throughout their experience at the front, but in the name of other
battalions that had endured the remorseless grind of the Ypres salient
they were to strike the blows of retribution. The answer as to how they
would charge was written in faces clear-cut by the same climate that
gave them their nervous alertness.

On that ugly part of the Ridge where no stable trench could be made
under the vengeful German artillery fire and small numbers were shrewdly
distributed in shell-craters and such small ditches as could be
maintained, they crept out in the darkness a few days before the attack
to "take over" from the Australians and familiarize themselves with this
tempest-torn farming land which still heaved under tornadoes of shells.
The men from the faraway island continent had provided the jumping-off
place and the men from this side of the Pacific and the equator were to
do the jumping, which meant a kind of overseas monopoly of Pozieres
Ridge.

The Germans still hated the idea of yielding all the crest that stared
down on them and hid the slope beyond which had once been theirs. They
would try again to recover some of it, but chose a time for their effort
which was proof enough that they did not know that a general attack was
coming. Just before dawn, with zero at dawn, when the Canadians were
forming on the reverse slope for their charge, the Germans laden with
bombs made theirs and secured a footing in the thin front line among the
shell-craters and, grim shadows in the night lighted by bursts of bombs
and shells, struggled as they have on many similar occasions.

Then came the "surprise party." Not far away the Canadian charge waited
on the tick of the second which was to release the six-mile line of
infantry and the tanks.

"We were certainly keyed up," as one of the men said. "It was up to us
all right, now."

Breasting the tape in their readiness for the word, the dry air of North
America with its champagne exhilaration was in their lungs whipping
their red corpuscles. They had but one thought and that was to "get
there." No smooth drill-ground for that charge, but earth broken with
shell-craters as thick as holes in a pepper-box cover! A man might
stumble into one, but he must get up and go on. One fellow who twisted
his ankle found it swollen out of all shape when the charge was over. If
he had given it such a turn at home he would not have attempted to move
but would have called for a cab or assistance. Unde