62 prisoners and the taking of 250 yards of enemy trench."

This seems to be a conservative statement of the case. It takes no account of the other Germans who were involved in that brisk affair. They have been dead a long time.

MAJOR T. W. MACDOWELL, 38TH BATTALION

Major MacDowell won his D.S.O. on November 18th, 1916, for his quick decision and determined action in an attack made by his battalion—the 38th, from Ottawa—on the British front, south of the Ancre, against Desire Trench and Desire Support Trench. With "B" Company, of which he was Captain, he advanced to within throwing distance and bombed three German machine-guns which had been holding up the advance, capturing, after severe hand-to-hand fighting, three officers and fifty of the enemy crews. It was this enterprise which cleared the way for the advance to the final objective.

The same qualities of courage and swift decision were manifested on the occasion on which he won the Victoria Cross during the action of Vimy Ridge on the 9th of April, 1917. MacDowell delights in battle detail. He wants to know just where he is going when he enters an engagement, and before the big attack on Vimy he studied all the available Intelligence Reports and aeroplane maps, even selecting the particular German dug-out in which he intended to establish his headquarters after the position was won.

The 38th, having been reorganized after the battle on the Somme, had moved up to the trenches at Vimy just after Christmas Day, 1916. For four long winter months the battalion remained in front of the famous ridge until, on that day in April, it went up, in conjunction with other Canadian units, in full battle array and snatched the position from the enemy.

It is impossible to over-estimate the strategic value of Vimy Ridge. Its two spurs, flung out west and south-west in a series of heights which dominated the western plain, were regarded by military experts as the backbone of the whole German position in France. The Ridge was not only a naturally strong position made as impregnable as German skill could make it; it was more than that. Upon it, it was argued, hinged—and still hinges—the entire strategy of the enemy's retreat in the west. The enemy had held the heights since the third month of the war. They were the great bastion of his lines. Four times had the Allies attacked the position, biting deep into the German line; but still the enemy held the Ridge, though the holding of it had cost him sixty thousand men. It was to obtain possession of this famous series of hills that the Canadian battalions climbed out of their trenches at 5.30 a.m. on that April day.

Few men slept soundly on the night before the great attack. The stern, hard training for the operation which had been in process for some weeks had tightened and toughened every link in the chain from the highest rank to the lowest, and the last few hours dragged fitfully. All watches had been synchronized and immediately 5.30 o'clock ticked a roar of artillery, awe-inspiring and stupendous, burst from the batteries, the hiding-places of which were only revealed by the short, sharp flashes; and Vimy Ridge was all afire with cataclysmic death and destruction.

Behind the barrage, driving through No Man's Land towards their objective, went the Canadian battalions. Captain MacDowell reached the German line about fifty yards to the right of the point for which he was aiming; but most of his men, having worked slightly farther to the right, became separated from their leader, who found himself alone with two runners. The German dug-out where he aimed at establishing himself could be seen in the shell-torn line, but there was no time to collect a party to clean the place up. But on the way to his destination MacDowell captured two enemy machine-guns as an aside. He bombed one out of action, then attacked the other. The second gunner did not wait, but ran for shelter to a dug-out whither MacDowell followed and got him.

Working their way along to the big dug-out the three Canadians saw that the place was more formidable than they had anticipated. It stretched far underground. MacDowell bawled down the deep passage, summoning the German occupants to surrender. No answer came from out the depths to his demand; but that Germans were down in the underground there seemed no doubt. The captain decided to go down and find out. It was a gigantic game of bluff he was playing, and it succeeded by reason of its very audacity.

A flight of fifty-two steps led to the earthen floor below, and down those fifty-two steps went Captain MacDowell. Along a narrow passage he went and then, suddenly, as he turned a corner, which led into the main room of this subterranean fortress, he found himself face to face with a large group of the enemy. There were seventy-seven of them—though he did not know the exact number till afterwards, when they were counted—mostly Prussian Guards. Now, by all the laws of arithmetic and logic Captain MacDowell ought to have been taken prisoner or killed. But he was not out to be governed by the laws of arithmetic or logic. He was out to capture Boches and to kill those he could not capture.

Quick as a flash he turned and began to shout orders to an imaginary force behind him—and up went the hands of the seventy-seven stalwart Guards. "Kamerad!" they said.

It was one thing, however, to accept the surrender of this large party and quite another to get them out of the dug-out, for there was more than a chance that when they discovered there were but three Canadians to look after them they would try to overwhelm their captors. The captain decided to send the Germans up in batches of twelve, and the two runners, Kebus and Hay, marshalled them in the open at the top. Among the prisoners were two officers.

What had been expected, once the Germans were marched up into the daylight, occurred. Some of them were furious at the trick which had been played on them and one of them caught up a rifle and shot at one of the Canadians. The rebellion did not last long, for it was checked by quick, drastic measures.

That afternoon, when the riot of the attack had quietened somewhat, MacDowell and his two men made a thorough exploration of the dug-out and a report on the position was sent back to headquarters. Here is the report in his own hurried words, written with a stump of pencil, with his notebook on his knee as the German shells were crashing all around the entrance to the dug-out:

"While exploring this dug-out we discovered a large store of what we believe to be explosives in a room. There is also an old sap leading down underground in the direction of No. — Crater. This was explored ... we have cut all the wires, for fear of possible destructive posts. The dug-out has three entries, and will accommodate easily 250 or 300 men, with the sap to spare. It is seventy-five feet underground and very comfortable. The cigars are very choice and my supply of Perrier water is very large....

"They are firing at us all the time with their heavy guns from the south-east, but I have no casualties to report since coming in here, except being half scared to death myself by a 'big brute'....

"We have taken two machine-guns that I know of; and a third and possibly a fourth will be taken to-night. This post was a machine-gun post and was held by a machine-gun company. I believe they are the Prussian Guards; all big, strong men who came in last night. They had plenty of rations; but we had a great time taking them prisoners.