The regiment had evacuated Polygon Wood on the night of the third. Across the old trail our fatigue parties had tramped new ones in the mud, up past Regent Street, Leicester Square and Picadilly. We passed them all.
We were marched over to the little settlement of pine-bough huts which the regiment had previously taken over from the French. The men with me greeted them like old friends. Here was the Sniper's Hut, there the Commanding Officer's. This was the hut in which the brave Joe Waldron had "gone West," that on the site of one where fourteen of "ours" had stopped a shell while they slept. Memories submerged us and made us weak. Even the guiding rope that our men had used to hold themselves to the trail of nights still held its place for groping German hands.
Beside it lay the fragments of the French signboards, jocular advertisements of mud baths for trench fever, the _hôtel_ this and the _maison_ that. One of my companions pointed to a larger hut which he said our fellows had called the Hotel Cecil. The board was missing now. And no German signboard took its place. Their wit did not run in so richly innocent a channel.
The huts lay just off the race track in front of the ruined château, buried deep in the remnants of what had once been the beautiful park of a large country estate. These huts were now the German headquarters.
There was as much English as German talked there that day. Everywhere there was cooking going on, mostly in portable camp kitchens.
As we came to a halt one big fellow smoking a pipe observed nonchalantly: "You fellows are lucky. Our orders were to take no Canadian prisoners."
The man was so casual, so utterly matter-of-fact and there was about his remark so simple an air of directness and of finality that there was no escaping his sincerity, unduly interested though we were.
The big fellow said "Kanadien." The other raised his brows and shoulders: "Uhh!"
A younger officer came up: "Never mind, boys: Your turn to-day. Might be mine to-morrow." Turning to the others, he too said: "Engländer?"
[Illustration: WOUNDED CANADIANS RECEIVING FIRST AID IN A SUPPORT TRENCH AFTER AN ATTACK.]
"Oh!" And he appeared to be pleasantly surprised. He asked me for a souvenir and pointed to the brass Canada shoulder straps and the red cloth "P. P. C. L. I.'s" on the shoulders of the others. But I had already shoved my few trinkets down my puttees while lying back of the trench that afternoon. Scarfe, however, gave up his "Canada" straps.