lory of all the ages. I pictured it blotted from sight by the hell
of shells bursting over it, and raking its slopes as the Canadians
charged upward. I pictured it crowned by defenses and lined by such
of the Huns as had survived the artillery battering, spitting death
and destruction from their machine guns. And then I saw it as I
should, and I breathed deep at the thought of the men who had faced
death and hell to win that height and plant the flag of Britain upon
it. Aye, and the Stars and Stripes of America, too!

Ye ken that tale? There was an American who had enlisted, like so
many of his fellow countrymen before America was in the war, in the
Canadian forces. The British army was full of men who had told a
white lie to don the King's uniform. Men there are in the British
army who winked as they enlisted and were told: "You'll be a
Canadian?"

"Aye, aye, I'm a Canadian," they'd say. "From what province?"

"The province of Kentucky--or New York--or California!"

Well, there was a lad, one of them, was in the first wave at Vimy
Ridge that April day in 1917. 'Twas but a few days before that a wave
of the wildest cheering ever heard had run along the whole Western
front, so that Fritz in his trenches wondered what was up the noo.
Well, he has learned, since then! He has learned, despite his Kaiser
and his officers, and his lying newspapers, that that cheer went up
when the news came that America had declared war upon Germany. And
so, it was a few days after that cheer was heard that the Canadians
leaped over the top and went for Vimy Ridge, and this young fellow
from America had a wee silken flag. He spoke to his officer.

"Now that my own country's in the war, sir," he said, "I'd like to
carry her flag with me when we go over the top. Wrapped around me,
sir--"

"Go it!" said the officer.

And so he did. And he was one of those who won through and reached
the top. There he was wounded, but he had carried the Stars and
Stripes with him to the crest.

Vimy Ridge! I could see it. And above it, and beyond it, now, for the
front had been carried on, far beyond, within what used to be the
lines of the Hun, the airplanes circled. Very quiet and lazy they
seemed, for all I knew of their endless activity and the precious
work that they were doing. I could see how the Huns were shelling
them. You would see an airplane hovering, and then, close by,
suddenly, a ball of cottony white smoke. Shrapnel that was, bursting,