several hundred yards of fields to cross before the main gun positions
are reached.

More often fire came from three quarters left, and because our ridge died away
there was a low spot over which they could come pretty dangerously.
The road thirty yards behind us was a nightmare to me.
I saw all the tragedies of war enacted there. A wagon, or a bunch of horses,
or a stray man, or a couple of men, would get there just in time for a shell.
One would see the absolute knock-out, and the obviously lightly wounded
crawling off on hands and knees; or worse yet, at night,
one would hear the tragedy -- "that horse scream" -- or the man's moan.
All our own wagons had to come there (one every half hour in smart action),
be emptied, and the ammunition carried over by hand. Do you wonder
that the road got on our nerves? On this road, too, was the house
where we took our meals. It was hit several times, windows all blown in
by nearby shells, but one end remained for us.

Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us
we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands
and said it could not be done. On the fifteenth day we got orders to go out,
but that was countermanded in two hours. To the last we could scarcely
believe we were actually to get out. The real audacity of the position
was its safety; the Germans knew to a foot where we were.
I think I told you of some of the "you must stick it out" messages we got
from our [French] General, -- they put it up to us. It is a wonder to me
that we slept when, and how, we did. If we had not slept and eaten
as well as possible we could not have lasted. And while we were doing this,
the London office of a Canadian newspaper cabled home "Canadian Artillery
in reserve." Such is fame!