Private Peat

ian boys in with the British regulars. Without a doubt we of the F

could have otherwise in a month's training. We also became inspired with

e going overseas. I regarded him more or less as not "worth while." It did n

l formality and conventionality of the English are t

s. Between officer and man there is a marked respect, and a m

roved many times, when the commissioned man has sacrificed his life to save the man of lo

at or small which has no immediate or vital bearing on the situation. As soon as anything arises that would really warrant a grouse-napoo! Tommy Atkins then b

hen he is literally in the last ditch, with a strip of cold steel the only thing between him and death-then Tom

s bayonet snaps from the hilt, and he goes to it hand-to-hand with

ry. We shall know him from now on in his true light, and the knowledge will ma

y crawled out unhurt, his sandwich somewhat muddy but intact, and made his way down the trench to a clear space. Here he sat down beside a

confident of his regiment's invincibility; with a deep-rooted love of home and

n colts. We were restless and untrained, with an overplus of spirits difficult to control. Gradually the English

ily rounds. He never knows that he is beaten, therefore a beating is nev

ch, Australians, Africans, Indians, Americans or Canadians. Were I a general and had I a position to retain, to

of 1914-15, these newspapers would have long and weighty editorials which called forth longer and weightier letters from "veritas" and "old subscriber." We boys read those editorials and letters, and wonde

h piffle, no matter what their nationality, could have had five minutes' look at the German trenches and anoth

which failed, the Germans entrenched. Thank God, they did. They entrenched, and by entrench

eaving the low-lying swamps, the damp marshy lands, for us. We had no alternative. It was

ess along the greater length of the whole front. It oused and eddied, it seemed to swirl and draw as though there were a tide. We did not a

Once we spent eleven days and nights in the trenches without a shift, because our reinforcing battalion was called away

rubber that reached to the knees. At first we envied the possessors of these, but not for long. The water and mud, and shortly the blood, rose above the top and ran down inside the leg of the boot. The wearers coul

egister some two or three degrees below freezing. A thin shell of ice would form on the ditch which we called a trench. This would crackle round our legs and the cold would eat into the very bone. At dawn the ice would begin to break up and a steady sleet begin to fall. Later the sleet would tur

ind us. We had not a tithe of the gun power which we should have had. Our artillery was not appreciable in quantity. What there was of it was effective, but as compared to the enemy gun power we were nowhere. They had possibly ten to our one.

We had no dugouts and no communication trenches. With a shell of tremendous power they would rip up yards of our makeshift defenses and kill half a dozen of our boys. Sometimes we would groan aloud and pray to see a few German legs and arms fly to the four winds as compen

hree, would have been the ammunition rat

ad anticipated and prepared for war for forty years and those who had neglected to

flat on our stomachs, covered to the neck in mud and blood, and endeavor to repair the damag

way back to a dressing station. During the day some one might discover that he had developed a frozen toe. He could get no relief; he dare not attempt to leave his partial shelter. The slightest movement, and the enemy would

id you live? How d

trike now? There's no earthly reason why they should not defeat us, and roll on triumphantly to Paris, to

God for us. For us, there was always that Unseen Hand which held back the enemy in his might. The All Highest who is not on the side of blood and mur

the sea. That is why we stood the test. Tha

ting blood in their veins, they could have licked us long ago. They did not. They have not. They are poor spor

aration of half a century, or the peace-loving peoples

is no room for argument.

here is no room or argumen