Into the Jaws of Death

by Jack O'Brien

CHAPTER II

There was one big event that we will remember for the rest of our lives, and that was our review by the King and Lord Kitchener. We were reviewed on Sir John Moore's Plain, and the entire Second Division of Infantry as well as the Artillery was out that day; all the roads leading to the Plain were packed with troops, and as we all marched down and lined up in review order, it was the biggest bunch of soldiers I have ever seen together. There were somewhere between fifteen and sixteen thousand men, and when they were marching with fixed bayonets it looked like a sea of steel.

After lining up we had a long wait, and all at once a thunderstorm came up. The rain came down in pailfuls, and soon all the boys were singing "Throw out the life line, some one is sinking today." One of the boys near me said, "I don't see why the devil no one has ever thought of putting a roof over this blamed island." Well, just when we were in the middle of our song and the whole fifteen thousand men were roaring it out at the top of their voices, the King's automobile went by. We were soon put into marching order and the march past the King and Lord Kitchener commenced. When we got the order "Eyes right!" we looked at them both—the King was a smaller man than we expected to see, and Kitchener looked older than we thought he would be. But oh, what eyes Kitchener had! they seemed to be looking every man straight in the face—the boys all noticed the same thing, and spoke of it afterwards. After the march past the officers were called up and congratulated on the showing the men had made, and they passed it on to us. Well, away we went back to camp, wet and tired, but delighted over the events of the day and we all felt proud of being "Britishers." When we got back to camp and were talking things over, we all agreed that our inspection was a sign of an early departure for France, and from that on the place buzzed with rumours of when we were to start. It does not take much to start a rumour going in the Army—for instance, the Colonel buys a light shirt, and his batman tells somebody that he thinks we are going to a warm climate, as the Colonel is buying light clothes. The person he told it to passes it on this way—"Oh yes, the Colonel's servant says we are going to India," and No. 3 announces "I have it from some one high up that we are being sent to India instead of to France, the Colonel is laying in a supply of light clothes; and in the Quartermaster's store they have gotten in a supply of sun helmets"—and so it goes, increasing in size like the report of a German victory in their newspapers. But we soon saw that our stay was going to be short, for presently our new equipment was issued to us. This consisted of two khaki shirts, two heavy suits of underwear, two heavy army blankets, rifle and ammunition, hat covers, several pairs of socks, a lot of small things, and last but not least, two pairs of boots. Besides this, we had our haversack containing emergency rations: tea, sugar, army biscuits, and bully-beef. I put my pack on the scales when I got it all together, and it weighed just one hundred pounds.

Our new issue of boots came in for more attention than anything else. I must tell you about them; they were destined to cause us no end of misery in the near future. Such boots! "Gravel crushers," we called them. Big heavy marching boots, armour-plated on the sole and so large that they looked and felt like barges. In my childhood days I never could understand how the "Old Lady lived in a shoe," but when I saw these boots the mystery was solved; though, mind you, they were just the thing for France; and after they got broken in, we couldn't have had anything better. But after our light-weight boot manufactured out of paper by some of our patriotic(?) Canadian firms, it took some time to get our feet used to the heavier weight.

Just before we were ready to leave for France we were treated to an air-raid. Some Zeppelins came over and dropped bombs not far from our camp. Of course the warning was sounded, all lights put out, and we sat there as still as mice, wondering what was going to happen next. I fancy we felt something as a rabbit does when there is a keen-eyed hawk soaring overhead. However, the danger passed and there was no harm done, but they were evidently looking for our camp, for two days after we left it, it was properly bombed.

Well, after we got our equipment, we were kept busy for a couple of days signing sheets and undergoing kit inspection, but finally everything was attended to and we were ready to start. It was a hot day when we "fell in" for our eight-mile hike to ——, and when I had all my kit in place, I think I must have looked like a snail who carries his house packed on his back. Well, the farther we went the heavier our load became. Our feet were tortured by the new stiff boots; some of the boys took theirs off and walked in their socks, but these had their feet cut and bruised by the stones which plentifully bestrewed our way. Oh, how we cursed our officers for making us wear our new boots for the first time on such a hike. We should have had them long enough ahead to get them broken in. Well, some of the boys fell out, but the rest of us struggled on, and at last, just at dark, we reached the pier. We were dripping with perspiration, and we had eaten nothing except our army ration. Well, we sat around till we all got cold; and then, to our utter amazement and disgust, the order came, not to embark, but to "right-about-turn"; and with much swearing and grousing, we commenced what was afterwards known among the 6th Brigade as "The Retreat from Folkestone." Of course the officers weren't to blame—some mines had broken loose in the Channel, and until they were looked after by the mine sweepers it wasn't safe to cross. Oh, that march! no one who went through it will ever forget what we went through. In all my experience in France, I never carried such a pack. And after going a short distance on the return trip, the boys, like sinking ships, began to get rid of their cargo—for miles that road was strewn with boots, shirts, sweaters, cap covers, all kinds of articles—then the boys themselves began to fall out, and the dog-tired men rolled themselves in their blankets and lay down in their tracks. By the way, we were not going back to Folkestone, but were bound for a place known as "Sir John Moore's Plain"; but nobody knew how far it was, nor the quickest way to get there; some went one way and some another. Our battalion kept on going with frequent rests; we were dripping with sweat, and when the men sat down to rest they were too tired and disgusted to even swear. Finally our officers turned to us and said, "Only another mile, boys," and our hopes revived a little; but meeting a civilian, I asked him how far it was to Moore's Plain, and he said, "Oh, it's about four miles." Our officer overheard and said "Come on, boys, let's make camp here," and No. 10 platoon quit right there. We were going through a little village at the time, and we piled up on the lawns, rolled out our blankets and went to sleep. Next morning the lady of the house who owned the lawn found us there; she took pity on us, and calling us in gave us our breakfast. Later, we were sitting on the lawn when our Colonel drove up in his automobile. He called, "Come on, boys, hurry up and get up to the camp." He told us how to go and then went on to round up the rest—so we drifted on towards the camp and finally reached it, and all that day the boys came straggling in, some of them still carrying their boots. Well, that night we had to pack up and march down again, but this time it wasn't so hot, and all our spare equipment went by transport. We reached the port about dusk and we were soon loaded up; as soon as we got on board, life-belts had to be put on, and the boat started immediately. We watched the lights of "Old Blighty" flicker and fade away; and every now and then we caught glimpses of destroyers as they went by and disappeared into the darkness. Finally the last lighthouse was passed—no more lights were to be seen, and I turned and looked towards France, wondering what was in store for me there. Little did I think that I would spend a year in Germany before I would see the English shores again.

It wasn't long before the lights of France came in sight. We watched them get clearer and clearer, and soon the command came to put our packs on. We were all ready to march by the time the boat was docked, and off we went. We were on the soil of France, and we all looked around curiously. The first thing I noticed was a French soldier on guard, and I saw that he presented arms in a different way to what we were used to, and also that his bayonet was about twice as long as ours. We soon passed him, and I don't remember much about the march that followed. We were dead-tired, and after travelling for what seemed hours over cobblestones we came to a steep hill—the boys commenced to swear, but we stuck to it for a while. Finally I gave up and lay down beside the road; by this time a lot of the boys had dropped out. After resting a while I started on again, and found Bink and Bob unrolling their blankets—I wanted them to come with me, but a sleep looked good to them. Tommy, Steve, and Baldy were doing the same thing, but instead of following suit I struggled on; at the top of the hill I found a bunch of tents, but that was all—the visions I had of a hot meal faded away, there was no grub in sight—I rolled into one of the tents, spread out my blankets, and had just closed my eyes, when a voice said, "O'Brien, you are on fatigue." I started to kick, but it was no use, so I followed the Sergeant out to where he had a bunch lined up; we were ordered to go down to the commissary tent about five hundred yards distant and draw rations. Well, away we went, and we spent the rest of the night carrying up boxes of jam, butter, bully-beef, and sardines. When I was carrying up the last two boxes, just at daylight, along came the other boys; they thought it was a great joke for them to be comfortably sleeping while I worked getting up grub for them to eat. I couldn't see the fun in it just then, and I told them so, but they only laughed the more. Well, I curled up in my blankets, and it seemed that I had just got to sleep when Tommy wakened me; breakfast was being served, and he had drawn mine. After my bacon and tea and a good wash I felt better.

While we were at breakfast a lot of little French kids crowded around, and we were all amused at the little beggars. Their speech, half French and half English, was very funny. But say, you should have seen them smoke! Little kids hardly able to walk were smoking just like old men. They seemed very hungry, and we gave them lots of our food until we found they were putting it into a sack to carry away.

