act that the upper part of the building had been ruined by
shells. Our nearness to the railway station, which was a favourite
target for the German guns, made our home always a precarious one.

One day the Paymaster was going into our Headquarters, when a shell
burst in the Square and some fragments landed in our street taking off
the fingers of his right hand. I was away at the time, but when I
returned in the evening the signallers showed me a lonely (p. 291)
forefinger resting on a window sill. They had reverently preserved it,
as it was the finger which used to count out five-franc notes to them
when they were going on leave.

Our Corps dressing-station was in the big Asylum in Arras. The nuns
still occupied part of the building. The Mother Superior was a fine
old lady, intensely loyal to France and very kind to all of us. When
the Germans occupied Arras in the beginning of the war, the Crown
Prince paid an official visit to the Asylum, and, when leaving,
congratulated the Mother Superior on her management of the institution.
She took his praises with becoming dignity, but when he held out his
hand to her she excused herself from taking it and put hers behind her
back.

The dressing-station was excellently run and the system carried out
was perfect. The wounded were brought in, attended to, and sent off to
the C.C.S. with the least possible delay. The dead were buried in the
large military cemetery near the Dainville road where rest the bodies
of many noble comrades, both British and Canadian. A ward was set
apart for wounded Germans and it was looked after by their own doctors
and orderlies.

Meanwhile our Division was preparing for the great attack upon the
Drocourt-Queant line. The 2nd Division were in the trenches and had
taken Monchy. We were to relieve them and push on to the Canal du Nord
and, if possible, beyond it. Movements were now very rapid. All the
staff were kept intensely busy. The old days of St. Jans Cappel and
Ploegsteert, with their quiet country life, seemed very far away. This
was real war, and we were advancing daily. We heard too of the victories
of the French and Americans to the South. It was glorious to think
that after the bitter experience of the previous March the tables had
been turned, and we had got the initiative once more. Our Battle
Headquarters, where the General and his staff were, lay beyond
Neuville Vitasse. They were in a deep, wide trench, on each side of
which