, and
somewhere else for a sham battle. We were getting ready to go into
the Somme.

The weather, by some perversity of fate, was fair during all of
that hiking time. Whenever I was in the trenches it always rained,
whether the season warranted it or not. Except on days when we were
scheduled to go over the top. Then, probably because rain will
sometimes hold up a planned-for attack, it was always fair.

On the hike, with good roads under foot, the soldier does not mind
a little wet and welcomes a lot of clouds. No such luck for us. It
was clear all the time. Not only clear but blazing hot August
weather.

On our first march out of the Cabaret Rouge communication trench we
covered a matter of ten miles to a place called Villiers du Bois.
Before that I had never fully realized just what it meant to go it
in full heavy equipment.

Often on the march I compared my lot with that of the medieval
soldier who had done his fighting over these same fields of