d.

It was on such a dawn as this that poor Jack L----, my platoon-sergeant,
was killed. The fog had lifted a little, revealing an enemy patrol to
our listening post.

He, taking the nearest two men with him, went out in search of them, and
a flare falling near the little party showed them up to the enemy
snipers. He alone was hit.

We buried him in the battalion cemetery the next day, the colonel
reading the service over his body, and we thought as we lowered him into
his grave what a very good friend he had been.

It was not very many days later that we changed from this brigade area
to another, leaving Ploegsteert with its memories, sad and otherwise,
behind us.

CHAPTER XIX

IN FRONT OF MESSINES

The Second Canadian Division arrived in France during our stay in
Ploegsteert, and after a short rest took over a sector on the right of
St. Eloi and in front of Messines.

Here it was that we relieved them about a fortnight later--our third
move while in front of this grim hill, the scene of such hard fighting
in October of the year before.

The line at this point swung forward in a small salient to within fifty
yards of the enemy--the only footing we now held on this famous
ridge--and to the Toronto and Eastern Ontario Battalions fell the honour
of guarding this point all winter.

Here, too, we were to learn something of grenade and mine warfare such
as the other two battalions of our brigade had been waging all summer
near Ploegsteert.

And the little graveyard in rear of the line was to receive the bodies
of many of our comrades and hold them in common sanctity with those of
other gallant men, British and French, Highlanders and Turcos, who had
perished on the slopes of Messines.

For a week we systematically registered our guns on new points in the
enemy's second and third lines--the usual preliminary to an
offensive--and bombarded them severely.

This was done to prevent the enemy from moving any of his guns from this
area to the southern end of the line, where, now that the weather was
again favourable, the British were to make another thrust.

For this purpose, too, we were to make a "little demonstration" on our
front, using smoke bombs to make the enemy believe we were going to use
gas, and, to our great satisfaction, it was announced that in those
areas where the real offensive was being made the Germans would be
treated to a dose of their own poison. Too long we had waited and
allowed