Well, we stayed in camp till noon, and just after dinner we were told to get ready to move off. Soon we were marching down to take the train, and if the French people who watched us so curiously had seen us go up the night before they would not have recognized us as the same bunch. The French gave us a great reception; the girls brought us fruit, candy, and smokes, and our journey to the station was quite a triumphal procession. One of the girls came running up and gave me a couple of bottles—Rust was beside me and had been through it all before, so he whispered, "Put them in your pack; it is red wine." I guess I was a little slow in getting them out of sight, for our officer saw them and he said, "Don't touch that, it may be poisoned." Of course we had to be careful of spies, but I stuck the bottles in my pack when the officer wasn't looking. Well, we marched to the depot and were soon packed into the small uncomfortable coaches. We started to kick and grumble, but Rust said: "You are lucky to have coaches at all. Last time I went up I rode in a cattle-car," and he pointed out a lot of cars on which was painted "Capacity, so many horses, so many men." After that we hadn't anything more to say.

After much talking and jabbering by the French interpreters we finally got started, and we soon left L——h far behind. I got out my poisoned (?) wine, and not wanting to take any risks myself I politely let Baldy have the first drink. I waited a few minutes and he still looked well, so we finished it up. This put us in good spirits for the trip and every one was gay; no one would ever have imagined that we were on our way to the trenches. We were very much interested in the country we were passing through, but what struck us most forcibly was the number of soldiers we saw. Everywhere we looked there were crowds of them; we thought there were a lot in Blighty, but there seemed to be nothing else here. We passed big railway guns, and once a big Red Cross train glided slowly by—this made us think a bit—but we tried not to look into the future, for we realized that the horrible side of the war would come to us soon enough. Every time the train stopped the French kids would crowd around the coaches crying "Bully-beef, biscuits, cigarettes for my papa, prisoner in Germany." It was all new to us, and we gave them all we could spare. Later on we got wise to the kids, and we found that if we were soft-hearted or soft-headed, they would say the whole family were prisoners. One thing that surprised and shocked us was to hear the little kids swearing; they would use the most frightful oaths, and the funny part of it was that they gave them the pure cockney twang; I suppose they had heard and were imitating the Imperial troops. Well, after travelling all day we finally arrived in C—— and we were marched off to our first billets. I belonged to "C" Company and we were quartered in a barn connected with a farmhouse. It was late when we arrived, and after we had supper we lay down in the straw and soon were all asleep; but it wasn't long before we became uneasy, and soon we were awakened by the feeling that some one or something was trying to bore holes in us. We twisted and turned, but the first ones to waken, tried to keep quiet, and it was not till every one was on the move that we realized that we had made our first acquaintance with the worst pest in the Army—body lice, or "cooties" as they call them—the straw on which we were lying was fairly alive with the little beasts. We thought it strange then, but nearly every billet where there is straw is the same; "soldiers come and soldiers go, but the same straw goes on forever." The next day we were busy boiling our shirts, but if we had only known we might have saved ourselves the trouble, for we were never free from the pests after that. All the belts and powders people send out only seem to fatten them—by the way, gas doesn't kill them either; I think they must have gas helmets. The day was spent in inspection, and the paymaster came and gave us our first pay in France, fifty francs; that night we were allowed downtown, and we made our first acquaintance with the French estaminets or wine-shops; they are only allowed to sell light wines, red and white, to the troops, and French beer. Well, one might just as well drink water. Rust had been through the mill before and could speak French pretty well, and was soon jabbering to the old Frenchwoman, whose face became all smiles when she found he had been wounded at Ypres; her husband had also been wounded there. We wandered in and out every place in the village till it was time to go back to billets. The next day we had to smarten up and get ready for the Brigadier-General, who was going to inspect us. Brigadier-General Ketchen was his name, and instead of a formal inspection he rode up, dismounted, came into the orchard where we were all lined up and said, "Dismiss the men, Major." The Major did so and the Brigadier then spoke to us: "Gather round, boys, I want to have a little talk with you. You've been under my command about nine months now, and I've always been proud of you, and now you are going up the line, and I want to say this to you: Don't go up with any idea that you are going to be killed—we want you all to take care of yourselves and not expose yourselves recklessly—never mind if Bill bets Harry that he can stick his head over without being hit, for if he loses he can't pay. And remember a dead man is no use to us, we want you alive, and when we want you to put your heads up, we'll tell you! And I've no doubt that you will only be too eager. Now, your Colonel and myself have been in the trenches, where you are going, and you are relieving a regiment that has a name second to none out here; and I want you to have the same kind of a name. The food is fine—in fact, we were surprised to see so much and of such good quality in the front line. Above all, I want you to trust your officers as I trust them, and I'm sure they trust you. If at any time you think you are suffering any injustice, don't talk and grumble amongst yourselves, but let's hear about it, and if we can remedy it that's what we want to do. Now, I suppose this will be the last chance I have of talking to you before you go in the trenches, and I don't think there is much more to say. We have a long hike ahead of us tomorrow, and you will march through a town where corps headquarters are, and thousands of soldiers will be there, and I want you to show, by your marching and march discipline, that as soldiers and fighting men Canadians are second to none. That's all, boys!" We thought quite a lot of his speech and the simple way in which it was delivered, and we got to discussing things and sharpening our bayonets and doing a lot more fool things. The place where we were had been occupied by Germans early in the war, a Uhlan patrol having stayed there, and the Frenchman showed a Uhlan lance and scars on the doors and sides of the barn where fragments of shell had struck when they had been chased out. The next day we formed up bright and early, and away we marched. We had not gone far when every neck was craned up, watching some little black and white dots in the sky. I asked Rust what it was. "Oh, anti-aircraft guns shooting at an aeroplane," said he. We strained our eyes, but it was a long way off and high up, and we couldn't see the aeroplane. Later on we saw what looked like big sausages up in the sky. They were the big observation balloons, and so we kept on, something new and interesting all the time. We passed lots of troops out in their rest billets; muddy and dirty some of them looked; they watched us in amused contempt as we swung proudly by, as much as to say, "Wait till you've been through what we have, you won't look so smart." We soon came to B——, and with the regimental band at our head playing, "Pack all your troubles in your old kit-bag" we marched through in great shape. At sundown we reached camp, tired, all in, but still interested. We were quartered in huts close to an old ruined town, and we were within shell fire. Directly we had supper we were outside watching the shells burst about a mile away; I don't think we ever thought of Fritz shelling us. Aeroplanes were flying overhead and our guns were keeping up an incessant roar, but it seemed more on our right; afterwards we knew that it was the big bombardment before the Battle of Loos. We all slept well that night and were up early the next morning. We lounged around all day, and a party of officers and N.C.O.'s went to look over the trenches we were going in. Just at nightfall it started to rain, a cold wet drizzling rain, and when we fell in, it looked as if we were in for a wetting, and we were. We were carrying our packs, and as we started off we were all feeling fine, and if it hadn't been for the rain we wouldn't have minded. I often laugh when I think of that march; we were miles away from any Germans when we started, yet we spoke in whispers,—of course we didn't know any better then,—and whenever a flare went up we stopped, then went on again. We could see where the trenches were as flares were continually going up, lighting up things for a while and then dying out. At last we met some men from the battalion that we were going to relieve, and they acted as guides; past tumble-down houses, along roads full of holes, in and out of mudholes. We were very careful at first, but we might just as well have walked through the lot, for we were all mud to our knees when we got in. We at last entered the communicating trenches and we followed each other, cracking a joke now and again to keep our spirits up; every little while whiz! would go a bullet overhead and we ducked our nuts—we were perfectly safe if we had only known. We passed some Highlanders (Canadians); I suppose they must have been amused at us, as we were all eager to know where the Germans were—I think we had an idea that we were going into a bayonet charge every morning before breakfast. Soon we came to a place where the trench jogged in and out, and in every jog were men standing up and looking across into the blackness; we were in the front line. After much confusion we at last relieved the others. Listening-posts had to be placed and machine guns manned and lots of other things done. We soon found out that one could look over at night and be comparatively safe; there was always a certain amount of rifle fire, but one can't aim at night and the bullets mostly go high. At last day dawned, and we were quite surprised to find that nothing had happened; Scottie and I had our breakfast,—the cook cooked it, and it was distributed in the trench,—then we were put on sentry to watch through the periscope, while the rest had a sleep. We were sitting there talking things over when we heard a roaring noise overhead, and a bing-bang! in the town which lay behind our trenches. We thought it was aeroplanes dropping bombs, and Scottie and I looked for them but we couldn't see anything. At last an officer came along and we asked him. "Oh yes," said he, "those are German shells." Well, after a few days in the trenches we went back to a place called L—— for a rest, or rather we were in reserve. We were now in what was known as the Kemmel Shelters; here we turned night into day—we slept or did nothing in the daytime, but at night we worked like bees—we were busy on fatigue parties carrying up ammunition and provisions to the front lines. Now, don't run off with the idea that this is a bomb-proof job; Fritzie knows all about the supplies that must be brought up, and you can bet your sweet life that he takes a delight in picking off rationing parties, and such-like. Every night our supports were heavily shelled; every road leading to the lines had a battery trained on it and every little while it was swept by shrapnel. We gradually got used to the danger, and if they started to shell the road we were on we would flop into a ditch or shell hole till the storm had passed. Speaking of this reminds me of something that happened in that first week. A party of us were carrying coke to the front line, and we had two sacks each; I had mine tied together and hung around my neck (the way I wore my red mittens when I was a youngster). We walked single file, and the boy ahead called back, "Shell hole, keep to the right," but it was too late for me, one foot had gone in and the weight of the coke made me lose my balance, so in I plunged head first; there was four feet of water in that hole, to say nothing of the soft juicy mud at the bottom, and I gurgled and gasped and was almost drowned before I could free myself from the coke. Finally I struggled out, and without waiting to recover my cargo I made a bee-line for my billet—the boys were fairly killing themselves laughing, and I don't blame them now, for I must have been a pretty-looking bird; I was plastered from head to foot with mud, and dirty water streamed over my beautiful features. Well, after a week of this night duty we were sent eight miles back to "Rest Billets"—here we got a bath—which I assure you was very welcome—also some clean clothes, but we didn't succeed in shaking our friends the "cooties";—like the poor, they were always with us. While on rest we were quartered in some frame huts, and these extended for a quarter of a mile on either side of the road. Between the huts and the road there was an immense ditch, and this usually contained a couple of feet of muddy water; the boys had planks leading from their huts to the road. One night one of the boys came home loaded and he attempted to cross one of these planks—in the darkness he missed his footing and flop! he went into the water; he found himself sitting in about two feet of slushy mud and he put down his hands to push himself up, but the mud was sticky and he only succeeded in going in deeper. We heard him calling for help, and when we got to him only his head and toes were above water; the air around looked very blue, but I don't believe the Recording Angel put down everything he said. He looked so funny we could hardly help him for laughing.

