We Return to Arras.
August, 1918.

On Friday the 16th of August our Division left Beaufort and moved back to billets at Le Quesnel. Here there was a good sized chateau which was at once used for office purposes. The General and his staff made their billets in a deep cave which was entered from the road. It was of considerable extent, lit by electric light, and rooms opened out on both sides of the central passage. I had one assigned to me, but as I did not feel well enough to stand the dampness I gave it to the clerks of the A.D.M.S., and made my home with the veterinary officer in the cellar of the school-house which stood beside the church. The latter, which had been used by the Germans as a C.C.S., was a modern building and of good proportions. The spire had been used as an observation-post. One or two shells had hit the building and the interior, though still intact, was in great disorder. The altar ornaments, vestments, and prayer books were thrown about in confusion. The school-house where I was lodged must have been also the Curé's residence. A good-sized room downstairs served as a chapel for my Sunday services. The cellar, where the A.D.V.S. and I slept was quite comfortable, though by no means shell-proof. As the only alternative abode was the cave, he and I, deciding we would rather die of a shell than of rheumatism, chose the cellar. The Corps ambulances were all together in a valley not far away, and in trenches to the east, near the cemetery where the 8th Battalion officers and men had been buried, there were some reserves of the 3rd Brigade.

Things were quiet now in the front line, so I determined to make a trip to Albert to see my son's grave. It was a long and dusty journey and the roads were rough. We passed back through the district over which we had advanced, and saw everywhere gruesome traces of the fighting. When we came to Albert, however, we found it was still in the possession of the enemy. The Americans were holding the line, and an American sentry stopped us at a barrier in the road and said that no motorcycles were allowed to go any further in that direction. It was strange to hear the American accent again, and I told the lad that we were Canadians. "Well", he said, with a drawl, "that's good enough for me." We shook hands and had a short talk about the peaceful continent that lay across the ocean. There was nothing for us to do then but to return.

On the following Sunday, the Germans having evacuated Albert a day and a half before, I once more paid a visit to the old town. I left my side-car on the outskirts of the place and was taken by Mr. Bean, the Australian War Correspondent, into his car. He was going up to take some photographs. The day was intensely hot, and the dust of the now ruined town was literally ankle-deep and so finely powdered that it splattered when one walked as though it had been water. I saw the ruins of the school-house which our ambulances had used, and noticed that the image of the Virgin had been knocked down from the tower of the Cathedral. I passed the house where our Headquarters had been. The building was still standing but the front wall had gone, leaving the interior exposed. I made my way up the Bapaume road to Tara Hill, and there to my great delight I found the little cemetery still intact. Shells had fallen in it and some of the crosses had been broken, but the place had been wonderfully preserved. A battery on one side of it had just ceased firing and was to advance on the following day. While I was putting up some of the crosses that had fallen, Mr. Bean came up in his car and kindly took a photograph of my son's grave. He also took a photograph of the large Australian cross which stands at one corner of the cemetery. Tara Hill had been for six months between the German front and reserve lines, and I never expected that any trace of the cemetery would have been found. I shall probably never see the place again, but it stands out in my memory now as clear and distinct as though once more I stood above the dusty road and saw before me the rows of little crosses, and behind them the waste land battered by war and burnt beneath the hot August sun. Over that very ground my son and I had ridden together, and within a stone's throw from it two years before we had said good-bye to one another for the last time.

Our Division had now come out of the line and were hurrying north. On August 26th Lyons and I started off in the car, and after a tedious and dusty journey, enlivened by several break-downs, arrived in Arras very late at night and found a billet with the Engineers in the Place de la Croix. Once more our men were scattered about the old city and its environs as if we had never left it. Our Battle Headquarters were in the forward area and r............