"Canadians—Canadians—that's all!"



CHAPTER XIII

TEARS AND NO CHEERS

On May third we commenced our withdrawal to Bailleul, leaving our sector of the line in safe hands. We were billeted in this town for a rest.

We were a haggard bunch. Our faces were drawn in lines like old men, many were gray, some were white; our eyes were wild and glassy and we moved jerkily or started at the slightest of sharp sounds.

Reinforcements began to arrive. We needed them. There were C and D Companies without an officer between them. Major Kirkpatrick was wounded and a prisoner; Captain Straight wounded and taken; Captain Johnson wounded and imprisoned; Lieutenant Jarvis, son of Amelius Jarvis, the famous sporting figure of Toronto, lay dead, and our gallant old Major Pete Anderson, our sniping officer, was also captured, though he has now escaped from enemy hands.

In billets we had thought we were hard hit. We had not realized it to the full till the morning we were lined up, one brigade at a time, for review. We had had an issue of fresh clothing, we had had some long hours of sleep, we had had all that soap and water could do for us, but we were a sorry and sorrowful lot of men. We had the light of triumph in our eyes, but even that was dimmed at thought of the boys who were gone to the great review above.

Our beloved commander-in-chief came along the lines to review us. He looked at us with the brave eyes of a father sorrowing over a dead son. He walked with head high and step firm, but his voice shook with deep emotion, and he did not hide the tears which rose to his eyes as he spoke his famous words of commendation.

They are immortal words, words which express the regret of a true man for comrades whose sacrifice was supreme, words which express pride in deeds done and breathe of a determination to greater deeds, if possible, in a triumphant future.

Words Spoken to the First Canadian Division (Brigade by Brigade and to Engineers and Artillery) After the Twelve Days and Nights of Fighting April 22d to May 4th, 1915 By Lieutenant-General E.A.H. Alderson Commanding First Canadian Division

"All units, all ranks of the First Canadian Division, I tell you truly, that my heart is so full I hardly know how to speak to you. It is full of two feelings, the first being sorrow for the loss of those comrades of ours who have gone, the second—pride in what the First Canadian Division has done.

"As regards our comrades who have lost their lives, and we will speak of them with our caps off [here the general took off his cap, and all did likewise], my faith in the Almighty is such that I am perfectly sure that, in fact, to die for their friends, no matter what their past lives have been, no matter what they have done that they ought not to have done (as all of us do), I repeat that I am perfectly sure the Almighty takes care of them and looks after them at once. Lads—we can not leave them better than like that. [Here the general put his cap on, and all did the same.]

"Now, I feel that we may, without any false pride, think a little of what the Division has done during the past few days. I would first of all tell you that I have never been so proud of anything in my life as I am of this armlet '1 Canada' on it that I wear on my right arm. I thank you and congratulate you from the bottom of my heart for the part each one of you has taken in giving me this feeling of pride.

"I think it is possible that you do not, all of you, quite realize that if we had retired on the evening of the twenty-second of April when our Allies fell back from the gas and left our flank quite open, the whole of the Seventeenth and Twenty-eighth Divisions would probably have been cut off, certainly they would not have got away a gun or a vehicle of any sort, and probably not more than half the infantry. This is what our commander-in-chief meant when he telegraphed as he did: 'The Canadians undoubtedly saved the situation.' My lads, if ever men had a right to be proud in this world, you have.

"I know my military history pretty well, and I can not think of an instance, especially when the cleverness and determination of the enemy is taken into account, in which troops were placed in such a difficult position; nor can I think of an instance in which so much depended on the standing fast of one division.

"You will remember the last time I spoke to you, just before you went into the trenches at Sailly, now over two months ago, I told you about my old regiment—the Royal West Kents—having gained a reputation for not budging from the trenches, no matter how they were attacked. I said then that I was quite sure that in a short time the army out here would be saying the same of you. I little thought—we, none of us thought—how soon those words would come true. But now, to-day, not only the army out here, but all Canada, all England, and all the Empire, is saying it of you.

"The share each unit has taken in earning this reputation is no small one.

"I have three pages of congratulatory telegrams from His Majesty the King downward which I will read to you, with also a very nice letter from our army commander, Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien.

"Now, I doubt if any divisional commander, or any division ever had so many congratulatory telegrams and messages as these, and remember they are not merely polite and sentimental ones; they express just what the senders feel.

"There is one word I would say to you before I stop. You have made a reputation second to none gained in this war, but remember, no man can live on his reputation, he must keep on adding to it. That you will do so I feel just as sure as I did two months ago when I told you that I knew you would make a reputation when the opportunity came.

"I am now going to shake hands with your officers, and I do so wanting you to feel that I am shaking hands with each one of you, as I would actually do if the time permitted.

"No—we will not have any cheering now—we will keep that until you have added to your reputation, as I know you will."

And there was no cheering. We turned away—the few men of us left whole in those scattered ranks—our eyes tear-dimmed in memory of those comrades whose lives had gone out; but our hearts ready to answer the call wherever it might lead us.

The world to-day knows what the Canadian boys have done. We have more than added to our reputation.

Right after this terrible scrap at Ypres came Givenchy and Festubert, and then we held the line at Ploegsteert for a whole year, fighting fiercely at St. Eloi, and stopping them again at Sanctuary Wood.

In the summer of 1916 fourteen thousand of us went down before German cannon, but still they did not break our lines. This was known as the third battle of Ypres.

From Ypres we went to the Somme, and it was on the Somme that we met our Australian cousins who jokingly greeted us with the statement "We're here to finish what you started," and we fired back, "Too bad you hadn't finished what you started down in Gallipoli!"

It was not very long before both were engaged in that terrible battle of the Somme, where to Canadian arms fell the honor of taking the village of Courcellette. We plugged right on and soon we put the "Vim" into Vimy, and took Vimy Ridge. As I write we are marking time in front of Lens.

At Ypres we started our great casualty lists with ten thousand. To-day over one hundred twenty-five thousand Canadian boys have fallen, and there are over eighteen thousand who will never come back to tell their story.

If the generals of the British Army were proud of us in 1915, I wonder how they feel to-day?



CHAPTER XIV

"THE BEST O' LUCK—AND GIVE 'EM HELL!"

Imagine a bright crisp morning in late September. The sun rises high and the beams strike with comforting warmth even into the fire-trench where we gather in groups to catch its every glint.

We feel good on such a morning. We clean up a bit, for things are quiet—that is, fairly quiet. Only a few shells are flying, there is little or no rifle fire and nobody is getting killed, nobody is even getting plugged.

The whole long day passes quietly. We are almost content with our lot. We laugh a good deal, we joke, we play the eternal penny ante, and possibly the letters come.

