roof. A line of short irregular trenches ran
across the front of the slope. Behind headquarters the hill sloped
back to Haenebeek brook, northwest and southeast. Five hundred yards
behind the Gravenstafel ridge ran the road from Zonnebeke to
Langemarck. On this road immediately in our rear there was a ruined
blacksmith shop and several old farm engines. Some of the implements
bore the name of Massey-Harris, which brought back visions of Canada,
and was another evidence of our coming world-wide trade, the
possibilities of which first struck me when I saw the name of another
Canadian manufacturer, Gurney & Co., on a heater alongside the tomb of
William Longsword in Salisbury Cathedral.

A few yards south of the blacksmith shop a dressing station had been
fitted up in the ruins of another farm house at a cross-road which
subsequently came to be known as "enfiladed cross-road." In front of
the blacksmith shop a clear spring of water ran out of a pipe and the
water was cool and good. I quenched my thirst from the steel cup taken
from a French Hussar's helmet. The man who wore the helmet was no
doubt sleeping peacefully beneath one of the crosses that were strewn
thickly over the little cemetery of St. Julien. These little
graveyards were to be found in all the fields and gardens. It was
wonderful how the French soldiers cared for them. Wherever a soldier
of France lay there you would find a cross, with his name and the
legend that he fell on the field of honor. The graves were usually
decorated with tile and flowers, some real, some artificial. France
thus silently worships the memory of her gallant dead.

CHAPTER XXII

GERMAN GAS AND TURCOS

"Be careful there," said Capt. McGregor. "The French were short of
sandbags here and they have built several dead Germans into the
parapets." I was examining our new trenches in the twilight and my
nose had been assailed by that peculiar odor which emanates from the
dead.

"Get plenty of quicklime down here to-morrow," I suggested. "Build
some traverses where they are laid."

"You're pretty heavy, don't step too hard. Dead Germans there."
Lieutenant Langmuir was then piloting me along his section.

"Out in front, there on the left, there is a dead French officer
caught in the German wire. He has been hanging there since last
November. The Germans have left him there. There is nothing now but a
blue coat and red trousers."

This certainly was the worst corner in the w