enemy
aircraft, combined with the terrific cannonading of their lines, had
evidently convinced the enemy that some aggressive movement against
them was in contemplation, for their artillery fire now, at seven
o'clock, was directed squarely upon the outer lines of British
trenches, bringing havoc and horror in the wake of the exploding
shells.

It was under this galling bombardment that the men of the second
section adjusted their packs, buckled the last strap of their
equipment, took firm bold of their rifles, and crouched against the
front wall of their trench, ready for the final spring.

[Illustration: Into the Face of Death He Led the Remnant of His Brave
Platoon]

At seven-thirty o'clock the order came. It was a sharp blast of a
whistle, made by the commanding officer. The next moment, led by
Lieutenant Butler, the men were up, sliding over the parapet, worming
their way through gaps in their own wire entanglements, and forming in
the semblance of a line outside. It all took but a minute, and then
the rush toward the enemy trenches began. It seemed as though every
gun of every calibre in the German army was let loose upon them. The
artillery shortened its range and dropped exploding shells among them
with dreadful effect. Machine guns mowed them down in swaths.
Hand-grenades tore gaps in their ranks. Rifle bullets, hissing like
hail, took terrible toll of them. Out of the blackness overhead, lit
with the flame of explosions, fell a constant rain of metal, of clods
of earth, of fragments of equipment, of parts of human bodies. The
experience was wild and terrible beyond description.

Pen took no note of the whining and crashing missiles about him, nor
of the men falling on both sides of him, nor of the shrieking,
gesticulating human beings behind him. Into the face of death, his
eyes fixed on the curtain of fire before him, heroic and inspired, he
led the remnant of his brave platoon. Through the gaps torn out of the
enemy entanglements by the preliminary bombardment, and on into the
first line of Boche entrenchments they pounded and pushed their way.
Then came fighting indeed; hand to hand, with fixed bayonets and
clubbed muskets and death grapples in the darkness, and everywhere,
smearing and soaking the combatants, the blood of men. But the first
trench, already battered into a shapeless and shallow ravine, was won.
Canada was triumphant. The curtain of artillery fire lifted and fell
on the enemy's third l