ped, "Allemands! Allemands!"

Some of our own French-speaking officers stopped the few running men they
could make hear, and begged of them to reform their lines and go back to
the attack. But they were maddened as only a simple race can be frenzied by
fear, and paid no heed.

It is in times like this, in moments of dire emergency, that the officer of
true worth stands out, the real leader of men. There were a dozen incidents
to prove this in the next few hurried, desperate moments. None can be more
soul-stirring than the quick thought, quick action and foresight displayed
by our own captain. He did not know what this smoke rushing toward our
lines could be. He had no idea more definite than any of us in the ranks.
But he had that quick brain that acts automatically in an emergency and
thinks afterward.

"Wet your handkerchiefs in your water-bottles, boys!" he ordered.

We all obeyed promptly.

"Put the handkerchiefs over your faces--and shoot like the devil!" he
panted.

We did this, and as the gas got closer, the handkerchiefs served as a sort
of temporary respirator and saved many of us from a frightful death. We in
the reserves suffered least. Yet some of us died by that infernal product.
A man dies by gas in horrible torment. He turns perfectly black, those men
at any rate whom I saw at that time. Black as black leather, eyes, even
lips, teeth, nails. He foams at the mouth as a dog in hydrophobia; he
lingers five or six minutes and then--goes West.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

Marvelous is the only word to describe the endurance, the valor of the
Ladies from Hell. They withstood the gas, and they withstood wave after
wave of attacking German hordes. And yet even their wonderful work was
overtopped by that of the Eighth, which, being exposed on the left by the
black troops who had fled, had to bear the brunt of a fight which almost
surrounded them.

It was wonderful. I shall never forget it. There were twelve thousand
Canadian troops. In the German official reports after the battle, they
stated that they had used one hundred and twenty thousand men against us,
and one thousand guns. We had not one gun. Those that we had were captured
when the African blacks had left. It was our strength against theirs--no,
it was white man's spirit against barbarian brutality.

For six days and nights that terrible death struggle continued. Every man
was engaged: cooks, doctors, stretcher-bearers, chaplains, every o