While this was going on in the German trenches there was great excitement in our own. Our trench mortar was being worked energetically to keep back any German reinforcements. Lieutenant "Spud" Murphy was in charge of this, and his antics kept us all in roars of laughter—he jumped around and "rooted" for those bombs as though they were his favourite players in the National League. When one went over, he would, like the rest of us, jump up on the firing-step to see it light. When it lit fairly in the German trench he would dance around the gunner shouting, "That's a good one!" "That's the way to put them over!" "Now for another beauty! give them hell!"

Well, our raid was a great success, and it was the biggest thing of the kind that had been attempted up to that time. We had a few casualties; Conlin was a great pal of mine, and I missed him the most. Some of our boys were decorated; Conlin, our dead hero, won the D. C. M., and the medal was sent to his people. Lieutenant MacIntyre was awarded the D. S. O., and "Darky" Andrews, who had taken a leading part, also received the D. C. M.

One of the prisoners captured was an under officer, and as he was wounded he was taken to the nearest dressing-station; while his wound was being looked after, an interpreter was talking to him, and the German said triumphantly, "Well, you have brought me here, but you cannot send me over to England." "Oh, indeed!—and why not?" asked the interpreter. "Because Germany controls the water," said our prisoner proudly. "No troops can be brought from England now." "Is that so?" said our interpreter. "Well, sonny, you will find yourself in England by this time tomorrow, however you get there," and he did.

Shortly after this we had several casualties in Platoon 10—two or three were killed, and several wounded and got their "Blighty." Dyer was caught by a sniper, and Tucker was hit in the leg by a machine gun bullet. Quite a few had been wounded in the company and one or two killed, but No. 10 was lucky—we got some reinforcements and to No. 10 came McMurchie, "Fat," and McKone. McMurchie was a little Irishman about five feet tall with a great taste for rum and he didn't know what fear meant. He had a twin brother in another company and they were just like two peas in a pod; only his brother was quiet. Mac would go and line up in his brother's company when rum was being issued and draw his brother's issue, then come back to "C" company and get his own ration, and then line up again and tell the Sergeant-Major that he had given his issue to his brother. He was a proper little devil. One day we were out on rest and Mac had been away all the day before, and this day we were wondering where he had gone, when, lo and behold, into the line of huts marched McMurchie leading a rooster with a piece of string around its neck—he had swiped it off some Frenchwoman—whether he ever took it back I don't know, perhaps the cooks could tell—Mac was pretty friendly with the cooks. He was always getting into trouble when out of the line, but when in the trenches he was worth a dozen men, not to work, but his disregard for all danger made one's hair stand on end. He would do everything one was supposed not to do. He would shave in the front line when Fritz was shelling the trench and everybody else was under cover. He had a big rifle; I don't know where he got it, but it was bigger in the butt than most, and the bore was all worn out; it had been fired so much that when he used to fire it the report was deafening; he used to call it "Big Lizzie." When he was shaving and a shell came close and threw dirt all over him, he would say, "All right, Fritz, wait till I get through, I'll get Big Lizzie after you," and he'd stand up and fire five rounds rapid over at Fritz in broad daylight. Why he didn't get killed was a marvel—when shrapnel was bursting (shrapnel shells are full of lead pellets and when they burst they scatter forward about a hundred yards) he would look at them straight in the face and remark, "That's right, Fritz, lengthen them out a bit." He was out on a working party one day behind the trench, filling sandbags, and there were one or two reinforcements with him, when Fritz started slinging some "Whiz-bangs" over (these are small shells about fifteen pounds full of shrapnel, but they come with an awful speed, that's why they call them "Whiz-bangs," you hear the whiz just about the same time that you hear the bang); well, Fritz was sending quite a few over; I guess he had spotted the party and the new men were kind of nervous. "Aw," says Mac, as he kept on working, "don't bother about those things, there's nothing to 'em but wind and noise—Ow!" and he jumped about a foot as a piece of shrapnel took him in the leg. Mac was absent for awhile down at the Casualty Clearing Station and had his leg fixed up; it wasn't bad. After he had been there awhile the Sergeant asked him to wash the floor; Mac refused, "Do you think I came out here to scrub floors?" says he; "I'm a fighting man." The Sergeant was going to have him pinched, but while he was away Mac sneaked out and came back to the battalion, absolutely refusing to go back, and Colonel Embury, our Colonel, who was a good sport, smoothed matters over and Mac stayed with the boys, and soon was as "right as rain"—he was too tough to hurt. I will leave him for awhile—it would take a book to describe all his tricks—and we will go on to "Fat," who came about the same time. Fat was a big fat good-natured kid, and he and Bink got quite chummy; they were both farmers before the war. Fat had a great dislike for machine gun fire—most of us had too, but Fat was the worst; he also had a comical little laugh—"Tee hee, tee hee" he would go. We used to go out at night stringing wire in "No Man's Land"; every now and again Fritz would sweep the wire with machine gun fire, and directly he started sweeping we would be down like a flash, and wait till Fritz quit. Fat would be in a shell hole almost as soon as the first shot was fired, and would laugh at Bink looking for a hole to hide in. Bink would get sore; all you could hear was the rat-tat-tat of the machine gun and in between "Tee hee, tee hee" from Fat as he lay and watched Bink crawling around looking for a hole. Some of the boys would lie in the hole and wave their legs in the air hoping to get a bullet through them so that they could get back to "Blighty," but they were never lucky enough. We would always lose one or two men on these wiring parties, but we had very few killed and No. 10's luck still held good. By the way perhaps you would like to know why we call England "Blighty"—it seems that it comes from two Hindoo words meaning "My home," and as there were a lot of Indian soldiers out in France at the beginning of the war and they were with the regular English troops, I suppose it was passed along that way—to get a "Blighty" means to get a wound that takes you to "Blighty." To say that a man has got a "Belgique" means that he is dead. The boys have different sayings for everything, and they sound funny unless you know what they mean. "Buckshee" the English troops call anything that you might have to spare, such as "Have you a buckshee razor?" meaning "Have you a spare razor?" The word "buckshee" comes from the Hindoo word "Backsheesh." Well, to continue, the other boy to come to No. 10 was a freak; how the devil he ever got in the Army beats me. He was deaf, and when you spoke to him you had to holler; also, he had a cleft palate so you could hardly understand him when he spoke, but he was a good man in the line and when he was on sentry, he was up on the fire-step looking over all the time; only at night of course. He used to pack along a box of ammunition every night and do his best to fire the lot before morning. When the scouts were out as they used to be every night, patrolling "No Man's Land," the word was passed along in the trench and we would either stop firing or fire high; desultory fire was always kept up all night. Well, we could never make McKone understand that the scouts were out; and he would keep on blazing away—at last the scouts made a kick and we stopped him firing when they were out—but he was awfully sore. "What am I here for?—I'm not a dummy," said he. One night he had been blazing away and had made Fritz sore, and Fritz had turned about three machine guns on the spot where Mac was. The bullets were coming around him like bees around a hive, but he couldn't hear them. At last he heard something; Corporal Banks was coming along the trench at the time, and Mac stopped him. "Say, Corporal, there's an aeroplane up there somewhere," and he gazed up into the sky. "Come down, you fool, that's machine gun fire," says Banks. We used to have lots of fun "chipping" him, but all he'd reply was "Aw, you go to h——." One night Bink and Bob were out on "a covering" party—their job was to take their rifle and bomb and lie out in front of our men as they were putting out wire in "No Man's Land,"—the idea is to prevent the party from being surprised by the Germans. It was a wet cold night, and so the officer gave them a drink of rum before they went; in fact, they asked him for it. Well, they crawled out and lay down, and I guess the rum gave them some "Dutch" courage, for after the boys had finished their wiring and gone back to the trench, Bink and Bob thought it would be a good scheme to crawl to the German lines and throw their bombs in. So forward they crawled through his wire till they got up close and heard the Fritzies jabbering; the rum had about worked off by this time, and instead of throwing their bombs, they got cold feet and crawled silently back to our lines—I guess it's as well they did, or I wouldn't have their story to tell—they often laughed about it afterwards.

