Like movies at the Cinema, they’ll bob up in my brain,
  The places that I knew so well—­I’ll see them all again.

  The battered-in Asylum; the Prison scorched and scarred;
  And ‘ole Salvation Corner with the guns a bellowin’ ’ard.

  The muddy, ruddy, Ramparts; the mist upon the Moat;
  The grey Canal between whose banks no barges ever float.

  An’ them Cathedral ruins—­O Gawd, the fearsome sight! 
  Like mutilated fingers they points up through the night.

  The blighters what relieves us—­we’ll treat ’em fair an’ kind,
  They’re welcome to the soveneers what we ’ave left be’ind.

  Good-bye, Wipers! though I ’opes it is for good,
  It ’urts me for to leave yer—­I little thought it would.”

It was with a thrill of pride that I read in the newspapers during the following days of the magnificent achievement of the 55th Division—­of the “Lancashire Men’s Great Fight:”  “Stubborn in attack and withdrawal.”  I read of heroic fights round Pommern Castle, of Wurst Farm being captured by a gallant young officer, and, particularly, the case of:  “An officer who was left last out of his battalion to hold out in an advanced position (who) said to the padre who has just visited him in hospital, ‘I hope the General was not disappointed with us.’” The General, I am sure, was not disappointed with these Lancashire men.  No one could think of them without enthusiasm and tenderness, marvelling at their spirit and at the fight they made in the tragic hours—­because it was a tragedy to them that, after gaining all the ground they had been asked to take, and not easily nor without losses, they should have to fall back and fight severe rear-guard actions to cover a necessary withdrawal.[15]

It was, naturally, a matter of great interest to me to determine to what particular officers these remarks referred, as no names were given and no battalions mentioned by name.  Now, of course, we all know.  The officer who reached Wurst Farm was John Redner Bodington, and the gallant young officer who fought like a hound at bay, while wounded over and over again, and hoped that “the General was not disappointed,” was none other than the hero whose name is upon the title-page of this book—­Bertram Best-Dunkley.  And, as the days rolled by, one familiar name after another was recorded in the casualty lists.  It was the bloodiest battle in History; the casualty list which contained my name was the longest I have ever seen in the Times.

I wrote to Sergeant Baldwin for information as to the fate of my platoon, and, some time afterwards, received the following reply: 

“Ward 24,
“Ontario Military Hospital,
“Orpington, Kent. 
“August 15th, 1917. 
“Dear Sir,