architecture being destroyed by the resulting fire. That shell was from
one of two guns that were expressly manufactured for the purpose of
destroying the city of Ypres, a couple of months being taken to build
cement platforms in which to set the ordnance, and the death-dealing
monsters started on their mission of destruction from Dixmude, about 22
miles distant.

[Illustration: British Battery in Action]

Not long after, an airplane located these monsters and succeeded in
destroying one by a downpour of explosives he dropped on it, and the
other one, a couple of days following, when being fired by its crew,
the shell exploded in the gun itself, tearing it from its cement
foundation and destroying itself and crew. These were the only guns of
that caliber that have ever been used, so far as is known. The passage
through the air of those missiles of death, heralded by their choo!
choo! sent a shiver of dread up and down the lines as far as the sound
would reach, and deep and lasting was the satisfaction of all ranks when
the last of these mammoths of destruction wended its final flight.




CHAPTER V.

HUN HELPERS


On the sixth day after the first gas attack on the Canadians at Ypres,
we took up a new position in a hedge about three-quarters of a mile