A man may have a touch of lumbago; he may have a rheumatic pain.  None of these things matters to him on the way “in.”  He can bend his back quickly enough as he passes along.  There are always a few bullets dropping near by.  One will hit the mud somewhere around his feet.  The boy nearest springs as from a catapult until he is close to the comrade ahead of him.  No; he never springs back.  If he did ... he would be the man ahead.  He would be in front.  Nuffin’ doin’—­the whole idea is to keep behind; there is no doubt of that.

But the guide is very vigilant.  All troops are guided to their positions, and the man on this ticklish job is nearly always a sergeant.  He has an eagle eye, and a feline sense of hearing.  He will note your skip forward.

“Keep your paces, lads ... keep your paces.”  His voice booms altogether too loud for us.

“Hush! for the love o’ Mike, Sergeant, not so loud.”  He chuckles.  He knows that feeling so well, so awfully well now.  He has been a guide these many times.  But we skip back to our position, six paces behind.  Then another bullet drops and the whole dance-step is repeated with little variation.  The sergeant booms once more, and in desperation that the Boches will hear him, we obey.

’Tis pretty how we step, too, on that first time “in.”  We lift each foot like a trotting thoroughbred.  We step high, we step lightly.  We tread as daintily as does a gray tomcat when he encounters a glass topped wall on a windy night.

CHAPTER VI

THE MAD MAJOR

This first night in, had the commander-in-chief, had any one who questioned the discipline of the First Canadians, seen us, he would have been proud of our bearing, our behavior.

The Tommy who has been there before, when on guard never shows above the parapet more than his head to the level of his eyes.  When he has had his view on the ground ahead, he ducks.  He looks and ducks frequently.  But we—­we were not real soldiers; we were super-soldiers.  We were not brave; we were super-brave.  We went into those trenches; we returned the greeting of the English boys; we lined up to the parapet; we stretched across it to the waistline, and then rose on tippy-toe.  I do admit it was a very dark night; at least it appeared so to me.  Oh, we were on the brave act, all right, all right.

We stood there staring steadily into the blackness.  Suddenly a bullet would come “Zing-g-g-g,” hit a tin can behind us, and then we would duck, exclaim “Good lord! that was a close one,” then resume the old position.  But we soon learned not to have many inches of our bodies displayed, target-fashion, for the benefit of the Dutchies.

The first night in we fired more bullets than on any other night we were at the front.  We saw more Germans that night.  They sprang up by dozens; they grew into hundreds as the minutes passed and the darkness deepened.  We felt like the prophet Ezekiel as he viewed the valley of dry bones.  There was the shaking, there was the noise, and my imagination, at least, supplied the miraculous warriors.  It was an awful night, that first night in.