coffee
tasted very good to me that day, while I chatted to two engineers who
had countermined and blown up a German mine at St. Eloi a few days
before.

After lunch we hunted out No. 3 Field Ambulance, whose personnel came
largely from Toronto. Colonel McPherson of Toronto, the officer
commanding, seemed glad to see me, as he always did, and showed me
over the ambulance and billets where the officers were quartered. I
took water samples for examination of their drinking water supply,
which was not above suspicion. The garden at the rear of their
temporary home was vibrant with sunshine; the pears, trained against
the walls in the rectangular manner so much in vogue in France, and
the peach trees, were already bursting into clusters of pink and white
blossoms. I picked some beautiful blue pansies to press in my pocket
book and send home as souvenirs of my first visit to Ypres.

Upon leaving the ambulance we passed over the river by the bridge,
where soldiers were filling water carts by means of hand pumps;
passed the ancient ramparts on the river's edge and through the hamlet
of St. Jean to Wieltze, where the advanced dressing station of the
ambulance was located. Here I saw my friend Captain Brown and
collected water samples for examination. Returning to Ypres we went
out to Brielen to see the A.D.M.S. of the Canadian Division and there
found some letters from home waiting me.

While in the office a sudden commotion among a group of soldiers
outside and the raising of glasses skyward drew us forth to watch an
aerial battle in progress. With the aid of borrowed glasses I could
see six machines in the sky manoeuvring for position. Two in
particular seemed to be closely engaged when the German suddenly
turned tail and fled. A white puff of smoke beside him indicated that
the Archibalds had been watching the combat closely. A second, third
and fourth followed in rapid succession until suddenly at the
fifteenth burst the Taube began to drop and flutter down, like a leaf
falling from a forest tree on a quiet October day. Five minutes later,
far out in the salient, we saw a second driven down in a straight nose
dive, making the third for that day in the vicinity of Ypres. One
might watch for months, as I afterwards did, without seeing another
aeroplane brought down.

When we were on our way back from Ypres on our return, a horse ridden
by an officer suddenly curvetted across the road in front of us. Rad
pulled up the car