To my horror the first thing he did when we got fairly out was to strike a match and light his pipe. Like lightning I jumped from his side. "My God! Corporal, what are you doing?" "What's the excitement?" he asked, puffing calmly. "You'll get sniped as sure as fate." Then it was he showed the typical fatalism of the soldier. "Son, if I'm going to get hit, I'll get it; but if it's not my turn, I wouldn't get it if I lit a bloomin' bonfire." "If you take unnecessary chances you'll get it." "Don't be afraid, lad, I'm not throwing my life away. You are as safe with me as you would be up in the trench." We soon ran on to their listening patrol, but my corporal had not been in three campaigns for nothing. He took me, to my excited imagination, almost to their very feet. They were talking like mad and we had evidently been seen a few minutes before, for they rushed to the spot we had occupied just before they got there. We circled about for a few hours and finally decided that Fritz had dug in for the night. Toward daylight, an order came for all Canadians who had stayed behind to go down to the rear, as the Canadians had been relieved. How tired we all were; I did not care if I lived or died. We ran on isolated bunches of Germans, with some of whom we exchanged a few shots. At last we emerged on the road, and, to my dying day, I shall never forget the sights that met our eyes. Everywhere were shell craters, both on the road and on each side of us. In every shrine, where the Belgians placed their crucifixes, men in agony from the gas had crawled and died there; dead bodies, dead horses, wrecked ambulance cars, gun limbers, ammunition limbers, and in one place were six of the very finest horses I have ever seen, with their drivers, dead. Villages, where the people had been living when we went up, were now utterly desolate; everything a smoldering mass of ruins, such had been the fury of that shell fire. And it was still going on, shells screaming over us or bursting close by. At one place the Boches had pushed so far forward that they were only a short distance from the road and they opened up on us, but only succeeded in wounding a few. Finally we came down to an open space and found the brigade busily cooking breakfast. "Hurrah," thought I, "grub and a sleep." Hastily I began to look around for something to eat, but alas, the order came to be ready to advance again. I was utterly weary, but it couldn't be helped. Finding my own crowd, who had been fortunate enough to get in a few hours' sleep and were correspondingly cheerful, I fell in, and in skirmishing order we began the advance.