Canadians in the front trenches held on in the midst of this uproar. “They took it all,” said one of the officers, and in that phrase, spoken simply by a man who was there, too, lies the spirit of pride and sacrifice. “They took it all” and did not budge, though the sky seemed to be opening above them and the earth below them.

The bombardment continued without a pause for five hours, by which time most of our front trenches had been annihilated. At about a quarter past one the enemy’s guns lifted a little, and through the dense smoke-clouds which made a solid bar across No Man’s Land appeared a mass of German infantry. They wore their packs and full field-kit, as though they had come to stay.