r to give
them good appetites, and with such excellent fare they gain in
strength and weight. Many a weak, hollow-chested "mother's boy" has
developed in a few months into a rosy-cheeked, bread-shouldered
athlete, weighing twelve or fourteen stone.

It was a wonderful sight at night to watch the trenches at Fromelles.
As far as the eye could see from the North Sea, away past Bethune and
death-stricken La Bassee, streamed the meteor flares like a great
Milky Way, the flares crossing and recrossing each other. In front of
us the German Mausers sound with their constant "to-ho," "to-ho," for
the Mauser has a double report. On the right the wicked bark of the
English Lee-Enfield rifles, and along our front and to our left the
"chop, chop" of the Ross rifle of the Canadian Division. The Ross has
a sound at a distance, for all the world like a lot of men chopping
wood in a hardwood forest. No wonder the Germans knew when the
Canadians came opposite their sector. Whenever they heard the Ross
they generally got an attack of nerves and would fire wildly into the
air on the slightest excuse.

I visited the line of the trenches passing from flank to flank the
second night we were in them and laid plans with our officers to
strengthen the position so as to make it almost impregnable. The first
man to be killed in these trenches was Private Stanley, a Toronto man,
who was shot through the head while standing behind the parapet at
night. He fell dead in the arms of his son. We buried him the next
evening at the Canadian Cemetery at La Cardonnerie Farm by the fitful
gleam of an electric torch while the bullets and shells whistled
overhead.

The Germans were very vicious when we went into the trenches for the
first time, but we adjusted our fire so as to enfilade their trenches,
that is to say, instead of firing at the trenches opposite we aimed to
the right or the left so our bullets dropped behind their parapets. I
went along the trenches with a photograph of their position taken from
an aeroplane and pointed out to the section commanders the targets and
range so as to get in behind the German lines. Sand bags and port
holes were adjusted to this new form of fire and orders were issued to
open enfilade fire after nine at night, sniping briskly. Some of our
men suggested that we must have hit a German General because suddenly
the whole German line burst into a sheet of flame and they continued
to fire their rifles for all they wer