ave taken
about an hour to light that pipe, and all the time he was wishing
himself safe in the shelter of a ditch. It had not been mere bravado
on the General's part but a deliberately planned act to steady his
men.

Some of the Canadian soldiers came into the dressing stations during
the battle, accoutred in wonderful equipment that had taken their
fancies. One wounded chap wore an Indian's turban, a French officer's
spurs and a British officer's pistol.

Major W.D. Allan had seven bullet holes in his clothing, two of them
through his hat; and yet his skin was not broken. The nearest approach
to a wound was a big triangular bruise on his shoulder, made by a
piece of spent high explosive. One of the bullets had gone through his
hat and tipped it over his eyes as his unit was falling back from one
trench to another; he said that he was positive he had broken the
world's record for a hundred yards in the next few seconds.

The First Battalion, at whose mess I dined one night, had lost 400 out
of a total of 800 men during a 600-yard advance into the breach made
by the German gas in the face of a terrific fire.

Meanwhile preparations were in progress for a battle in our area
evidently for the purpose of relieving the pressure on the line
elsewhere, and on the 9th of May we were wakened at 4.30 a.m. by the
final bombardment. I had been invited to witness the battle by a
general on the staff but I was unable to go.

The first wounded came in about noon and by four o'clock the hospital
where we took our meals was filled. From the windows above we could
see scores of wounded lying in rows on stretchers in that sunny
courtyard, some conscious and others unconscious. Every conscious
wounded soldier held a cigarette between his lips and I even saw them
going in to the operating table smoking. The wounded were a depressed
lot that day; the men themselves realized that they had been badly cut
up for little purpose, for the wire had not been destroyed and they
had been unable to make any progress. The authorities in England had
not yet realized that high explosives were necessary to cut wire in
spite of the fact that everybody in the field knew it. It required a
newspaper agitation to convert some of the authorities as to the need
of high explosives.

After a rest the Canadians took over a new piece of line near
Festubert, and a hot spot it was. We knew this area well as far
forward as the advanced dressing stations, and ha