Germans, including two officers, advanced cautiously towards him along the trench.

The officers urged forward their reluctant men, who had already experienced more than they liked of Clarke's offensive methods. Clarke left his work of construction and advanced to meet them, determined to keep them at bay until Nichols had finished the job on the permanent block.

His only weapon was a revolver. He emptied its contents into the mob, picked up a German rifle and exhausted its magazine in the same target, flung that aside, snatched up another and continued his hot fire.

As Clarke was thus employed, the senior German officer took a rifle from one of his own men and lunged wildly at the Canadian. The point of the bayonet caught Clarke just below the knee; but that was the officer's last act in the war, for Clarke shot him dead where he stood.

There were still five Germans left. They turned and ran—and Clarke dropped four of them as they dashed along the trench. The survivor, shouting in excellent English, begged so hard for his life that he was spared. Clarke had killed two officers and sixteen other ranks.

But for Clarke's action, Sergeant Nichols could not have erected the permanent block, which was of vital importance to the security of the Canadian position.

Though wounded in the back and the knee, Clarke refused to leave the trench until ordered to do so by Lieutenant Hoey. Next day he returned to his platoon in billets.

PRIVATE JOHN CHIPMAN KERR, 49TH BATTALION

The war was no new thing, many Canadians were veteran soldiers and many were in Flanders graves, when Kerr decided that his services were more urgently required on the field of battle than on his own new acres in the Province of Alberta. He had gone north and west shortly before the outbreak of war, from the home of his family in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, to virgin land on Spirit River, fifty miles from the nearest railway.

Kerr found other "homesteaders" on Spirit River who saw eye to eye with him in this matter—a dozen patriotic adventurers who were determined to exchange safe establishments in life for the prospects of violent deaths. Together they "footed" the fifty miles to the railway. In Edmonton they enlisted in a body in the 66th Battalion.

Early in June, 1916, four hundred officers and other ranks were drafted from the 66th, then training in England, to the 49th, then fighting in France. Private J. C. Kerr was a more or less unconsidered unit in that draft. These reinforcements, with others, reached France shortly after the Battle of Sanctuary Wood, an engagement in which the Germans attacked with so crushing a superiority of men and metal and the Canadians fought so stubbornly as to necessitate the withdrawal of fragments of battalions of a whole division for reorganization. The 49th Battalion was represented by one of these indomitable fragments.

The Canadians marched from the Salient to the Somme in the autumn of that year. The 49th, up to strength once more and with its old spirit renewed, reached Albert on the 13th of September.

Forty hours later it took up a battle position at a point near the Sunken Road, before and to the left of the village of Courcelette, with other battalions of the same brigade.

In the great Canadian advance of September the 15th, in which our morning and evening attacks drove the Germans from the Sugar Refinery, Courcelette, and many more strongholds and intricate systems of defence, the 49th Battalion supported the Princess Patricia's and the 42nd Battalion on the extreme left of our frontage of aggressive operations. These battalions advanced the line to the left of Courcelette, keeping abreast of the units that assaulted and occupied the village and mopped up its crowded dug-outs and fortified houses. Their activities were devoted entirely to the subjection and occupation of strong trenches and trench machine-gun posts. They moved irresistibly forward, cleaning things up as they went. They reached and occupied their final objectives—with the exception of a length of trench about 250 yards in extent, which remained in the hands of the enemy until the following day. But the defenders of that isolated section of trench could not retreat, for the head of their communicating trench was blocked, they dared not attempt a rearward flight on the surface and they were flanked right and left by the Canadians. So the matter rested for the night, with no more stir than an occasional exchange of bombs across the flanking barricades.

On the afternoon of the 16th, a party of bombers from the 49th Battalion undertook to clear this offending piece of trench and so make possible the consolidation of the entire frontage gained in the previous day's offensives. Here is where the ex-homesteader from Spirit River steps into that high light which illuminates more frequently and glaringly the feeble activities of the music-hall stage than the grim heroics of the battle-field.

Private John Chipman Kerr, as first bayonet-man, moved forward well in advance of his party. He twitched himself over the block in the communicating trench in less time than he had ever taken to negotiate a pasture fence on the home-farm. He advanced about thirty yards into the hostile position before a sentry took alarm and hurled a grenade. Kerr saw the grenade coming and, in the fraction of a second at his disposal, attempted to protect himself with his arm. He was partially successful in this, for when the bomb exploded it did no more than blow off the upper joint of his right fore-finger and wound him slightly in the right side.

By this time the other members of the assaulting party were close to his heels. The exchange of bombs between the defenders and attackers now became general, though an angle in the trench hid each party from view of the other. Good throwing was done by our men, who were all experts; but Kerr felt that the affair promised to settle into a stationary action unless something new and sudden happened. So he clambered out of the trench and the shocks of that blind fight and moved along the parados until he came into close contact with, and full view of, the enemy. He was still armed with his rifle and two grenades; and, despite loss of blood, he was still full of enterprise and fight. He tossed the grenades among the crowded defenders beneath him and then opened fire into them with his rifle. Mud jambed the bolt of his rifle, whereupon he replaced it with the weapon of the second bayonet-man, Private Frank Long, who had followed him out of the trench and had just then caught up with him.

While Kerr pumped lead into the massed enemy beneath his feet he directed the fire of his bombers so effectively, by voice and gesture, that the defenders were forced back to the shelter of the nearest bay. He immediately jumped down into the trench and went after them, with all the Canadian bombers and bayonet-men at his heels. A dug-out was reached; and while this was being investigated Kerr went on alone, rounded a bay and once again joined battle with the defenders of the trench. But the spirit of combat, even of resistance, had gone out of them. Up went their hands!

Before having his wounds dressed, Private Kerr escorted the 62 Germans across open ground, under heavy fire, to a support trench, and then returned and reported himself for duty to his company commander.

The official recommendation says: "The action of this man at this juncture undoubtedly resulted in the capture of