He was a man to be remembered for a long time, that major.  I can see him now, in my mind’s eye, sitting there, brooding, staring out toward Lens and the German lines.  And I think that if I were choosing a figure for some great sculptor to immortalize, to typify and represent the superb, the majestic imperturbability of the British Empire in time of stress and storm, his would be the one.  I could think of no finer figure than his for such a statue.  You would see him, if the sculptor followed my thought, sitting in front of his shell-hole on Vimy Ridge, calm, dispassionate, devoted to his duty and the day’s work, quietly giving the directions that guided the British guns in their work of blasting the Hun out of the refuge he had chosen when the Canadians had driven him from the spot where the major sat.

It was easier going down Vimy Ridge than it had been coming up, but it was hard going still.  We had to skirt great, gaping holes torn by monstrous shells—­shells that had torn the very guts out of the little hill.

“We’re going to visit another battery,” said Captain Godfrey.  “I’ll tell you I think it’s the best hidden battery on the whole British front!  And that’s saying a good deal, for we’ve learned a thing or two about hiding our whereabouts from Fritz.  He’s a curious one, Fritz is, but we try not to gratify his curiosity any more than we must.”

“I’ll be glad to see more of the guns,” I said.

“Well, here you’ll see more than guns.  The major in command at this battery we’re heading for has a decoration that was given to him just for the way he hid his guns.  There’s much more than fighting that a man has to do in this war if he’s to make good.”

As we went along I kept my eyes open, trying to get a peep at the guns before Godfrey should point them out to me.  I could hear firing going on all around me, but there was so much noise that my ears were not a guide.  I was not a trained observer, of course; I would not know a gun position at sight, as some soldier trained to the work would be sure to do.  And yet I thought I could tell when I was coming to a great battery.  I thought so, I say!

Again, though I had that feeling of something weird and uncanny.  For now, as we walked along, I did hear the guns, and I was sure, from the nature of the sound, that we were coming close to them.  But, as I looked straight toward the spot where my ears told me that they must be, I could see nothing at all.  I thought that perhaps Godfrey had lost his way, and that we were wandering along the wrong path.  It did not seem likely, but it was possible.

And then, suddenly, when I was least expecting it, we stopped.

“Well—­here we are!” said the captain, and grinned at our amazement.

And there we were indeed!  We were right among the guns of a Canadian battery, and the artillerymen were shouting their welcome, for they had heard that I was coming, and recognized me as soon as they saw me.  But—­how had we got here?  I looked around me, in utter amazement.  Even now that I had come to the battery I could not understand how it was that I had been deceived—­how that battery had been so marvelously concealed that, if one did not know of its existence and of its exact location, one might literally stumble over it in broad daylight!