k in July which had forced the enemy to retreat.
If that had been done once it could be done again, and so we pressed
on. But the price we had to pay for victory was indeed costly and
one's heart ached for the poor men in their awful struggle in that
region of gloom and death. This was war indeed, and one wondered how
long it was to last. Gradually the sad consciousness came that our
advance was checked, but still the sacrifice was not in vain, for our
gallant men were using up the forces of the enemy.

Ghastly were the stories which we heard from time to time. One man
told me that he had counted three hundred bodies hanging on the wire
which we had failed to cut in preparation for the attack. An officer
met me one day and told me how his company had had to hold on in a
trench, hour after hour, under terrific bombardment. He was sitting in
his dugout, expecting every moment to be blown up, when a young lad
came in and asked if he might stay with him. The boy was only eighteen
years of age and his nerve had utterly gone. He came into the dugout,
and, like a child clinging to his mother clasped the officer with his
arms. The latter could not be angry with the lad. There was nothing to
do at that point but to hold on and wait, so, as he said to me, "I
looked at the boy and thought of his mother, and just leaned down and
gave him a kiss. Not long afterwards a shell struck the dugout and the
boy was killed, and when we retired I had to leave his body there."
Wonderful deeds were done; some were known and received well merited
rewards, others were noted only by the Recording Angel. A piper won
the V.C. for his gallantry in marching up and down in front of the
wire playing his pipes while the men were struggling through it (p. 140)
in their attack upon Regina Trench. He was killed going back to
hunt for his pipes which he had left in helping a wounded man to a
place of safety. One cannot write of that awful time unmoved, for
there come up before the mind faces of friends that one will see no
more, faces of men who were strong, brave and even joyous in the midst
of that burning fiery furnace, from which their lives passed, we trust
into regions where there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor
crying, and where the sound of war is hushed forever.

One new feature which was introduced into the war at this time was the
"Tank." A large family of these curious and newly developed
instruments of battle was congregated in a