The Escape of a Princess Pat

nd the Last Stand o

Attack-The P.P's Chosen to Stem the Tide-The Trust of a Lady-Chao

s "Stand-to." I rubbed my eyes, swore and rose to my feet. Such was the narrowness of the trench that the movement put me at

xcept for such times as they had assaulted our position. The smoke of Ypres and all th

deadly quiet, as was usual at that time of the trench day when the tense

e came from the batteries in concealed positions on our right, whence, as on the fourth, they poured in a very destructive enfilade fire which swept up and down the length of the trench like the

ors of an intense bombardment. It is not that man himself lacks the imaginative gift of words but that he has not the word tool

rs only the indescribable confusion and the bursting claps of near-by flame, as foul in color and as ill of smell as an addled egg. He knows only

t and his observer, the latter signaling. No gun of ours answered. The dea

also very prettily in the open order we had ourselves been taught. Every field and hedge spewed them up. We stood, head and shoulders exposed abo

shion. I called that fact to the attention of Lieutenant Lane, who was the only off

. And the official records of the Canadian Eye Witness, Lord Beaverbrook, then Sir Max Aitken, as given in "Canada in Flanders," state that "Those who survive and the friends of those who have died may draw solace from the thought that never in the history

that a small detachment of the King's Shropshire Light Infantry, a sister regiment in our brigade, fetched

dragged up into place. The aeroplane came out again, dropping to within three hundred feet of our trench, and with tiny jets of vari-colored smoke bombs, directed the terribly accurat

utely wiped out. This time there was no rapid fire, nor even any looking over the top to see if the enemy were coming on. Instead, the Germans fairly combed the parapet with their machine guns. Each indication of curiosity from

om all sides, and especially from our unprotected flanks and rear, hindered only by the desultory rifle fire of our two weakened companies in the support trenches. We were receivi

ar there a short time before, and I never saw him or any of the gun crew again. The only living soul near that spot was Royston, dragging hims

nada in Flan

used again. One was actually disinterred three times and kept in action till a shell annihilated the whole section. Corporal Dover stuck to his gun throughout and, although wounded, continued to discharge his duties with as much coolness as if on parade. In the explosion that ended his ill-fated gun, he lost a leg and an arm, and was completely buried in the débris. Conscious or unconscious, he lay there in th

t the gray mass of the oncoming ho

moment later, as I fired from the parapet, my bayonet was broken off by

of the Germans swarmed i

to the fire trench on the right. At this point all the Princess Patricias had been killed, so that this part of the trench was actually tenantless. Those who estab

h, fortunately for me, it was an erroneous one. So I am glad for othe

m, planning to go down to where the communication trench had once been. But he

head off. Young Brown broke down at this-they had just done in his wounded pal: "Oh, look! Look what they've done to Dav

CANADIAN ATTACK, BRINGING WOUNDED ME

ptor placed the muzzle of his rifle squarely against the palm and blew it

g his head loosely about in the wild pain of it, his pallid face a white mark in the muck underfoot. A

ly the convulsive heaving of the loose earth indicated that a man was dying underneath. Another German o

ugh the jaw so that he went to his knees as a bullock does at the slaughtering. He supported himself w

man stood

ay the game! Play the ga

ly put a round

and seeing these things, said t

y're murdering us. No use

s no use in my stopping to share his fate or worse. It was n

ing was bad. I was indistinctly aware of a great deal of promiscuous shooting at me, but most distinctly of one German who shot at me about ten times in as many yards and from quite close range. I saw I could not make it. I flung myself into a Johnson

tand. And I scrambled to my feet in time to see a German sullenly lower his r