I met Major Moore, of the Canadian Division, who told me the Canadians had been "at it hard." Another Canadian acquaintance, a wounded officer, came past, and told me something of the situation. The Canadians had won laurels that morning by an action which showed clearly the great military value of individual initiative in the private soldier. That is the quality that made British generals think the Australian and New Zealand soldiers who were lost at the Dardanelles the finest men that had yet been produced in the great world-war. In dug-outs in front of Wieltje and west of St. Julien, some of the Canadians were unaware of the gas attack until the Germans had driven the French well back and come on after them to such close quarters that the grey lines were clearly visible to the surprised Canadian eyes. Grabbing rifles and ammunition pouches, with no time for company or battalion formation, officers and men rushed toward the advancing lines of Huns, and seeking such cover as could be found, opened a fierce fire at short range. The natural, inborn individual fighting spirit of men raised in the open--men to whose hands a rifle was no stranger--met the situation with such instinctive cohesion of action that the Huns were driven back and the line saved. A 5th Corps Staff officer told us the Canadians had actually saved the day and had established, during the early hours of the morning, a crescent-shaped line from the Canal south-east of Boesinghe to a point just north of St. Julien, the crescent bending southward as the line crossed the Ypres-Langemarck road. From this line they were gradually being forced south by heavy German attacks. From one to two o'clock our Divisional Headquarters waited by the roadside in the western edge of Poperinghe while our three brigades came up, preparatory to a move toward the scene of battle. That hour of inaction was crammed with scenes that told of the heavy fighting ahead of us. Lyne-Stephens, convoying a couple of dozen of the splendid Du Cros ambulances, full to overflowing with shattered men, hurried past _en route_ for Hazebrouck. As a hospital train of twelve coaches, every available corner containing a wounded Tommy, steamed west, scores of motor omnibuses hurried eastward toward the sound of the guns, every khaki-coloured 'bus with its complement of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Terriers of the North Midland Division. Refugees laden with cardboard boxes, pushing loaded bicycles or pulling-carts groaning under tall piles of household effects, added to the road's congestion. Detachments of infantry marching on, guns rattling up, ammunition trains urging their claims to special facilities for a clear road, added to the _mêlée_.