All of last night I was on a ration party. I was weighted down with bread & had one hell of a time pushing forward thru barbed wire, over shell holes, dead men, while shells were bursting all around & a terriffic rain was falling. We were to take the rations to the men in the advanced positions but when we reached Capt. Farmer, who was to give us directions, he was scared stiff & owing to the dark, he didn't know which way to go. Finally he decided that we had better wait until dawn before moving & when he saw that we were armed only with pistols, he said, "My God men! Get rifles & bayonets, what will you do if the Germans counter- attack? So I took a dead mans gun & all night we stood in a muddy trench, with water almost up to our knees, expecting hell to break loose at any moment. John Keller, who stood next to me was shot in the face, while Homer Hood, got a machine gun bullet thru his helmet. The Germans kept up a steady fire & were always sending up signal lights. At day break we were relieved in order to go on a salvage party. This was another ticklish job as we were out in the open all day under shell fire. Two or our