trench
mortars. They had wounded several of my men with the bombs, but they
tried to move their mortar into a new position one day and we spotted
it. The artillery observing officer in our trenches, young Lieutenant
Ryerson, called up the guns and the second shell sent their mortar to
smithereens. A great artillery officer was young Lieut. Ryerson, fit
to command any battery.

For a long time the German aeroplanes flew over us every morning at
sunrise, but now we had a dozen aeroplanes to their one and theirs
were rather shy. Our guns had ranged up and down the whole front and
we had all begun to get confident and to think that it was only a
matter of a few days until we would be on the high road to Brussels.

On top of all this came a very inspiring address from General Sir
Douglas Haig, commanding our army. He pointed out that the time had
come for a fresh great effort. He also informed us that we were
stronger than the enemy, all of which gave us more confidence.

I was told privately that the drive was to take place on our right,
and as soon as the brigade on our right had cleared out the Germans on
their front that we were to echelon and follow suit and charge.

On our right the Germans were four hundred yards away across the open.
I went down and examined the lines carefully with Captain Daniels, and
found that there were two places where a lot of men could be taken out
of our trenches and led half way across to the German lines on "dead"
ground, that is ground on which they would be hidden. Lieutenant
Schonberger and Captain Warren made a sketch of this ground. I talked
the matter over with the captains and they were very much cheered up
over the prospect of a fight. Captains MacLaren and Daniels
immediately began fixing up exits from their trenches. Steps were cut
in the parapets, and in other places openings were made. The opening
in the parapets that were used for "listening" posts and for the
patrols to go in and out were widened.

What is a listening post? A listening post is made in this way: A gap
which is carefully hidden with sandbags is cut in the parapets. Then a
sap is run out several hundred feet in zigzag fashion, which
terminates in a rifle pit, about five feet deep that will accommodate
about four men. At night two sentries sit in this pit and listen to
the sounds in the enemy's lines. Sometimes if the rifle pit is wet a
couple of barrels are put in and the sentries stand in the barrels.
Th