The third night, the twenty-first, we were not going to give "Fritzie" a chance to come across, but we were going to push him back. If a man tells you he was not nervous going "Over the Top" for the first time, he lies. I felt nervous, though I never confessed it, and I wager everyone else felt the same way, as we had to wait about two hours, after being told we were going over. At eight o'clock we were sent up to a small communication trench about half way across No Man's Land, on the side toward the enemy. It cut across diagonally. There was a good-sized gap, on which some snipers had their rifles trained. At this point, we lost a few of our company. It was a case of running the gauntlet for each man who passed it. All of us had to pass it three different times; for, in our first advance, the order was cancelled, so we had to return till later on. About nine o'clock, at dusk, we finally went ahead to the end of the communication trench. Here we branched out on either side, and spread out in open order, to charge. By this time my nervousness had disappeared. My mind was set on the one object of getting someone--and I gripped my gun, and prayed for all the strength I could muster. With a wild cry of _"Lusitania,"_ we received the orders to go. All I could do was yell to the boys to give them "beans," for I was knocked down, and found my right leg was half blown off, just below the thigh. If the boys hadn't taken their objective that night, I should have been a prisoner, instead of a hospital case, for over twenty months, in England. I'm just a plain buck private, Who fought with Canada's Sons, In a regiment of the Maple Leaf, That made it hot for the Huns. I'm just a plain buck private, And fought on the side of right, To serve the world for democracy, And beat the Hunnish might. I'm just a plain buck private, From the land of ice and snow, And gave all I could, for my country, To help to vanquish the Foe. It was probably an hour or two after the advance that some of the men came to see what they could do for us. In my particular case the shrapnel, which had penetrated and completely shattered the right femur, had also numbed the nerves, therefore I was left conscious. However, one of our battalion sergeants tied up the top of the leg for me with a length of cord, which I was always in the habit of carrying. Four of the machine gunners, who had just returned from the new trench, made an attempt to carry me into the old communication trench, but their good intentions were completely frustrated by the company captain, a real cantankerous sort, who levelled his revolver at me, and declared he would shoot, if the boys took me in. Though I felt sore, in more ways than one, I came to the conclusion that he was perfectly right, as it might have blocked the trench to the reserves coming up.