Colonel Geddes' detachment held the line from our old general headquarters to where they linked up with the French troops who were coming up in some strength. The 1st Canadian Brigade was back west of the canal, protecting Brielen, while our brigade was again south of Wieltje.
All the Canadian troops had fought with great valor and had lost over half the effectives of each battalion. It was my misfortune that I could not chronicle the many deeds of individual bravery performed by my countrymen. I could only describe what was taking place in my own vicinity and in my own corps.
The shelling continued all day of the 27th. There was a chilly wind blowing but the sun shone very brightly. I had a fairly comfortable section of trench and tried to snatch a wink of sleep in the bottom of it during the afternoon. I had not been sleeping long when General Turner, V.C., our brigadier, came up and I made room for him alongside of me. His dugout a couple of hundred yards in the rear of us had been hit several times by German shells and he had a very narrow escape. When he jumped in alongside of me he picked up several spent splinters of shell that had fallen on my greatcoat as I slept. He laughingly remarked that everybody said I bore a charmed life and the shells never bothered me, so as his dugout had become untenable he had come up where he could find a quiet "restful" place.
He informed me that since the battle began on the 22nd he had seen and sustained more rifle and shell fire than had been his lot during the whole South African campaign. He and his hardworking chief, Lt.-Colonel Hughes, had not had any rest since the previous Thursday.
Sergt. Coe made the General comfortable in the bottom of the trench beside me, and in a few minutes he was sound asleep with the shells still beating their infernal tatoo in the heavens over us.
A number of French troops had come up and so had the gallant Lahore Division consisting of Indian troops, and they had attacked the Germans and driven them back some distance towards Pilken.
No jauntier soldier ever trode the plains of Flanders than the brave Ghurkas. Short and swarthy with that peculiar elastic step and well set-up figure which can only be obtained by a rigorous course of physical setting up drill of the old style with "thumbs behind the seams of the trousers," the Ghurkas are in a class by themselves. Their battalions are led by pipe bands. The weird music of the Highland Glens seems to have the same potency with the Indian Highlanders that it has with the Scottish and Canadian. In a charge at close quarters the Ghurka uses a peculiar shaped knife with a blade as heavy as a butcher's cleaver and keen as a razor. Like the Highland Pipers who play
"Mo dhith mo dhith gun tri lamhan
Da laimh 'sa phiob 's laimh 'sa chlaidheamh."
"My loss, my loss, without three hands
[271] Two for my pipes and one for my sword,"
the Ghurka bewails his great loss, also that he has not three hands, two for the pipes and one for his "crookie."