e comforts and privations of life in the barracks, moved
by a common impulse of patriotism and chivalry, longing for the day to
come when they could prove their mettle under fire.

But it was not until February 1916 that they went abroad. After three
months of intensive training they were hardened, supple, and skillful.
But their military education was not yet complete. Commanders of
armies know that raw or semi-raw troops are worse than useless in
modern warfare. Soldiers in these days must know their business
thoroughly if they are to meet an enemy on equal terms. They must be
artisans as well as soldiers, laborers as well as riflemen, human
machines compounded of blood and courage.

So, in a great camp not far from London, there were three months more
of drill and discipline and drastic preparation for the firing line.

But at last, in late May, when the young grass was green on England's
lawns, and the wings of birds were flashing everywhere in the
sunshine, and nature was rioting in leaf and flower, a troop-ship,
laden to the gunwales with the finest and the best of Canada's young
patriots and many of the most stalwart youth of the States, landed on
the welcoming shore of France. In England evidences of the great war
had been marked, abundant and harrowing. But here, in the country
whose soil had been invaded, the grim and stirring actualities of the
mighty conflict were brought home to the onlooker with startling
distinctness. At the railroad station, where the troops entrained for
the front, every sight and sound was eloquent with the tenseness of
preparation and the tragedy of the long fight. Soldiers were
everywhere. Coats of blue, trousers of red, jackets of green, gave
color and variety to the prevailing mass of sober khaki. Here too,
dotting the hurrying throng, were the pathetic figures of the stricken
and wounded, haggard, bandaged, limping, maimed, on canes and
crutches, back from the front, released from the hospitals, seeking
the rest and quiet that their sacrifices and heroism had so well
earned. And here too, ministering to the needs of the suffering and
the helpless, were many of the white-robed nurses of the Red Cross.

It was evening when the train bearing the first section of the --th
Battalion of Canadian Light Infantry to which Pen and Aleck belonged
steamed slowly out of the station. All night, in the darkness, across
the fields and through the fine old forests of northern France the
slow r