The 4th Canadian Mounted Rifles - ElectricCanadian.com

SANCTUARY WOOD 25revealing the location of a tunnel and checking hismining operations. There were several very large minecratersin this sector; the Battalion held the lip of anenormous irregular crater which measured over five hundred feet across at its widest part and was over one hundred feet deep.On the night of the 22nd the Battalion was relieved. Aug. 23,the bone-dry trenches which could change soThey leftrapidly with the weather and which offered such a contrast in the winter. By comparison July and Augustwere not unpleasant, the soil was workable, the dugoutswere dry and when the day s "fatigue"was over, or theperiod of vigilance completed, such men as were notdetailed for duty would sit in the trenches and follow thecourse of an aeroplane soaring in the sky by the fleecywhitebursts of smoke, which gleamed against the deep-blueheavens. In these long evenings the birdmen and theskylarks in their lonely altitude were the only livingthings above the ground. Such dry warm days passedmore quickly than the cold wet ones of winter and spring.Nevertheless the men were delighted to be relieved.They cheerfully glued themselves to the sides of thetrenches to allow the incoming heavily-laden troops morefreedom to pass.This tour was the last the Battalion had in the Salientfor many months. It returned in 1918 to Passchendaelebut not to the old Salient it knew so well. It was withlittle regret that the Battalion left this pestilential ^crescent.The enemy threw a few shells into the departing troops,a little souvenir, an unnecessary reminder of this horriblecharnel-house.