heir dangerous working
parties, and the cold rain and mud in which their lives were passed.
And I thought too of the wonderful patrol kept up on the dark seas, by
heroic and suffering men who guarded the life and liberty of Britain.
The gaiety seemed to be a hollow mockery. I was not sorry therefore
when my week's leave was over and I went back to the line. A staff
officer whom I met on the leave boat informed me that the Division had
changed its trenches, and my Brigade had left Bethune. We had a most
wonderful run in the staff car from Boulogne, and in two hours arrived
at the Brigade Headquarters at Steenje, near Bailleul. There, with my
haversacks, I was left by the staff car at midnight and had to find a
lodging place. The only light I saw was in the upper windows of the
Cure's house, the rest of the village was in complete darkness. I
knocked on the door and, after a few minutes, the head and shoulders
of a man in pyjamas looked out from the window and asked me who I was
and what I wanted. On my giving my name and requesting admission, he
very kindly came down and let me in and gave me a bed on the floor. On
a mattress beside me was a young officer of the Alberta Dragoons, only
nineteen years of age. He afterwards joined the Flying Corps and met
his death by jumping out of his machine at an altitude of six thousand
feet, when it was hit and burst into flames. The Alberta Dragoons
later on became the Canadian Light Horse, and were Corps Troops. At
that time, they were part of the 1st Division and were a magnificent
body. The practical elimination of cavalry in modern warfare has taken
all the romance and chivalry out of fighting. It is just as well
however for the world that the old feudal conception of war has passed
away. The army will be looked upon in the future as a class of citizens
who are performing the necessary and unpleasant task of policing the
world, in order that the rational occupations of human life may (p. 094)
be carried on without interruption.

Brigade Headquarters now moved to a large farm behind the trenches at
Ploegsteert. I bid farewell to my friends of the Alberta Dragoons and
found a billet at La Creche. From thence I moved to Romarin and made
my home in a very dirty little French farmhouse. The Roman Catholic
chaplain and I had each a heap of straw in an outhouse which was a
kind of general workroom. At one end stood a large churn, which was
operated, when necessary, by a trained dog,