He came. He was a man nearing middle age, erect, tough as wire, with
lines in his face such as hard fighting and responsibility leave on the
face of every soldier.

The representative of authority upon the spot--an Australian who also
had faced ugly scenes--explained to him quietly where he wished him to
take his men, into such and such a corner, by such and such a route. It
meant plunging straight into the thick of the Somme battle, with all its
unknown horrors--everyone there knew that. But the new-comer said
quietly, "Yes, sir"--and climbed up and out into the light.

It was not an Australian who spoke. That "Yes, sir" came unmistakably
from the other side of the Pacific. It was the first of the Canadians
upon the Somme battlefield.

An hour or so later an Australian officer, moving along with his men to
improve an exposed and isolated trench (a trench which was outflanked
already, and enfiladed, and in half a dozen ways unhealthy) into a
condition to be held against any attacks at all costs--found, coming
across the open towards his exposed flank, a line of stalwart men in
kilts. His men were dead tired, the enemy's shell-fire was constant and
heavy, grey heads and helmets constantly seen behind a red mud parapet,
across a hundred yards of red mud craters, proved that the Prussian
Guard Reserve was getting ready to counter-attack him. Every message he
sent back to Headquarters finished, "But we will hold this trench."

And yet here the new men came--a line of them, stumbling from crater
into crater, and by one of those unaccountable chances that occur in
battles, only two or three of them were hit in crossing over. They