It is a bright spring day in May, 1917, for so-called Sunny France is trying to redeem herself after an abominable winter. I am sitting on a tin biscuit box at the entrance of my R.A.P.--regimental aid post--just on the outskirts of a ruined village. Had I taken this position one month ago my stay in the land of the living would have lasted something under ten minutes, for then the German front line was about three hundred yards away. But since that time the Battle of Vimy Ridge has come and gone, and the Germans are pushed back well beyond the ridge. So it is comparatively safe to sit here, for the only danger is from a stray shell, as it happens at the moment the Huns are too busy defending themselves from a heavy assault from the Canadians on our right to send any shells this way.
This morning a number of villages opposite our right front are to be taken, and as I sit looking about our guns are firing so continuously that they make what the boys call drumfire, that is, a continuous roll such as kettledrums make. Our artillery is so immense in numbers of guns that drumfire is common by day. By night the sky on the horizon is lit up in all directions by the repeated flashes of the guns, giving the appearance of an immense fireworks exhibition.
All about me are the signs of war. I am looking toward a mass of ruins which occupy the site of what was once a well-built and prosperous little city. All that now remains of it is a stone wall here and there, and everywhere piles of stone and brick and mortar. Not one roof remains. There on the left, that high pile of demolished walls, is all that exists of a once elaborate church. Amidst the ruins the cellars are occupied as habitations for the troops. If you wander among them you will see some strange names given to their quarters by the wags of the companies--such names as The Devil's Inn, Home Sweet Home, The Savoy, The Sister Susie Hotel, and other such devices.
But there is one object amongst the ruins that strikes my eye. It is two hundred yards from where I am seated. It appears plainly to be the shattered trunk of a tree, two feet in diameter and twenty feet in height. It is the largest in the vicinity of those that remain to wave their withered and emaciated arms in mocking derision at our so-called civilization.