said "What is your name my lad?" I replied "Lewis, Sir." "Oh, a very
appropriate name to have charge of the Lewis Guns." I said, "Sir, I
try to do my best." He says, "You have done wonderfully, my lad." I
thought it the greatest honor that I have ever got. We started for the
Brickfields next morning, Col. Bauld in command of the Battalion. Col.
Hilliam had to go to hospital for a few days. We arrived at the
Brickfields and there we were given our full instructions as to what
we had to do and went through the usual performance of being fully
equipped with all the necessary equipments of war before we went in.
Capt. John D. MacNeil was now O.C. of "C" Co., and one night we got
the order to move up to the reserve trenches. All this time the troops
who were occupying the trenches were steadily advancing. We had taken
quite a lot of their strongpoints, including ---- and other villages.
After a long tedious march we arrived at our reserve trenches and made
ourselves as comfortable as possible, such as digging a hole in the
side of a trench and perhaps a couple of sheets of corrugated iron,
and finally we got settled away and went to sleep. It was very
comfortable when you consider the circumstances. Certainly now and
again one of Fritz large shells would burst somewhere near you but
that was all in the game. If it was going to get you it would. But
keeping awake would not save us. So Fritz's shells had no more effect
than the vermin which we had got quite used to. The next night at 7
o'clock, runners came down from the 14th Battalion to guide us to the
front line. We were very inquisitive and began asking those chaps
about where they were, what sort of fighting they had and other
questions too numerous to mention, for strange to say, no matter how
long you are there, when you got into a new position you always want
to know what it is like before you go in it, and if you are told that
it is a lovely place and that you can have a good time you can depend
that it is going to be worse than hell. That is what happened in this
case. The guide told us that it was a nice, quiet little spot. We
found out the difference before we got out. We toiled through the
shell-torn ground for about six hours before we got to where Battalion
Headquarters were. Sometimes, our guides lost themselves. At other
times Fritz would put a barrage across. We would lie down then in a
shell hole and start talking about old times, never giving a thought
to