We were about to be thrown into the fiercest and bitterest battle of the
war. There were no other troops within several days' march of us. There
was no one to back us up. There was no one else, should we fail, to take
our place. "Canadians! It's up to you!"

I could tell of several stirring things that happened to other battalions
during that night, but I am only telling of what I saw myself, and it will
suffice to write of one most stirring thing which befell the Third.

As we crossed the Yser Canal we marched in a dogged and resolute silence.
No man can tell what were the thoughts of his comrade. We have no bands,
nor bugles, nor music when marching into action. We dare not even smoke. In
dark and quiet we pass steadily ahead. There is only the continued muffled
tramp--tramp--of hundreds of feet encased in heavy boots.

To the far right of us and to the far left shells were falling, bursting
and brilliantly lighting up the heavens for a lurid moment. In our
immediate sector there were no shells. It was all the more dark and all the
more silent, for the noise and uproar and blazing flame to right and left.

We were on rising ground now. Up and up steadily we went. We reached the
top of the grade, when suddenly from out of the pit of darkness ahead of
us there came a high explosive shell. It dropped in the middle of our
battalion. It struck where the machine gun section was placed, and
annihilated them almost to a man.

Then it was that our mettle stood the test. Then it was that we proved the
words Canadian and Man synonymous. Not one of us wavered; not one of us
swerved to right or left, to front or back. We kept on. There was hardly