thinks afterward.

"Wet your handkerchiefs in your water-bottles, boys!" he ordered.

We all obeyed promptly.

"Put the handkerchiefs over your faces--and shoot like the devil!" he
panted.

We did this, and as the gas got closer, the handkerchiefs served as a sort
of temporary respirator and saved many of us from a frightful death. We in
the reserves suffered least. Yet some of us died by that infernal product.
A man dies by gas in horrible torment. He turns perfectly black, those men
at any rate whom I saw at that time. Black as black leather, eyes, even
lips, teeth, nails. He foams at the mouth as a dog in hydrophobia; he
lingers five or six minutes and then--goes West.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

Marvelous is the only word to describe the endurance, the valor of the
Ladies from Hell. They withstood the gas, and they withstood wave after
wave of attacking German hordes. And yet even their wonderful work was
overtopped by that of the Eighth, which, being exposed on the left by the
black troops who had fled, had to bear the brunt of a fight which almost
surrounded them.

It was wonderful. I shall never forget it. There were twelve thousand
Canadian troops. In the German official reports after the battle, they