Well, our week's rest was over all too soon for us, and we were sent back to the front lines. This was the routine that we followed that winter; one week in the trenches, one at the supports, and one on rest. We had been up to the trenches three times before we had our first brush with Fritzie; the Battle of Loos was being fought to the southward, but things had been comparatively quiet with us. However, one evening when we were "standing to," just at sunset, suddenly the ground that we were standing on began to rock—we pitched too and fro like drunken men—and farther down the trench the earth opened and a flame of fire shot up into the air. It looked more like a volcano in eruption than anything else, and we couldn't imagine what was happening. Someone yelled, "The Germans are coming!"; but our officer said, "Don't be frightened, boys; a mine has been exploded." The German artillery then opened up a terrific bombardment, and they were answered by our guns, and for about an hour it certainly seemed as if hell had been let loose. We were afraid to take shelter in our dugouts, for we thought that Fritzie might come over any moment, and sure enough, as soon as their gun fire slackened, we saw them coming. It was an exciting moment when we got our first sight of them, and I know I trembled from head to foot; but we opened fire on them and as soon as I began shooting, all fear left me—they never got farther than their own wire entanglements—the rapid fire from our rifles and the support of our guns was too much for them. No doubt they expected to find us all dead after the explosion and the shelling they had given us, but we showed them that we were still very much alive. We "stood to" all that night, but nothing further happened. Just at dawn I peeped over the parapet, and it looked as though some one had been hanging out a wash; their wire entanglements were full of German uniforms. Of course we were not allowed to leave our post during the night in case of another attack, but when morning came we looked around to see what damage the mine had done; we found that about fifty of our brave boys were either killed or wounded—this was the first break in our ranks, and it made us feel very sore—you could put a good-sized house in the crater made by the explosion, and it was to occupy this that the Germans had come over. The crater was immediately organized as a listening-post and ever afterwards it was known as the "Glory Hole." It was always the hottest part of our trench, and many a night I spent in it. The German trench was only thirty yards away, and they could lob bombs in on top of us. To improve matters, old "Glory" always contained at least two feet of water, and on a cold rainy night it was "some job" standing at listening-post, two hours at a stretch, up to the knees in water. When relieved, you had four hours off, and you would huddle up on the firing-step with your feet still in the water, and either smoke or try to get a little sleep. But, often it rained, snowed, and froze all in the same night, and I have had my clothes frozen so stiff that in the morning I could scarcely move.

But, to come back to our story. Next morning the killed and wounded were taken back of the lines, and things went on as before, only now we did not feel nearly so comfortable, knowing that at any moment the earth might open and up we would go. We were in the trenches one day when shuz-z-z-shiz-bang! the dirt flew, not far from us, but we couldn't see what had done it. Later we heard the same noise, and coming tumbling through the air was something that looked like a big black sausage; the moment it struck the ground it exploded with an awful concussion, and dirt and sandbags flew. It was a big trench mortar, and we soon found that if you saw it in time you could dodge it. Fritzie had a special spite at the "Glory Hole," and every little while he would strafe it. About this time we received our first supply of trench mortars, and I assure you we enjoyed using them. They were big round balls weighing about sixty pounds, and they looked something like the English plum pudding. We called them "Plum Puddin's." I don't know what Fritzie called them, but he got them whether he called them or not. They had long steel handles and were easily thrown; no doubt the Germans were just as busy dodging ours as we were getting out of the way of theirs.

For the next couple of months nothing of any importance happened, and all we seemed to do was fill sandbags with mud, dig new trenches, clean out old ones, and wade through mud; and such mud! so many men wading through it worked it up and made it like glue—in some places it was up to the waist and many a man got stuck and had to wait till some one came along and pulled him out—through it all our little bunch stuck together and had lots of fun laughing at each other's misfortunes. We were usually on the same working parties and listening-posts; working on the latter gave us eyes like cats, though I can tell you that it is no fun staring out into "No Man's Land" (the space between the German lines and ours) for hours at a time, not daring to move or speak. We had a wire with us connected with the trench, for a listening-post is always an advanced position, and we used a code of signals. One pull meant "Send up a flare, we want to have a good look around," two pulls "All's well," three "Hostile patrol is out in No Man's Land," and if we threw the bomb that we always carried it meant that the Germans were coming and it gave a general alarm. We had only had the one brush with Fritzie, and the discomforts of the trenches began to get on our nerves; we would much rather have been mixed up in the real fighting. Of course when we were off on rest we had clean clothes, better grub, and our letters and parcels from home; coming up to Christmas the latter became more numerous, and we usually found a bunch waiting for us. We were just like one big family, and the boys who got parcels shared up with those who hadn't any; Bob would pick up Tommy's parcel, look at the name, and say, "We've got a parcel."

Then came our first Christmas in the trenches, or rather in France. We were out at the support billets on Christmas Day, and after working all night we were much disgusted when our Sergeant came in where we were sleeping and told us we had to go up to the lines with some supplies. However, they gave us an issue of rum, and we started out. We had made our trip and were on the road back when a sniper caught sight of us. There was water in the communication trench, and my chum and I got out and walked on top; pretty soon a bullet passed between us but we did not pay any attention, we thought it must be an accident, but a few seconds later, another hit just ahead of us and we realized that we were the "centre of attraction," so we made a bound for the trench; just as we lit, another bullet struck just behind us, so we came pretty near getting a Christmas box from Fritz. We found that we had to take over the trenches that night, so there was not much fuss made over our Christmas dinner, but we had a little extra spread.

However, when New Year's came we were at rest billet, and our beloved Colonel had planned a big dinner for us. It was served in an old schoolhouse and we had roast turkey, plum pudding, and almost everything you could mention, and the Colonel himself came in and carved the turkey for us. All that week on rest we had a glorious time, our parcels had arrived from home and every one was feeling happy.

