g their pets instead. This
occasioned a real and heartfelt loss to both Canadian gunners and
Imperial boys who had to change over their pets, because every gunner
learns to acquire a real affection for his mistress, as he terms the
gun, and with many of the men it was like losing a good horse or a dog
to whom they had become sincerely and warmly attached, the attachment
being born of weeks and months of the most arduous trial and test.

We reached the wagon lines with our guns still intact and we felt as
safe as if we were back in our beloved Dominion. We were going back of
the lines, and the scene of breaking camp in our preparations for
returning to the rear was picturesque in the extreme. Bonfires made of
refuse and waste material for which we had no further use were burning
everywhere; men were hurrying hither and thither; and through it all you
could hear the steady digging, shoveling and pounding of the German
prisoners who were repairing the roads their own guns mangled. I felt a
large measure of satisfaction at seeing them working as hard as they
could go, restoring at least that much of their destructiveness; they
will never, they can never replace the wantonness, the frightfulness,
of which they have been the inspired tool in this the struggle of their
lords and masters for the earth's control.

Night and day for three days we traveled on our batteries, arriving at a
place called Camblain-Chatillon, a small town in a mining valley. Here
we were billeted in barns, but the inhabitants hearing that we were
Canadians who had been operating on the Somme, came out _en masse_ to
greet us and give us of their best. We were invited to their homes, and
their larders were placed at our disposal; a large bath made of
granite--a splendid outfit used by the miners of the town, was thrown
open to us, and it is needless to say we reveled in the luxury of a
plunge as quickly as we could tumble in. How we needed it! I had not
known a bath during all the time I was on the Somme and lousiness was
part and parcel of my make-up. I was so accustomed to it, however, that
it had long ceased to cause me more than a passing thought; there were
too many other things to think about during that session. But once
relieved from the tension of the daily struggle to save life, as well as
take it, the desire to become normal, decent, cleanly human beings took
possession of every man of us, and we wallowed in the bath until we
could once more l