ething over 500.

The Australian divisions had arrived on the western front, and two of
them came into our area. In length of limb and general "ranginess"
they greatly resembled our own westerners, and walked with the freedom
bred of a life in the open. Their usual question at first when they
met another soldier was, "Have you been to war or in France?" They got
the surprise of their lives when they found that life on the western
front was far more strenuous than it was on the Gallipoli peninsula.

The British army was learning by hard knocks how to do things, and the
truth of the old saying was constantly borne home to one that in the
early years of any great war England paid dearly for her experience in
blood and treasure.

The Fokker plane had "thrown a scare" into the air service, and there
was a general demand on the part of the British public for greater
efficiency. As a new arm of the service it was not considered by
Whitehall with the seriousness it deserved; only the men who saw
planes come over, hover about, and were in consequence heavily and
accurately shelled shortly afterwards, realized what the command of
the air meant. The air tangle, and the inadequacy of the air service
became such a scandal that Lord Derby and Lord Montague resigned from
the air board as a protest against the way this branch of the service
was being bungled.

As a matter of fact the Fokker was never considered, by our men, to be
a very wonderful machine, and we quickly evolved types that were
superior to it in every respect.

Nevertheless these were bad days on our front, and for a while as a
result of the enemy's air superiority we were bombed with great
regularity. At Canadian corps headquarters, where we dined with
Generals Alderson and Burstall one night after our own town had been
bombed, they were very much interested as they had occupied that town
for several months, and each officer wanted to know whether his former
billet had been struck.

The same night German planes bombed Canadian headquarters fairly
heavily, and also some of the camps and hospitals (the hospitals were
all marked with huge red crosses on the roof). During the same period
the enemy shelled towns, camps and roads far back from the front line
area, making life in the war area on the whole very uncertain and
very uncomfortable. It was necessary to visit many places under cover
of darkness, so accurate was the German observation and shell fire
during th