Nothing of any importance happened in the next few weeks, things were pretty quiet on the line; of course it was raining most of the time and we were up to our knees in mud and water. We were four months without seeing the sun, and we were beginning to think that Fritzie had gotten his range and blown him out. Then too we were crawling with vermin, and even when we got a clean outfit of clothes in a few hours they would be just as bad as ever. Being wet all the time, and having to put up with the discomfort of vermin and rats, were harder on us than the dangers of actual fighting. The part of the line where we were had superior artillery positions and observation posts, and any time Fritzie opened up, our artillery soon silenced him. It used to be a case of "You let me alone, and I'll let you alone." The trenches were in awful shape in spite of the continuous working parties, each rain made them a little worse. We used to get our rum every morning, and I want to say a word to those at home who say it should be stopped. I would like to make them lie out in a wet mudhole all night, come in blue and cold and hardly able to stand, not knowing whether they had feet or lumps of ice attached to their legs, and see whether or not they would want something to warm them up—I think we would all have been dead if it hadn't been for the rum that winter. You see, you are "all in" after a night in the open, and all you want to do is to sleep, so you crawl into the nearest dugout and lie down; now, the rum just keeps the blood circulating and the body warm while you are sleeping, so that when you waken you have not caught the chill that otherwise you would have done, for those dugouts of ours were anything but cozy and comfortable. They were really only little huts in the trench, each one large enough for two or three men. They were built up with sandbags and had a piece of corrugated iron over the top; for the floor there was usually two or three inches of wet mud. I assure you it was cold comfort, and we were not allowed to lie in peace even here—a rat would run over your face, or crawl over your body to see if there was anything eatable in your pockets. Every bit of eats about us had to be securely fastened up in our mess tins to save it from these pests. I remember one morning I came in from sentry duty, and after having breakfast I lay down in a dugout; we were given enough bread ration in the morning to last us all day, and what was over from my breakfast I put in my mess tin, but I had lost the cover of my tin, so I hung it up thinking it would be safe from the rats. Uncle Sam was sleeping when I came in, and I lay down beside him. I was enjoying a cigarette when all at once I saw a rat heading for my tin; I didn't want to get up to chase him away, so I reached over and brought up my rifle—there was scarcely room to use it in the dugout, but just as the rat reached my tin I fired. Uncle Sam leaped to his feet, scared half out of his wits; he was sure that a shell had struck our dugout. When he saw what I had done, he said, "Why in hell don't you take the brutes out when you want to shoot them, and not be making a mess here?" There was only about twelve inches of slush in the dugout at the time. But our favourite method of killing this loathsome animal was to fix our bayonet and, sticking a bit of meat on the end of it, put our rifle over the parapet; then when Mr. Rat came along and nibbled at the meat, we would pull the trigger and the rat would make a hurried exit out of this world—of course we could only do this at night.

During the day our favourite pastime was getting up hot lunches and serving afternoon tea, and most of the soldiers became expert at this. Our cookstove consisted of an old bully-beef can with holes punched in it. In the bottom of this can we placed several small pieces of gunny sack, and on top of this we put several pieces of trench candles. When the candle melted and ran down over the sacking it produced a good steady blaze and it gave out considerable heat—best of all, it didn't make any smoke, for of course smoke in the front line would be apt to draw shell fire. Over our fire we could boil the full of our mess tin of water and make our tea—also, we could warm up our rations in this way, and meat and vegetables tasted a lot better when they were hot. We also carried Oxo cubes and prepared coffee so we could have a nourishing drink at any time.

Some time on in February preparations were made for a raid on the German trenches. Officers and men consulted together, and the men in charge were busy drawing up plans and perfecting arrangements; we were very much excited over it, and every one hoped that they would be among the fortunate ones chosen to take part in the scrap. The 29th Battalion was holding the line on our right, and they were coming in with us on this. Finally the plans were given out; the raid was to cover about fifteen hundred yards of the enemy trench and the battalion scouts and bombers were the ones chosen to go over. The same number of men went from the 29th, and the trench mortars of each battalion protected the flanks of the attacking party and prevented the Germans in the other parts of the trench coming to the assistance of those attacked. Also, a party of bombers were stationed in the "Glory Hole" ready to act as reinforcements if they were needed—I was one of the latter bunch, and oh how I longed for the signal that would give me a chance to share in the fun!

The attack was planned for 3 A.M. At the sound of a whistle they were to go over the top, enter the enemy trenches, do all the harm they could, and when they heard the second whistle come back, bringing as many prisoners as they possibly could. But before they went out, two men, Conlin and another chap, stole quietly out and cut the enemy's wire entanglements—they lay there for hours right under the noses of the Germans cutting a gap for our boys to go through—I assure you it was ticklish work; the success of the whole enterprise depended on their skilful, silent work. The slightest noise, cough, or sneeze, would mean their own death and the failure of our plans, but nothing happened and they had everything ready at the appointed time.

The boys who were going over had prepared for it as they would for a vaudeville; they all had their faces blackened so they could know one another in the dark, and they were all allowed to arm themselves in any way they wished. Some carried revolvers, others the handles of our entrenching tools (these had small iron cog wheels at one end and they made an excellent shillalah), a few had bombs, and one of the boys, Macpherson was his name, armed himself with the cook's meat axe.

Finally the long looked for moment arrived—the whistle blew and over they went—Lieutenant MacIntyre was in charge of the 28th boys. The wire cutters were the closest and they reached the trenches first—poor Conlin was shot as soon as he showed himself on the edge of the parapet, but MacIntyre got the man who shot him and they fell together. A little farther along the trench Macpherson was lying on the edge of the parapet just ready to jump in when a German came running along the trench shouting "Alarm! Alarm!" Mac leaned over, grabbed him by the shoulder, and said, "Here, sonny, that's a hell of a noise you are making," and with that he brought his meat ax down on his head. The boys were all in now, clearing up the Huns in great shape, and when the whistle sounded the few that were alive were brought back as prisoners.

While this was going on in the German trenches there was great excitement in our own. Our trench mortar was being worked energetically to keep back any German reinforcements. Lieutenant "Spud" Murphy was in charge of this, and his antics kept us all in roars of laughter—he jumped around and "rooted" for those bombs as though they were his favourite players in the National League. When one went over, he would, like the rest of us, jump up on the firing-step to see it light. When it lit fairly in the German trench he would dance around the gunner shouting, "That's a good one!" "That's the way to put them over!" "Now for another beauty! give them hell!"

Well, our raid was a great success, and it was the biggest thing of the kind that had been attempted up to that time. We had a few casualties; Conlin was a great pal of mine, and I missed him the most. Some of our boys were decorated; Conlin, our dead hero, won the D. C. M., and the medal was sent to his people. Lieutenant MacIntyre was awarded the D. S. O., and "Darky" Andrews, who had taken a leading part, also received the D. C. M.

One of the prisoners captured was an under officer, and as he was wounded he was taken to the nearest dressing-station; while his wound was being looked after, an interpreter was talking to him, and the German said triumphantly, "Well, you have brought me here, but you cannot send me over to England." "Oh, indeed!—and why not?" asked the interpreter. "Because Germany controls the water," said our prisoner proudly. "No troops can be brought from England now." "Is that so?" said our interpreter. "Well, sonny, you will find yourself in England by this time tomorrow, however you get there," and he did.