Shortly after this we moved off that front and we took over some trenches from the Imperial troops in the Ypres salient. It was just about the time that the Imperial troops took back the "International" trench to the right of the "Bluff," and it was a much hotter place than the one we were in before; we had to be right on the alert all the time. We were in there a short time and back we went to M—— for a rest, and in the meantime the Battle of St. Eloi commenced—it started with the Northumberland Fusiliers ("Fighting Fifth," as they were called) blowing up some mines under the enemy lines and occupying the craters and a trench—they were then relieved by the "Sixth Brigade, Canadians." It was all quiet for awhile and then the storm broke; all the German artillery for miles was concentrated on this front of about a thousand yards, and the men were literally blown out of their positions. It poured rain and our aeroplanes were unable to take observations, with the result that, where at first our artillery was firing too far, when they shortened up, they shelled our own men. The Germans also concentrated heavy trench mortars on the craters, and after blowing the men to pieces all day, they attacked at night. What men were left died where they stood. All the bottoms of the craters were just a pool of thin mud, and when our boys were wounded they just slid down the sides of the craters and perished in the pool of mud at the bottom. Some of the craters were lost, and our relieving parties, going in at night to relieve, what they thought were our men, found the Germans in possession and bomb-fights ensued. In the meantime the enemy artillery had a barrage across behind the craters making it almost impossible for men to get through alive. The 28th were hurried up and after spending a night in "Dickebush" we were taken up to "Scottish" Wood in support. Woodrow, Webster, Corporal Grimsdale, and all the company bombers were sent out from there, and they held one of the craters. After hanging on the lip of the crater all day under a constant rain of "sausages" (one hundred pounds of high explosives in each) they tried to dig in and consolidate, but they had lost half their number, and then the Germans attacked them from all sides. They worked their rifles as long as they could, but they were clogged with mud; and then fought them hand to hand—those that fell never rose again—slipping down into that horrible mess at the bottom. Webster saw Woodrow fall, and he and Grimsdale fought their way out; Grim happened to find his way to our lines, but Webster got lost and for twenty-four hours, that night and the next day, he lay out there; in the daytime he had to lie still and at night he couldn't find which line was ours; and machine guns were spitting all ways. At last he crawled near our trench and heard the boys talking, and he came in; it was two days after when I saw him—five days before he had been a happy, daredevil sort of a boy—now he looked like a corpse with living eyes of coal. He never got over it, and after the Battle of Hooge was invalided home, a complete wreck. While all this was going on, "C" Company was brought from "Scottish" Wood to the communicating trench, and where we entered the trench was crowded with men, one bunch trying to get up, another stream of wounded coming down. As fast as men tried to get through the barrage, they were wiped out, and at last the officers decided to lose no more. Fritz started to shell the trench we were in, and a lot of the boys were hit; our officer took us out in the open, and we lay there while the trench was being shelled—after staying there twenty-four hours we were relieved—but the struggle for the craters still went on; sometimes our fellows holding them, and sometimes Fritz. At last the weather brightened, allowing us to get observation, and our artillery was able to work accurately; then the battle died down, leaving two craters in the Germans' hands, two in ours, and the rest a sort of "No Man's Land," in which constant fighting took place for months; sometimes quiet, but flaring up again whenever either side tried to take and hold the remaining craters. That was the Battle of St. Eloi as nearly as I can give it. It was the first big scrap we took part in, and although it wasn't a victory, nobody knows, but those who were there, how near we were to disaster, and only individual pluck kept the Germans back; for after the barrage went on, Headquarters could not get news of how things were going. Several officers were sent up, but were either killed or wounded trying to get through the barrage. Those who got through stayed to help those that were there fighting, as it was almost impossible to get back. It was there that the Sixth Brigade got the name "The Iron Sixth." While the company I was in didn't do anything spectacular, I can tell you it was all we wanted, lying out there in the mud and wet, expecting any moment to see the Germans advancing, and all the time shells coming like hail. Some of the companies of the 28th lost heavily—I think we were the luckiest; but when the battalion went back to rest billets a lot of boys' faces were missing that we had been familiar with for months.

Now that heavy fighting had commenced we never knew where we would be for more than a day at a time—we stayed in the lines till there was someone ready to relieve us, whether it was two days or ten—then we went direct to rest billets, and we remained there till we were needed again in the front lines. The billets were not bomb-proof, by any means. They were well within range of the big guns, but after the heavy shelling and bombing in the front lines they seemed like heaven. We had been out there two or three days when little Mac came to me and said, "Say, kid, I'm on the track of a bomb-proof job." I said, "What makes you think that?" "Well," said he, "just as I came down the line I overheard the old Sergeant telling another guy about it, and if we can get on, will you come?" I said, "You mutt, it all depends on what it is." "Oh, I thought I told you," says Mac, "they are calling for men to go to the tunnellers." "Nothing doing for this child!" "Now, look here," says Mac, "you've only got to die once, and you might better be buried in a sap than be blown to hell by a big shell, there would be more of you left for your friends, anyway, besides a change is as good as a rest, and as there seems to be small chance of us getting any rest, we might just as well keep this chance." So I said, "All right, we can try it for a week, and then if we don't like being buried, we can come back to life; that's more than most people can do"; so away went Mac to tell the Sergeant that we would go. He said, "Well, I'm sorry to lose you boys, but I don't blame you for wanting to get away from what we have been going through lately, and any time you want to come back to the old boys we will only be too glad to have you." He told us to report to a branch of the Royal Engineers known as the 250th Tunnelling Company. They were located in the Kemmil dugouts, so away Mac and I went to old Kemmil, where we had been all the previous winter.

When we reached the line of dugouts we stuck our head into one and asked where we would find the officer in charge. A voice from a far corner called out, "Oui, the bleeder is in the end dugout, old cock!" We found the officer's dugout without any trouble and reported for duty. He told us that we would not be needed till night, and that we had better go and find a dugout to rest in, so away we went back to the place where we had inquired for Headquarters. It was our first brush up against the English Tommy, and we were anxious to see more of him. We went into the dugout and found about a dozen men lying around, some of them rolled in their blankets trying to sleep, and others smoking. I went over beside the chap who had answered my first question, and after telling him who I was and what I was there for, he made room for me and I sat down. He was a funny-looking little chap about the build of a wooden toothpick, but he looked as if he was made of steel wire. We soon struck up a conversation, and his "Cockney" sure did sound funny to me; he was one of the sappers, and when he found that I had left the Infantry to join them he was disgusted. "Well," said he, "you are a bloomin' ass. Why, blime me, mite, this here's the worst bleedin' job in the Army; a man digs till the sweat rolls off, and all he gets for it is a bleedin' shilling, and he has to give six-pence of that to the old woman; blime, it doesn't leave ye enough for bacca, and all the fellas think this is a bomb-proof job—why, blime, you dig and sweat for days, and Fritz sends along a blinkin' torpedo and fills up the tunnel, and there's all your hard work gone to 'ell, and you with it too if you 'appen to be around," and believe me I found out that most of what he told me was true, and sapping was no bomb-proof job. Well, we sat around all day enjoying the conversation of our Cockney friends. I found that my new friend was nicknamed "Skinny," and during the next few months he took a great liking to Mac and me, and he stuck around with us most of the time.

That night at 8 o'clock the Sergeant in charge came around and detailed eight of us to go up to the sap,—Mac, Skinny, and I were among those chosen,—so we started off to a place known as "S. P. 13" (Strong Point No. 13). Skinny was in the lead, as he had been there before. We went through about a mile and a half of communicating trench, and there we encountered three or four infantrymen bound for the front lines. The bullets were whizzing over our heads, and once in a while a shell dropped near us, but nothing happened till we had to come up out of the trench and cross an open space. The infantrymen were in the lead, and almost as soon as we struck the open one of them "got it" in the head. Skinny was in front of me, and he stopped so suddenly that I said, "What's wrong, Skinny?" He said, "Blime, but he's got it; I wonder how many blinkin' kids the poor devil's left." The poor lad was killed instantly and we picked him up and laid him on one side with his cap over his face—the stretcher bearers would find him and carry him back of the lines. We continued on our way, and Skinny, paying no more attention to flying bullets than he would to flies, led us to the sap where we were to begin work. At the entrance to this particular sap was an immense shaft leading down 107 feet, and shooting out from this shaft were two main tunnels—these tunnels were four feet high and about three in width, and they ran under "No Man's Land" and past the first line of German trenches, the object being to reach a small wood and lay a mine under some pill-boxes that were causing us a lot of trouble. These pill-boxes were machine gun emplacements made of concrete, and our heavy shells had no effect on them. Our only chance of getting them was to blow them up with a mine. When I went in, there was still quite a distance to go, for the wood lay behind the second line of German trenches.

I was set to work on one of these tunnels, and using pick and shovel seemed mighty hard at first; what made it harder to stand was the lack of fresh air—there was no place for the air to get in excepting through the main shaft, and that was about four hundred yards away. Then too, we could never rest ourselves by standing upright, and the constant bending of the back was torture until we got used to it. However, our shift only lasted for eight hours, and then we went out on rest for twenty-four hours, and our rest billets were three miles back, so they were fairly quiet. Altogether the work was a pleasant change when our muscles got hardened to it; and there was always something interesting turning up. Of course the Germans had their tunnels too, and they were trying to reach our lines. Often we could hear each other working and sometimes one party would send in a torpedo to block the other's tunnel. I remember the first one they sent us. That day I was working at the bottom of the shaft hitching sandbags to the rope by which they were pulled to the top. Skinny was coming down the ladder in the shaft, and when he was about ten feet from the bottom, the torpedo was fired. It just missed our tunnel and the concussion was so great that it gave us a great shaking up. Poor Skinny lost his hold on the ladder and fell into two feet of water. I was scared stiff, for I didn't know what had happened, but when I caught sight of Skinny sitting in the water I just roared. Skinny sat there with his head above water making no attempt to move, but when I laughed he looked up indignantly and said, "Blime, mite, you'd cackle if a fellar broke his bleedin' neck," and then while I continued laughing he cursed the Germans with every variety of oath to which he could lay his tongue, vowing what he was going to do to get even, but all the time sitting there in the water. Finally he came to his senses, and jumping up hurriedly he made a bee-line for the ladder and began to climb. I said, "Where the devil are you going to, Skinny?" He called back: "Do you think I'm such a bleedin' fool as to stay down here and get buried alive? I don't intend to be buried till I'm dead." He urged me to go with him, but I figured that the Germans would expect one torpedo to do the trick and they wouldn't be likely to waste a second one, so instead of going out I went back along the tunnel to see if any damage had been done. I found a little loose earth knocked down—that was all the harm it did, except to give us a good scare.

