"The Canadian Highlanders received that discharge, and, though they showed themselves to be among the most gallant soldiers who ever fought like heroes in a righteous cause, they were compelled to fall back. Yet, even so, the Teutons did not break the line. On every side, the German forces poured in. They threw army corps after army corps into the gap. At one time, there were fourteen Germans against one Canadian, and the artillery concentration was as sixty shells to one. "Yet the men held firm, knowing, that hour by hour, even minute by minute, the gap behind them was being closed by reënforcements. They died, and died willingly, to save the day. Neither poison gas--remember, they had no masks, for the gas was a surprise only of the night before--artillery, nor overwhelming odds could break the line. The officers ran to the foremost places in the trenches and died, fighting, with the men. Every Canadian reserve was hurled into the breach, to charge and counter-attack for a few minutes before they died, that others, following, also might hold the foe for a few moments, and then die. "By the middle of Friday morning, British reënforcing brigades had come up. They reached the Canadian lines. "The British halted, sent up a cheer for Canada, for a heroic fight seldom equaled in the annals of war, a fight which has given Canada a glory equal to the splendor of Belgium at Liége, of France at the Marne and of the Irish and Scotch at the Aisne, and, cheering still, the British drove at the Germans. "Without a single moment of rest for two days and nights, the struggle continued, and, by Sunday morning, the gap was closed and the German opportunity was gone. Every advance was dammed back by rifle-fire, even though the fingers that pulled the triggers were already writhing in the intolerable agony which precedes a death from asphyxiating gas. "Once, indeed, during the second British charge, all seemed lost, for the charge failed, and halted. For a moment it seemed to give way, then a cry ran along the English lines. "'The Bowmen! The Bowmen of Agincourt!' "And the British, peering through the cloud of gas, saw, before them, the ghostly shapes of ranks upon ranks of English archers, such as had fought upon the field of Europe exactly five hundred years before. Their short armor gleamed against the hideous greenish cloud and the bowstrings twanged as they released the cloth-yard arrow shafts, drawn to the head. "Once before, at Mons, at the time when St. George also had appeared on the right wing of the English, the left wing had seen the bowmen, when they drove back the flanking German host, and victory had been theirs for the moment. "Remembering this, triumph rang in the shout which reverberated through the English lines: "'The Bowmen! The Bowmen of Agincourt!'