In the front lines of the Ypres salient was the Third Brigade, made up of Canadian Highlanders, whom the Germans, since that night have nicknamed “The Ladies from Hell.”  In this brigade were men from parts of Nova Scotia, Montreal, from Hamilton, Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver.

To the left of these lay the Second Brigade of Infantry.  These were men for the most part from the West.  There was the Fifth, commonly known as the “Disappointed Fifth,” from Regina, Moose Jaw and Saskatoon.  There was the Eighth, nicknamed by the Germans “The Little Black Devils from Winnipeg.”  The Tenth, the famous “Fighting Tenth,” with boys from Southern Alberta, mainly Medicine Hat and Calgary and Lethbridge.  And there was the Seventh of British Columbia.

[Illustration:  POSITIONS BEFORE AND AFTER SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES APRIL 1915]

It was the Second Brigade which the First was supporting.  To the left of the Eighth Battalion, which was the extreme Canadian left wing, there were Zouaves and Turcos.  These were black French Colonials.  To these unfortunates, probably the Canadians owe their near disaster.

In the far distance we saw a cloud rise as though from the earth.  It was a greeny-red color, and increased in volume as it rolled forward.  It was like a mist rising, and yet it hugged the ground, rose five or six feet, and penetrated to every crevice and dip in the ground.

We could not tell what it was.  Suddenly from out the mist we men in reserves saw movement.  Coming toward us, running as though Hell as it really was had been let loose behind them, were the black troops from Northern Africa.  Poor devils, I do not blame them.  It was enough to make any man run.  They were simple-minded fellows.  They were there to fight for France, but their minds could not grasp the significance of the enemy against whom they were pitted.  The gas rolled on and they fled.  Their officers vainly tried to stem the flying tide of them.  Their heels barely seemed to touch the ground.  As they ran they covered their faces, noses and eyes with their hands, and through blackened lips, sometimes cracked and bleeding, they gasped, “Allemands!  Allemands!”

Some of our own French-speaking officers stopped the few running men they could make hear, and begged of them to reform their lines and go back to the attack.  But they were maddened as only a simple race can be frenzied by fear, and paid no heed.

It is in times like this, in moments of dire emergency, that the officer of true worth stands out, the real leader of men.  There were a dozen incidents to prove this in the next few hurried, desperate moments.  None can be more soul-stirring than the quick thought, quick action and foresight displayed by our own captain.  He did not know what this smoke rushing toward our lines could be.  He had no idea more definite than any of us in the ranks.  But he had that quick brain that acts automatically in an emergency and thinks afterward.