t, at stated intervals. This
is all rot. Common sense should teach us better. The plain fact is
that it depends entirely upon what the shell strikes. If it falls on
soft earth, the effect is merely local and a man within a few feet
would be uninjured; while, should it fall on a hard, stone-paved road,
pieces might be effective at a distance of half a mile or more.

In the bombing schools we are told that the Mills hand grenade has an
effective radius of ten yards, yet one will quite frequently escape
unhurt from a dozen of them bursting within this radius and yet may be
hit by a fragment from a distance of two hundred yards or more. All
these theories are based on the assumption that the ground on a
battle-field is level, free from obstructions and of a uniform degree
of hardness; not one of which conditions ever exists. A small ditch, a
log or stump or a water-filled shell-hole will make so much difference
in the effect of the explosion of a shell or bomb that all efforts to
prove anything by mathematics is a waste of time. If one is unlucky he
will probably get hurt, otherwise not.

CHAPTER XVI

OUT IN FRONT FIGHTING

We had been "home" but a few days when we received rush orders to pack
up and march toward Ypres. There had been an intense bombardment going
on up that way and we soon learned the cause from straggling wounded
whom we met coming along the road. It was the second of June, 1916,
and the Germans had launched their great surprise attack against the
Canadians at Hooge. It was the beginning of what has been called the
Third Battle of Ypres, but will probably be recorded in history as the
Battle of Sanctuary Wood.

The enemy had gradually increased his customary bombardment and then,
assisted by some mines, had swept forward, in broad daylight,
overwhelming the defenders of the first and second lines by sheer
force of numbers and had only been checked after he had driven through
our lines to a depth of at least seven hundred yards over a front of
nearly a mile, including the village of Hooge, and was firmly
established in a large forest called Sanctuary Wood and in other woods
to the south. By the time we had arrived at our reserve lines (called
the G. H. Q. or General Headquarters Line), we were diverted and
directed to a position on the line just south of the center of the
disturbance where we "dug ourselves in" and held on for four days.
Shell fire was about all we got here, but there was plen