round, knowing it meant many nights of hard work to
restore these, and mentally decided to join the artillery in the next
war, as they alone had enjoyed the afternoon's work.

The German guns had certainly been kept busy, and it was some
consolation to read in their report of the affair that "an attack using
gas on a thirty-mile front had been repulsed with heavy losses to the
enemy."

We had produced the desired effect.

Below La Bassee the 46th Division had been equally successful and gained
the Hohenzollern Redoubt, while on their right in the vicinity of Loos
the 4th Corps were holding nearly twelve hundred yards of German
front-line trench.

It had been a good day's work, but summer was now over and good weather
could not be depended on, so no further offensive was made, though
fighting of the most stubborn and desperate sort took place around the
newly-gained ground, which was, however, successfully consolidated.

During the remainder of the month, except for the exploding of a mine
and aerial activity, there was little that occurred on the Canadian
front.

CHAPTER XX

MINE WARFARE

Among the other things we took over from the outgoing battalion when we
first moved into this position was the care and continuance of a mine,
and this mine was to form our chief worry as long as we held that line.

At first we were inclined to regard the mining officers--of which we had
two--as a sort of nuisance like engineers, trench mortar men, and some
others, who were always demanding men for carrying and working parties.
But we were not long in finding that they were, like ourselves,
necessary evils, and they became welcome guests at our little mess when
in the trench.

Whenever the trenches approach as close as they did at this point mine
warfare becomes inevitable, and it is a game at which it is best to be
first.

To defend a position against this method of attack one commences a
counter-mine at a depth sufficient to take the gallery or tunnel
underneath the enemy's one, which, once it is located, is blown in
before they manage to get under the defenders' trench. The tunnel or
gallery is barely large enough for a man to crawl along on his hands and
knees, and must be boarded foot by foot as it progresses to prevent it
from collapsing.

In this cramped position the sapper wields his pick, a peculiar affair
not unlike a harpoon, and scrapes the loosened earth back with a short
grubber to another man who