In April the 25th Battalion took over the line at St. Eloi where they remained about six weeks. This was beyond a doubt the most trying experience which the Battalion had to that time or has since been called upon to endure. There were no front line trenches. Five mine craters had to be occupied, since the front line trenches were all destroyed, and the men had to occupy most exposed positions. Every hole and every remnant remaining of a trench were used as the only possible cover, and mud, muck and water prevailed. Under continually heavy and harrowing fire and attacks the Battalion endured, though at the price of the loss of hundreds of its personnel. The German artillery fire in the Ypres Salient was the heaviest of the War. With enemy artillery on three sides, the situation may better be imagined than described. One crater that was occupied by the Battalion was attacked no less than five times between dusk and dawn in one night alone, but the crater was held. When the garrison was relieved there were not enough men left to bring out the wounded and a relief party had to be sent in for that purpose. On this front all intercommunication was impossible and isolated parties held the lines. The Battalion was highly commended by the higher command for their excellent work on this front. The Battalion spent 339 days on the Belgian Front, of which 164 days were spent in actual front line trenches. Many good officers and men were killed or wounded. Among the former was Lieutenant Douglas, who was killed while fighting with the 6th (Western) Brigade in the craters of St. Eloi. Lieutenant Douglas was Battalion Machine Gun Officer and had been loaned with the machine gun section to the 6th Brigade during the furious onslaughts which the Hun was making on the craters. The men with Lieutenant Douglas were all killed excepting five who were captured. Besides the Kemmel and St. Eloi Sectors, the 25th Battalion were engaged at Vierstraat, Ploegsteerte, Hill 60, Hooge and Messines. And it was here, also, that the Battalion obtained “Robert the Bruce,” mascot and veteran of three years’ service in the land of his birth. It would be hard for one to see the immense, sleek goat now on the farm of Major Matheson at Baddeck and endeavor to imagine the same animal, two weeks old, hardly bigger than a cat, feeding from a bottle in the hands of Pipe-Major Carson in the kitchen of the band’s billet in Locre. But they are one and the same animal. The members of the band bought him from the “Madame” of the house for two francs (40c.), and trained him to “swank” in front of the pipe band, eat cigarettes, drink beer, and demand his blanket at “lights out.” He added many other traits and tricks to his repertoire before the Battalion was disbanded, and many a would-be possessor of our mascot has felt the force of his “butt” sufficiently to make them all leave “Robert the Bruce” strictly to his own Battalion.