exploded, and the whole side of the Pimple had been
torn away. Half of our rushing party were killed and we had sixty
casualties from shock and wounds among men who were supposed to be
at a safe distance from the mining operation. But we took and held
the new crater positions.

The corporal whose place I had taken on the ration party was killed
by falling stones. Inasmuch as he was where I would have been, I
considered that I had had a narrow escape from "going west!" More
luck!

CHAPTER VIII

ON THE GO

Marching, marching, marching,
Always ruddy well marching.
Marching all the morning,
And marching all the night.
Marching, marching, marching,
Always ruddy well marching,
Roll on till my time is up
And I shall march no more.

We sung it to the tune of "Holy, Holy, Holy", the whole blooming
battalion. As we swung down the Boulevard Alsace-Lorraine in Amiens
and passed the great cathedral up there to the left, on its little
rise of ground, the chant lifted and lilted and throbbed up from
near a thousand throats, much as the unisoned devotions of the
olden monks must have done in other days.

Ours was a holy cause, but despite the association of the tune the
song was far from being a holy song. It was, rather, a chanted
remonstrance against all hiking and against this one in
particular.

After our service at Vimy Ridge some one in authority somewhere
decided that the 22nd Battalion and two others were not quite good
enough for really smart work. We were, indeed, hard. But not hard
enough. So some superior intellect squatting somewhere in the
safety of the rear, with a finger on the pulse of the army, decreed
that we were to get not only hard but tough; and to that end we
were to hike. Hike we did.

For more than three weeks we went from place to place with no
apparent destination, wandering aimlessly up and down the
country-side of Northern France, imposing ourselves upon the people
of little villages, shamming battle over their cultivated fields,
and sleeping in their hen coops.

I kept a diary on that hike. It was a thing forbidden, but I
managed it. One manages many things out there. I have just read
over that diary. There isn't much to it but a succession of town
names,--Villiers du Bois, Maisincourt, Barly, Oneaux, Canchy,
Amiens, Bourdon, Villiers Bocage, Agenvilliers, Behencourt, and
others that I failed to set down and have f