death only by a miracle and managed to dig my way out.
A giant shell had blown up our dugout. Two of the boys were killed.

"We're in for it," said Wedgewood. "They'll keep this up for a while and
they'll come over. We must get the gun out."

[Sidenote: German barrage almost wipes out the Fourth.]

The gun had been buried by the explosion, but we managed to get it out
and were cleaning it up again when another trench mortar shell came
over. It destroyed all but 300 rounds of ammunition. Then the
bombardment started in earnest. Shells rained on us like hailstones. The
German artillery started a barrage behind us that looked almost like a
wall of flame; so we knew that there was no hope whatever of help
reaching us.

Our men dropped off one by one. The walls of our trench were battered to
greasy sand heaps. The dead lay everywhere. Soon only Wedgewood, another
chap, and myself were left.

"They've cleaned us out now. The whole battalion's gone," he said.

As far as we could see along the line there was nothing left, not even
trenches--just churned-up earth and mutilated bodies. The gallant Fourth
had stood its ground in the face of probably the worst hell that had yet
visited the Canadian lines and had been wiped out!

It was not long before the other fellow was finished by a piece of
shrapnel. I was wounded in the back with a splinter from a shell which
broke overhead and then another got me in the knee. I bled freely, but
luckily neither wound was serious. About 1.30 we saw a star shell go up
over the German lines.

"They're coming!" cried Wedgewood, and we jumped to the gun.

[Sidenote: The two men remaining fire the machine gun.]

The Germans were about seventy-five yards off when we got the gun
trained on them. We gave them our 300 rounds and did great damage; the
oncoming troops wavered and the front line crumpled up, but the rest
came on.

[Sidenote: Captured by Germans.]

What followed does not remain very clearly in my mind. We tried to
retreat. Every move was agony for me. We did not go far, however. Some
of the Germans had got around us and we ran right into four of them. We
doubled back and found ourselves completely surrounded. A ring of steel
and fierce, pitiless eyes! I expected they would butcher us there and
then. The worst we got, however, was a series of kicks as we were
marching through the lines in the German communication trenches.

[Sidenote: The night in a stable at Menin.]

We we