ed and hungry. They had been in
France, I think, only twenty-four hours. At any rate, they had had a
long march, and, as it turned out, were going up, most of them, to
their death, I took great pleasure in hailing them cheerfully and
telling them that it was all right, as the Canadians had held the
line, and that the Germans were not going to get through. One sergeant
said, "You put a lot of braces in my tunic when you talk like that,
Sir." Nothing is more wonderful than the way in which men under tense
anxiety will respond to the slightest note of cheer. This was the case
all through the war. The slightest word or suggestion would often turn
a man from a feeling of powerless dejection into one of defiant
determination. These young Britishers whom I met that morning were a
splendid type of men. Later on the machine-gun fire over the fields
mowed them down in pitiful and ruthless destruction. As I journeyed
towards Ypres I saw smoke rolling up from various parts of the city
and down the road, in the air, I saw the flashes of bursting shrapnel.
I passed St. Jean and made my way to my house by the canal.

The shutters were still shut and the door was open. I entered and
found in the dining room that the lamp was still burning on the table.
It was now about seven o'clock and Mr. Vandervyver had returned and
was upstairs arranging his toilet. I went out into the garden and
called one of the sentries to tell Murdoch MacDonald to come to me.
While I was talking to the sentry, an officer came by and warned me to
get away from that corner because the Germans were likely to shell it
as it was the only road in the neighbourhood for the passage of troops
to and from the front. When Murdoch arrived, I told him I wanted to
have breakfast, for I had had nothing to eat since luncheon the day
before and had done a lot of walking. He looked surprised and (p. 068)
said, "Fancy having breakfast when the town is being shelled." "Well,"
I said, "don't you know we always read in the papers, when a man is
hanged, that before he went out to the gallows he ate a hearty
breakfast? There must be some philosophy in it. At any rate, you might
as well die on a full stomach as an empty one." So Murdoch began to
get breakfast ready in the kitchen, where Mr. Vandervyver's maid was
already preparing a meal for her master. I shaved and had a good clean
up and was sitting in the dining room arranging the many letters and
messages which I had received