years younger and
several pounds lighter.

I learned next day that the station master at Poperinghe had been
arrested, tried as a spy and shot. It transpired that he had a wire
running from the station depot straight to the German lines, together
with some other signaling apparatus, and there was no doubt in the minds
of the trial board that it was due to this man's espionage that the
bathers lost their lives while in the tubs.

The spy system had so thoroughly impregnated every hole and corner of
the district around Ypres that it became the sorest thorn in the sides
of the Command, but we finally managed to root it out hip and thigh, and
that sector is now as immune from their activities as any other sector
in the front lines.

Going up to take my position with the gun next day I met a bomber of the
21st Canadian Infantry, carrying a bag of his wares--hand grenades. We
walked together for some distance, and just as I was on the point of
leaving him to turn off over to my battery I was appalled by one of the
most horrifying sights I have seen at the front. One of the pins of a
grenade worked loose in the bag and exploded, blowing his right hand and
leg completely off. I have seen scores of happenings, each of which in
its entirety was a thousand times more terrible, but there was something
about the suddenness, the total unexpectedness, and the fearful spurting
of his life's blood, that filled me more full of horror than anything
before or since.

In this conflagration that is shaking the world, death stalks on every
hand in a hundred different forms, entirely apart from the destruction
that the enemy can bestow. I was standing but three feet behind him. As
quick as I could I gave him first aid and yelled for a stretcher, but
there was nothing that could be done; he lived until sundown.

CHAPTER IX

HAMBONE DAVIS

One evening we were sitting outside of our bivouac watching some German
balloons being downed by one of our airplanes; our flier had good luck
that evening, accounting for three of the floating sausages; and as we
were awaiting the finish of the last sausage, and speculating on how
long it would take our air bird to get it, or whether he would get it at
all, the gambling spirit ran rife, and fast and furiously the bets were
placed.

Open-mouthed and eager we watched and, while watching, a strange-looking
figure of a soldier ambled, or shuffled, up the path toward our place.
He was a man abou