Just before stand-to at sundown the quiet will be broken. The artillery behind our lines will open up with great activity. We notice that the big shells only are being used and we notice that they are concentrating entirely on the German front line, immediately ahead and to the right and left of where we have our position. We are more than a little interested. There is decidedly something in the wind. We wait, but nothing happens. We have stand-to and get our reliefs for guard.

Every man has his bayonet fixed for the night. We give it a little extra polish. It may be needed soon. There is no outward show of nervousness. No man speaks to his neighbor of his immediate thoughts. We begin to smoke a little more rapidly, perhaps. We might have had a cigarette an hour during the heavy shelling of the day. During the night we will increase to one every half-hour, every twenty minutes. We light a fag, take a few puffs and throw it away. That is the only evidence of nerves.

We are in a state of complete ignorance as to what the outcome of this shelling may be. We have seen it just as severe before and nothing but a skirmish result. Some of us have seen shelling of the same intensity and have gone over the top and into a terrible melange. We are always kept in ignorance; no commands and no orders are given. Did we know for hours ahead that at such and such a time we would go over the top, our nerves could hardly stand the strain. The noise, the terrific noise of our artillery bombarding the German trenches is hard enough on our nerves; what it must be on the nerves of the enemy is beyond conception. We do not wonder that in these latter days they fall on their knees and yell "Kamerad!"

As a rule a charge takes place just before dawn, when the gray cold light of morning is struggling up from the East. All night we are occupied according to our individual temperaments. Some are able to sleep even in such a racket. The great majority of us are writing letters. There are always a few last things to be said to the home-folks, a few small possessions we want to will in special ways. We hand our letters to an officer or to some special chum. If this is to be our last time over—if it is to be our last charge—the officer or chum will see to it, if he lives, or the stretcher-bearers or the chaplains, if he doesn't, that the small treasures go back home to the old folks.

Just before dawn there is a difference in the character of the shelling. The heavy shells are falling farther back on German reserves and lighter artillery is being used on the enemy front line. The position lies some three hundred yards from the enemy front.

The light shells sweep close overhead as they go by our trench. We have to hug the sides close; sometimes the vacuum is so great that it will carry off a cap; if we are not careful it may suck up a head or lift us completely off our feet.

This curtain of fire continues for hours; it varies in direction now and then, but never in intensity. There is a controlling force over this tremendous bombardment. To my mind the most important man on the battle-field is he who holds the ordering of the bombardment—the observation officer. He must know everything, see everything, but must never be seen. During a heavy bombardment he works in conjunction with another observation officer. They are hidden away in any old place; it may be a ruined chimney, it may be a tree which is still left standing, or it may be in some hastily built up haystack. He controls the entire artillery in action on his special front, and he holds the lives of thousands of men in the hollow of his hand. One tiniest miscalculation and hundreds of us pay the price.

He is cool, imperturbable, calculating, ready in any emergency, good-tempered, deliberate and yet with the power to act instantly. At times he has command over a magnificent number of invectives!

As the minutes pass and the day lightens we smoke a fag every five minutes, every three minutes. The trench is filled with the blue gray smoke of thousands of cigarettes, lighted, puffed once, thrown away. It soothes our nerves. It gives us something to do with our hands. It takes our mind off the impending clash.

If we make an attack in broad daylight, which is seldom done except under a special emergency, the only command to charge will be the click, click, click of bayonets going into place all along the line. But charges are mostly made at gray-dawn, when bayonets are already fixed. Suddenly, away down the line we catch sight of one of our men climbing over the parapet. Then trench ladders are fixed, and in a twinkling every man of us is over the top with: "The best o' luck—and give 'em hell!"

We crawl out over the open. We reach our own barbed wire entanglements. We creep through them, round them, and out to No Man's Land. We are in it now for good and all.

The enemy is now concentrating his fire on our reserves. He knows that we have not had sufficient men in the front line trench to be of great effect. He knows that we can not fit them in there. He knows that the moment we have cleared the top of the parapet hundreds of men have poured from the communication trenches into our places. He knows that for miles back men are massed as thick as they can stand in the reserve trenches. His object is to destroy our reserves and not the immediate trench in front of him.

We follow the same plan. For, as we advance in short sharp rushes, the observation officer, who never for a moment relaxes his hold on the situation, flashes back by telegraph or field telephone the command to the artillery lying miles away to raise their curtain of fire. They do so, and shells fall on the German reserves, while we press forward, teeth bared and cold steel gleaming grayly, to take the front lines. We leap the parapet of the German trench. We spot our man and bear down on him. We clean out the dugouts and haul away the cowering officers, and already we are straightening and strengthening the German trench.

Behind us come wave on wave of our reserves. The second will take the second trench of the enemy; the third, the third, and so on. Then we consolidate our position, and Fritz is a sad and sorry boy.

That is the way it should work, but in the early days of the war we used to find this very difficult. We of the front line would charge and take our trench. We would get there and not a German to be seen! He would be beating it down his communication trenches, or what was left of them, as hard as he could go. We were supposed to stay in the front trench of the enemy. Well, it was simply against human nature, against the human nature of the First Canadian boys at any rate. We may have been out there for months and not had a chance to see a German. And had been wishing and waiting for this very opportunity. We would see Fritz disappear round a traverse and we simply could not stand still and let him go, or let the other fellow get him. We were bound to go after him. This was really our traditional weakness. Often-times we went too far in our eagerness to capture the Hun, and were unable to hold all that we got.

In the early days, too, we charged in open formation. Certainly we lost, in the first instance, fewer men by that method, but when we reached the enemy trench, took it, and had established ourselves therein, we were rarely strong enough in numbers to repulse the almost certain counter-attacks that came a few minutes or even an hour or so later.

We have altered this method now. We attack, not in the close formation, shoulder to shoulder, of the German, but in a formation which is a variation of his. We attack in groups of twenty or thirty men, who are placed shoulder to shoulder. If a shell comes over one group, it is obliterated, to be sure, but suppose no shell comes; then several such groups will reach the enemy lines, and Hans has not got the ghost of a chance once we get to close quarters. He has not the glimmer of a chance in a counter-attack when we have sufficient men to hold on to what we have gained.

On the other hand a German charge on our lines is a pretty sight. They advance at a dog-trot. They come shoulder to shoulder, each man almost touching his neighbor. They are in perfect alignment to start, and they lift their feet practically in exact time one with the other. Unlike us, they shoot as they advance. We have a cartridge in our magazine, but we have the safety catch on. We dare not shoot as we advance because our officers are always ahead, always cheering the boys forward. The German officer is always behind. He drives his men.

