We had seen atrocities on the Belgians the day before.  We had seen young girls who were mutilated and horribly maltreated.  We had been gassed, we had seen our comrades die in an awful horror.  We had had our sergeants crucified, and we were outnumbered ten to one.  After all this, and after all the Hell through which we had passed from six that morning until after two, when we reached the enemy trench and presented the bright ends of our bayonets, Mr. Fritz went down on his knees and cried, “Kamerad!  Kamerad!”

What did we do?  We did exactly what you would have done under like circumstances. “Kamerad!”—­Bah!

There is no doubt that the German soldier is a good soldier as far as he goes.  He is good in a charge and if he had not done the despicable things—­the dreadful outrages which he has done—­he could be admired as a fighting machine.  But there is one department where we of the Allies have him licked to a frazzle.  Talk to any man who has been out there and he will say the same.  The German soldier can not hold in a hand-to-hand fight.  He can’t face the cold steel.  The second he glimpses the glint of a bayonet he is whimpering and asking for mercy.

The German bayonet is a fiendish weapon.  It is well its owner can not use it.  For myself I do not know of one case where a comrade has been wounded by enemy steel.  His bayonet is longer than ours, and from the tip for a few inches is a saw edge.  This facilitates entrance into the body, but on turning to take it out it tears and rends savagely.

It is impossible to describe the work of every battalion in a battle.  In a charge, a concerted charge, such as we went through on April twenty-third, there was not one battalion that did better than another.  There was not one officer who did better than another, there was not one man who outdistanced his fellow in valor.  We all fought like the devil.  It is only possible to convey the doings of the whole by telling the achievements of the few.

Boys of the Fourth Western Ontario Battalion, commanded by Colonel Birchall of St. Catharines, who came through this business, have told me that their colonel lined them up and made a short speech to them.  He took them into his confidence.  He told them that the whole battalion should advance together; that he did not think it good policy to leave any part in reserve.  He said:  “I am going to lead you, boys; will you come?”

There was a sonorous “Aye, aye, sir!” along the ranks.

Colonel Birchall pulled his revolver from its holster, looked at it a moment and then threw it to the ground.  Then he took his small riding switch and hung the loop over the first finger of his right hand.

“Ready, boys!” he cried, and twirling the little cane round and round, he strode ahead.

It was a terrible piece of work.  On every side shells and bullets were falling.  Men went down like ninepins at a fair.  But always ahead was the colonel, always there was the short flash of his cane as it swished through the air.  Then he was hit, a bullet in the upper right arm.  He did not stop; he did not drop the cane.