My madness was passed now, and a great sadness had taken its
place. For here, where I was walking, men had stumbled up with
bullets and shells raining about them. At every step I trod ground
that must have been the last resting-place of some Canadian soldier,
who had died that I might climb this ridge in a safety so
immeasurably greater than his had been.
If it was hard for us to make this climb, if we stumbled as we walked,
what had it been for them? Our breath came hard and fast--how had it
been with them? Yet they had done it! They had stormed the ridge the
Huns had proudly called impregnable. They had taken, in a swift rush,
that nothing could stay, a position the Kaiser's generals had assured
him would never be lost--could never be reached by mortal troops.
The Pimple, for which we were heading now, was an observation post at
that time. There there was a detachment of soldiers, for it was an
important post, covering much of the Hun territory beyond. A major of
infantry was in command; his headquarters were a large hole in the
ground, dug for him by a German shell--fired by German gunners who had
no thought further from their minds than to do a favor for a British
officer. And he was sitting calmly in front of his headquarters,
smoking a pipe, when we reached the crest and came to the Pimple.
He was a very calm man, that major, given, I should say, to the
greatest repression.
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