ill only be too eager. Now, your Colonel and myself have been in
the trenches, where you are going, and you are relieving a regiment
that has a name second to none out here; and I want you to have the
same kind of a name. The food is fine--in fact, we were surprised to
see so much and of such good quality in the front line. Above all, I
want you to trust your officers as I trust them, and I'm sure they
trust you. If at any time you think you are suffering any injustice,
don't talk and grumble amongst yourselves, but let's hear about it, and
if we can remedy it that's what we want to do. Now, I suppose this
will be the last chance I have of talking to you before you go in the
trenches, and I don't think there is much more to say. We have a long
hike ahead of us tomorrow, and you will march through a town where
corps headquarters are, and thousands of soldiers will be there, and I
want you to show, by your marching and march discipline, that as
soldiers and fighting men Canadians are second to none. That's all,
boys!" We thought quite a lot of his speech and the simple way in
which it was delivered, and we got to discussing things and sharpening
our bayonets and doing a lot more fool things. The place where we were
had been occupied by Germans early in the war, a Uhlan patrol having
stayed there, and the Frenchman showed a Uhlan lance and scars on the
doors and sides of the barn where fragments of shell had struck when
they had been chased out. The next day we formed up bright and early,
and away we marched. We had not gone far when every neck was craned
up, watching some little black and white dots in the sky. I asked Rust
what it was. "Oh, anti-aircraft guns shooting at an aeroplane," said
he. We strained our eyes, but it was a long way off and high up, and
we couldn't see the aeroplane. Later on we saw what looked like big
sausages up in the sky. They were the big observation balloons, and so
we kept on, something new and interesting all the time. We passed lots
of troops out in their rest billets; muddy and dirty some of them
looked; they watched us in amused contempt as we swung proudly by, as
much as to say, "Wait till you've been through what we have, you won't
look so smart." We soon came to B----, and with the regimental band at
our head playing, "Pack all your troubles in your old kit-bag" we
marched through in great shape. At sundown we reached camp, tired, all
in, but still interested. We wer