They shoot from the hip, but in that way their fire is never very effective. As they advance it is practically impossible to miss them, no matter how bad a shot any of us might be. We get fifteen rounds per minute from our rifles and our orders are to shoot low and to full capacity.

In the attacks of the enemy which I have seen they certainly have been brave. One must give them their due. It takes courage to advance in face of rifle fire, machine gun fire and artillery shells, in this close formation. Wave after wave of them come across in their field gray-blue uniforms and they never cower. One wave will be mowed down and another will quicken the pace a trifle and take its place. One man will go down and another will step into the gap. They are like a vast animated machine.

In one attack which we repulsed I am conservative when I say that they were lying dead and wounded three and four deep and yet they attacked again and again without faltering, only to be driven back to defeat in the end.

This war is not over yet by a long shot, and I should like to offer some advice to the boys who are going over from this continent. Our officers know better than we. The generals and aides who have been working on the problem, on the strategy and tactics during the three years gone by, are more qualified to conduct the war than the private who has lately joined. If you are told to stay in a certain place, then stay there. If you are told to dig in, you are a bad soldier if you don't dig and dig quickly. You are only a nuisance as long as you question authority. It does not pay. The boys of the First Division learned by experience. Do as you're told. The heads are taking no undue risks. Your life is as valuable to them as it is to you. They won't let you lose it unnecessarily. Get ahead and obey.

There is no need to lose your individuality. The vast difference between us and the enemy soldier is that we can think for ourselves should occasion arise; we can act on our own responsibility or we can lead if the need be.

Remember, that every single man is of importance. Each one is a cog in the vast organization and one slip may disrupt the whole arrangement. Obey, but use your intelligence in your obedience. Don't act blindly. Consider the circumstances and as far as you can use your reason as you believe the general or the colonel has used his. You are bounded only by your own small sector. What you know of other salients is hearsay. The general knows the situation in its entirety.

Obedience, a cool head, a clean rifle and a sharp bayonet will carry you far.



CHAPTER XV

OUT OF IT

Every man who goes into the active service of the present war knows that someday, somehow, somewhere, he is going to get plugged. We have expressions of our own as to wounds. If a chap loses a leg or an arm or both, he'll say, "I lost mine," but when there is a wound, no matter how serious, yet which does not entail the loss of a visible part of the body, we say, "I got mine."

So it was as time wore on, I "got mine" in the right shoulder and right lung. A German explosive bullet caught me while I was in a lying position. It was at Ypres; we all get it at Ypres.

The thing happened under peculiar circumstances. It was the second time in my army career that I volunteered for anything. The first time was the night I went on listening post; the second time I got plugged, and plugged for good.

We had repulsed the enemy several times. We were running short of ammunition and our position was enfiladed. It was absolutely necessary, if all of us were not to lose our lives, that some one should bring up ammunition.

The ammunition dump lay about a mile back of our line. An officer called for volunteers to creep back for a supply. It was broad daylight, but twenty-eight other lads and myself stepped forward willing to attempt the task.

The men who remained behind had a command to keep up a rapid fire over the enemy trenches which would lend us some cover. No matter how perfect this covering may be, it is never completely effective in silencing the enemy fire. Quite a number of bullets scattered about us as we clambered along the short communication trench, and up into the open. This was my first experience in running away from bullets, and I proved in the first five seconds of that journey that a man, no matter what his propensities for winning medals may be, can run much faster from bullets than he can toward them.

Among us were boys of several other companies, and on the way out three of the twenty-nine got hit. I did not know whom. We kept on, breathless and gasping, running as we were under the weight of full equipment and dodging bullets as we went. Shells were falling round us too, now. We were not happy.

At last we got to our destination and picked up the boxes. A box of ammunition weighs a hundred or more pounds, so we decided that three of us should carry two boxes. The boxes are fitted with handles on each end.

We started off running at top speed, then dropping flat on our stomachs to fetch our breath and rest our aching arms. The enemy was rapidly getting thicker. We rose and rushed forward another stretch. At three hundred yards from the trench, the greater number of our crowd had fallen. We dropped. Then our hearts stood still, for from our trench there came a silence we could feel.

We knew what it meant. There was no need for the enemy to increase the rapidity of his fire over us and over the boys in the trench to let us know what was up. Our ammunition had already given out, and we had to face the last few hundred yards without protection, meager though it had been throughout. We knew there was not a man in that trench who had a bullet left. We knew that as far as we were concerned, we were done. We metaphorically shook hands with ourselves and wished friend self a long good-by. We looked at the sun and said "Tra-la-la" to it, and we wondered in a flash of thought what the old world would be like without us. We wondered where we would "light up."

All this passed in a moment of time, and then we decided that it would be better if we paired up, two men taking one box of ammunition. This offered a smaller target for the busy enemy, and also made for increased speed in covering the remaining ground.

We sprang up once more and dodged and doubled as we leaped through the rain of bullets, machine gun and rifle. How we lived I don't know. I was sharing a box with a lad whom I heard the fellows call Bob. He was no more than a boy, but we were much of a size and ran light. We were the only two of the twenty-nine left on our feet. To-day I am one of five of that bunch left alive.

About fifty yards from the trench we dropped for a last rest before the final spurt which would decide the whole course of events in the next ten minutes. Would we reach that trench and turn in our box of ammunition, or would we "get ours" and would the boys so eagerly waiting for us be surrounded and captured? Or would many of them do what they had threatened? "If it comes to surrendering," several had said in my hearing, "I will run a bayonet into myself rather than be taken."

When a man is lying close to the ground there is not so very great a chance of his being hit by bullets. They pass overhead as a rule. It is when a man is kneeling or standing, or between the two positions that the great danger lies. The lad Bob and I were just in the act of rising when mine came along. I felt no more than a stinging blow in the right shoulder, a searing cut and a thud of pain as the bullet exploded in leaving my body. I fell on my face and blood gushed from my shoulder.

"Hit hard or soft?" queried my companion, as he threw himself down beside me.

"Don't know," I gasped.

"You're hit in the mouth," he said, as the blood poured from between my lips.

"No, by gum, you're hit in the back!"

I gasped, nearly choked, and spluttered out: "You're a liar; I'm not hit in the back." But there was a gash in the back where the exploding missile had torn away and carried out portions of my lung and bits of bone and flesh.

I closed my eyes. Then from a distance I heard Bob speak.

"I'm going to fix you," he said, and knelt beside me. He got into such a position that his own body shielded me from any of the enemy bullets. It was a marvelous piece of bravery; less has earned a Victoria Cross.

