There was no means of feeding these thousands of helpless ones.  Their only means of sustenance was from the charity of the British and French soldiers, who shared rations with them.

And there was sister, the daughter—­sister—­sister.  At sight of these young girls—­from thirteen up to twenty and over—­we learned, if we had not learned before, that this is a war in which every decent man must fight.  Some Americans and Canadians may not want to go overseas; they may be opposed to fighting; they may think they are not needed.  Let them once see what we saw that April morning and nothing in the world could keep them at home.

They dragged along with heads low, and eyes seeking the ground in a shame not of their own making.  I am conservative when I say that one in four of the hundreds of young girls who walked along in that sad crowd had a baby, or was about to have one.

And that was not the only horror of their situation.  Many of them had one or the other arm off at the elbow.  They had not only been ruined, but mutilated by their barbarous enemies.

That evening we camped just outside the city of Ypres.  We rested all night, and the next day we went into action.  During the afternoon of April twenty-second the Germans, for the first time in the history of warfare, used poisonous gas.  And they used it against us as we lay there ready to protect the Ypres salient.

CHAPTER XII

CANADIANS—­THAT’S ALL

Less than three months before this we were raw recruits.  We were considered greenhorns and absolutely undisciplined.  We had had little of trench experience.  At Neuve Chapelle we had “stood by.”  At Hill 60 we had watched the fun.  But our discipline, our real mettle, had not yet been put to the test.

That evening of the twenty-second of April when we marched out from Ypres, little did any of us realize that within the next twenty-four hours more than one-half of our total effectives were to be no more.

I feel sure that our commanders must have been nervous.  They must have wondered and asked themselves, “Will the boys stand it?” “How will they come out of the test?”

We were about to be thrown into the fiercest and bitterest battle of the war.  There were no other troops within several days’ march of us.  There was no one to back us up.  There was no one else, should we fail, to take our place.  “Canadians!  It’s up to you!”

I could tell of several stirring things that happened to other battalions during that night, but I am only telling of what I saw myself, and it will suffice to write of one most stirring thing which befell the Third.

As we crossed the Yser Canal we marched in a dogged and resolute silence.  No man can tell what were the thoughts of his comrade.  We have no bands, nor bugles, nor music when marching into action.  We dare not even smoke.  In dark and quiet we pass steadily ahead.  There is only the continued muffled tramp—­tramp—­of hundreds of feet encased in heavy boots.