He came. He was a man nearing middle age, erect, tough as wire, with lines in his face such as hard fighting and responsibility leave on the face of every soldier. The representative of authority upon the spot--an Australian who also had faced ugly scenes--explained to him quietly where he wished him to take his men, into such and such a corner, by such and such a route. It meant plunging straight into the thick of the Somme battle, with all its unknown horrors--everyone there knew that. But the new-comer said quietly, "Yes, sir"--and climbed up and out into the light. It was not an Australian who spoke. That "Yes, sir" came unmistakably from the other side of the Pacific. It was the first of the Canadians upon the Somme battlefield. An hour or so later an Australian officer, moving along with his men to improve an exposed and isolated trench (a trench which was outflanked already, and enfiladed, and in half a dozen ways unhealthy) into a condition to be held against any attacks at all costs--found, coming across the open towards his exposed flank, a line of stalwart men in kilts. His men were dead tired, the enemy's shell-fire was constant and heavy, grey heads and helmets constantly seen behind a red mud parapet, across a hundred yards of red mud craters, proved that the Prussian Guard Reserve was getting ready to counter-attack him. Every message he sent back to Headquarters finished, "But we will hold this trench." And yet here the new men came--a line of them, stumbling from crater into crater, and by one of those unaccountable chances that occur in battles, only two or three of them were hit in crossing over. They dropped into the trench by the side of the Australians. Their bombers went to the left to relieve the men who had been holding the open flank. They brought in with them keen, fresh faces and bodies, and an all-important supply of bombs. It was better than a draught of good wine. So it was that the first of the Canadians arrived. Long before the last Australian platoon left that battered line, these first Canadians were almost as tired as they. For thirty-six hours they had piled up the same barricades, garrisoned the same shell-holes, were shattered by the same shells. Twenty-four hours after the Canadians came, the vicious bombardment described in the last letter descended on the flank they both were holding. They were buried together by the heavy shell-bursts. They dug each other out. When the garrison became so thin that whole lengths of trench were without a single unwounded occupant, they helped each others' wounded down to the next length, and built another barricade, and held that. Finally, when hour after hour passed and the incessant shelling never ceased, the garrison was withdrawn a little farther; and then five of