Shortly after this we had several casualties in Platoon 10—two or three were killed, and several wounded and got their "Blighty." Dyer was caught by a sniper, and Tucker was hit in the leg by a machine gun bullet. Quite a few had been wounded in the company and one or two killed, but No. 10 was lucky—we got some reinforcements and to No. 10 came McMurchie, "Fat," and McKone. McMurchie was a little Irishman about five feet tall with a great taste for rum and he didn't know what fear meant. He had a twin brother in another company and they were just like two peas in a pod; only his brother was quiet. Mac would go and line up in his brother's company when rum was being issued and draw his brother's issue, then come back to "C" company and get his own ration, and then line up again and tell the Sergeant-Major that he had given his issue to his brother. He was a proper little devil. One day we were out on rest and Mac had been away all the day before, and this day we were wondering where he had gone, when, lo and behold, into the line of huts marched McMurchie leading a rooster with a piece of string around its neck—he had swiped it off some Frenchwoman—whether he ever took it back I don't know, perhaps the cooks could tell—Mac was pretty friendly with the cooks. He was always getting into trouble when out of the line, but when in the trenches he was worth a dozen men, not to work, but his disregard for all danger made one's hair stand on end. He would do everything one was supposed not to do. He would shave in the front line when Fritz was shelling the trench and everybody else was under cover. He had a big rifle; I don't know where he got it, but it was bigger in the butt than most, and the bore was all worn out; it had been fired so much that when he used to fire it the report was deafening; he used to call it "Big Lizzie." When he was shaving and a shell came close and threw dirt all over him, he would say, "All right, Fritz, wait till I get through, I'll get Big Lizzie after you," and he'd stand up and fire five rounds rapid over at Fritz in broad daylight. Why he didn't get killed was a marvel—when shrapnel was bursting (shrapnel shells are full of lead pellets and when they burst they scatter forward about a hundred yards) he would look at them straight in the face and remark, "That's right, Fritz, lengthen them out a bit." He was out on a working party one day behind the trench, filling sandbags, and there were one or two reinforcements with him, when Fritz started slinging some "Whiz-bangs" over (these are small shells about fifteen pounds full of shrapnel, but they come with an awful speed, that's why they call them "Whiz-bangs," you hear the whiz just about the same time that you hear the bang); well, Fritz was sending quite a few over; I guess he had spotted the party and the new men were kind of nervous. "Aw," says Mac, as he kept on working, "don't bother about those things, there's nothing to 'em but wind and noise—Ow!" and he jumped about a foot as a piece of shrapnel took him in the leg. Mac was absent for awhile down at the Casualty Clearing Station and had his leg fixed up; it wasn't bad. After he had been there awhile the Sergeant asked him to wash the floor; Mac refused, "Do you think I came out here to scrub floors?" says he; "I'm a fighting man." The Sergeant was going to have him pinched, but while he was away Mac sneaked out and came back to the battalion, absolutely refusing to go back, and Colonel Embury, our Colonel, who was a good sport, smoothed matters over and Mac stayed with the boys, and soon was as "right as rain"—he was too tough to hurt. I will leave him for awhile—it would take a book to describe all his tricks—and we will go on to "Fat," who came about the same time. Fat was a big fat good-natured kid, and he and Bink got quite chummy; they were both farmers before the war. Fat had a great dislike for machine gun fire—most of us had too, but Fat was the worst; he also had a comical little laugh—"Tee hee, tee hee" he would go. We used to go out at night stringing wire in "No Man's Land"; every now and again Fritz would sweep the wire with machine gun fire, and directly he started sweeping we would be down like a flash, and wait till Fritz quit. Fat would be in a shell hole almost as soon as the first shot was fired, and would laugh at Bink looking for a hole to hide in. Bink would get sore; all you could hear was the rat-tat-tat of the machine gun and in between "Tee hee, tee hee" from Fat as he lay and watched Bink crawling around looking for a hole. Some of the boys would lie in the hole and wave their legs in the air hoping to get a bullet through them so that they could get back to "Blighty," but they were never lucky enough. We would always lose one or two men on these wiring parties, but we had very few killed and No. 10's luck still held good. By the way perhaps you would like to know why we call England "Blighty"—it seems that it comes from two Hindoo words meaning "My home," and as there were a lot of Indian soldiers out in France at the beginning of the war and they were with the regular English troops, I suppose it was passed along that way—to get a "Blighty" means to get a wound that takes you to "Blighty." To say that a man has got a "Belgique" means that he is dead. The boys have different sayings for everything, and they sound funny unless you know what they mean. "Buckshee" the English troops call anything that you might have to spare, such as "Have you a buckshee razor?" meaning "Have you a spare razor?" The word "buckshee" comes from the Hindoo word "Backsheesh." Well, to continue, the other boy to come to No. 10 was a freak; how the devil he ever got in the Army beats me. He was deaf, and when you spoke to him you had to holler; also, he had a cleft palate so you could hardly understand him when he spoke, but he was a good man in the line and when he was on sentry, he was up on the fire-step looking over all the time; only at night of course. He used to pack along a box of ammunition every night and do his best to fire the lot before morning. When the scouts were out as they used to be every night, patrolling "No Man's Land," the word was passed along in the trench and we would either stop firing or fire high; desultory fire was always kept up all night. Well, we could never make McKone understand that the scouts were out; and he would keep on blazing away—at last the scouts made a kick and we stopped him firing when they were out—but he was awfully sore. "What am I here for?—I'm not a dummy," said he. One night he had been blazing away and had made Fritz sore, and Fritz had turned about three machine guns on the spot where Mac was. The bullets were coming around him like bees around a hive, but he couldn't hear them. At last he heard something; Corporal Banks was coming along the trench at the time, and Mac stopped him. "Say, Corporal, there's an aeroplane up there somewhere," and he gazed up into the sky. "Come down, you fool, that's machine gun fire," says Banks. We used to have lots of fun "chipping" him, but all he'd reply was "Aw, you go to h——." One night Bink and Bob were out on "a covering" party—their job was to take their rifle and bomb and lie out in front of our men as they were putting out wire in "No Man's Land,"—the idea is to prevent the party from being surprised by the Germans. It was a wet cold night, and so the officer gave them a drink of rum before they went; in fact, they asked him for it. Well, they crawled out and lay down, and I guess the rum gave them some "Dutch" courage, for after the boys had finished their wiring and gone back to the trench, Bink and Bob thought it would be a good scheme to crawl to the German lines and throw their bombs in. So forward they crawled through his wire till they got up close and heard the Fritzies jabbering; the rum had about worked off by this time, and instead of throwing their bombs, they got cold feet and crawled silently back to our lines—I guess it's as well they did, or I wouldn't have their story to tell—they often laughed about it afterwards.

Shortly after this we moved off that front and we took over some trenches from the Imperial troops in the Ypres salient. It was just about the time that the Imperial troops took back the "International" trench to the right of the "Bluff," and it was a much hotter place than the one we were in before; we had to be right on the alert all the time. We were in there a short time and back we went to M—— for a rest, and in the meantime the Battle of St. Éloi commenced—it started with the Northumberland Fusiliers ("Fighting Fifth," as they were called) blowing up some mines under the enemy lines and occupying the craters and a trench—they were then relieved by the "Sixth Brigade, Canadians." It was all quiet for awhile and then the storm broke; all the German artillery for miles was concentrated on this front of about a thousand yards, and the men were literally blown out of their positions. It poured rain and our aeroplanes were unable to take observations, with the result that, where at first our artillery was firing too far, when they shortened up, they shelled our own men. The Germans also concentrated heavy trench mortars on the craters, and after blowing the men to pieces all day, they attacked at night. What men were left died where they stood. All the bottoms of the craters were just a pool of thin mud, and when our boys were wounded they just slid down the sides of the craters and perished in the pool of mud at the bottom. Some of the craters were lost, and our relieving parties, going in at night to relieve, what they thought were our men, found the Germans in possession and bomb-fights ensued. In the meantime the enemy artillery had a barrage across behind the craters making it almost impossible for men to get through alive. The 28th were hurried up and after spending a night in "Dickebush" we were taken up to "Scottish" Wood in support. Woodrow, Webster, Corporal Grimsdale, and all the company bombers were sent out from there, and they held one of the craters. After hanging on the lip of the crater all day under a constant rain of "sausages" (one hundred pounds of high explosives in each) they tried to dig in and consolidate, but they had lost half their number, and then the Germans attacked them from all sides. They worked their rifles as long as they could, but they were clogged with mud; and then fought them hand to hand—those that fell never rose again—slipping down into that horrible mess at the bottom. Webster saw Woodrow fall, and he and Grimsdale fought their way out; Grim happened to find his way to our lines, but Webster got lost and for twenty-four hours, that night and the next day, he lay out there; in the daytime he had to lie still and at night he couldn't find which line was ours; and machine guns were spitting all ways. At last he crawled near our trench and heard the boys talking, and he came in; it was two days after when I saw him—five days before he had been a happy, daredevil sort of a boy—now he looked like a corpse with living eyes of coal. He never got over it, and after the Battle of Hooge was invalided home, a complete wreck. While all this was going on, "C" Company was brought from "Scottish" Wood to the communicating trench, and where we entered the trench was crowded with men, one bunch trying to get up, another stream of wounded coming down. As fast as men tried to get through the barrage, they were wiped out, and at last the officers decided to lose no more. Fritz started to shell the trench we were in, and a lot of the boys were hit; our officer took us out in the open, and we lay there while the trench was being shelled—after staying there twenty-four hours we were relieved—but the struggle for the craters still went on; sometimes our fellows holding them, and sometimes Fritz. At last the weather brightened, allowing us to get observation, and our artillery was able to work accurately; then the battle died down, leaving two craters in the Germans' hands, two in ours, and the rest a sort of "No Man's Land," in which constant fighting took place for months; sometimes quiet, but flaring up again whenever either side tried to take and hold the remaining craters. That was the Battle of St. Éloi as nearly as I can give it. It was the first big scrap we took part in, and although it wasn't a victory, nobody knows, but those who were there, how near we were to disaster, and only individual pluck kept the Germans back; for after the barrage went on, Headquarters could not get news of how things were going. Several officers were sent up, but were either killed or wounded trying to get through the barrage. Those who got through stayed to help those that were there fighting, as it was almost impossible to get back. It was there that the Sixth Brigade got the name "The Iron Sixth." While the company I was in didn't do anything spectacular, I can tell you it was all we wanted, lying out there in the mud and wet, expecting any moment to see the Germans advancing, and all the time shells coming like hail. Some of the companies of the 28th lost heavily—I think we were the luckiest; but when the battalion went back to rest billets a lot of boys' faces were missing that we had been familiar with for months.

