Fifteen hundred men had already fallen, and what could the remaining 500 of us do against the German hordes?
Sick as we were with the gas fumes and the terrific strain we had undergone, we retreated back through the wood to an old line of trenches and there waited for reinforcements.
Our object had been achieved, the Germans were demoralized, and puzzled as to how many men we had.
Their proposed attack was cancelled for a few hours to enable them to re-form and organize, and by the next hour or two our reinforcements would have arrived.
Our first brigade appeared on the scene and the line was strengthened, and then the Buffs, the famous English regiment, came up at the double after having marched miles from another part of the line.
The bluff that we pulled off was therefore entirely successful, and the Germans thought that we had about 20,000 men attacking them.
It never struck their imaginative, cold-blooded and calculating minds that 2,000 men would have the audacity to attack whole German divisions without artillery support.
They certainly have had many lessons showing the difference between spirit and material.
The charge we made stands out as one of the finest achievements of the war, and only equaled, in the estimation of British experts, by the wonderful charge of the Worcestershire Regiment, who with only 500 men charged a division of Prussian Guards at Gheluvelt in October, 1917; also the famous Black Watch and the Scots Greys in their spectacular stirrup at St. Quentin.
It will always be a source of pleasure to me to know that I was in the front line of the first attack made by soldiers from the continent of America and was in the Battle of Ypres, which made the name of Canada ring through the world.