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