Now that heavy fighting had commenced we never knew where we would be for more than a day at a time—we stayed in the lines till there was someone ready to relieve us, whether it was two days or ten—then we went direct to rest billets, and we remained there till we were needed again in the front lines. The billets were not bomb-proof, by any means. They were well within range of the big guns, but after the heavy shelling and bombing in the front lines they seemed like heaven. We had been out there two or three days when little Mac came to me and said, "Say, kid, I'm on the track of a bomb-proof job." I said, "What makes you think that?" "Well," said he, "just as I came down the line I overheard the old Sergeant telling another guy about it, and if we can get on, will you come?" I said, "You mutt, it all depends on what it is." "Oh, I thought I told you," says Mac, "they are calling for men to go to the tunnellers." "Nothing doing for this child!" "Now, look here," says Mac, "you've only got to die once, and you might better be buried in a sap than be blown to hell by a big shell, there would be more of you left for your friends, anyway, besides a change is as good as a rest, and as there seems to be small chance of us getting any rest, we might just as well keep this chance." So I said, "All right, we can try it for a week, and then if we don't like being buried, we can come back to life; that's more than most people can do"; so away went Mac to tell the Sergeant that we would go. He said, "Well, I'm sorry to lose you boys, but I don't blame you for wanting to get away from what we have been going through lately, and any time you want to come back to the old boys we will only be too glad to have you." He told us to report to a branch of the Royal Engineers known as the 250th Tunnelling Company. They were located in the Kemmil dugouts, so away Mac and I went to old Kemmil, where we had been all the previous winter.

When we reached the line of dugouts we stuck our head into one and asked where we would find the officer in charge. A voice from a far corner called out, "Oui, the bleeder is in the end dugout, old cock!" We found the officer's dugout without any trouble and reported for duty. He told us that we would not be needed till night, and that we had better go and find a dugout to rest in, so away we went back to the place where we had inquired for Headquarters. It was our first brush up against the English Tommy, and we were anxious to see more of him. We went into the dugout and found about a dozen men lying around, some of them rolled in their blankets trying to sleep, and others smoking. I went over beside the chap who had answered my first question, and after telling him who I was and what I was there for, he made room for me and I sat down. He was a funny-looking little chap about the build of a wooden toothpick, but he looked as if he was made of steel wire. We soon struck up a conversation, and his "Cockney" sure did sound funny to me; he was one of the sappers, and when he found that I had left the Infantry to join them he was disgusted. "Well," said he, "you are a bloomin' ass. Why, blime me, mite, this here's the worst bleedin' job in the Army; a man digs till the sweat rolls off, and all he gets for it is a bleedin' shilling, and he has to give six-pence of that to the old woman; blime, it doesn't leave ye enough for bacca, and all the fellas think this is a bomb-proof job—why, blime, you dig and sweat for days, and Fritz sends along a blinkin' torpedo and fills up the tunnel, and there's all your hard work gone to 'ell, and you with it too if you 'appen to be around," and believe me I found out that most of what he told me was true, and sapping was no bomb-proof job. Well, we sat around all day enjoying the conversation of our Cockney friends. I found that my new friend was nicknamed "Skinny," and during the next few months he took a great liking to Mac and me, and he stuck around with us most of the time.

That night at 8 o'clock the Sergeant in charge came around and detailed eight of us to go up to the sap,—Mac, Skinny, and I were among those chosen,—so we started off to a place known as "S. P. 13" (Strong Point No. 13). Skinny was in the lead, as he had been there before. We went through about a mile and a half of communicating trench, and there we encountered three or four infantrymen bound for the front lines. The bullets were whizzing over our heads, and once in a while a shell dropped near us, but nothing happened till we had to come up out of the trench and cross an open space. The infantrymen were in the lead, and almost as soon as we struck the open one of them "got it" in the head. Skinny was in front of me, and he stopped so suddenly that I said, "What's wrong, Skinny?" He said, "Blime, but he's got it; I wonder how many blinkin' kids the poor devil's left." The poor lad was killed instantly and we picked him up and laid him on one side with his cap over his face—the stretcher bearers would find him and carry him back of the lines. We continued on our way, and Skinny, paying no more attention to flying bullets than he would to flies, led us to the sap where we were to begin work. At the entrance to this particular sap was an immense shaft leading down 107 feet, and shooting out from this shaft were two main tunnels—these tunnels were four feet high and about three in width, and they ran under "No Man's Land" and past the first line of German trenches, the object being to reach a small wood and lay a mine under some pill-boxes that were causing us a lot of trouble. These pill-boxes were machine gun emplacements made of concrete, and our heavy shells had no effect on them. Our only chance of getting them was to blow them up with a mine. When I went in, there was still quite a distance to go, for the wood lay behind the second line of German trenches.

I was set to work on one of these tunnels, and using pick and shovel seemed mighty hard at first; what made it harder to stand was the lack of fresh air—there was no place for the air to get in excepting through the main shaft, and that was about four hundred yards away. Then too, we could never rest ourselves by standing upright, and the constant bending of the back was torture until we got used to it. However, our shift only lasted for eight hours, and then we went out on rest for twenty-four hours, and our rest billets were three miles back, so they were fairly quiet. Altogether the work was a pleasant change when our muscles got hardened to it; and there was always something interesting turning up. Of course the Germans had their tunnels too, and they were trying to reach our lines. Often we could hear each other working and sometimes one party would send in a torpedo to block the other's tunnel. I remember the first one they sent us. That day I was working at the bottom of the shaft hitching sandbags to the rope by which they were pulled to the top. Skinny was coming down the ladder in the shaft, and when he was about ten feet from the bottom, the torpedo was fired. It just missed our tunnel and the concussion was so great that it gave us a great shaking up. Poor Skinny lost his hold on the ladder and fell into two feet of water. I was scared stiff, for I didn't know what had happened, but when I caught sight of Skinny sitting in the water I just roared. Skinny sat there with his head above water making no attempt to move, but when I laughed he looked up indignantly and said, "Blime, mite, you'd cackle if a fellar broke his bleedin' neck," and then while I continued laughing he cursed the Germans with every variety of oath to which he could lay his tongue, vowing what he was going to do to get even, but all the time sitting there in the water. Finally he came to his senses, and jumping up hurriedly he made a bee-line for the ladder and began to climb. I said, "Where the devil are you going to, Skinny?" He called back: "Do you think I'm such a bleedin' fool as to stay down here and get buried alive? I don't intend to be buried till I'm dead." He urged me to go with him, but I figured that the Germans would expect one torpedo to do the trick and they wouldn't be likely to waste a second one, so instead of going out I went back along the tunnel to see if any damage had been done. I found a little loose earth knocked down—that was all the harm it did, except to give us a good scare.

Our work went steadily on, and gradually our backs got like iron and we didn't mind the everlasting bending. In our twenty-four hours at rest billets we had lots of fun. Mac and I were the only Canadians in the bunch, and 'the' English Tommy used us "white." About this time there was great excitement over some German spies that were supposed to be in our lines, and there was a reward offered of 20 pounds and fourteen days' leave to any one who would succeed in capturing one of these spies. We were all warned to keep a sharp lookout for them, and our own officers were forbidden to go around through the lines without an escort. Several spies were caught masquerading in our uniforms and of course they were shot; a spy stands very little show of getting off if once he is caught, and it is a brave man's job in France. Of course we have our men behind the German lines, and I don't suppose any one will ever know all that our secret service has done for us there.

We were all keeping a sharp lookout, and one night one of the boys caught a German trying to crawl through our front lines, he made him prisoner, and maybe he wasn't elated over his capture, so he marched him proudly down through the long line of trench to our Headquarters; but, on getting there, imagine his surprise when his German prisoner began to talk and joke with the officers; he was one of our own secret service men and was just returning from a trip through the German lines—he thought it was too good a joke to miss, so he let himself be captured. I had heard all this, and I made up my mind not to be fooled, but one night I thought sure I had the real thing. Mac, Skinny, and I were coming off shift at 2 A.M., and in the communication trench we met an officer without an escort. We saluted as we passed, and he said, "Good-night, boys." Mac whispered, "I believe he's a spy." Skinny said, "Blime, I believe he is too." We talked it over about fifteen minutes and then we decided to follow him, so we gave chase and caught up with him just outside a line of huts where there was a sentry posted; when we came up he was talking and laughing with the sentry, so we stood in the background and listened, and what do you think—if that guy wasn't the officer in charge of the guard, so our fourteen days' leave and our 20 pounds was all shot in the head—that cured my spy catching.

