Then some sensitive Canadian wished the Australians luck and hoped they’d finish it up as well as they had the affair in the Dardanelles. After that, our two days’ rest was made up principally of beating it out of “estaminets” when strategic requirements suggested a new base, or beating it into “estaminets” where it looked as if we could act as efficient re-inforcements. The fight never stopped for forty-eight hours, and the only places it didn’t extend to were the church and the hospitals. I’ll bet, to this day, that the Belgians who run the “estaminets” in Poperinghe will duck behind the bars if you just mention Canada and Australia in the same breath. But I’m bound to say that it was good, clean fighting. Nobody fired a shot, nobody pulled a bayonet, and nobody got the wrong idea about anything. The Australian heavy-weight champion who landed on me went right out in the street and saluted one of our lieutenants. We had just one satisfying reflection after the fight was over. The Australian battalion that relieved us fell heir to the counter attack which the Germans sent across to even up on our bombing raid. We began our march to the Somme by a hike to St. Ohmer, one of the early British headquarters in Europe. Then we stopped for a week about twenty miles from Calais, where we underwent a course of intensified training for open fighting. The infantry tactics, in which we were drilled, were very similar to those of the United States army--those which, in fact, were originated by the United States troops in the days of Indian fighting. We covered most of the ground around Calais on our stomachs in open order. While it may seem impertinent for me, a mere non-com., to express an opinion about the larger affairs of the campaign, I think I may be excused for saying that the war didn’t at all take the course which was expected and hoped for after the fight on the Somme. Undoubtedly, the Allies expected to break through the German line. That is well known now. While we were being trained near Calais for open warfare, a very large force of cavalry was being assembled and prepared for the same purpose. It was never used.