s lifting now, and the sun
to the East was beginning to light up the ground. We heard the crack
of bullets, for the Germans were sniping us. I made the runner go down
into a shell hole, while I read the burial service, and then took off
the ring. I looked over the ground where the charge had been made.
There lay Regina Trench, and far beyond it, standing out against the
morning light, I saw the villages of Pys and Miraumont which were our
objective. It was a strange scene of desolation, for the November
rains had made the battle fields a dreary, sodden waste. How many of
our brave men had laid down their lives as the purchase price of that
consecrated soil! Through the centuries to come it must always remain
sacred to the hearts of Canadians. We made a small mound where the
body lay, and then by quick dashes from shell hole to shell hole we
got back at last to the communication trench, and I was indeed
thankful to feel that my mission had been successful. I have received
letters since I returned to Canada from the kind young fellow, who
accompanied me on the journey, and I shall never cease to be grateful
to him. I left him at his headquarters in Death Valley, and made my
way past Courcellette towards the road. As the trench was very muddy,
I got out of it, and was walking along the top when I came across
something red on the ground. It was a piece of a man's lung with the
windpipe attached. I suppose some poor lad had had a direct hit from a
shell and his body had been blown to pieces. The Germans were shelling
the road, so with some men I met we made a detour through the fields
and joined it further on, and finally got to the chalk-pit where the
87th Battalion was waiting to go in again to the final attack. I was
delighted to see my friends once more, and they were thankful that I
had been able to find the grave. Not many days afterwards, some of
those whom I then met were called themselves to make the supreme (p. 158)
sacrifice. I spent that night at the Rear Headquarters of the 4th
Division, and they kindly sent me back the next day to Camblain l'Abbe
in one of their cars.

On November 24th I received a telegram saying that a working party of
one of the battalions of the 4th Division had brought my son's body
back, and so on the following day I motored once again to Albert and
laid my dear boy to rest in the little cemetery on Tara Hill, which he
and I had seen when he was encamped near it, and in which now were t