oth very
severely wounded and the sentry was at once imprisoned. Rose was a
very fine young man, having risen rapidly from the ranks to be
quartermaster sergeant. He was an ideal soldier. Miller was a splendid
piper, a Lowland Scotchman with a Glasgow accent that convulsed
everyone who heard him. He took great delight in using the dialect of
Bobby Burns in its purest form, and could get his tongue around "Its a
braw bricht moonlit nicht the nicht" like Harry Lauder. Dr. MacKenzie
was quickly brought and did what he could to alleviate the sufferings
of the two men. Rose received a wound large enough to insert your two
fingers into it but did not bleed very badly. Miller had his ribs
smashed at the back and bled internally. He had to lie on his face
and groaned a good deal. Rose, like all the Canadians that I have
seen wounded, never uttered a sound.

On March 31st General Turner took Colonel Loomis and me along with him
to Laventie to reconnoitre the ground about the Rue D'Enfer. I was
again told in confidence that the Canadian Division was expected to
frame up an attack on this justly named road. We rode to Laventie and
walked down to what was left of the village of Fauquissart. Laventie
was deserted except for the troops, but the village with the
euphonious name, which stood at one time at the corner of the Rue
D'Enfer and the Rue de Bois, was nothing but a heap of bricks. When we
approached, the Germans were busy throwing coal boxes at the church
tower, or what was left of it. They generally like to leave a bit of a
church tower or gable standing, for as nearly as I could follow their
gunnery they used these points to "clock on," that is to say, a ruined
steeple will be the centre of the clock. The observer will then direct
the guns something like this, "Aubers Church, one o'clock, five
hundred yards." The above directions would mean to fire from the
church tower as the centre, five hundred yards towards one o'clock
from the tower. Our gunners use a different system.

We got into the village without any casualties, and I climbed into a
ruined house and had a look through the tiles of the roof at the
German lines and made a panoramic sketch. Then we went down into the
trenches and met the "Yorks." They told us that we were to do the
attacking and they were to do the looking on and cheering. They
appeared to be pleased that it was not the other way on.

On the way out General Turner, V.C., had a narrow escape. He mis