far as one could judge. Thirst was excusable after the
last two miles of that stage. The horses would have given
up the grade if the men hadn't encouraged them and put
shoulders to the wheels.
At 4 o'clock the next morning the regiment was on the road again. Its route lay through the plains of the Marne, a rich country sheltering farms and vineyards which had not experienced the harsher touches of war. There was an added spur to muscles and spirits this day. For wasn't it the fourth stage? Wouldn't night see every- one in the paradise of rest billets?
But the march closed towards noon at Ferme Notre Dame, twenty kilometers south-cast of Chalons.
“That's all right," men said wisely. “They're putting another day on the march to make it easier for us. We'll sleep to-night and get there to-morrow."
Yet certainly no one would have chosen to stop at Ferme Notre Dame to make things easier. It was a place at once beautiful and abominable. There was only one well at some distance from the main buildings, so that it took five hectic hours to water the animals once.
Word passed around that the start wouldn't be made until late the next morning. It fitted in. A short march, then rest, baseball, baths, delousing!
The regiment didn't move out in fact, until 6:30 of the 20th, but the stage lengthened into twenty kilometers, and ended during the middle of the afternoon in meadows near Cheppes, on the bank of the little river Guenelle. For the first time doubt appeared in men's faces.
"What does it mean?" they asked one another.
“Ah," some answered carelessly, "we'll get there tomorrow, or, if not, the day after, This isn't so bad."
Nor was it for men or animals. The one bathed and washed clothing in the river; the other grazed contentedly in the lush meadows.
