For two days and two nights I was firing continuously. My rifle became so hot that I had to fill my hands with dirt before firing. The fighting became so fierce that we had to employ men to do nothing else but carry ammunition to us from 200 yards in the rear. We were two and one-half miles to the left of the British. The Germans, but for us, could have got reinforcements, but we Canadians were in the way. We expected, at first, to attack them, as they were only sixty yards away. We had constructed special bridges to cross a ten-yard stream near by. Our work was to fire upon the German reserves in the rear, and this we easily did, because our guns carried for two miles. The Germans were defeated largely because they supposed the British had plenty of reinforcements. The whole thing began suddenly at 2:30 in the morning, after a quiet day. It was an earthquake. Our company until then had fought in no real battle and had lost only five men. Other companies used to declare that we had some guardian angel to protect us. Anyhow, many say that I had some guardian angel to protect me--and I am sure that I did. Three men volunteered to go and cut the wire entanglements. Bullets were humming through the air. They crawled forth--to their deaths, we thought--but succeeded in cutting nearly all. So the Germans thought we were about to attack them. As soon as the Germans discovered what our men had done, we poured a withering fire over the broken wires, so that no man could live to reach and repair them. The English bombarded the Germans for two whole days. Then we heard cries, and fast by us went the Black Watch, a Scotch regiment, and the Coldstream Guards. It was between 4 and 5 in the morning that they passed us, and within ten minutes they had captured the three first lines of the Germans. The Germans lost 25,000 men and 3,000 prisoners. Our loss was between 10,000 and 12,000. Two days later troops came to relieve us, and in time, for we were well-nigh exhausted. We marched at night to Estaires, a pretty village eight miles away. Our men were so worn out that they dropped from weariness on the way. We spent eight days in this town and were royally treated by the French. At midnight of the eighth day we were warned to get ready for marching again. We walked twenty-seven kilometers to Cassel, where General Dorrien, who was in charge of the battle when the English retreated from Mons in France, in the early part of the war, told us that he was going to take charge of the whole Canadian division, and that our regiment would be transferred to another army corps. He gave us three days' rest, and told us we were to occupy French trenches at Ypres. VI--"WHAT I SAW AT YPRES"