not capture it as our numbers
were too depleted by this time. It was here I got the M.M. This makes
a coincidence in our family, two brothers having the M.M. and one the
D.C.M. We were relieved late that night by the 6th Brigade and we were
not sorry to get out. We lost quite a few here, including Howard
Johnson, who was in charge of operations. If ever a man deserved a
V.C., he did. We marched from here to the Brickfield and from there
back to a village behind the lines, out of the range of shell fire. We
were still the same old battalion in name and those of us who were
left intended to let the reinforcements know what sort of a battalion
they had come to.

When our reinforcements at last arrived Col. Hilliam took them and
gave them a good lecture and then the old boys got after them. It did
not take them long to decide that we were the best battalion in France
and that is how we got the "Esprit de Corp."

We stayed in this little village for about a week and then started on
our march for the Bullez Grenaz front. After a few days marching, we
arrived at our destination, a place where all Canadians have spent a
happy time. The village itself was right close up to the communication
trench and the French people carried on their work as usual, although
now and again Fritz would put over an occasional shell, but they all
seemed to think that was in the day's work. We went into a reserve
trench called Mechanic's Dump. It is a spot that will always remain.
Here were buried quite a lot of French and British soldiers who had
lost their lives in the battle of Looz and there were also some of our
own buried here. Amongst them, Sergt. Jim Harris. He was the greatest
all round dare-devil that we had in the battalion. In fact there was
nothing too daring for him to do if he could get a joke off. It was he
that took the chickens, skinned them and threw the skins beneath
the officers' cookhouse so that they would have to pay for them.
Sergt. Harris was appointed Wiring Sergt. He had charge of all the
wiring in front of our trench and craters. There were two craters
quite close to each other, one occupied by us, the other by Fritz. The
Brigade Major asked Harris if he could wire this crater as it was a
very risky job. Harris promptly replied that "if Kaizer Bill himself
were there in the crater opposite, he would wire it." He did and had
the job finished when he saw a couple of Huns stick their heads out of
their crater. With t