r own success to
realize the situation and take advantage of it.

Naturally we were thrilled with pride at the success of the division;
we had been present at its birth; we had watched it through the
various vicissitudes of its eventful career; and now its great
opportunity had come. Now its name had been indelibly written on the
scroll of fame. It had saved the situation in one of the most critical
happenings of the whole war.

The next day the General of the fourth corps, accompanied by his
staff, paid a visit to our laboratory, and the General told us that
the Germans had tried their gases on the Belgians the very day after
they had gassed the French and Canadian colonial troops. But the
Belgians breathed through wet handkerchiefs till the gas had passed
over, and when the Germans came on, full of confidence in the efficacy
of their deadly new weapon, the Belgians gave them a severe punishing.

On April 27th the three of us started out after 5 o'clock to the
Canadian area in search of news. The military policeman on the road at
the outskirts of Poperinge on being queried said, "All right, no
shells to-day in Pop." But we got only about 150 yards into the town
when there was a terrific hair-raising explosion near us, followed by
showers of bricks and bits of whizzing shell. It was a shell of very
high calibre, and as we passed the next cross street and looked up
it, we could see four houses settling into dust and a few people
running towards the spot. A telephone wire cut by a flying fragment
fell upon a car just ahead of us. It looked funny to see the doors of
the houses along the street belch forth their inmates who rushed to
the shutters, banged them to, rushed in again and no doubt hid
themselves in the cellars. It reminded us exactly of the actions of a
flock of chickens when a hawk appears in the sky.

A moment after, as we were leaving the town, another shell went
screaming overhead, exploded to our right near the station close to
the road, while a third went off on our left. Some Belgian soldiers
who were bringing in a wounded man on their shoulders dropped flat
upon the ground, letting the poor wounded chap fall with a crash. We
opened the throttle and speeded on. A motor ambulance convoy loaded
with wounded flew by us toward the base; in fact everything on the
road was going at top speed that evening. We buttoned our coats up to
our throats and took a fresh grip on our cigars as we tore up the road
into