He turned me round so that my head was toward our reserves and my feet were toward the Germans. In almost all cases when a man is hit he falls forward with his face to the enemy. In all probability he will become unconscious. When he awakes he remembers that he fell forward. A blind instinct works within him and makes him strive to turn around. He knows danger lies ahead, but friend and safety are back of him.

Bob shifted me round. "Remember," he whispered, "that if you should faint, when you come to you are placed right. You are in the right direction—don't turn round."

A wonderful motto for a man to carry through life. Bob had no thought of future or fame. In keen solicitude for a fallen comrade he uttered words which mean more in these days of war and blood than do the words of poets.

"You're in the right direction—don't turn round!"

Then the lad got up to go on. He struggled to lift the box of ammunition.

I whispered to him hoarsely: "You're not going on—you will never get there. It is certain death."

"Good-by, old boy," was his answer. "You don't think because the rest of you have gone down that I am going to be a piker. Say 'Hello!' to Mother for me should you see her before I do."

I have never seen his mother. I do not know her. If she lives she has the memory of a son who, though a boy in years, was a soldier and a very gallant gentleman. Bob tried to reach the trench, but a rain of bullets got him and he fell dead only a little way from me.

I lay where I had fallen for some time. I don't know how long, but long enough to see our boys captured by the enemy. And in so dreadful a plight as I was I had to smile. Those men who had boasted they would kill themselves, surrendered with the rest. Life is very sweet. There is always a chance of living, and always a chance of escape no matter how brutal the system in German prison camps.

Every man in that trench surrendered honorably. Not a man had a bullet left. They were hopelessly outnumbered, and it is hard to die when there is youth and love and strength.

As evening wore on I feared that I too might be captured, and I commenced a weary struggle to crawl back across the field. It was while I was resting after such an effort that a wonderful moment came to me. I saw the Lord Jesus upon His cross, and the compassion upon His face was marvelous to see. He appeared to speak to me.

"I am dying," I muttered, and then thought, "Shall I pray?"

Of outward praying I had done none. I thought about it and wondered. To pray now—no, that was being a piker. I had not prayed openly before, now when I was nearing death it was no time for a hurried repentance and a stammered prayer. I watched the vision as it slowly faded, and a great comfort surrounded me. I was happy.

I crawled on and reached a shell hole. It must have been an hour later that a despatch rider came to me. His motorcycle had been shot from under him, and he was striving to reach his destination on foot. He spoke to me, and then placed me in a blanket, which he took from a dead soldier. In this he dragged me to the shelter of an old tumbledown house. It had been riddled with shot and shell, but the greater part of the outer walls were standing, and it was shelter.

I begged the despatch rider to give me his name. I begged him to take some small things of mine to keep as a token for what he had done for me. But he would have nothing. He hurried away with the intention of sending help to me, and as he went I begged his name once more. "Oh! Johnnie Canuck!" said he. And there it remains. I do not know the name of the man who dragged me to comparative safety at such terrible risk to himself.

Behind the old house where I lay there was a battery of British guns, 4.7's. After a while the enemy found the range, and their shells commenced bursting round me. God in Heaven! I died a hundred deaths in that old ruin. Once a shell hit what roof there was and a score of bricks came crashing about me. Not one touched. I seemed charmed. I could hear the shells screeching through the air a second before they burst near where I lay. Of bodily pain I had little. The discomfort was great; the thirst was appalling. I thought I should bleed to death before help reached me. But there was nothing to compare with the mental strain of waiting—waiting—waiting for a shell to burst. Where would it drop? Would the next get me?

I hoped and longed and waited, but help did not come. I never lost consciousness. Darkness came and dawn. Another day went by and the shelling went on as before. Another night, another dawn and then two Highland stretcher-bearers came in. They raised me gently. The bleeding had stopped, but that journey on the stretcher was too much. I had been found and I let myself drift into the land of unknown things.

I woke before we reached a dugout dressing station. Here I was given a first-aid dressing and immediately after carried away to an old-fashioned village behind the lines. At this point there was a rough field hospital, an old barn probably. There were eighty or ninety wounded there when I arrived. Among the many French and British were some Germans. The very next stretcher to me was occupied by one of the enemy.

The Red Cross floated over the building, but that emblem of mercy made no difference to the Hun. The shells commenced to find range, and in a short time the roof was lifted off. A wounded man died close to me. I can only remember the purr of a motor as an ambulance rushed up. Then I saw four stretcher-bearers; two grabbed the German, and two caught hold of me. We were rushed to the ambulance and driven at maddening speed through the shell-ridden town.

Though I was barely conscious, though I believed that I was nearing my last moments, I remember how it struck me vividly,—the contrast in the methods of fighting. German shells were blasting to pieces the shelter of wounded men and nurses. German wounded were being cared for by those whom their comrades sought to kill. The Hun might have killed his own. It did not matter. What is a life here or there to a Hohenzollern? And the Allies—here were two British stretcher-bearers bent under the burden of an enemy patient. They were striving to save his life from the fire of his own people.

I do not remember any more after I was put in the ambulance. I came to myself in a base hospital in France. I was strapped to a water bed. Everything round me was soft and fresh and clean, and smelled deliciously. There was a patient, sweet-smiling woman in nurse's costume who came and went to the beck and call of every man of us. We were whimpering and peevish; we were wracked with pain and weary of mind, but that nurse never failed to smile. Call a hundred times, call her once, she was always there to soothe, to help, to sympathize, and always smiling. Her heart must have been breaking at times, but her serene face never showed her sorrow or her weariness.

Often and often I am asked, "Why didn't you die when you were lying out there on the battle-field?" Why didn't I die? I could have, several times, but I didn't want to die, and I knew that if I were found I need not die. We raw soldiers when we go to France are interested in the possibilities of being wounded. We know we've more or less got it coming to us, and we begin quietly to make inquiries. We notice all those men who wear the gold honor-bars on their sleeves. Yes; for every wound we get we have the right to wear a narrow strip of gold braid on the tunic sleeve.

We talk to the man with the honor-bar. We ask him how he was treated in the hospital. He may be doing the dirtiest fatigue duty round trench or camp, he may be smoking or writing a letter, but the minute be hears the word "hospital" he drops everything. If he be a Cockney soldier he will repeat the word: "'Orspital, mate—lor' luv ye, wish I wuz back!"

That is the feeling. Talk to a thousand men after this war; ask them their experiences and they will tell you a thousand different stories. Ask them how they were treated in the hospital and there is but one reply: "Treated in hospital? Excellent!"

There is only one word. The great Red Cross—Royal Army Medical Corps—is practically one hundred per cent. efficient. The veterans will tell the youngsters, "If you're wounded and have to lie out—then, lie out—don't be foolish enough to die while you are lying out—because you can't die once they find you."

YOU CAN'T DIE.

