front line had been unmasked and were cutting wire
with desperate rapidity, though their crews were practically wiped out a
few moments later, and in the midst of this turmoil the mine went up.

It was quite the largest mine that had been exploded along the front,
and the tremor of the earth could only be compared to an earthquake.

So eager was the engineer officer to reach the German trench, that,
finding he was striking water underground, he loaded in something like
a ton and a half of explosive to make certain. Thus he achieved the
double result of winning the Military Cross for his skill and blowing up
a portion of our front line, from which fortunately our men had been
withdrawn.

But a number of our own men were killed and wounded, and, what was far
worse, another reserve depot of bombs was buried under the _debris_ of
the explosion.

In the meantime, masked by the fountain of earth thrown up by the mine,
the attack had been launched and was already in the first German line,
the bombers were beginning to work along the trench to the right and
left, and the little flags that marked their progress could be seen
moving slowly to the left to link up with the East Yorks.

But the East Yorks had been unable to advance owing to the wire not
having all been cut and the machine-gun fire that enfiladed them from
their flanks.

Meanwhile the Canadians had gained the third German line, but already
the shortage of bombs was beginning to be felt, and they were forced
back to the second line, where they established blocks in the trench
and were able to hang on until the following day, when the German
counter-attack forced them to fall back to our own front line.

[Illustration: AFTER GIVENCHY.

Left to right: Capt. Birdsall, Winnipeg Brown, Ponton, Capt. Richardson,
Gutty.]

The brigade had lost heavily. Of twenty-three officers of the Central
Ontario Battalion who went over the parapet only three returned
uninjured, the remainder being either killed, wounded, or missing!

Nor had the Yorks fared much better.

During the second day of the affair the writer was moving up a narrow
communication trench with a platoon carrying ammunition to the front
line when he encountered a party of about the same strength coming down
the trench in defiance of a notice board marked "In only." After asking
in vain for the officer in charge of the party he was told "For God's
sake, sir, we aren't any party. We're all that's left of t