Our work went steadily on, and gradually our backs got like iron and we didn't mind the everlasting bending. In our twenty-four hours at rest billets we had lots of fun. Mac and I were the only Canadians in the bunch, and 'the' English Tommy used us "white." About this time there was great excitement over some German spies that were supposed to be in our lines, and there was a reward offered of 20 pounds and fourteen days' leave to any one who would succeed in capturing one of these spies. We were all warned to keep a sharp lookout for them, and our own officers were forbidden to go around through the lines without an escort. Several spies were caught masquerading in our uniforms and of course they were shot; a spy stands very little show of getting off if once he is caught, and it is a brave man's job in France. Of course we have our men behind the German lines, and I don't suppose any one will ever know all that our secret service has done for us there.

We were all keeping a sharp lookout, and one night one of the boys caught a German trying to crawl through our front lines, he made him prisoner, and maybe he wasn't elated over his capture, so he marched him proudly down through the long line of trench to our Headquarters; but, on getting there, imagine his surprise when his German prisoner began to talk and joke with the officers; he was one of our own secret service men and was just returning from a trip through the German lines—he thought it was too good a joke to miss, so he let himself be captured. I had heard all this, and I made up my mind not to be fooled, but one night I thought sure I had the real thing. Mac, Skinny, and I were coming off shift at 2 A.M., and in the communication trench we met an officer without an escort. We saluted as we passed, and he said, "Good-night, boys." Mac whispered, "I believe he's a spy." Skinny said, "Blime, I believe he is too." We talked it over about fifteen minutes and then we decided to follow him, so we gave chase and caught up with him just outside a line of huts where there was a sentry posted; when we came up he was talking and laughing with the sentry, so we stood in the background and listened, and what do you think—if that guy wasn't the officer in charge of the guard, so our fourteen days' leave and our 20 pounds was all shot in the head—that cured my spy catching.

When on rest we were billeted in some of the little villages behind the lines, and we struck up quite an acquaintance with the French peasants living there. "Old Madame" was a particular friend of ours, and we got to know her best because she made her living by serving lunches to the soldiers; she had a nickname for each of us, and if any one was missing she had to hear all about it. Many a pleasant evening we spent in her little home. A bunch of us would go together, and we would take along our mandolin, banjo, and mouth organ, and have a little concert; Madame would sit there and smile, not understanding a word we said, but enjoying seeing us having a good time—another thing, it was always warm there, and that was something that our billets never were.

But we had a great time trying to get enough French so that we could ask for what we wanted to eat and many laughable incidents occurred in our struggles to make Madame understand. For instance, one night Skinny wanted eggs, and he tried in every way to make his wants known, but Madame failed to get his meaning, and finally the boy got desperate, so jumping up, he started to run around the room cackling like a hen. He got the eggs all right, and I think he earned them; but it was so funny that we nearly rolled off our chairs laughing.



To make things better, a party of twenty-five Canadians came to the tunnellers and we had some good old times together; but Mac and Skinny were still my best pals; many's the prank we played together. One of our favourite ones was to work the officer in charge for an extra ration of rum. The British Tommy was given his ration of rum as soon as he came up from the sap, but we Canadians had to wait for ours till we reached our rest billets, and it was served to us there by one of our own officers. The only exception made was in favour of those who had been working in a wet part of the sap; for instance, at the bottom of the shaft there was often two feet of water, and at various places along the tunnel where we had struck springs the water almost flooded us out; it kept two pumps going all the time to make the place dry enough to work in. Well, the men on these pumps (two on each) and the one at the shaft were served out with rubber boots and oilskins, and these were the only Canadians who received their ration of rum from the Imperial officer. Usually one of our trio was chosen to work on either of these wet jobs, and he would line up for his rum ration—after getting it, he would hurry out and hand over his oilskins to one of us, and we would slip them on and take our place in the line—after we had been served we did the same trick, and usually the three of us succeeded in getting our extra ration of rum. Of course the officer would catch on after awhile and would chase us out, but we worked it on every new officer. It wasn't that we cared so much for the rum, but it was the fun of getting something that we were not supposed to have. It was the same with our money ration—we were only allowed fifteen francs every two weeks while we were in France, and the rest of our pay was kept for us by the military. Now, fifteen francs did not begin to get us what we thought we needed, and many's the scheme we tried to get at the balance. Finally we hit on one that worked pretty well. Mac made over "so much a month" to the family of one of the English boys in the 28th, they cashed the cheque and forwarded the money to their boy, and he handed it over to Mac; we were having a "whale of a time" on his extra money, and one day we were expecting our remittance from England. Mac met some battalion boys who told him that Sergeant Banks had the money for him; little Mac was on a carrying party that night when he met the boys, and he hurried back to tell me the good news. I was working above the shaft, and Mac and I sat in the shelter of an old wall, and with the bullets buzzing around us we planned how we would spend that money. Finally we thought we had lost enough time, so I went back to work and Mac started down "Suicide Road" for another load of sandbags and planks for the tunnel. He had about a mile to go, and the road he was on got its name from the fierce shelling that Fritzie gave it every night. If you have ever been out in a bad hailstorm you can perhaps form some idea of how thick the bullets are when Fritzie turns on his guns and sweeps a road. Well, I had only been working an hour or so underground when I heard some one at the top of the shaft calling my name. I answered and he said, "Come on up, Jack, I want you." I hurried up the ladder and found one of the 28th boys waiting for me. I said, "Hello! what's the matter, old chap?" He said, "Jack, little Mac's got it." "Little Mac, oh no, not little Mac!" I cried. "Why, he was here with me only a little while ago." "Yes, I know," he said; "he was on his way back with the first load when it got him—still, he isn't badly hit, and he sure did act funny when he got it. This is how it happened: we were walking down the road with our loads when Mac stopped suddenly and said, 'Boys, I believe I'm hit; I felt a stinging pain go through my leg.' He felt around and walked a few steps, and said, 'No, I guess I'm all right. But, gee, it was a close call!' He hadn't gone far when he felt something trickling down his leg, and slipping his hand inside his trousers he moved it around the spot where the pain had been, then he pulled it out and held it up; it was covered with blood. As soon as he saw the blood Mac grabbed his leg and limped like everything. He dropped his load right there and made a bee-line for the dressing station. As he hobbled down the road he called, 'Good-bye, boys, it's Blighty for mine.'" Of course I laughed at what the boy told me of little Mac, but all the time I felt an ache in my heart, for something told me I would never see my brave little pal again, and I never did. He did not get a "Blighty" after all, but was sent to our base hospital at Le Havre. When he came back to the lines I was gone, and he went back to the battalion; he "went west" from Vimy Ridge, where so many of our brave boys fell.

Well, I hunted up Skinny and told him about Mac, and when the shift was over and we started off to our rest billets we both felt mighty blue; if we had known that we were to be separated the very next day we would have felt still worse. But that's one thing that's good about the Army—you never know what's coming, and after it has happened there is no spare time for regrets. When I said "Good-bye" to Skinny, he said, "It's a bleedin' shime that you 'arve to go, mite. Those bloomin' 'Eadquarter blokes doesn't know what they're doin' 'arf the time. It's blinkin' 'ard to lose both you and Mac, but 'up the line with the best of luck,' old cock." But I must explain why I had to go. An order came asking all Canadians who were working with the Royal Engineers (which was an Imperial unit) to transfer at once to the Canadian Engineers at Ypres. This did not sound very good to us, as the Ypres salient was known as a pretty hot place. However, as military rules say, "Obey first and complain afterwards," there was nothing for us to do but go. We were sorry, also, to leave before the completion of our mine at Kemmil—but we heard afterwards that when it was set off it turned the wood literally upside down. When we arrived at Ypres we found things very different to what they were at Kemmil—instead of mine laying we were put into a protection sap; this was only twenty feet down and consisted of a network of tunnels for the protection of our own lines against the German sappers. My first duty was on "listening-post" in one of these tunnels, the hole where I was being just large enough to lie in, and it seemed almost like being buried alive. Here I did not get my twenty-four hours' rest as at Kemmil, but I worked on a six-hour shift and had only ten hours off; even then we were not sent back to rest billets, but had to stay in the dugout at the top of the shaft. At the end of seven days we were supposed to be sent back to rest billets, and another shift would take our place. Fritzie had been unusually quiet since we came, and we began to think that the stories we heard were greatly exaggerated.