We remember that. We remember facts, too, that we hear from time to time. We remember that out of all the casualties on the western front, only two and a half per cent. have died of wounds. We remember that we have a ninety-seven and a half fighting chance out of a hundred, and we are willing to take it. Some of us have read of other wars and we know, for instance, that in the American Civil War, from the best available statistics, over twenty-two per cent. died of wounds—and the reason? No efficient medical corps—no Red Cross—no neutral flag of red on white.

I was taken over to London as soon as I could be moved. I was in the Royal Herbert Hospital at Woolwich. It is not possible to describe in detail the treatment. The doctors were untiring. Hour after hour and day after day they worked without ceasing. The nurses were unremitting. No eight-hour day for them!

And here again I saw the treatment of the German wounded. They were in wards as gay with flowers, as cool, as clean, as delightful as ours. They had German newspapers to read, and certain days of the week brought a German band, drawn from among fit prisoners, to play German airs for the benefit of the sick prisoners. We think of this, and then we meet a British or French soldier who has been exchanged or who has escaped from a German hospital prison! It is hard to think of it calmly. The first impulse is to follow the law, "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." But that is not the way to-day of the square fighter.

At this hospital I was operated on and it was shown that it was an explosive bullet that hit me. Several pieces were taken out of me, and these I keep as grim souvenirs. Several other pieces are still in my body, and not infrequently by certain twinges I am made aware of their presence.

I have never seen an explosive bullet, and few of the Allied soldiers believe that many of us have felt them. Should one of the Allies be found making an explosive or Dum-Dum bullet, he is liable to be court-martialed and shot. There are those of us who would like to use them, but it is not what we like, it is what we may or may not do. It is discipline, and discipline forbids a brutal warfare. Thank God that we are fighting this war on the square, that our leaders are making us fight it on the square. Thank God that no attempt has ever been made to brutalize the troops of the Allies.

Part of the four months I was incapacitated was spent at Dobson Volunteer Red Cross Hospital, and here I was again struck with the marvelous devotion of the women. Day after day many of the leading women would come in, duchesses and others of title, and seek for Canadian lads to whom they could show kindnesses. Luxurious cars waited to drive us out for the air; flowers, fruits and books reached us, and quantities of cigarettes.

When the boys of the U.S.A. reach British hospitals in England, as no doubt they shall, they will find the same enthusiasm, the same attention bestowed upon them from the first ladies of the land and from the humblest who may only be able to give a smile, a cheery word or maybe a bunch of fragrant violets.

Two weeks before I was wounded I was recommended for a commission by my former colonel, Maynard Rogers, and the official document came to me while I was in the English hospital suffering from my wounds. It was a great source of pride and satisfaction that my commission, which I prize so highly to-day, was signed by the late Sir Charles Tupper, father of the Canadian Confederation and one of the Dominion's greatest statesmen.

But my fighting days are over. I am "out of it," but out with memories of good fellowship, real comrades, kindness, sympathy and friendships that dim the recollection of death, of destruction, of blood, of outrage, of murder and brutality.



CHAPTER XVI

GERMAN TERMINOLOGICAL INEXACTITUDES

Some years ago a British statesman, then great, put on record a phrase which at once is polite and convincing. He wished to convey that a certain statement was a d—— lie, but as he himself had made the statement he was in somewhat of an awkward situation. He got out of the difficulty by calling it a "terminological inexactitude."

Now since I have been back in America, and more especially in the States, I have run to earth any number of terminological inexactitudes uttered by German propagandists. As far as Canada is concerned, the work is not now progressing very favorably. The German inexactitude farmer is sowing seed on barren soil. But I have traveled extensively during some crowded weeks through the States, and I find that among a certain section of the American public the seed of the German propagandist has taken root; not so deeply, however, but that an application of the hoe of truth will remove it. It is there all the same, and his success is spurring the agents to further efforts.

The German in high place is aware that the English are and always have been very friendly to the American people. He knows that the Englishman has regarded the American as of the same family. He also knows that one day, and possibly very soon, there will be a union that will amount almost to an amalgamation of the three greatest races on earth, closely bound now by ties of blood and friendship, that will never be broken: France, America, England. He knows that when that occurs the German day is done, that the sun has set forever on a German Empire.

The German in high place has realized this, and with the usual thoroughness of the race has set out to combat this friendship and prevent this joining. He is trying to do it by the regulation German method. He knows the British dislike of boasting, and that the American and the Britisher are woefully trusting. They themselves abhor deception and they distrust no man until they find him out. The British and the French have discovered the machinations of the German. The people of the United States have yet to be convinced that they have been deliberately deceived, cozened and duped by the Kaiser's government.

I am embarrassed at times as I go from town to town by the intensity of the congratulations poured on me as a representative of our Canadian Army.

"You Canadians have done it all. We know that. We know that the English are hanging back and have done nothing."

I am ashamed when people talk to me in such a strain. I am ashamed of their lack of intelligence, ashamed that they will allow themselves to be so deceived.

"You Canadians were asked by England to go and help her. When you got there they put you in front and stayed in safety themselves."

Think of it! Think of the base lie. Think of believing such twaddle. At first I did not trouble to deny the statement; then, as it was repeated again and again, I began to deny it.

The British Empire is in this fight. Canada is doing her share of it, and nothing more than her share. We were not asked to send men over. We declared war upon Germany ourselves, because we are an independent dominion. We have had on the battle-field at one time some one hundred and ten thousand men—that is the greatest number at any one time, though of course nearly five hundred thousand are in khaki. At Vimy Ridge we held the longest portion of trenches that we have ever held before or since—five miles. To right and left of us there were Imperial troops, Anzacs, Africans, and they held over fifty-five miles of line. We advanced four miles, and papers on this continent blazed with the news. The English advanced nine miles on the same day, and there was not so much as a paragraph about it on this side of the Atlantic.

For every overseas soldier wounded on the western front there are six of the Imperial troops wounded. This is true except at Lens, where the overseas casualties were considerably heavier.

All this about Canada being in front is a German "terminological inexactitude" which is so despicable that we in Canada are ashamed that it should be said of us. It will injure us after the war; it will injure our prestige in the empire, which is now higher than ever before. We are not boasters and egotists, we are fighters. We are fighting men who live straight and who are proud to fight straight, and who are disgusted at lies such as this.

The British, the Imperial troops, have done magnificently. They have done more than their share. The original agreement with France was to place fifty thousand men in that country should Germany ever attack. The British have five million troops under arms, of which only one-fifth are overseas. They have some five hundred thousand more men in France than have the French themselves.

