r
their sons neglected to provide a weekly batch of correspondence, so I
told the young officer to take my stamp and censor the letters
himself. When he had gone about half way through the correspondence,
he gave an exclamation, jumping half way out of his chair. "What's the
matter?" I asked in alarm, wondering if he had caught one of his men
in treasonable correspondence with the enemy.

"The matter," he said in a tone of rage, "Why, one of the men in my
platoon is writing love letters to my best girl in Toronto."

I advised him to let the letter go through and leave the settlement of
the matter until after the war. Such a situation would in ordinary
times have provided a theme for a three-volume love story.

After the battle of Neuve Chapelle, the Seventh Division, comprising
the Gordon and Guards Brigade, moved to our right. They were badly
battered but still in the ring. The first night they were in the
trenches on our right they would occasionally open up with their
Maxims, and the scare they would give the Germans was a sight worth
seeing. The German flares would go up, and the Huns "stood to" and
blazed away like mad. Out of some 800 men in the second battalion of
the Gordons only about 350 came out uninjured from Neuve Chapelle.
Only about thirty of the original battalion that fought on the retreat
from Mons remained in the ranks. In the afternoon the day after they
came alongside of us, my adjutant, Dansereau, and I paid them a visit.
There were only six officers left in their mess, but they were
cheerful nevertheless.

After another turn in the trenches we were moved back to Estaires and
placed in billets. We were given to understand that we would soon be
given a chance at the Rue D'Enfer, and so we began to train for it.
Dummy trenches were fitted up and our bombing parties practised daily.
The men were turned loose with their entrenching tools and practised
"digging in" every day.

While here another serious casualty occurred. On the evening of
Saturday, March 27th, Sergeant Rose and Piper Miller were returning
with several comrades from Estaires. They were passing one of our
billets when a sentry challenged them. Miller was playing the pipes,
and there was a high wind blowing at the time and they did not hear
the challenge. The night was dark and the sentry who misunderstood his
orders fired and brought down both men with one shot. Rose was shot
through the hips and Miller across the back. They were b