That night the shelling was wicked, and we lost heavily. Our boys came along with a few prisoners, and as they couldn't get through the shell fire we allowed them to share our hole. They went out next morning, and the Huns wanted to shake hands with us for being so kind to them, but I gave one the toe of my boot and pointed the way out. Our artillery had made things unbearable for the Germans by this time, and they pulled out, leaving only a few snipers to harass us. McMurchie crawled over with a bomb and brought two of the snipers back with him. It was a funny sight to see them going up the road; those big six footers walking ahead of little Mac; the latter was barely five feet; but he marched proudly along, keeping his bayonet mighty close to them. The same day our cavalry went over, but they ran into a nest of machine guns and their little bunch was cut to pieces; it was dreadful to see the poor frightened horses running in all directions. That night we were relieved and we went to a place called Sauage Valley. Here I said "Good-bye" to Bink; he was starting back to Blighty to get his commission. I went down the road with him and watched him till he was out of sight, and then I'm not ashamed to say that I went off into a shell hole by myself and cried like a kid. He was the last one of the old boys that had signed up with me, and now he was gone. It's hard enough to lose friends at home, but in the Army a fellow's pals are all that make life bearable. I never saw Bink again--he joined the flying corps and came down in Flanders with five bullets through his head. Well, after Binkie went, I didn't care a hang what happened. We put in another twenty-four hours in the trenches and then we started on our long march up north. We reached our destination and went into the trenches at S----. We relieved the English troops, and were there right up till Christmas. It was very quiet except for a few big raids that we pulled off; but the mud was awful. We waded through mud and water up past our waists going into the front lines, and once there we had to keep pumping all the time. Each day we would have a trench mortar scrap from two o'clock till five, and we would blow each other's trenches to pieces. I was in the trenches on Christmas day and I had two bottles of champagne that we had managed to smuggle in. I was in charge of the Stokes gun crew at that time, and I sent Tommy down to Headquarters for orders. As he left I said, "Now, Tommy, if you bring me my leave check, I'll give you five francs." After awhile Tommy came back and said, "Bob, hand out those five francs, here's your leave check." I threw him the money, and away I beat it along the trench as fast as my feet could carry me. It would have taken a "whiz-bang" to catch up to me that day. It was Xmas afternoon when I left the trenches, and the next day at 5 o'clock, still muddy and carrying my pack and rifle, I stumbled off the train at