The British are fighting on many fronts. They are not fighting one war; they are fighting in German West Africa, they are in German East Africa. It was English troops who fought in the Cameroons. They are fighting in Mesopotamia and in Egypt. They have an army at Saloniki and in the Holy Land, and they have, of necessity, a large army in India, because the borders of that empire must be protected.

And then we hear that the English are not doing anything! The English are feeding their own prisoners in Germany, because the Germans were starving them. They have been keeping some of their Allies in munitions and money. They have been sheltering refugees from every nation that has been devastated and overrun by the mad Huns. They have Belgians and French and Serbians and Poles—a vast concourse of all nations is sheltered on the little island which is the Motherland. It would be a poor thing if the dominions could not protect themselves.

The British fleet has for three years kept the seas open for the neutral nations. The English fleet has protected Canada and other parts of the empire that have no navies of their own. The English must keep an army in England to protect her own shores. There was danger of invasion—that danger is past to all seeming, but it would not have passed had not the English had men on English soil.

"And, you know, we think it dreadful that our boys are being sent over to France to fight for democracy when England is keeping her men back in safety in England."

Another story this—another "terminological inexactitude." A fairly clever one. There is a half truth here. Yes; England has big reserves in England, and it's well for the world that she has. Well for the neutral world during these three years that England has her men in England.

The English have good reserves and they are in England. They are there because England is nearer to the firing line than is the base in France. They are there because it is easier to transport troops by boat across the English Channel, which is a matter of twenty-one miles, and another twenty or thirty miles in a train on the French side, than it is to transport them in cattle cars over a congested railroad system from a base some twenty-six hours from the front line.

Can not the people who hear these stories disprove them for themselves? Is there not a war-map sold in America? England is closer to the firing line than are portions of France, the portions of France which are used as bases. It takes twenty minutes for a German air-ship to reach England.

Were the English soldiers all to be kept in France, in addition to being farther away from the line, they would still have to be fed. Is it better sense to keep them near to the food supply, or to send the reserves to France and use valuable tonnage to ship foodstuffs to them? There is no surplus food in France.

It makes me tired and it makes every Britisher the same to think that such absurd stories should take effect. Of course the German is keen enough to recognize that there is already the will to think evil of England. He just wishes to season it a little and stir it up. He is wily, is the German propagandist.

Then there is the hoary tale that England is keeping one hundred fifty thousand troops in Ireland to tyrannize over the poor Irish, while the States soldiers are sent to France to fight for democracy.

This I also thought too obvious a lie for denial, but it has been repeated and repeated again. I do not know whether there are any English regiments stationed in Ireland at all. There are good barracks in that country, and good camps, so there may be.

The Royal Irish Constabulary are quite able to cope at this time with any Sinn Fein disturbance which may arise. As far as the true Nationalist or Home Ruler is concerned, he has enlisted in British regiments and is fighting at the front. As far as the Ulsterman is concerned, he has enlisted long ago and is dead already or fighting still. The men of both sides who are over age are enlisted as Home Defense Volunteers, just as are the men of England, Scotland and Wales.

So little is there tyranny over Ireland that when the Conscription Bill was passed in the British Imperial Parliament it was enacted only for England, Scotland and Wales. If it had included Ireland some one might have made the accusation of tyranny.

In the United Kingdom there are no less freedom of action, freedom of speech and freedom of the individual than there are in America, and I include Canada in that word. They are as free as we, but they make no talk about it.

The United Kingdom, with the rest of the empire, is fighting to retain her own democracy. If Germany had won during the three years the Allies have held the safety of the world, then the world would have been under the heel of autocracy.

When I enlisted, and before I went over to England, I had no use for the Englishman myself; that was, the Englishman as we knew him in Western Canada. We had had specimens of "Algy boys," of "de Veres" and "Montmorency lads." These, we soon found out, were not the English true to type. They were ne'er-do-wells, remittance men, sent out of the way to the farthest point of the map.

In England we were treated with wonderful hospitality. I began to change my opinion, but not wholly until I reached France. There I met Tommy Atkins—the soldier and the gentleman. There is no cleaner, cooler, better sport on the fighting line than Mr. Atkins. Occasionally when the Irish are in a brilliant charge, when the Scotch punish the enemy with a bit of dogged fighting, it is reported. When the Canadians do a forward sprint the world rings with it. When the English advance and advance again and hold position and hold yet more positions, there is not a whisper of it—not a word.

I have no English blood in my veins, but I believe in fairness, I believe firmly that all the other nations of the empire put together have not done so much as have the English Tommies by themselves.

There has come about a complete change in the Canadian mind in its attitude to the English. If, before this war, there was ever a possibility of our breaking away from the empire, that possibility is now dead—dead and buried beyond recall.

This statement is not made at random. It is a considered sentence. At the Convention of the Great War Veterans' Association of Canada, the organization of the men returned from the world war, I was a delegate from my home town of Edmonton, Alberta. The first resolution at our first session was in effect—To propagate the good feeling between the dominions of the empire and between them and the Motherland; to continue the loyalty and devotion which have prompted us to fight for the old Union Jack.

After all, the voice of the men who have fought and bled for their country is the voice of the people.

Every criticism leveled at England or any other Ally from this side of the Atlantic is to throw a German stink-bomb for the Kaiser.

Feuds remembered are thoughts which are futile. The England of to-day is not the England of 1812. It is not possible to blame the man of to-day for the work of his great-grandfather. Read history and find out the nationality of the George who ruled in England in those far distant days. He was a German, spoke German, and could not read a word of the language of the country on whose throne he sat.

The Lloyd George of ten years ago was the most hated and hooted man in Britain. He is not the Lloyd George of ten years ago to-day, he is the Lloyd George of the present—the most loved and respected man on earth.

The American people and the British are fundamentally alike. They are of the one stock. They have the same ideals and principles. If the English did not make sacrifices in other days, to-day they are making a sacrifice as great, or maybe greater, than others of the Allies.

The joining of the peoples of America and Britain in a tie which can never be broken is imminent. The knot is in the making.

In keeping with the dastardly methods of "frightfulness" in Europe, the German propagandist has thought on this side to strike at the women—to terrify the mothers.

It is terribly hard for women to let their men go. We know that. Our women know it, but they are ashamed should one of their men attempt to hold back. The German lie-mongers whisper: "It is the last time you will see your boy. It is certain death on the western front."

It is not so. The Canadian troops altogether have used up some four hundred fifty thousand in three years. Of this number, in the three years of severe fighting, only five per cent. have been killed. Of the four and a half million, approximately, who have been wounded in the fighting of three years, only two and a half per cent. have died of their wounds.

