He said he had every confidence in the men. A
few days later Colonel Hilliam took over the command, and Major Stan
Bauld was appointed second in command.

Chapter Three

When officers arrive in England they are given the option of going to
France as lieutenants or going back home. That is the reason you see
so many bold footed officers holding down staff jobs in England and
Canada. Colonel Hilliam who was now our commanding officer, says that
the 25th battalion made his name; but the 25th boys are equally
positive that he made the battalion. It was truly wonderful the
confidence we placed in him and he never disappointed us. He was very
strong on discipline, and when all is said and done that is most
essential in the army. Without it a battalion simply becomes a mob.
During the winter we were on the Kimmel front. It was a bad year in
the trenches, for the rain and mud were something awful. The mud was
waist deep and of such a nature that once a fellow got stuck it took
another chap to get him out. For about two months they were trenches
in name only; they were caved right in and the boys that were doing
front line work would go in at 8 o'clock one night and would not be
relieved until 8 o'clock the next night--twenty-four hours without any
hot food. I must say that we found the hot rum ration that winter to
be a most desirable thing.

Our colonel was a regular fire eater, and wanted to be at it all the
time. He organized a raiding party in charge of Capt. Tupper along
with Brooks, Cameron and Roberts. All four of them proved to be great
fighters. They were the pick of the battalion.

And now enters that great hero--Toby Jones--"the Man who came back!"
He was machine gun officer, and the Colonel also put him in charge of
a wire cutting party, and thus he was carrying the responsibility of
both jobs. He would be around his guns all day and at night he would
be scouting all over "No Man's land" and in December, 1915 it was no
joke crawling around in the mud. He never got any rest. He would not
eat, and the day of the raid Fritz had straffed us quite a lot. I was
in trench S.P. 12 along with Toby when a message came to tell us that
a shell had knocked in one of the dugouts and had killed one of our
N.C.O's, Corporal Ferguson, a chap who was well liked by everybody. A
road named the "V.C. Road" separated us from J 4. The Germans were
shelling this road pretty bad; but as soon as Toby got the message he
did no