y 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 bee