The First Canadians in France

"Is there a florist's shop in the village?"

"Well, not exactly a 'florist's,'" Jack replied, "but there is a place at the far end of the street where we might get some flowers."

"Let us go there!"

He spoke no further word until they arrived at the little house which Jack pointed out as a likely place. They entered the room and after some slight delay madame produced a vase filled with deep red roses. The colonel selected four of the largest, paid the woman and without a comment walked out with the roses in his hand.

"Get me a motor car," he said to Jack; "we have several miles to go."

The mechanical transport supplied them with a small car and they started on their strange mission. They pulled up a few miles back of the firing line and tramped silently across the fields, the colonel still clutching the roses, until they came to a spot where a number of Tommies were standing by four open graves which they had just dug. Beside the graves rested four shapeless bundles covered with blankets.

"Do you know the burial service?" the colonel asked Jack suddenly.

"I'm afraid I don't remember it well enough to repeat it," Jack replied.

"It doesn't matter much," he went on thoughtfully, "I can say it myself."

The men got ready with their ropes to lower the packages, one by one, into their respective resting places. It was all that was left of four gallant officers of a gallant battalion. The colonel repeated the burial service from memory, word for word:

"Ashes to ashes – dust to dust…"

But before the earth closed over them he stood at the foot of each grave, silent as the grave itself, and dropping a rose tenderly upon each stood at attention, his right hand at the "salute." As the earth fell dully upon the blankets he turned away with tears in his eyes and said simply:

"Poor brave chaps! I loved them all! God keep them. They did their duty!"

It was ten o'clock at night as Reggy and I, crossing the tracks at the Gare Maritime in Boulogne, saw a battalion which had just disembarked from the cross-channel boat drawn up on the quay, ready to entrain for the front.

We walked toward them in a spirit of idle curiosity – for the sight was one to which we were well accustomed – when, under the dim light of a partly shaded street lamp, we noticed that they were from home. We approached a little group of officers who were chatting animatedly together, and among them found several whom we knew.

"What's the truth about this big show the Canadians are in at the front?" one cried. "There are all sorts of rumours in England. Some say eight hundred casualties; some say eight thousand."

"I'm afraid eight thousand is nearer the mark," I replied hesitatingly, fearing to discourage them.

"Eight thousand!" he echoed; and then an eager cry went up from the little group:

"By Jove! Hope they'll hurry us on to the front!"

And I was afraid of discouraging them! How little I understood my own countrymen!

"All aboard!" came the call a moment later, and the enthusiastic Tommies eagerly clambered into the waiting coaches. As the train clank-clanked along the street and left us standing there alone in the darkness, back to our ears came the familiar but ribald strain of "Hail, hail, the gang's all here!"

No matter in what strange words it may find vent, the care-free spirit of song is the true spirit of the army.

"You can't discourage men like that," said Reggy with a smile half amusement and half unconscious pride.

And each occupied with his own thoughts we turned and walked silently down the quay.

THE END