d to get into the real fighting. For
my part, I was heartily sick of the whole thing, and all that made it
bearable was the close friendship I had formed with some of the boys in
my platoon; about a dozen of them were my close friends. I shall name
a few of these, so that you may recognize them when they appear farther
on in my story; there were "Bink," Steve, Mac, Bob, Tom, Jack, Scottie,
and also our "dear old Chappie"; the last-named was one of those
quiet-going Englishmen who always mean what they say and who invariably
addressed every one as "my deah chappie," but he was a good old scout
and everybody liked him. Our Sergeant, known among the boys as "Yap,"
is another interesting character; his heart was the biggest thing about
him and his voice came next. If he wanted you to do anything he spoke
loud enough to be heard a mile away; if you didn't do as he ordered,
you could never bring in the excuse of not having heard. Then there
was our Corporal, who got the name of "Barbed-wire Pete," so called
because when the order came to grow moustaches his attempt looked like
a barbed-wire entanglement. Now for our Lance Corporal, who when he
got to France was known as "Flare-pistol Bill." He early developed a
mania for shooting up flares in the front-line trench at night. We had
two Yankees in our bunch--"Uncle Sam," who was the oldest man in the
platoon, and "Baldy," who only wore a fringe of hair. One day in the
trenches one of the boys noticed Baldy scratching his head on a spot
where there was still a little hair, and he said, "Hey, Baldy, chase
him out into the open; you'll have a better chance to catch him there."
Now, I realize that this bunch of boys may sound very commonplace to
the average reader, but we went through more than one hell together and
I found them white clear through, and heroes every one of them. They
included farmers, firemen, business men, university men, hoboes, and
socialists. Some mixture!--but it was out of this kind of stuff that
our Canadian Army was made, and I am not ashamed of their record.

[Illustration: 28TH BATTALION LEAVING WINNIPEG ON THE 27TH OF MAY, 1915]

Now that I have introduced you to some of my friends, I will go back to
the time when we left Winnipeg. After many false rumours, at last the
day came when we were to start. On the 26th of May, 1915, the order
came out that we were to entrain the following morning--we were all
confined to barracks and every one was