However, on the morning of the seventh day we changed our minds. We had gone to work at eight o'clock feeling unusually good—we expected to be relieved at seven that night, and we had been promised a seven days' leave to Blighty, so I could hardly wait for the day to pass. Instead of being put on "listening-post" this morning, the Corporal in charge took me with him—we went down a long tunnel till we reached the end, and the Corporal put a listening-tube to his ear; he listened a few minutes, and then handed it to me and whispered, "Do you hear anything?" I said, "Yes, I hear some one shovelling." He said, "I heard them yesterday, and I think they are close enough for us to get now, we will lay a torpedo for them here," so we got to work to dig a place for our torpedo, and after working for half an hour or so our candles went out. Then we noticed that the number of shells falling above us had greatly increased—we lit our candles again, but it was no use—there seemed to be a terrific bombardment on and the concussion was so great that we could not keep our lights going. Fritzie was certainly making up for lost time. The Corporal said, "Well, Jack, we might just as well go up and see what is doing," so we started back to the shaft; our candles were out, so we had to grope our way along. We had not gone far when we heard some one calling for help. Following the sound, we came to a hunch of men belonging to the infantry; they had come down for protection from the shell fire, and a shell had blown in the entrance to their tunnel. Not being used to the network of tunnels, they were completely lost. We guided them out to the main shaft, and it was still intact, so they went up; then the Corporal said, "I wonder if there are any more back there?" I said, "I don't know, but I think we had better have a look," so we went back and after searching every tunnel and not finding any one, we decided to go out ourselves, and we started back along the shaft. We were feeling our way along with the shells dropping overhead like hail, when all at once two "Krupps" landed on the tunnel just over my head; there was a terrific explosion, the props of the tunnel gave way, and in another instant I found myself choked with dust and half buried under a pile of dirt. The Corporal was crawling along three or four yards ahead, and in the darkness he could not see what had happened. As soon as I could get my breath I yelled, "Hey! Corporal, come back." He said, "What's the matter?" I said, "By golly! I have half of Belgium on my back." So he came back and pulled me out,—-my back was badly strained, but otherwise I was none the worse,—but we both realized now that things up above must be getting pretty serious, and once more we started for the shaft. The Corporal was ahead, and he called out, "Say, Jack, we are in the devil of a fix now!" I said, "What's up?" He said, "Those confounded Boches have blown in the top of our sap-head." This was a serious matter, for it meant cutting off our supply of air as well as our chance for escape—it would be bad enough to be killed in a fair fight, but we didn't relish being buried alive; however, we would not give up without a struggle, and we began searching the nearby tunnels for a shovel. In the darkness I heard some one moving, and I said, "Who's there?" A familiar voice said, "Who in hell do you think it is?" I said, "Nobby! is that you? What the mischief are you doing?" He said, "I'm looking for what you never can find when you need it, a d—— shovel." The lad was one of our tunnellers, and we were glad to have his company and also his help in the "digging-out" process. Not finding a shovel, we commenced work with our hands—after we had been working for half an hour Nobby grabbed me and whispered, "Do you see those lights?"—I turned around, and there, about fifty yards away and coming towards us, were about a dozen lights. We talked it over with the Corporal and decided they must be Germans who had broken through the tunnel, so the Corporal said, "One of you boys stay here and dig; and the other two will go back and stop them," but we made him stay, and Nobby and I went to meet the Bodies. There was a branch tunnel about thirty yards away, and we hoped to waylay them there; we were armed with revolvers and their lights made them good targets. We reached the branch tunnel just before they did, and we had a lively little scrap with the first two—the others put out their lights when they heard the pistol shots—anyway, they were several yards back and they were in no hurry to get into the fun. We lay there and waited for them, and after things had been quiet for a few minutes they lit their lights and came on—fortunately the tunnel was only wide enough for one man, but all the same we were looking for a lively time—they were ten yards away when there came an awful explosion; a shell had burst directly over their heads. All I remember was a blinding cloud of dust and a gust of wind as our tunnel was blown in, and once more I was buried. We scrambled out and turned to look for our foes, but they had received the full force of the blow and were safely buried; so we thanked our lucky stars and went back to our digging. When we reached our Corporal, we found that he had already dug his way out into the shaft. We crawled out, and looking up we discovered three more boys at the top of the shaft—these belonged to the machine gun crew who had taken up their position there, but a heavy shell had demolished their gun and buried the men—they were just digging themselves out when we appeared, and we gave them quite a surprise. One of them said when he saw us, "Well, where the devil did you come from?" I suppose he thought that because we came from below we must have some connection with his Satanic Majesty. Well, we climbed up to where the boys were and gave them a hand at the digging; finally we made a hole large enough to let in a little air and then we all lay down and rested. We were almost dead for want of air, for we had been buried for four hours, and we did not know what might await us once we got out. After we rested up a little, we finished our digging and crawled out. We found ourselves in a large shell hole, the former trench being blown away. The ground was being swept by machine guns and heavy shells, and it was not healthy to rubber around very much. There was an officer in charge of the machine gun crew, and finally he found a spot where there was a slight protection, and he took a look around and this is what he saw; the line of trenches we had left there in the morning were entirely blotted, and the ground, as far as he could see, was literally riddled with shell holes. Our boys had either been killed, wounded, or taken prisoners, and our first and second lines were in the hands of the Germans; however, their advance had been checked, and now, before going any farther, let me explain that this is known now as the Third Battle of Ypres, and the history is familiar to all. It was here that the 1st Division of Canadians made their heroic stand in 1915, just one year previous. But to come back to our present plight. We were at a loss to know what to do, for we had no means of knowing how far the Germans had penetrated our lines; but we knew that if their first wave of reinforcements ever came up, they would surely get us, so there seemed to be just one thing to do, and that was to make a dash for our supports—the Germans who had come over were taking what shelter they could in the shell holes, but they were lying as low as possible, on account of the fierceness of our shell fire. It really seemed as though every gun we had was trained on that spot, and the fire was coming from three sides. One of the 28th boys who was watching the battle from a neighbouring hill said that more shells fell to the minute in this battle than in any he had ever seen, and certainly that is the way it seemed to us; there was just one chance in a thousand of our getting through, but the idea of staying and giving ourselves up never entered our heads.

It took quite a bit of courage to make the first dash, but at 2.30 we started out over the shell-swept ground. The shell holes were only from ten to twenty feet apart, but I assure you it seemed quite far enough. We made a quick sprint for the first one and landed in on the backs of three or four Germans; they were lying facing our lines, and hadn't expected any one from the rear. We had them finished before they got over their surprise and none of us were hurt in this scrap—so we made a bolt for the next hole. However, we were not so lucky this time, and before we reached the hole two of our boys went down; we dared not stop to see how badly they were hurt, but plunged into the shelter of the hole. Here we were outnumbered two to one, but our attack from the rear gave us the advantage; still it came near being my finish, for my revolver jammed, and a big Boche made a lunge at me with his bayonet—I dropped my revolver, escaped his bayonet by making a quick side-step, grabbed his rifle, and hung on for dear life. We rocked to and fro, and all at once it occurred to me to use my feet—so I lifted one foot and let him have it right in the stomach. He let go his hold on the rifle and sat down as suddenly as if he was shot, while I lost my balance and went sprawling in the other direction. I don't know which of us would have recovered first, but one of our boys settled the combat by blowing the big Boche's head off. Our three lads had cleared up all the others and we had time to think of our own condition. We were a very sorry-looking outfit; we all had wounds and bruises which we hadn't felt at the time they were received; our tunics and caps had been left in the sap, and the few clothes we had on were torn and plastered with mud, our faces were streaked with dirt and blood, and we were "all in." I hadn't known any of the boys before except the Corporal and Nobby, and poor Nobby was the first one shot. Well, we looked after each other's wounds, and then we rested for awhile; when our strength came back a little, we started out again. We would have stayed longer only we had no idea how far we were from our lines, and we felt sure that German reinforcements would come up at dark. We went out in single file and not too close together, but our next hole was farther away and just before the first one reached it a shell burst directly over it; two of the boys were killed and the Germans in the hole were blown to atoms; the officer and myself were thrown a little distance and badly stunned, but finally we managed to reach the hole. We were the only ones left, and we lay there bruised and shaken. We were pretty well discouraged over the loss of our other brave lads, and it was quite a while before we felt like venturing out again; the only redeeming feature was the fact that the shell which had killed our boys had also cleared the hole of whole Germans. Well, at last we made another start, and we had almost reached a hole when the officer, who was behind me, shouted "Look out, lad, there's another coming!" We leaped for the hole and landed at the bottom only to find ourselves covered by a dozen German rifles; I sure thought I had a through ticket for the next world with no "stop-overs" allowed, especially when I noticed a big "square-head" in the act of bringing a "potato-masher" (hand grenade) down on my head. I dodged him as he fetched it down, and just then the German officer in charge of the bunch bawled out some command. They all lowered their rifles and began talking in an excited manner, they were evidently trying to decide what to do with us, and the officer said, "Well, I guess our game is up, boy." I said, "I guess it is"; and really I didn't much care if they finished me right then. I knew I had made them pay the price anyway—we were out of ammunition and, besides, we were too much "all in" to put up any kind of a scrap.

