ching for dead bodies
and curios, and those chaps were game enough for anything.

[Illustration: LIEUT. CANNING, M.M.]

[Illustration: MAJOR MACRAE
OFFICER COMMANDING "A" CO., 25th BATT.]

The whole time we were on this front everything went very smoothly,
for we had one great man at the head of our Battalion. We were great
friends with the French-Canadian Battalion, but there was another
Battalion in our Brigade with whom we did not pull at all, and there
was always a certain amount of jealousy between us, which was a good
thing as we were always trying to outdo the other. Their Commanding
Officer thought that they were the best battalion that ever left
Canada, and Hilliam, the bulldog that he was, would not stand for
that; so there was always a certain amount of rivalry between us.

On one occasion there were a few Canadians guarding a road where
people were not supposed to travel by night unless they had a pass,
and a "Twenty-fifth" man who had been having a good time was coming
home. "Halt," cried the sentry, "who goes there?" Answer "25th," "Pass
25th all is well," so the 25th man went on his way home. Along came
another belated traveller. The same performance was gone thru and he
gave the number of his battalion which was not the 25th. The answer
came back from the sentry, "Turn out the guard," and they put this
poor soldier into the guard room. It was all due to their petty
notions as to what they should not do. But still it always works out
well; a little jealousy between the battalions always makes one try to
outdo the other. But thanks to our Commanding Officer we never took
second place to any battalion in France.

Shortly after we were ordered to move up to the M. and N. trenches
where we relieved some of the 4th Brigade for a time. There was a
trench in this locality named the "International" because of it's
changing hands so often. Well, about a month before this the Germans
had made an attack on the Scotties and they were just relieving and
were not prepared for the Huns. But they fought until they saw that
they would have to plan a surprise attack to get it back. The Scottish
Division then went out for a rest and left Fritz master of the trench.
But the canny Scot was not giving in so easily. When they had been
reorganized they came back with one intention and that was to take
back the "International" trench and they did.

Well here we were in the Vierstrutt trench, and we held it f