minutes, then
died away.

A light yellow cloud had settled down over the place where the German
parapets once were. I could not see through the smoke, as the more
powerful a glass is the more it exaggerates the fog or smoke. I could
hear the loud, sharp detonations of grenades, and I fancied cheers,
more detonations and cheers and cries. All this was occurring within
less than a mile of where I was standing. From the detonations I
judged we were bombing their trenches. The noise died away and our
artillery woke up again and began shelling leisurely in the rear of
the first line of German entrenchments. Evidently we had won easily. I
hurried down and over to where Captain Pope and several of my officers
were grouped about the telephone. "They have carried the first line of
trenches easily" was the answer he gave to my query as to what had
happened. "They are going after the second line of trenches right
away." I returned to my observation post and once more the guns were
hard at it. It was now a little after nine o'clock and the haze
that hung around the German positions made observation difficult. The
guns redoubled their efforts, and at about ten o'clock they stopped
and again the rifle fire followed, if anything, more intense than
before. The detonation of bombs, the rifle fire and cries of the
combatants came to my ears distinctly now that our own guns on both
sides and behind us were silent. Again I travelled over to the
telephone station wondering if they had forgotten us, or if we were
going to have a hand in the game. "The second line is taken" came over
the wire at 10.30 o'clock. "They are going to attack the third line."
So they were going to force through and make a one-day job of it after
all. That would surely bring us into the fight by the afternoon or the
next day. So my young men would be pleased.

[Illustration: FIRST AID IN THE TRENCHES]

I had had a lot of pacifying to do among my officers over the question
of "When are we going to get into this thing?" Major Osborne always
had an idea that everybody from General French down was trying to keep
the Canadians from starting a grand parade to Berlin. Lieut. "Fred"
Macdonald's question to me would always be, "How long are they going
to keep us at this rotten trench business?" "It's about time we got
into a mix-up. Look at the Princess Pats what they have done! They
must be afraid to use us," etc., etc. I would gently chide him and say
that we were