trench with the telephonist party for
the purpose of making our communication as clear as possible; I was
detailed especially to assist the Captain in this work.

The attack was launched at daybreak, with a ten-minute bombardment
preceding, and then our fellows were up and over. As before, the tanks
blazed the way, one of them passing about 30 feet to my right just
before I went over the top. As I lay in the trench, the darling old
titan passed me, leveling the wire in front, and I had then an even
keener realization of what it meant for Fritz to have these monsters
piling over and smashing him under foot just about as a man would tread
on a worm and mash it. And if there ever was one time during my entire
three years of campaigning, when I felt an atom of sympathy for the
gray-clad devils, it was at that moment.

But how can sympathy obtain for devils in human form?

My immediate family was strongly represented in this attack. To my right
among the men who went over, were the Canadian Grenadier Guards, of
which my young brother Billy was a member. This regiment had made an
undying place in the annals of Canadian history in the advance on
Courcelette, having out of its 950 men but 66 men left intact when the
roll was called after the battle, the balance being either killed or
wounded. But they achieved their objective, Courcelette!

Billy and his regiment, which had been mustered up to strength, passed
over the top within four hundred yards of me to the right. On my left,
my older brother, Gordon, who was supporting a trench mortar battery in
the front-line trench, was working away within 500 yards of me. I was
not aware of the presence of either until a comparison of notes later on
apprised me of their presence. To my right hand was Hughey and his
brother Archie and to my left Jim, three brothers, all of them my first
cousins.

Jim had enlisted in New Zealand, Archie in Australia and Hughey in
Canada. The only relative of whose presence in the battle I was aware,
was Hughey. Through a rule obtaining in the army, these three brothers
took the opportunity when they got to France, to get a transfer to the
Canadian army, all in the same unit. Later, however, the casualties
necessitated changing them around somewhat. All three had been wounded
and gassed, but were back again as full of fight as ever. We went over
under the shelter of such a terrific barrage that the German front line
and its occupants were practically