ttack. With only a few guns in support it was very
difficult to hold our own. When would the supporting troops and
artillery come? For two days and two nights we had fought against odds
of at least ten to one in men and fifty to one in artillery. The
tragic monotony of it all was awful, but the honor of the Empire
rested in our hands and it was our duty to play the game to the last
man. Every few moments the shell fire and machine guns of the enemy
would claim a victim.

Two brave men, Sergeant Coe and Private M.J. O'Connor, signallers,
went into the machine gun trench, which was on our extreme left behind
a hedge, to bring out Captain Dansereau's body. I also told them to
bring back any papers which were left in the shelled and ruined
dugout. Through the hurricane of shot and shell that tore the earth up
in all directions they made their way. When they returned they told
me that the bit of trench was almost filled with dead but they could
not find my adjutant. When they went to the dugout to get my papers
they found it wrecked and the maps and papers gone. Then I knew that
my adjutant must have recovered consciousness sufficiently to get my
papers, among them some maps, and that he must have got out, badly
wounded as he was. He was the fourth officer of my staff to be
wounded, and Major Marshall and Dr. MacKenzie were the only two left
of our headquarters staff.

Early that morning while we were in the midst of some very strenuous
fighting a message came down from headquarters to the effect that it
had been reported that the "48th Battalion had been gassed and
compelled to retire." The "fusser" and liar lives even on the
battlefield. This story had been told by some runaway to give an
excuse for his own cowardice.

I sent a message back that this report was untrue. Our telephone lines
and telephone station had been blown up by a "coal box," so we had to
depend upon runners to get messages through. One of these, Pte. M.R.
Kerr, later on sent me a message from the hospital to the effect that
he had taken a message through for me but had been struck by a shell
on his way back with the receipt and had to be taken to the hospital.
He apologised for not returning to report the message delivered. I
recommend him for the D.C.M.

The left flank sections of the 8th had been gassed when the Germans
tried to get through between that battalion and ours. Some of their
supports had come to their assistance and had driven the ene