ery.

"Keep your heads high," the captain went on, one word tripping the other in
the eagerness of his speech. "March right in. Don't stop for anything. Get
close to the parapet. Look at the British boys; throw them 'Hello, guys!'
and begin to shoot right away."

We were ready for anything. Were we not brave? Hadn't we shown our bravery
by creeping up a ruined stairway only three miles from the enemy? We
promised our captain, and then we commenced our march to the front.

The green soldier is always put into the first line at the start. The
general idea is that he should be put in reserves and worked up gradually,
but, save under exceptional circumstances, he is put in the front line and
worked back.

It has been demonstrated that shell fire is much more severe on a man's
nerves than rifle fire. Reserve trenches suffer more from shell fire than
do the front line trenches. The reason is obvious. Sometimes the front line
is but a stone's throw from the front line of the enemy. Sometimes we can
converse with the enemy from one trench to the other. In such cases it is
impossible for heavy artillery to be trained on the front. Rifles and bombs
are the only explosives under these conditions.

Again, the green soldier is never put into the trenches alone. A company of
raw arrivals is sandwiched in with seasoned men. As we were the first
Canadians to arrive, and there was none of our own men to help acclimatize
us, we went in with an English regiment. There was one English, one
Canadian and so on down the line. These boys belonged to the Notts and
Derbys. Jolly fine boys, too. We became fast friends. They chummed to us as
they would to their own. They showed us the ropes. They gave us tips on
this thing and that. They told us the best way to cook, the various devices
for snatching a few minutes' rest. They described the most effective
"scratching" methods for the elimination of "gray-backs," "red-stripes,"
"cooties," "crawlies"--any name you like to give those hosts of insect
enemies that infest every trench.

Now, "going in" isn't so easy as it sounds. We don't advance in companies
four deep. We don't have bands. We don't have pipes to inspire our courage
and rouse the fighting spirit inherited from long dead ancestors. It is a
very--a vastly different matter. We go into the trenches in single file,
each man about six paces from his nearest comrade. There is no question
about keeping behind. Instinct takes care of that.