The Germans continued to discharge gas against our line until May 15th, when they retook Hill 60. The bitter struggle of the past three weeks had begun as a mere counter-attack to our capture of this small but important mound.
By this time, however, the Canadians had been withdrawn, and we left the salient with few regrets. But somewhere on the German side of our trench line there are thousands of graves of our fellow-countrymen, and when the time comes for the balancing of accounts we shall expect these to weigh heavy in the scales.
Our brigade was the first to be relieved, marching out on the night of May 3rd, wondering vaguely where we were going, and also, perhaps, what would become of our friends "Ox-eye" and "Freckleface," with their stolid faces, their ample bosoms, and their square hips.
CHAPTER XII
BAILLEUL
Our next stop was Bailleul, a town of some fifteen thousand inhabitants just over the Franco-Belgian frontier. Possibly it was never known before the war, but it is now, for sooner or later everyone goes to Bailleul: it was, until the taking over of the line below Arras, the Mecca of the British Army.
But it was fifteen weary miles from Brielen, fifteen miles that we stumbled over in a drizzling rain on slippery cobblestones before turning up through an archway off the main street to our billets. Good billets they were, too—a loft with ample straw for one platoon, a school-house for the other three, and houses on another street for the officers.
In spite of the early hour, about 3 o'clock, Madame was up and around and soon made us fresh coffee and the inevitable omelette; then we clattered up the steep little stairs to bed. F——, the sergeant who had been promoted, joined us here and proved a jolly good sort. We went out to hunt up new billets the next day. He, being a Quebecker, acted as interpreter, as our room was too small and stuffy for two, and, moreover, looked into the operating-room of a hospital opposite.
We were fortunate in finding another billet quite close—an important point, as we were to mess together—and then took a stroll around the town.