For the events preceding the capture of Corporal Edwards on the eighth of May the author has relied upon his own recollections; as he too had the honor of having been "an original Patricia."
III Corporal Edwards Takes up the Tale 23
V The Eighth of May and the Last Stand of the Princess Pats 33
VII Pulling the Leg of a German General 61
VIII The Princess Patricia's German Uncle 70
IX How the German Red Cross Tended the Canadian Wounded 76
X The Curious Concoctions of the Chef at Giessen 81
XX "It's a Way They Have in the Army" 203
Corporal (Now Sergeant) Edward Edwards, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry _Frontispiece_
British wounded waiting for transportation to a dressing station 26
The Princess Patricias in billets at Westoutre, Belgium 26
German prisoners bringing wounded men down a communication trench 42
Wounded Canadians receiving first aid after an attack 64
Record of second escape and recapture 126
High explosives bursting over German trenches 136
The cemetery at Celle Laager Z 1 Camp 206
Ypres and Hill 60--Preparing for the Gas--Why the Patricias Cheered--The Retirement--The Thin Red Line.
The Princess Patricias had lain in Polygon Wood since the twentieth of April, mid-way between the sanguinary struggles of St. Julien and Hill 60, spectators of both. Although subjected to constant alarm we had had a comparatively quiet time of it, with casualties that had only varied from five to fifty-odd each day.
By day and night the gun-fire of both battles had beat back upon us in great waves of sound. There were times when we had donned our water soaked handkerchiefs for the gas that always threatened but never came, so that the expectation might have shaken less steady troops. Quick on the heels of the first news of the gas the women of Britain, their tears scalding their needles, with one accord had laboured, sans rest, sans sleep, sans everything, so that shortly there had poured in to us here a steady stream of gauze pads for mouth and nostril. For the protection of our lungs against the poison of the gas they were at least better than the filthy rags we called handkerchiefs. We wore their gifts and in spirit bowed to the donors, as I think all still do. We soaked them with the foul water of the near-by graves and kept them always at our side, ready to tie on at each fresh alarm.