When on rest we were billeted in some of the little villages behind the lines, and we struck up quite an acquaintance with the French peasants living there. "Old Madame" was a particular friend of ours, and we got to know her best because she made her living by serving lunches to the soldiers; she had a nickname for each of us, and if any one was missing she had to hear all about it. Many a pleasant evening we spent in her little home. A bunch of us would go together, and we would take along our mandolin, banjo, and mouth organ, and have a little concert; Madame would sit there and smile, not understanding a word we said, but enjoying seeing us having a good time—another thing, it was always warm there, and that was something that our billets never were.

But we had a great time trying to get enough French so that we could ask for what we wanted to eat and many laughable incidents occurred in our struggles to make Madame understand. For instance, one night Skinny wanted eggs, and he tried in every way to make his wants known, but Madame failed to get his meaning, and finally the boy got desperate, so jumping up, he started to run around the room cackling like a hen. He got the eggs all right, and I think he earned them; but it was so funny that we nearly rolled off our chairs laughing.

To make things better, a party of twenty-five Canadians came to the tunnellers and we had some good old times together; but Mac and Skinny were still my best pals; many's the prank we played together. One of our favourite ones was to work the officer in charge for an extra ration of rum. The British Tommy was given his ration of rum as soon as he came up from the sap, but we Canadians had to wait for ours till we reached our rest billets, and it was served to us there by one of our own officers. The only exception made was in favour of those who had been working in a wet part of the sap; for instance, at the bottom of the shaft there was often two feet of water, and at various places along the tunnel where we had struck springs the water almost flooded us out; it kept two pumps going all the time to make the place dry enough to work in. Well, the men on these pumps (two on each) and the one at the shaft were served out with rubber boots and oilskins, and these were the only Canadians who received their ration of rum from the Imperial officer. Usually one of our trio was chosen to work on either of these wet jobs, and he would line up for his rum ration—after getting it, he would hurry out and hand over his oilskins to one of us, and we would slip them on and take our place in the line—after we had been served we did the same trick, and usually the three of us succeeded in getting our extra ration of rum. Of course the officer would catch on after awhile and would chase us out, but we worked it on every new officer. It wasn't that we cared so much for the rum, but it was the fun of getting something that we were not supposed to have. It was the same with our money ration—we were only allowed fifteen francs every two weeks while we were in France, and the rest of our pay was kept for us by the military. Now, fifteen francs did not begin to get us what we thought we needed, and many's the scheme we tried to get at the balance. Finally we hit on one that worked pretty well. Mac made over "so much a month" to the family of one of the English boys in the 28th, they cashed the cheque and forwarded the money to their boy, and he handed it over to Mac; we were having a "whale of a time" on his extra money, and one day we were expecting our remittance from England. Mac met some battalion boys who told him that Sergeant Banks had the money for him; little Mac was on a carrying party that night when he met the boys, and he hurried back to tell me the good news. I was working above the shaft, and Mac and I sat in the shelter of an old wall, and with the bullets buzzing around us we planned how we would spend that money. Finally we thought we had lost enough time, so I went back to work and Mac started down "Suicide Road" for another load of sandbags and planks for the tunnel. He had about a mile to go, and the road he was on got its name from the fierce shelling that Fritzie gave it every night. If you have ever been out in a bad hailstorm you can perhaps form some idea of how thick the bullets are when Fritzie turns on his guns and sweeps a road. Well, I had only been working an hour or so underground when I heard some one at the top of the shaft calling my name. I answered and he said, "Come on up, Jack, I want you." I hurried up the ladder and found one of the 28th boys waiting for me. I said, "Hello! what's the matter, old chap?" He said, "Jack, little Mac's got it." "Little Mac, oh no, not little Mac!" I cried. "Why, he was here with me only a little while ago." "Yes, I know," he said; "he was on his way back with the first load when it got him—still, he isn't badly hit, and he sure did act funny when he got it. This is how it happened: we were walking down the road with our loads when Mac stopped suddenly and said, 'Boys, I believe I'm hit; I felt a stinging pain go through my leg.' He felt around and walked a few steps, and said, 'No, I guess I'm all right. But, gee, it was a close call!' He hadn't gone far when he felt something trickling down his leg, and slipping his hand inside his trousers he moved it around the spot where the pain had been, then he pulled it out and held it up; it was covered with blood. As soon as he saw the blood Mac grabbed his leg and limped like everything. He dropped his load right there and made a bee-line for the dressing station. As he hobbled down the road he called, 'Good-bye, boys, it's Blighty for mine.'" Of course I laughed at what the boy told me of little Mac, but all the time I felt an ache in my heart, for something told me I would never see my brave little pal again, and I never did. He did not get a "Blighty" after all, but was sent to our base hospital at Le Havre. When he came back to the lines I was gone, and he went back to the battalion; he "went west" from Vimy Ridge, where so many of our brave boys fell.

Well, I hunted up Skinny and told him about Mac, and when the shift was over and we started off to our rest billets we both felt mighty blue; if we had known that we were to be separated the very next day we would have felt still worse. But that's one thing that's good about the Army—you never know what's coming, and after it has happened there is no spare time for regrets. When I said "Good-bye" to Skinny, he said, "It's a bleedin' shime that you 'arve to go, mite. Those bloomin' 'Eadquarter blokes doesn't know what they're doin' 'arf the time. It's blinkin' 'ard to lose both you and Mac, but 'up the line with the best of luck,' old cock." But I must explain why I had to go. An order came asking all Canadians who were working with the Royal Engineers (which was an Imperial unit) to transfer at once to the Canadian Engineers at Ypres. This did not sound very good to us, as the Ypres salient was known as a pretty hot place. However, as military rules say, "Obey first and complain afterwards," there was nothing for us to do but go. We were sorry, also, to leave before the completion of our mine at Kemmil—but we heard afterwards that when it was set off it turned the wood literally upside down. When we arrived at Ypres we found things very different to what they were at Kemmil—instead of mine laying we were put into a protection sap; this was only twenty feet down and consisted of a network of tunnels for the protection of our own lines against the German sappers. My first duty was on "listening-post" in one of these tunnels, the hole where I was being just large enough to lie in, and it seemed almost like being buried alive. Here I did not get my twenty-four hours' rest as at Kemmil, but I worked on a six-hour shift and had only ten hours off; even then we were not sent back to rest billets, but had to stay in the dugout at the top of the shaft. At the end of seven days we were supposed to be sent back to rest billets, and another shift would take our place. Fritzie had been unusually quiet since we came, and we began to think that the stories we heard were greatly exaggerated.