Well, they evidently decided to take us prisoners, for we were searched, and then two of them were detailed to take us back—the only reason we were spared was because it is quite a feather in a German's cap to take a British officer prisoner—they are always rewarded for it. Well, they started us out at once over the same road we had come, and we went from shell hole to shell hole as before, but now that we were under German escort no one "potted" us, and in spite of the shell fire we reached what had been "No Man's Land." As we crossed this I noticed a funny thing. A company of German reinforcements were being brought up, perhaps a hundred in all; the officer in charge was bareheaded, and he carried a revolver and a stick of some kind. Instead of leading his men as our officers do, he walked behind and a little to one side, really on their flank. They couldn't hear his commands and he tried to show them where to go by pointing with his stick, but he kept his revolver levelled on the men all the time. As I watched them, a couple of our "Big Lizzie" shells burst right over them; when the smoke cleared away there wasn't one of the bunch to be seen. Well, we crossed "No Man's Land" and came to where the German trenches had been, but they were as level as our own. Finally we struck a communication trench and the going was a little safer. The trench was crowded with Germans, and they lined up in either side to let us pass. But here I had another narrow escape; the Boche's hatred of the British is such that they cannot resist giving vent to it when they have one in their power, and as we passed one big brute made a lunge at me with his bayonet. Fortunately, he missed his aim a little and the bayonet passed through the loose front of my shirt, but I felt the cold steel on my flesh—the guard said nothing to him. Another thing I noticed on my way out was the treatment a wounded German received from the comrade who was taking him out—the man was wounded through the head and he was evidently dizzy from pain and weakness, for he rolled from one side of the trench to the other like a drunken man—instead of carrying him as our men would do, or, at least, putting an arm round him to steady his steps, that brute walked behind, and when the wounded man would stop, wanting to sit down and rest, I saw the brute take that poor man by the collar, jerk him up, and land him a couple of kicks. This of course sent the man running and sprawling down the trench, and this is the way they made their way out.



Well, we went on till we came to a German strong point, and here we found fifteen of our boys that had been captured earlier in the day; when we came on the scene they were being photographed by the Germans. The Germans allow their soldiers to carry cameras and almost every soldier has one; we had at least a dozen levelled at us that day—they were evidently taking pictures to send back to Germany—"Prisoners we have captured" would no doubt be the title.

They kept us hanging around here for half an hour, still under our own shell fire, and then we were marched back about three miles. Our first stop was beside an old Belgian church, and here we were taken over by an escort of Prussian Lancers, and for the first time I realized that I was really a German prisoner. We were herded together like a flock of sheep and driven ahead of our captors; we were made to go ten miles before they allowed us to stop, but to add variety to our otherwise tedious march, when our escort wanted a little fun they would put spurs to their horses and ride pellmell through our little bunch. It was great sport to see us dash in all directions tumbling over one another in our efforts to escape being trodden down by the horses; no wonder they laughed and shouted in their glee! And it was on a par with other things they did on that trip. We passed through several small Belgian villages, and when the Belgian women saw us coming, they ran out with jugs of water, chocolate, and cigarettes, but our escort met them and refused to allow them to give us anything. They were very plucky, and some of them dashed in past the guards, and these inhuman beasts known as Prussian Guards levelled their lances and made at the girls. Sometimes they missed; a water jug carried by one of the girls saved her, but I saw three women run through the body by these devils, and all because they wished to do an act of kindness to men who were wounded. The first thing we do with our prisoners is to feed them and dress their wounds, but these are the last things a German thinks of doing. Well, the same thing happened in all the villages, only we warned the girls away when we saw how they would be treated. I also noticed that the Belgians were not allowed on the sidewalk when a German was passing; if they did not get off, they were knocked off.

Finally we were halted in one of the villages and herded into a filthy horse stable. There were about thirty in the bunch and most of us were wounded; we had not even had a drink since we were captured, so we were pretty much "all in." We slept on the floor of the stable that night, and next morning some German guards came along and picked us up. For breakfast we were thrown four loaves of German bread and a pail of water was set inside the door. After breakfast we were lined up on the street, and a German officer who spoke a little English came along and asked us questions. He took our name and number and also the name of the unit to which we belonged. He said he was doing this so that he might report our capture to the military authorities in London, but he had another reason. After he got through he chose two from each unit, lined them up, and marched them off to a large building. I happened to be one of the number. The building where we were taken was occupied by a German general and his staff. We were put in a small room and two at a time marched out for an interview.

The first ones taken belonged to a machine gun crew; they were conducted into a long room at the far end of which sat the General and two interpreters. Along each side of the room was a line of Prussian Guards. The officer who had charge of the boys could speak English fairly well, and instead of taking them to where the General was, he sat down with them at a small table just inside the door. He appeared very friendly, and offered them cigars, cigarettes, and wine. The boys were cute enough to know why they were offered wine, and they "declined with thanks" but they took the smokes. The officer asked them questions about Canada and appeared very much interested in our country, he talked for half an hour and never mentioned war; then he asked them to go up to where the General was sitting. On the table in front of the General was a map of the front line trenches, and through the interpreter the General proceeded to pump the boys for information. This is a sample of the questions he asked them:

Interpreter: "Show me, on the map, the position your machine gun was holding on the Ypres salient."

Boy: "I am sorry, Sir, but I can't read a map."

He asked him several more questions of a similar nature and received unsatisfactory replies. Then he said, "Now, give me an idea of how many guns were holding the Ypres salient." The lad thought for a minute and then said, "Sir, as near as I could guess, it was about a million and a half." The General let a roar out of him like a mad lion, and two of the Prussian Guards grabbed the boys and, dragging them to the end of the room, threw them out of the door and down the short flight of steps at the entrance. I saw them pass the door of the room where I was sitting, and said, "Hully gee! what the Sam Hill are they doing with those chaps?" Sandy said, "Evidently they are not wanted in there." But the boys didn't seem to be at all displeased over the treatment they received, for they landed laughing, and as we went in I heard one say, "We slipped one over them that time, eh?"

A young Scotchman and myself were the next ones called, and we represented the sappers. The same officer brought us in and treated us as he did the first two; we helped ourselves to the cigars and cigarettes, but did not think it wise to touch the wine (Scotty said afterwards that it was the only time in his life he ever refused a drink). After having a smoke, we were taken up before the General. Scotty was a comical chap, very ready-witted, and we had arranged that he should do all the talking. The first question asked was, "Where was the sap you were working in?" Scotty looked up very stupidly, and said, "I don't understand you, Sir." The interpreter said, "Where was the mine you dug underground?"

Scotty: "Oh yes, I did that for a living before I joined the Army."

Interpreter: "Then show me on this map where the sap was."

Scotty: "I don't know of any sap in the front line."

Interpreter: "But you said you belonged to the miners!"

Scotty: "Yes, but I was not working on a mine in the front line."

Interpreter: "Then what were you doing?"

Scotty: "Well, it was like this; I was only in the trenches twice, the first time our Corporal put me on a fatigue party and I was carrying up sandbags and rations."

Interpreter: "Is that all you did?"

Scotty: "Yes, Sir."

Interpreter: "Then what were you working at the second time you were in the lines?—you were surely put in a sap this time."

I could see that both the General and the interpreter were getting quite peeved, but Scotty answered smilingly: "I will tell you what I did. The Sergeant in charge gave me a long stick with a nail in the end, and I had this stick in one hand and a sandbag in the other, and my work was to go through the trenches picking up all the paper, cigarette boxes, and tin cans." When this speech was interpreted to the General, the old boy was wild. I think he would gladly have put an end to us right there, but he only shouted an order to the guards, and we were hustled to the door and kicked out. When we picked ourselves up, we sat down on the steps and had a good laugh. Evidently the General was not satisfied with the information he received, for none of the others were taken in. We were all taken back to the stable and left there till the next morning, then we were marched off to the railway station and loaded on a train for Germany.

We travelled in cattle and box cars, and we did not sit up to see the sights because all of us were wounded or injured in some way. My back was badly strained when I was buried in the sap and I was bruised from head to foot. I had had nothing to eat all day excepting the small piece of black bread given to us in the morning. It was about 9 P.M. when we made our first stop in Germany, and this was at a large prison camp near Dulmen, Westphalia. Dulmen is a beautiful large city; and the camp is two miles out. At first sight a prison camp looks very much like a chicken ranch; the high wire fences around the whole enclosure and the little frame huts in the centre all carry out the idea. But when you get in, there is a vast difference, the outside fence is fourteen feet high, and of barb-wire with the barbs poisoned; three yards in, there is another fence, a low one this time, to prevent the "chickens" getting under, and this is made of live wire. In between these fences there is a line of German guards, each one having his own beat. The centre of the camp is divided into small blocks, each with its fourteen-foot fence of poisoned wire; there are six huts in each block and about fifty prisoners quartered in each hut. When I was there the camp contained about three thousand prisoners—French, Russian, English, and a few Canadians. But, to go back to my arrival. As we were marched into the camp we were a pretty sorry-looking lot. The old prisoners saw us coming, and rushed back to their huts and brought us out some food. The new prisoners were not allowed to mingle with the old ones until they had been two months in camp—I suppose this was to prevent any news getting in—so in order to do anything for us, the old prisoners had to catch us on our way through. Well, they brought us, from the contents of their Red Cross parcels, hardtack, biscuits, bully-beef, and jam, and when we reached our hut we had a pretty good meal. The boys had none too much for themselves and it meant a great deal to give up any of their precious food; but they knew, from experience, that we were starving, and we thought we were, for after good army rations, one small slice of black bread does not go far towards satisfying hunger. But, after existing on German fare for two months, we knew what it was to be really hungry; we were more like famished wolves than human beings.

