One night we found that our first Canadian brigade was going into the
trenches at Festubert without the chemical necessary to saturate their
gas masks, which had just been issued to the soldiers; we succeeded in
borrowing 500 pounds from a wide-awake army corps and took it down in
the car to an advanced dressing station which the brigade would have
to pass. The Germans were particularly jumpy that night as we felt our
way along that very rough road with no light to guide us except the
electric green light of the numerous German flares, the occasional
flashes of a powerful German search light sweeping the sky and ground,
and the angry red spurts from the guns which lit up the sky like
summer lightning.
Once we had occasion to make a trip from one shelled village to
another, the driver had been given the direction and no further
attention was paid to him until we came across a reserve trench manned
by Ghurkas. This drew our attention to the fact that the country was
quite unfamiliar. However, the next French sign post showed us that we
were on a road leading to the desired village and we kept on.
The day was very quiet and hazy and it was impossible to see very far.
We suddenly came upon the remains of a little village which had been
literally levelled to the ground; not two feet of brick wall could be
seen anywhere.
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