s available. Now they have gone even
further and are compiling a photographic record of all known graves so
that relatives, writing to the Commission, can secure not only a
verbal description but an actual photograph of the loved one's grave.

I went back and began to plan ways and means of "getting" Charlie's
ten boches, but a day or two later something happened to alter my
scheme to a certain extent.

At that time, our ration parties were going out just before daylight,
as we had no communication trench and had to cross the open and
exposed ground behind our line. The two, who went from one of the
guns, however, Dupuis and Lanning, were a little bit late, so that it
was light when they started out. About fifty yards down the road was
a bend, afterward called the Devil's Elbow. From this point, they were
in plain sight from the enemy line and, no sooner had they reached the
Elbow than a sniper fired and got Lanning through the lungs. As he
fell, Dupuis knelt down to assist, when he received a bullet through
the head, killing him instantly. One of our detachment of
stretcher-bearers (composed of the members of our pipe band) was
located but a few yards away and, without hesitation, one of the
"Scotties" dashed out to help the fallen men. He was instantly shot
down, as were three others in succession, who attempted to get to the
spot. By this time an officer arrived and prevented more of the men
from running out. This officer, by crawling carefully down a shallow
ditch alongside the road, managed with the assistance of a sergeant to
recover all the bodies. Four were dead and two wounded, one of whom
died a few hours later. These stretcher-bearers were unarmed and wore
the broad white brassard with the red cross conspicuously displayed on
their sleeves. The sniper was only about one hundred yards distant
and could not possibly have failed to see this mark.

Then and there I registered a silent vow that these men, to paraphrase
Kipling:

". . . should go to their God in state:
_With fifty file of Germans, to open them Heaven's
gate._"

Later, I was to see other and worse happenings along that same road,
but, at that time, I considered this as about the limit.

The officer who had done such splendid work in recovering the wounded
men was himself killed about an hour later, together with one of his
sergeants and two men, by a shrapnel shell. He was the first officer
we had lost in the battalion, Lieutenant Wilg