This is a day's ration, served out to us the first day in camp, and in the two months I was there it never varied: for breakfast, a small bowl of coffee made from dried acorns, and served without milk or sugar. It was so bitter as to be almost undrinkable, and there was not one morsel of food given with it. For dinner we were allowed a bowl of stuff they called soup. It was made by boiling cabbage and turnips with a few dog bones; when I went there first I wouldn't believe the boys when they told me that our soup was made of dog bones, but one day I met one of the French prisoners who had been a doctor, and we went for a walk around the grounds, so I asked him what kind of an animal went into our soup and he told me it was just ordinary dog. We argued the question for several minutes, and I was still unconvinced, so he said, "Go into the cook house and see for yourself." I went, and the cook (who was a French prisoner) very obligingly lifted out some bones with his long spoon and showed me one of Fido's legs. That settled the question, and, naturally, I enjoyed the soup more than ever. As an extra treat, to give it a special flavour, sometimes they threw in the bark. The boys had taken their own way of finding out what they were eating—they saved all the bones for several days and then they put them together—the result was a German Dachshund. We had nothing but this soup for dinner, and for supper we were given a bowl of slop which the boys called "sand-storm," and a three-pound loaf of Deutschland black bread to be divided among ten of us. This bread was made from ground vegetables mixed with rye flour. If you read Gerard's "Four Years in Germany" you will see that samples of this food were examined by a specialist and declared to be almost devoid of food value. It was planned to reduce our numbers by a process of slow starvation.

We used to fight over the garbage cans for the peelings of potatoes, and cabbage, and when the old prisoners, who were getting their Red Cross boxes, brought us their German issue of soup, it was not safe for them to come inside our enclosure. They would place the can inside the gate and we fought over it like a pack of hungry wolves. If you think we are exaggerating, see Gerard's new picture film "My Four Years in Germany." It tells better than I can just how bad things were. Well, one day when our soup was handed in by the other prisoners a funny thing happened; we had seen the boys coming and had made a rush to the huts to get our bowls—a very short fellow reached the soup can first and before he could get his bowl filled, we had all crowded in on top of him—poor Shorty had his head and arm in the soup and was almost drowned before we got him out. He had soup everywhere except in the bowl. Every British prisoner had to put up with this kind of food for the first two months; after that, the Red Cross parcels would begin to arrive. The condition of the Russian prisoners was indeed pitiable. They received no help from home, and were depending solely on German food. A Russian can live on much less than a Britisher, but they literally starved to death on what the Germans gave them. They were made to work, and when they could go no longer and fell down from sheer weakness the Guard would beat them till they died. I have seen this happen again and again, and there was an average of fifteen deaths every day among the Russians alone. Our parcels came just in time to save the strongest of us, but scores of the weaker ones died. But just here let me explain the system used by the Red Cross for getting food to the boys in the prison camps. As soon as a new prisoner reaches the camp he is given a card which he fills in and sends to the Red Cross Headquarters in London. This card contains his name and number, and the number of the camp that he is in. It takes about two months to get the first parcel through; after that he received six food parcels and two of tobacco each month, and once in six months they send him a complete outfit of clothes, from overcoat to boots, also a parcel of toilet articles, such as toothbrush, shaving outfit, soap, etc. From the time these parcels reach the Dutch border, they are handled by a staff of our own prisoners, so there is no danger of their going astray. The Germans examine the parcels before they are given out to make sure that they do not contain maps or compasses for the prisoners; that is the only time they handle them.

These parcels mean life and a small degree of comfort to the boys, so you can imagine how they are looked forward to. The Red Cross saved my life and the lives of thousands of our boys; and they deserve honour and support from every person who calls himself a loyal citizen of any Allied country. I shall never forget when my first parcel came; I had been in camp two months and I had failed eighteen pounds. One of the boys came into my hut and told me there were two parcels for me. I told him to stop fooling, that his joke was stale. But he said, "No, it's straight goods this time, here are the tickets"—so I rushed off to where the parcel office was and got in line. Pretty soon my turn came and I handed in my tickets. A big German brought out the parcels, and while he was censoring them I was figuring on what I was going to have to eat, but imagine my disappointment when he pushed over the parcels and I found they contained nothing but clothing. There were two suits of underwear, two pairs of socks, two shirts and one pair of blankets, but no food. My clothing was in rags when I reached Germany, my tunic and cap were lost in the sap the day I was taken, and I needed socks and underwear very badly, also boots, so this supply was more than welcome, but I needed food more than anything else. I put all the stuff into the blankets and started back for the hut. When the boys saw me coming, they rushed out to meet me, for they were building on a feed, the same as myself. The unwritten rule of the prison camp is, whatever one gets the rest all share it, so they were disappointed too. However, three days later our food parcels arrived, having been delayed at the border, and we sure had a big feed. My first food parcel contained one tin of Welsh rarebit, one tin of jam, a large package of biscuits, three bars of chocolate, and two packages of cigarettes. I tell you it put new life into us, and we felt like licking all the Huns in sight.

After our Red Cross parcels came we were able to shave ourselves, and we had soap to wash with. When we first came to the camp the Germans asked if there were any barbers in our bunch. Now, there wasn't, but one of the boys, "Slim" Evans, volunteered for the job. They gave him an old razor, some soap and a strop, also a small brush, and he was ready for work. He had no chair of any kind, so he looked around till he found a bench in one of the huts; he swiped this and turned it upside down on his table. When the boys came for a shave, they climbed up on the table and sat in the upturned bench, using the leg of the bench for a head rest. It sure was some "barber's chair"; I'll bet there never was another like it. Well, Slim got lots of customers; the Germans didn't pay him for his work, but the prisoners tried to. Some had nothing at all, but he did their work just the same; others were working on farms, and for this they were given what was equal to 2d or 4d in English money. Slim never took anything from those who only received 2d, but those getting 4d were allowed to pay. Sometimes they gave him a box of German cigarettes so strong that if you smoked one on Monday you could taste it on Saturday. I remember my first visit to Slim; I climbed up into the chair and Slim asked me what I was getting; I said 4d, so he gave the razor an extra rub-up. Now, I hadn't had a shave for a month, so I was a pretty hairy-looking customer. Slim said, "How long since you've had a wash?" I said, "This morning, only I hadn't any soap." He said, "Never mind, I'll wash you with shaving soap." So he went to work, and really I didn't know whether he was shaving or skinning me. As a matter of fact he did a little of both, for he had six patches of skin off when he finished and the only remark he made was, "This razor is not quite as sharp as I could wish," but he told me to be sure and come again.

But I have spoken mostly of food, or rather the lack of it. Now I will try and give you an idea of how we put in our time. They didn't work us very hard in this camp; usually we were only taken out three times a week. When they wanted us, German guards would come in, line up about twenty of us, and take us out to work in the fields. The first job they put us at was planting potatoes and we worked faithfully the first day, but when we came in that night I said to "Snipe," the new pal I had made, "By golly! Snipe, I don't like the idea of producing food for these 'square-heads,' let's see if we can't put one over them." "All right," said Snipe, "I'm game, but how in hell are you going to do it?" I said, "Well, how would this do? Next time we are sent out, I'll take the hoe and you the bucket of potatoes; as soon as we get a little piece away from the guard, I'll keep on making holes, but you just go through the motions of dropping in potatoes, then when we reach the centre of the field I'll make an extra large hole and you can dump in all the potatoes except a few that must be saved for the other end of the row." "Gee, that sounds all right," said Snipe; "we'll have a try at it anyway, and I believe it will work." The field we had been working in was a long narrow strip containing about five acres, and there was an armed guard stationed at each end. Well, next day we were called out again and we tried our new plan. It worked splendidly; the other boys saw what we were doing and they all did the same, so the whole field was planted that way, and I wish you could have seen those potatoes when they came up.

The next thing we were given to do was putting out cabbage plants (of course they had not yet discovered the trick we had played with the potatoes). In planting cabbages the first man was given a small sharp stick instead of a hoe, and man number two had a box of young plants. A hole was made, but before the plant was put in the roots were nipped off. In three days the cabbages were all wilted or dead and the Germans could not make out what was wrong, so they sprinkled the ground with some kind of stuff thinking the damage was caused by worms in the soil. But some one happened to pull up a plant, and they realized then what had been done. Of course they were very angry, but no one would tell who did it, and they couldn't very well punish the whole camp. However, they didn't give us any more farm work to do.

Shortly after this, I was out on a working party with some of the old prisoners and one of them began telling me about a man who had made an escape from the camp some months before. He had gotten as far as the Holland Border, but was caught there. The word "escape" thrilled me as nothing else ever had, and from that time on the idea was never out of my head. I questioned the man and got all he knew about the distance to the border, direction, etc., and I could hardly wait till night to get telling the other boys about it. Finally we got back to the bunkhouse and I told Snipe and two or three other Canadians what I had heard. They were just as excited as I was, and we decided that if that fellow could get out of the camp, why we could too, and we made up our minds to keep working on it till we did find a way out.

One night when we were discussing the question, Snipe suggested that we cut a hole through the floor of the hut and tunnel our way out. We could make the hole under one of the bunks so it would not be easily seen by the guards. The plan seemed good to us and we began immediately to put it into operation. Snipe happened to be occupying one of the lower bunks, so we started there to cut the hole in the floor—we had only a couple of old jack-knives to work with—but after we got through the floor, we did the digging with our hands. While two of us worked the other lay on the top bunk where we had a small window, and kept watch. The floor of the shack in which we lived was two and a half feet from the ground, so there was plenty of room for the earth that we took out of the tunnel. We worked away for eight nights and by that time we had passed the inner fence, the guard and the electric wires, so we thought it was safe to come to the surface. When we got within a foot of the top we decided it was too late to attempt to get away that night, so planned to start at 11.30 the following night and that would give us time to get quite a distance away from the camp before daylight. So we went back to our bunks, and all that night we lay planning and dreaming of what we would do when we got out.

