nothing but add to the reputation which he then earned. It was on the way down to the battery that he asked me to give him back the address. “And you must never mention her name, Corporal. Promise me that.”     

       Today I am an officer with Heming in the same battery, and we have never referred to the matter. I am sure he is in love with her and I believe he was in love with her before she married. Why he missed her or what are their present relations, I cannot guess; all I know is that he is out here to die and that she is the inspiration of all his reckless courage. Now he knows that the counter-stroke is to be struck and that the big chance of death has come, his heart will be singing. The men as they go about their packing up will be following him with their eyes and whispering, “The Captain’s mighty cheerio. He’s all for it.” In watching him they will feel a thrill of excitement; they, too, will become “all for it.” They will go with him anywhere—if need be, to hell.     

 Mighty cheerio and all fur it! That’s the way the entire Canadian Corps must be feeling at this moment. All through the sunny days of spring and summer we have had to sit tight and watch while other men       marched out to meet their death. Thank God, our turn to sacrifice has come. The indignity of not dying is at last removed from us.     

  

  

       VI     

 IT was growing dusk before the observing-officer of the relieving battery returned from his reconnaissance of the Front to take over from me. The Hun planes had already come out like monstrous bats from their hiding-places, and were dipping their wings in the aquamarine and saffron of the fading sky. Our       machine-gunners and riflemen for miles round were busy taking pot-shots at them, trying to drive them back so that they should not detect the unusual movement of troops behind our lines.     

I

       One may say what he likes about war, but it has moments which possess a surpassing and enthralling beauty. One such moment came this evening as I watched what is likely to prove to be my last sunset over the Vimy plain. I know it all—every charred tree, every hollow, every shattered ruin. I ought to know it for it has made me suffer; Death, mounted on his       

 Prev. P 27/182 next