However, on the morning of the seventh day we changed our minds. We had gone to work at eight o'clock feeling unusually good—we expected to be relieved at seven that night, and we had been promised a seven days' leave to Blighty, so I could hardly wait for the day to pass. Instead of being put on "listening-post" this morning, the Corporal in charge took me with him—we went down a long tunnel till we reached the end, and the Corporal put a listening-tube to his ear; he listened a few minutes, and then handed it to me and whispered, "Do you hear anything?" I said, "Yes, I hear some one shovelling." He said, "I heard them yesterday, and I think they are close enough for us to get now, we will lay a torpedo for them here," so we got to work to dig a place for our torpedo, and after working for half an hour or so our candles went out. Then we noticed that the number of shells falling above us had greatly increased—we lit our candles again, but it was no use—there seemed to be a terrific bombardment on and the concussion was so great that we could not keep our lights going. Fritzie was certainly making up for lost time. The Corporal said, "Well, Jack, we might just as well go up and see what is doing," so we started back to the shaft; our candles were out, so we had to grope our way along. We had not gone far when we heard some one calling for help. Following the sound, we came to a bunch of men belonging to the infantry; they had come down for protection from the shell fire, and a shell had blown in the entrance to their tunnel. Not being used to the network of tunnels, they were completely lost. We guided them out to the main shaft, and it was still intact, so they went up; then the Corporal said, "I wonder if there are any more back there?" I said, "I don't know, but I think we had better have a look," so we went back and after searching every tunnel and not finding any one, we decided to go out ourselves, and we started back along the shaft. We were feeling our way along with the shells dropping overhead like hail, when all at once two "Krupps" landed on the tunnel just over my head; there was a terrific explosion, the props of the tunnel gave way, and in another instant I found myself choked with dust and half buried under a pile of dirt. The Corporal was crawling along three or four yards ahead, and in the darkness he could not see what had happened. As soon as I could get my breath I yelled, "Hey! Corporal, come back." He said, "What's the matter?" I said, "By golly! I have half of Belgium on my back." So he came back and pulled me out,—-my back was badly strained, but otherwise I was none the worse,—but we both realized now that things up above must be getting pretty serious, and once more we started for the shaft. The Corporal was ahead, and he called out, "Say, Jack, we are in the devil of a fix now!" I said, "What's up?" He said, "Those confounded Boches have blown in the top of our sap-head." This was a serious matter, for it meant cutting off our supply of air as well as our chance for escape—it would be bad enough to be killed in a fair fight, but we didn't relish being buried alive; however, we would not give up without a struggle, and we began searching the nearby tunnels for a shovel. In the darkness I heard some one moving, and I said, "Who's there?" A familiar voice said, "Who in hell do you think it is?" I said, "Nobby! is that you? What the mischief are you doing?" He said, "I'm looking for what you never can find when you need it, a d—— shovel." The lad was one of our tunnellers, and we were glad to have his company and also his help in the "digging-out" process. Not finding a shovel, we commenced work with our hands—after we had been working for half an hour Nobby grabbed me and whispered, "Do you see those lights?"—I turned around, and there, about fifty yards away and coming towards us, were about a dozen lights. We talked it over with the Corporal and decided they must be Germans who had broken through the tunnel, so the Corporal said, "One of you boys stay here and dig; and the other two will go back and stop them," but we made him stay, and Nobby and I went to meet the Boches. There was a branch tunnel about thirty yards away, and we hoped to waylay them there; we were armed with revolvers and their lights made them good targets. We reached the branch tunnel just before they did, and we had a lively little scrap with the first two—the others put out their lights when they heard the pistol shots—anyway, they were several yards back and they were in no hurry to get into the fun. We lay there and waited for them, and after things had been quiet for a few minutes they lit their lights and came on—fortunately the tunnel was only wide enough for one man, but all the same we were looking for a lively time—they were ten yards away when there came an awful explosion; a shell had burst directly over their heads. All I remember was a blinding cloud of dust and a gust of wind as our tunnel was blown in, and once more I was buried. We scrambled out and turned to look for our foes, but they had received the full force of the blow and were safely buried; so we thanked our lucky stars and went back to our digging. When we reached our Corporal, we found that he had already dug his way out into the shaft. We crawled out, and looking up we discovered three more boys at the top of the shaft—these belonged to the machine gun crew who had taken up their position there, but a heavy shell had demolished their gun and buried the men—they were just digging themselves out when we appeared, and we gave them quite a surprise. One of them said when he saw us, "Well, where the devil did you come from?" I suppose he thought that because we came from below we must have some connection with his Satanic Majesty. Well, we climbed up to where the boys were and gave them a hand at the digging; finally we made a hole large enough to let in a little air and then we all lay down and rested. We were almost dead for want of air, for we had been buried for four hours, and we did not know what might await us once we got out. After we rested up a little, we finished our digging and crawled out. We found ourselves in a large shell hole, the former trench being blown away. The ground was being swept by machine guns and heavy shells, and it was not healthy to rubber around very much. There was an officer in charge of the machine gun crew, and finally he found a spot where there was a slight protection, and he took a look around and this is what he saw; the line of trenches we had left there in the morning were entirely blotted, and the ground, as far as he could see, was literally riddled with shell holes. Our boys had either been killed, wounded, or taken prisoners, and our first and second lines were in the hands of the Germans; however, their advance had been checked, and now, before going any farther, let me explain that this is known now as the Third Battle of Ypres, and the history is familiar to all. It was here that the 1st Division of Canadians made their heroic stand in 1915, just one year previous. But to come back to our present plight. We were at a loss to know what to do, for we had no means of knowing how far the Germans had penetrated our lines; but we knew that if their first wave of reinforcements ever came up, they would surely get us, so there seemed to be just one thing to do, and that was to make a dash for our supports—the Germans who had come over were taking what shelter they could in the shell holes, but they were lying as low as possible, on account of the fierceness of our shell fire. It really seemed as though every gun we had was trained on that spot, and the fire was coming from three sides. One of the 28th boys who was watching the battle from a neighbouring hill said that more shells fell to the minute in this battle than in any he had ever seen, and certainly that is the way it seemed to us; there was just one chance in a thousand of our getting through, but the idea of staying and giving ourselves up never entered our heads.

It took quite a bit of courage to make the first dash, but at 2.30 we started out over the shell-swept ground. The shell holes were only from ten to twenty feet apart, but I assure you it seemed quite far enough. We made a quick sprint for the first one and landed in on the backs of three or four Germans; they were lying facing our lines, and hadn't expected any one from the rear. We had them finished before they got over their surprise and none of us were hurt in this scrap—so we made a bolt for the next hole. However, we were not so lucky this time, and before we reached the hole two of our boys went down; we dared not stop to see how badly they were hurt, but plunged into the shelter of the hole. Here we were outnumbered two to one, but our attack from the rear gave us the advantage; still it came near being my finish, for my revolver jammed, and a big Boche made a lunge at me with his bayonet—I dropped my revolver, escaped his bayonet by making a quick side-step, grabbed his rifle, and hung on for dear life. We rocked to and fro, and all at once it occurred to me to use my feet—so I lifted one foot and let him have it right in the stomach. He let go his hold on the rifle and sat down as suddenly as if he was shot, while I lost my balance and went sprawling in the other direction. I don't know which of us would have recovered first, but one of our boys settled the combat by blowing the big Boche's head off. Our three lads had cleared up all the others and we had time to think of our own condition. We were a very sorry-looking outfit; we all had wounds and bruises which we hadn't felt at the time they were received; our tunics and caps had been left in the sap, and the few clothes we had on were torn and plastered with mud, our faces were streaked with dirt and blood, and we were "all in." I hadn't known any of the boys before except the Corporal and Nobby, and poor Nobby was the first one shot. Well, we looked after each other's wounds, and then we rested for awhile; when our strength came back a little, we started out again. We would have stayed longer only we had no idea how far we were from our lines, and we felt sure that German reinforcements would come up at dark. We went out in single file and not too close together, but our next hole was farther away and just before the first one reached it a shell burst directly over it; two of the boys were killed and the Germans in the hole were blown to atoms; the officer and myself were thrown a little distance and badly stunned, but finally we managed to reach the hole. We were the only ones left, and we lay there bruised and shaken. We were pretty well discouraged over the loss of our other brave lads, and it was quite a while before we felt like venturing out again; the only redeeming feature was the fact that the shell which had killed our boys had also cleared the hole of whole Germans. Well, at last we made another start, and we had almost reached a hole when the officer, who was behind me, shouted "Look out, lad, there's another coming!" We leaped for the hole and landed at the bottom only to find ourselves covered by a dozen German rifles; I sure thought I had a through ticket for the next world with no "stop-overs" allowed, especially when I noticed a big "square-head" in the act of bringing a "potato-masher" (hand grenade) down on my head. I dodged him as he fetched it down, and just then the German officer in charge of the bunch bawled out some command. They all lowered their rifles and began talking in an excited manner, they were evidently trying to decide what to do with us, and the officer said, "Well, I guess our game is up, boy." I said, "I guess it is"; and really I didn't much care if they finished me right then. I knew I had made them pay the price anyway—we were out of ammunition and, besides, we were too much "all in" to put up any kind of a scrap.

Well, they evidently decided to take us prisoners, for we were searched, and then two of them were detailed to take us back—the only reason we were spared was because it is quite a feather in a German's cap to take a British officer prisoner—they are always rewarded for it. Well, they started us out at once over the same road we had come, and we went from shell hole to shell hole as before, but now that we were under German escort no one "potted" us, and in spite of the shell fire we reached what had been "No Man's Land." As we crossed this I noticed a funny thing. A company of German reinforcements were being brought up, perhaps a hundred in all; the officer in charge was bareheaded, and he carried a revolver and a stick of some kind. Instead of leading his men as our officers do, he walked behind and a little to one side, really on their flank. They couldn't hear his commands and he tried to show them where to go by pointing with his stick, but he kept his revolver levelled on the men all the time. As I watched them, a couple of our "Big Lizzie" shells burst right over them; when the smoke cleared away there wasn't one of the bunch to be seen. Well, we crossed "No Man's Land" and came to where the German trenches had been, but they were as level as our own. Finally we struck a communication trench and the going was a little safer. The trench was crowded with Germans, and they lined up in either side to let us pass. But here I had another narrow escape; the Boche's hatred of the British is such that they cannot resist giving vent to it when they have one in their power, and as we passed one big brute made a lunge at me with his bayonet. Fortunately, he missed his aim a little and the bayonet passed through the loose front of my shirt, but I felt the cold steel on my flesh—the guard said nothing to him. Another thing I noticed on my way out was the treatment a wounded German received from the comrade who was taking him out—the man was wounded through the head and he was evidently dizzy from pain and weakness, for he rolled from one side of the trench to the other like a drunken man—instead of carrying him as our men would do, or, at least, putting an arm round him to steady his steps, that brute walked behind, and when the wounded man would stop, wanting to sit down and rest, I saw the brute take that poor man by the collar, jerk him up, and land him a couple of kicks. This of course sent the man running and sprawling down the trench, and this is the way they made their way out.