The American Front

engaged in action. Most of them were still in training in back areas or were holding certain quiet sectors while they learned the intricacies of trench warfare, and released veteran French divisions for combat. The Second Division, the Marines, were in the trenches east of Verdun; the Twenty-Sixth was in the Toul sector; the Forty-Second in the Vosges, and toward the middle of May the Thirty-Second moved into Alsace. It was now my purpose to visit each of these sectors. We official artists, as we were called, had meanwhile been given our papers, which allowed us the greatest freedom of action. They were signed by the chief of our section at G. H. Q., and their second and third paragraphs read: "You are authorized to make sketches and paintings anywhere within the Zone of the American Army in accordance with instructions already given you. "It is the wish of the Commander-in-Chief that all commanding officers extend to you all possible assistance in the carrying out of your orders." As only three of us had as yet arrived, our decisions were easily made, and we chose, for our first experience, the area occupied by the Forty-Second, the Rainbow Division, composed, as every one knows, of National Guard elements from many different States, whence its name. So, on the 20th of April, we left Chaumont, heading direct for Nancy, scarcely noting anything on the way, so eager were we to get up to the front. But, at the top of the hill beyond Pont St. Vincen... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.