we associate are spies. Many a good life has been thrown away as the result of careless and boastful conversations in estaminets and officers’ tea-rooms. Some bounder, out of the line for a day, wants to air his superior knowledge of doings up front; he talks with a raised voice in order to impress strangers who may or may not be in British uniforms. In any case, the uniform is no proof of integrity; many an English-speaking Hun has passed secretly through our lines in the uniform of the man he has murdered. The result of such loose speaking is that the raid, which ought to have succeeded, fails. The Huns are forewarned: their trenches are stiff with machine-guns and many of our men go west.     

T

       Every precaution is being taken this time that no information of importance to the enemy shall leak out. In the first place, we know nothing ourselves; in the second, we are forbidden to conjecture out loud. Though we recognise landmarks in the landscape, we are under orders not to mention the fact. We are only to march when night has blindfolded our eyes; our tongues, under pain of court-martial, are to be kept silent.     

       To judge by the north-easterly direction in which we are marching, we might be going up to Flanders to recapture the Hun gains at Kernel. The Major believes, however, that our present direction gives no indication, as we’re probably only going to a railroad junction at which we shall entrain. He thinks that our goal lies to the south. It may be the Rheims salient, in which case we shall be in entirely new territory, fighting with the French and joining up with, the Americans, concerning whom we are exceedingly optimistic and curious. On the other hand there are rumours that the Americans are taking over from the French in the Argonne sector, thus releasing many French veteran troops who will be behind us to back us up in the counterstroke of which we are the hammer-head. One fact is known definitely—Canadians have been sent north to Ypris; but whether to fool the Hun or because the thrust is to be made there, remains uncertain.     

       The Hun knows that the Canadians have been trained to be the point of the fighting-wedge; he, therefore, knows that where we are there the blow is to be struck. All summer he has made every effort to keep track of our position in the line, his object being that he may have his reserves rightly placed to 

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