Next morning I was too excited to sleep, so very early I got up and took a walk around the fence. When I reached the place I thought our tunnel should be I took a look in that direction, and to my horror, I discovered a big hole between the two fences. I knew in an instant what had happened: when the Germans were changing guards, their weight had broken through the tunnel—I smile now as I think of the surprise it must have given them, but at the time it was a bitter disappointment. I hustled back to tell the boys, and Snipe moved into another bunk so that they couldn't fasten the blame on him. Of course we knew that the tunnel would be traced to our hut, and sure enough in about half an hour a bunch of guards came in, lined us up, and tried to make us tell what ones had attempted to escape. We all denied it, so after making a thorough search of the hut for maps and compasses they let us go. Thus ended my first attempt at escape.

Shortly after this the guard came in one morning, lined up about fifty of us, and said they were taking us away to work on farms. We were taken to the railway station, loaded on trains, and taken farther into Germany. When the train stopped and we got out, we found that we were in the centre of a coal mine district. With their usual regard for the truth they had taken us to work in the coal mines instead of on farms, and this mine where we were was well known among the prisoners of war as the "Black Hole of Germany" and it has maintained its evil reputation up to the present time.

The other camp we were in was a paradise in comparison with this. Owing to the fact that the train came up to the mines, there were no wire fences except just in the centre where the prisoners' huts were located. But there seemed to be guards everywhere. The first thing that struck us was the dirt of everything, the smoke of the coke ovens covered the whole place with a layer of soot.

It was five o'clock in the evening when we arrived, and we were this time turned loose with the other prisoners; there must have been five hundred at this camp—Russian, French, and English. We were the first Canadians to go there.

We found the barracks and every other place in a filthy condition, the beds were dirty and crawling with the largest fleas I have ever seen; these fleas are as large as ordinary mosquitos, they breed in the mine and are carried up on the men's clothes. Often these pests were so bad that the men lay out in the yard at night instead of going to bed—anyway, in the hot weather the stench from the beds is almost unbearable.

We walked out among the prisoners, and they were glad to get news of the war and of the outside world. Among other questions, they asked if London was still standing. The Germans had told them it had been levelled to the ground. Some of the men had been in the mines for two years and the stories they told were almost incredible. The Germans who guard this camp are always savage and cruel and they are urged on by the owners and operators of the mine. We talked with some of the first British prisoners who arrived there, and this is what they told us: At first they refused to work, knowing that it was contrary to international law to force prisoners of war to work in the mines. For refusing to work they were given a week of the most brutal abuse and torture possible. The weather was bitterly cold and there was a foot of snow. These men were stripped of everything but their shirt and pants and made to stand "at attention" out of doors. Any man moving hand or foot was knocked down with the butt of a rifle, and those who fainted from cold and exhaustion were dragged away and put back in their places as soon as they became conscious—while those whose strength enabled them to hold out the longest were stood in front of the cokery ovens until they were utterly exhausted by the terrific heat, and had to consent to work. The first shift that went down into the mines were driven into the cage with rifle butts and bayonets, and some of them went down unconscious. Oh, when this war is over, there will be a long day of reckoning with the German people.

After listening to such stories as these, and after seeing the poor wrecked bodies of the prisoners, you can imagine how we felt as we were marched off to work the next morning. When we were taken out, we were given our first suit of prison clothes—this consisted of overalls and smock and cap. The overalls had a four-inch stripe of red down each leg, the jacket had six inches of red down the centre of the back, and the cap had a wide red band across the top. After we got into these, we looked like a bunch of robins.

When we reached the pit-head we found a line of German civilians waiting to go down into the mines—as we waited for the cages to come up we overheard some of their conversation—of course we could not understand it, but one of the old prisoners translated it for me. The Germans had noticed that we were new men and they asked the guard what nationality we were. The guard told them we were Canadians, but the civilians said, "Oh nix! the Canadians are 'Swas'"—meaning black. They argued with the guard for fifteen minutes and then were not convinced. Finally the cage came, we were loaded in, and it started down. I shall never forget the feeling I had; I thought that we would never strike bottom. I asked an old prisoner how deep the mine was, and he said two thousand feet, and I believed him.

Well, at last the cage reached the bottom and I had my first view of a coal mine; even to my inexperienced eye things seemed to be in very bad shape. Owing to the great demand for coal, they did not take time to properly timber their mine, and the tunnels were caving in all the time—I am safe in saying that there was an average of three men killed there every week. There was never an inquiry made into these deaths.

Well, they started me to work and my job was to load up cars with the coal that the civilians hacked out. These cars held just a ton, and I had to push the loaded car onto the main tunnel or road; an engine took it the rest of the way. This was very heavy work, and often I thought my back would surely break, and it hurt me to think that the Germans were getting so much out of me. However, as the days went on we found little ways of getting back at them. For instance, the civilians were paid according to the number of tons they got out, and each man had tags with his number on them. When a car was loaded we were supposed to put one of these tags on the top, and when it reached the top of the shaft it was credited to the man whose number was on it. Well, sometimes, instead of putting the tag on the top of the load, we put it inside and piled the coal on it. At the top of the shaft, when no tag was found, the car was not credited to any one, and when pay day came and those old Germans found the paymaster did not give them credit for all the coal taken out, there surely was some fun; it did our hearts good to hear the row they made. Of course we would not have been able to play any tricks if there had been any guards around, but once we were down in the mine we were out from under military rule and working under the mine management, but the latter were just as cruel in their way as the military; they not only got every ounce of work possible out of each prisoner, but they inflicted the most terrible punishment for every slight offence. A few days after I went there, a splendid young Canadian boy from Toronto was found dead with the back of his head smashed in. He had been on night shift, and he had not been hurt in a cave-in, for our own boys found him. We asked for an investigation, but we were told to go to work and mind our own business; so we Canadians went on strike. A German who spoke a little English asked us what was the matter, and we said we wanted to find out what had killed our comrade. He laughed in our faces and said, "You are prisoners, you must do as you are told." We told him where he could go, and against the advice of all the old prisoners refused to go to work, and this was our punishment; we were stood "at attention" in fifteen-minute periods, with five minutes "at ease," until ready to go back to work. This was indeed torture—the five minutes' rest made it possible to prolong the agony. Men faint if made to stand "at attention" for many hours, but doing it this way we never lost consciousness. Guards marched up and down behind us; if we moved hand or foot we were knocked down and kicked; though they kicked us on the ankles whether we moved or not—my right ankle was so swollen I was not able to do up my boot for three weeks. Well, we stood this without food for two days and nights, and then we were so exhausted that we had to give in. The old prisoners had all been through this kind of thing, that was why they warned us not to go on strike. But no matter what the punishment was, we could not let the murder of one of our number go unnoticed.

Shortly after this we had another lesson of the same kind. An Englishman on night shift was found sleeping and the foreman who found him knocked him down a shaft and killed him. Another Britisher, who saw the murder, reported the foreman, and accused him of the murder, but when the trial came off the Britisher was given six months in prison for perjury.

But to go back to our work. We were supposed to be on eight-hour shifts—only sometimes they would make us do a double shift, or sixteen hours. When this was required they gave us an extra bread ration. The German in charge of the camp thought himself very smart because he could speak a few words of English and also write a little; so, instead of telling us that we were to come to his office for an extra ration of bread, he wrote the order on a piece of cardboard and hung it in our barracks. Seeing him hanging something up we all gathered round, and this is what we read: "You Englishmen, before going on shift, will draw your Breath at my office." Of course we all shouted and laughed at this; and the officer stood there looking as though he had been kicked and didn't know who had done it. He tumbled that there was something wrong with the notice, but all he said was "You Englaender, Schweinhunds," and went out.

It was while we were working on one of these long shifts that we thought of another way of getting even with our slave-drivers, for this is really what they were. They worked us to the last ounce of our strength; the food given us was not sufficient to keep body and soul together. We were living on our Red Cross parcels, and we ate none of the German food except the bread. It's the only time I ever worked for nothing and boarded myself. We were punished for every offence, real and imaginary, and when a man is driven harder than he can bear, and refuses to work any more, the methods used to force him to work would put any slave-driver to shame; and we were ready to do anything to try and even up the score. This is one plan that worked well.

There was a great deal of rock among the coal, and we were supposed to have two cars always on hand, and fill one with rock and the other with coal; but we thought as nature had mixed them in the mine that they should go up the same way, so we would half fill a car with stones, and then cover it over with coal. When this car reached the top it looked all right, so it was put into the dumping machine; once there it could not be stopped, and when those big rocks went rolling down into the machinery and over the sieves, there was one hell of a smash-up. Those old Germans would tear their hair with rage, but of course they couldn't tell who had done it. Finally, like everything else that went wrong, it was blamed on the "Englaenders," as we were called, and the old German who spoke English took the case in hand. One night, after coming off shift, he lined us up and said, "I have been notified that you Englanders are putting stones in between the coal, and if I hear any more of this you shall be punished severely." Some one started to laugh and we all took it up, so he stood us "at attention." No matter what was done to us we never gave them the satisfaction of letting them know it hurt. I have seen our boys die under slow torture, and always they had that grin on their faces.