It is bad enough, but it is not nearly so bad as the German scare manufacturer would seek to make out. Boys come through without a scratch. Not many, certainly, but they come through. There is every reason to believe that you will get your boy back. There is still more reason to believe that if you hold that thought before him while he is still with you, and hold that thought before yourself when he is gone, he will come back.

Women have a tremendous responsibility in this war. Wars are always women's wars, mothers' wars. We boys have courage and we need it, but we also need the greater courage of those women we have left behind to back us up. They have to bear the brunt of the war, which to them is a fight of endurance and eternal, everlasting waiting—waiting—waiting.

Do not think of the sorrow of his leaving, think of the pride of his going.

The martial spirit is not actively abroad on this side of the Atlantic yet. Wait till the boys get over to France; wait till they see the outrages on women and on nature, and all the blood of their fighting ancestors will boil with indignation and rage. They will thank God that they have come to prevent such a devastation on the soil of their own homeland.

In the trenches the boys compare the merits of their mothers. It is a wonderful thing, that spirit of mother love which surrounds us, blesses us and leads us on to higher things. We gather together in the trench and we talk of mother—mother—mother. The lad whose mother cried and fainted when he left quietly drops out from the group. We always know him. He is just a tiny bit afraid that we will ask him how his mother sent him off. He never shows his letters from home, because it is possible that she writes him laments and moanings. He is ashamed. But those of us who have a home courage of which we talk—how we boast! Mother is a mighty factor in the winning of the war.

Out to France we go for Flag and Country. "Over the top" we go for Mother. And mother, that one simple word, embraces the whole of womanhood.

Remember that your boy is going for you. Talk to the French mother, to the English mother, who has lost all. Ask her about the war, about peace. "Peace, yes, we all want peace, but not a German peace. If all the menfolk die and there is no one else to go, why, we will carry on!"

And here I want to ask: What is the pacifist in this country doing for peace? Nothing. He is only trying to put off this war, for a worse war. Every man, woman or child who talks peace before the complete defeat of Germany is a Kaiser agent, spreading German poison gas to the injury and possible destruction of his own countrymen.

Back at home we must have the United Spirit which is inspiring us at the front. After all, it is not the body which is going to take us through to ultimate victory; it is the Spirit. And because American arms ultimately will be the deciding factor in this war, so will American womanhood. From what I have seen already, I have no hesitation in saying that the American mother will be just as true to herself as the English and French mother has been.

Let him go with a smile, and if you can't smile, whistle. You can never know how much it means to him. We at the front are undaunted. If there ever had been a thought of defeat, to-day, with the American arms beside us, we are certain of a sure and glorious victory.

Because we know that if Caesar crossed the Rhine for Rome, and Napoleon crossed it for France and autocracy, so shall we, the Freemen of the world, not only cross the Rhine, but will march even to Berlin for the sake of Liberty, of Love, of Right and of Democracy.



CHAPTER XVII

THE LAST CHAPTER

by

"HERSELF"

War! It was the first of August, 1914, and I almost ran home from the city to tell the news to my people.

War! It was like we'd be in it. War between England and Germany. That war we had all heard of and knew was inevitable. The war of the ages was imminent.

I had been free-lancing in Fleet Street for the past three months. Left The Daily Chronicle over the Home Rule questions, as well as other things.

I was in Ireland for the Ulster gun-running. Ireland was a seething mass of German-inspired sedition south of the Boyne. The authorities apparently would not listen to the warnings of Ulster. But Ulster was ready for anything. There were hospitals, clearing stations, bases. There were despatch riders, signalers, transport men, all in readiness, besides the ordinary infantry volunteers, who were pledged by all means in their power to keep Ireland under the flag of the Union.

I was in a little country church one Sunday morning. A roll of a drum and the skirl of a fife came wafting across the valley on the April breeze. The minister paused a moment in his sermon. Two, three, half a dozen men rose and softly left. They were going to the rendezvous in case of alarm. No one knew what might happen. A conflagration might flare out at a moment's notice.

But in August there came war, real war. Civilization was threatened. Ulster handed over men, guns, ammunition, hospitals and nurses to the Imperial government. Hundreds of the Ulster Volunteers in the Ulster Division have died for Britain. Hundreds of the men south of the Boyne who have not been bitten with the microbe of revolution, and a mistaken idea that England is a tyrant, have died for the cause of world Liberty.

How we lived through those first electric four days of August! Would the Liberal government funk? We doubted them unjustly. Then came the devastation of Belgium, and Britain gave Germany its disappointment—Britain declared war. Ireland rallied round the brave old Union Jack; the colonies, rather we call them now the dominions overseas, India, Africa, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the smaller islands, sent word that they were with us to a man.

And then the fight commenced. Those casualty lists of the first Imperial Army! God in Heaven! The thud of distant guns, and then nearer and nearer we could hear in London the rumble of the enemy artillery as though of thunder. Smoke drifted over, and we lived in a pall of death.

It was in October that Fate's apparent working showed itself.

"This war will alter our lives very greatly," said my aunt one evening in this month, as we sat around the fire. We have all a trace of second sight. Most old families of the north of Ireland can claim to be "fey."

"It will," said I, "for free-lancing is getting played out. I shall have to get steady work."

No more was said, and no special work came my way. It was useless to attempt to train for nursing. I had no aptitude for that, and munition workers of our sex were not called yet.

Then the Canadians came. The First Contingent. For the most part big, strong, hefty-looking men; well uniformed, well set up. Eighty-seven per cent. of them Old Country born.

Among them my cousin, Peter Watson. Dear old man Peter, I wonder do you know of my happiness which is the outcome of your journey "West"? I wish you might know it, and share some of the joy. Yours was a lonely and a sensitive soul.

Peter had been in the Suffolks. A lieutenant in the Imperial Army. Money was scarce and he threw up his commission. He tried Canada as a fortune making ground. Lingered a while in Calgary, and when war broke out enlisted in the now famous Fighting Tenth.

Peter came up from Salisbury to see us. He met me in town a few times. We lunched, dined, did a theater. He brought pals with him. There was Sandy Clark. Poor old Sandy! I have his collar badge C10. Another soldier took it off his tunic for me before they buried him. A sniper got Sandy in June, 1916.

There was Farmer. He was a signaler, and was transferred. I saw his name listed killed, too. I don't know where. There were half a dozen other Canadian boys, Peter and myself. We lunched one day at Pinoli's in Rupert Street. We pledged to our next meeting after the war at the same place. We shan't meet at Pinoli's. There is none of the boys alive. I only live of all the party. It was a strange thing that day. I did not know it would be the last time I should see Peter, but he came back from down the street and kissed me "good-by" a second time. I wondered. Old man Peter.

