the whole of
Flanders. I did not feel at all nervous, as a matter of fact after a
person has been under shell and rifle fire for a few days he ceases to
be nervous. Nerves are for those who stay at home. At first the heart
action quickens a little with the sound of the explosions and the
crack of the Mauser bullets, but after a while the nerves fail to
respond and the action of the heart becomes slow and the beats below
normal. The explosion of a "Jack Johnson" in the next room will not
give you a tremor. Why should it? Jock will say, "If you are going to
be kilt, you will be kilt ony-way." That is the everyday religion of
the trenches. "When your time comes you will get yours, and all the
machine guns and shells in Germany can have no potency if your time
has not come."

[Illustration: THE FAMOUS ROAD TO YPRES.]

War tends to make us all fatalists, and the officers have to be
continually on the alert to keep the men from becoming careless.

In the morning I tried to arrange to go down to Ypres to the funeral
of Captain Warren. Major Osborne wanted to go also and take a firing
party with him, but much as he would have liked to acquiesce, General
Turner had to refuse, for we were in a dangerous corner and no one
could be spared. Lieutenant Drummond, his brother-in-law, was
permitted to attend. Captain Duguid, the quartermaster, with the
assistance of the engineers, had a metallic coffin made for him and
they buried him in the Canadian burial plot.

That morning I learned of the death of Captain Darling in London. We
had expected that Captain Darling would be convalescent shortly after
he went to England, but about a week before news had come that
gangrene, the terrible disease that took so many of our wounded, had
infected his shoulder, and a number of serious operations had to be
performed. Still we had hoped that his splendid physique would pull
him through. But it was not to be, and the two comrades that had been
the pride of the regiment died within a few hours of each other.

The whole Empire did not possess two kinder or braver men than
Captains Darling and Warren. It is only when men go down into the
valley of the shadow of death together that they learn to appreciate
each other. In the trenches soldiers are true comrades, backbiting,
lying and slandering is left to the slackers and "tin soldiers" who
stay at home. Both these young men were in the flower of their youth,
both left young wives, both were m