This was one thing the Germans never could understand, for, as a nation, they have no spirit at all; I have seen big men blubber like children over the slightest hurt. Working with civilians, we often had the satisfaction of a scrap. We dared not touch one of the military, no matter what they said or did, for it would mean instant death; but when the civilians were extra-brutal or insulting, as they often were, we got even if we did not happen to be too greatly out-numbered. The smallest Britisher that ever went into the mine could lick the biggest Hun in a fair fight. But that was just the trouble—the Germans know nothing about the first principles of fair play. At school, instead of being taught to defend themselves with their fists, they fight with sticks or anything they can lay their hands on, and once they get their opponent down, they kick him until he gives in. So when they ran up against English-speaking people and there was a scrap in sight, they were astounded to see the Englander lay down the shovel or whatever he happened to have in his hands. They would stand and stare with their weapon half raised as they saw their opponent laying aside his only means of defence. They did not know what to expect, and while they were in this uncertain condition the Englander got in his first blow. We became quite notorious for our methods of fighting, and when we would be put to work with any new men, their first question would be, "What did you do before joining the Army?" and we always said, "We were boxers." They would smile and say, "Ich nix boxer—nice Englaender, good Englaender"—this amused us immensely and their fear of us made them use us more decently.

After I had been in the mine about six months, Snipe and I planned out a scheme by which we hoped to escape doing any work for awhile. In going through the mine, we had come across many abandoned tunnels from which the coal had been taken—in many cases these tunnels were partially caved in and were considered unsafe, and for this reason they were avoided by the miners. The idea came to us this way;—one night when Snipe and I were coming off work, we passed these tunnels, and I said to Snipe, "Say, old boy, I'm fed up with this everlasting work for these brutal Huns; let's think up some scheme for getting out of it for awhile." Snipe said, "All right. But how can we get away from these blamed 'square-heads'?" Just then we noticed one of the tunnels, and I said, "Hully gee! Snipe, what's the matter with hiding in one of these tunnels? No one ever comes here." "Golly! I believe it would work," says Snipe, pounding me on the back. We were very much excited, and when we reached our bunkhouse we told some of the other boys. They asked to come in too, so six of us laid our plans. We went down on shift as usual and followed the other miners till we came to the tunnel in which we had planned to hide. When there was no one looking, we would dodge in, and when we were missed the miners thought we had gone to work in another part of the mine; each mine boss thought we were taken to work for some one else, so no one hunted us up; of course we were in constant danger of being buried alive, but we gladly took the risk for the sake of getting a rest.

We would lie round chatting and sleeping all day, and at night, blacken our faces and join the other miners on their way to the main shaft. We worked this game for eight weeks, not always staying in the same hole, but changing around whenever we saw a likely looking place. We had a splendid rest, and it put us in better condition for what was to follow. A funny thing happened after this had been going on a few weeks. One morning two of our boys, Barney and Raeside, did not come down in the same cage with us, and as we didn't dare wait, for fear of being set to work, we were out of sight before they arrived. So they hunted up a place for themselves, and the spot they chose was between the timbers and the roof of the main tunnel. It was a good place, and they would never have been discovered if they hadn't gone to sleep and snored. But they did, and a fire boss happened to be passing at the time, so he located their hiding-place. Of course he couldn't see who was there, but he tried to poke them out with his stick. They soon woke up, but Barney whispered, "To hell with him, Mac, we won't go," so they lay still. Finally the fire boss went for help, and as soon as he left the boys came out. But they had to come out one at a time. Barney got down first; and he beat it to locate another hole. When Raeside struck the tunnel, he saw a light not far away, and he thought it must be the returning boss, so off he went in the opposite direction. Barney had the light, and was looking for a place large enough to hold them, when he heard Raeside running. He at once jumped to the conclusion that Raeside had spotted a "square-head"—and he started off to his assistance—Raeside heard some one coming on the run, and he thought it must be the boss, so he went still faster. They chased each other like this for about a mile. Then Raeside gave out: and hiding his lamp, he hid in the first hole he came to. In a moment along came Barney, puffing and blowing like a whale, and as he passed Raeside saw who it was. Then the joke of it struck him, he called Barney back, and the two of them sat down in the tunnel and laughed till they were sore. The boss never found them, and I can imagine how angry he was when he went back with his reinforcements and found his prey gone. That night the boys told us the joke they had played on themselves.

But our good time ended abruptly one Saturday when a mine inspector, or "fire-stager" as he is called, came around on his tour of inspection, and he found us hiding in a hole about three hundred yards from the main road. We put out our pit lamps when we saw him passing, and he didn't let on having seen us, so we couldn't tell whether he had or not. He was too big a coward to tackle us alone, and we knew that if he had discovered us he would go for help. We didn't know whether to run or risk staying where we were, and while we were talking about it, we heard the tramping of a lot of feet in the tunnel leading to our hiding-place. It was too late to go now, we would have to face the music. There were six of us, and Snipe suggested that if no more than ten came we would stand and fight, but if there were more we had best make a running fight and escape to some other part of the mine. We decided to do this, and while we were waiting for them to come in we filled our pockets with stones.

But the foreman had no intention of bringing his men in—he lined them up, ten on a side, opposite the hole through which we must come out—they were armed with sticks, pieces of heavy rubber hose, and anything they could lay their hands on. After lining them up he made them hide their lamps under the jackets so that we wouldn't be able to see them when we came out. Then, when he got them fixed to his liking, he very bravely marched in where we were and said, "Alle Englaender?" We said, "Yes." He said, "You Schweinhunds!" At that one of our boys jumped and made a pass at him, crying, "You big square-headed German, I'll knock your head off, I wouldn't take that from your Kaiser Bill." The German backed up and avoided the blow, saying tauntingly, "Ah, nix, Englaender." Then he asked us why we were not working, and we said we had got tired and were taking a rest. He said "Komm' mit." We said, "Oh no." When he saw we had no intention of going he began to make promises. He said that if we would only go back to work he would not report us and we would not be punished in any way.

We did not believe him, and we trusted his promises about as long as it took him to make them; but, as Snipe said, we might as well take a chance on it, for we had to get out, and there was only one road to go. Of course he couldn't understand us, but we had picked up enough German to make out everything he said. Well, we pretended to believe him and we started out, walking in couples. When the first two reached the main road two lights flashed out, and the clubs commenced to whistle through the air. The boys shouted "duck!"—and, believe me, we did. We started down between those two lines of Germans, and seeing there were so many we thought it best just to make a run for it. In going through, three of our boys got knocked down, and the rest of us got some bad whacks over the head and back but we kept our feet. The last two Germans on the line got scared when they heard us coming and started to run. They were on the road just ahead of us, and we made a dash after them. They were a considerable distance from the main body when we overtook them, and I remember one of the boys saying, "We'll make these square-headed devils pay for what we've received"—and believe me, we did. Instead of going home to their supper that night, I'll bet they went to the doctor.

Well, when this scrap was all over and we got to the top of the shaft, the mine inspector that had caught us reported us to the military authorities, and their punishment was five hours "at attention." When we had put this in, they allowed us to go to our bunks. The next day was Sunday, and we were peacefully sleeping when a big German came in and called out our numbers. We asked him what he wanted, and he said we had to go on the Coke-o-roy. We certainly knew what this meant.

The coke ovens were attached to the mine, and most of the coal taken out was made into coke. Work on the ovens was so hard and so trying on account of the great heat, that they used this as a punishment for anything that was done wrong in the mines. This is what the German who could speak English told us. The morning we were put on, he lined us up and read this to us, "If you Englaenders does not do your work right beneath the mine, we put you on coke ovens, and there, if you shall not work, you shall die." We all laughed at this, and he said, "You England Schweinhunds!" and went away.

But it was sure a punishment. The regular hours through the week was a twelve-hour shift, and each man was obliged to shovel thirty-two tons of coke, wheel it from ten to twenty yards along the platform, and dump it into railway cars. On Sunday the shift was twenty-four hours long, and each one had to handle sixty-four tons of coke. If you were not through when your time was up, you must keep at it till you did the required number of tons and then start back to work again with your shift.

It was on the twenty-four-hour shift that we started our work. We went on at 7 A.M. on Sunday, and we worked from that until 7 Monday morning. Almost as soon as I went on the ovens I met two of my old pals, Nickelson and Macdonald. They had been put here for attempting to escape from the mine, and had been at this job for a week before we arrived. We were mighty glad to see each other, for we all belonged to the same "school." But a "school" in a German prison camp does not mean the same as it does in America. We got the idea from the British Tommy, only he calls it "mucking it." It is made up of a bunch of boys who put all their parcels in together and go fifty-fifty on everything. Sharing with each other brought us a little closer together than we otherwise would have been.

Well, these were in our little "school" and had also shared in our rest-cure up to the time of their attempted escape. So when they saw us come on the ovens, they knew exactly what had happened. As I passed Nick, he said, "Which would you rather do, Jack, work on the coke oven or go to church?" I laughed and said, "Well, I guess, the church has it this time." After awhile I happened to be beside Mac, and I said, "Speaking of baseball, Mac, do they serve afternoon tea here?" He said, "Well, they used to, but you know tea has gone up, and as a substitute they serve out a little hell." And believe me, I hadn't been there long before I found that this was literally true.