The war has come home to our family. There is none of us left. Tom Small, my step-brother, is still living and still fighting. I pray his safety to the end. They all went, one after the other. The last to go was Hugh. July, 1916, on the eleventh day he was killed. Dear old boy, it is unrealizeable yet. You won the military Cross and you won yet another undying honor. You were sniped in the glory of completing a fine piece of work. Your six feet of glorious young manhood lie deep in French soil. Good-by, Hugh!

Peter was reported missing. All of us who were left alive tried every means of which we knew and of which we heard to find a trace of him. We got none. At last I decided that an advertisement in a daily paper would bring replies from wounded soldiers. I advertised in The Daily Express. The advertisement appeared on a Wednesday, and on the Thursday morning I had a letter from a young Canadian soldier of the Third Battalion who was in the Royal Herbert Hospital at Woolwich. He told me of knowing something of what may have happened to Peter. The possibilities were that he was blown up in company with a trench full of other soldiers. There is little reason to doubt this awful ending to a young life; there is no evidence of anything else.

The letter of the young Canadian soldier was kindly and frank in tone. I answered it, and asked if he had any relations in the Old Country. He replied that he had not, and we decided that we would go and see him in hospital and try in some way to help him in his loneliness.



Before seeing the soldier I received several other letters, notably from Sam J. Peters, who came to see us, and was positive that he knew Peter as a man who had aided him on his being wounded himself. Lance-Corporal Carey was another who wrote, and Corporal George A. Vowel, known as Black Jack, then of the Tenth and now of the Thirteenth Machine Gun Corps, wrote a kindly letter.

On a Saturday afternoon we went down to Woolwich, and after a short chat with a nurse in charge were allowed to see the Canadian who had written first. Private Harold R. Peat was slight, small, and looked almost emaciated. We talked for some time and he showed us several souvenirs which he had. We liked him, and promised to come back. He agreed that he would get a pass for the following Sunday so that we could see him in the regulation hours.

He mentioned during conversation how he had seen the advertisement in The Daily Express, and how he always had the desire to comfort those who had lost relatives, especially when all the official information could give was "missing."

On the next day it occurred to me that the days must hang long on such a boy's hands, and I forthwith wrote him a card with some small joke on it. He replied by a letter. Soon we wrote to each other every day. It was quite amusing, and at times our letters amounted to a war of wits and repartee.

Our friendship grew, and then he got well enough to leave the hospital. We wrote regularly, but finally there were more hospital visits to make when, as a paralyzed wreck of a youth, he was sent back from France. Private Peat rallied quickly, and to my astonishment one day he walked in to see me at the offices where the Efficiency Engineers had their headquarters.

"Time for me to come and see you!" he exclaimed. I brought him into the reception room, left him for two minutes until I made some arrangements as to work. When I returned he was in a faint, from which it took some time to rouse him. His convalescent camp was in the country, and he had trudged some five miles of muddy road in the rain in his endeavor to reach a railway station with the ultimate object in view of visiting me.

We saw each other frequently from this time. My dear friend, Amy Naylor, jokingly warned me: "Be careful, Bebe, you are playing with fire." I laughed. I had other ideas, but nevertheless her words made me think. I found out that I, for one, was not playing. It remained to find out whether the other party to the game believed it a pastime, or something of more moment.

Soon there came word that certain of the disabled men were to be returned to Canada for discharge. Private Peat was among them. He had word that he would soon receive a commission, though he would not again be fit for active service.

Without one word spoken, it came to be understood between us that it would only be a matter of time before I would go to Canada to join him. Fate seemed to arrange the matter silently that at some indefinite time when "he" had had time to look around and "see how things were," he would send for me.

It was a matter of weeks before I got a cable: "Come now." I came.

We met through tragedy. My husband has all the sacredness to me of having come back to me from the brink of the grave. He has all the wonder of a man who has offered, and is willing to offer his life again for right. He has all the glory of a man who had not to be "fetched." He went.

He is friend, pal and husband all in one. Of Peter, the unconscious instrument of Fate's working, we must say of him but one thing: "He died for his country."



THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF A SOLDIER WHILE ON ACTIVE SERVICE

1. When on guard thou wilt challenge all parties approaching thee.

2. Thou shalt not send any engraving nor any likeness of any air-ship in Heaven above or on any postcard of the Earth beneath, nor any drawing of any submarine under the sea, for I, the Censor, am a jealous Censor, visiting the iniquities of the offenders with three months C.B., but showing mercy unto thousands by letting their letters go free who keep my commandments.

3. Thou shalt not use profane language unless under extraordinary circumstances, such as seeing your comrade shot, or getting coal oil in your tea.

4. Remember the soldier's week consists of seven days: six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, and on the seventh do all thy odd jobs.

5. Honor your President and your Country, keep your rifle oiled and shoot straight that thy days may be long upon the land which the enemy giveth thee.

6. Thou shalt not steal thy comrade's kit.

7. Thou shalt not kill—TIME.

8. Thou shalt not adulterate thy mess tin by using it as a shaving mug.

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy comrades but preserve a strict neutrality on his outgoings and his incomings.

10. Thou shalt not covet thy sergeant's post, nor the corporal's nor the staff major's, but do thy duty and by dint of perseverance rise to the high position of major general.



SOME THINGS THAT WE OUGHT AND OUGHT NOT TO SEND

Candies, cigarettes—and ordinary, plain cigarettes are good enough, so long as you send plenty. If he chews, send him chewing. Cigarettes are an absolute necessity because they are the only things soothing to the nerves when under heavy shell fire. Powdered milk in small quantities, or Horlick's Milk Tablets, are always welcome. Pure jam; don't ever make a mistake in this and send plum and apple, because if he ever gets back alive, he will surely take your life for making such a terrible mistake—different fruit preserves they long for. Never send corned beef. This would be even a worse crime than the plum and apple jam. A pair of sox, home-made and pure wool, you ought to send once a week, because you must remember the Red Cross takes care only of the wounded men and not the fighters in the trenches; the government and home folks must look after the fighter in the field. Three-finger mittens knitted up to the elbow, with the first finger absolutely bare, are very welcome. Scarfs are quite unnecessary. Tommy usually gives these to the French lassies. Different insect powders Tommy likes to get, because he can't buy these out there. There is no doubt about it that, although we get used to the "cooties," yet sometimes they outnumber us and it is necessary to put a gas attack over on them. Strong powders are the only thing. Candles, matches, and if possible small alcoholic burners are very essential things. Of course, if you send him a burner it would be necessary for you to keep sending him alcohol, because this can't be bought in France. Nor can we get sugar out there. Any of these things with a nice long "letter" will delight Tommy or Sammy or Poilou.



Transcriber's note: Minor typographical errors in the original text have been corrected.

THE END