140...............CANADA IN FLANDERS.
of the attack on the left, in the face of heavy pres-
sure on their exposed left flank.
The enemy meanwhile had been accumulating
strong forces, and finally, at about half-past nine, the
remnants of the Battalion were forced to evacuate
all the ground that had been gained. The with-
drawal was conducted with deliberation, through a
hail of bullets, but it cost us heavily.
One splendid incident among many may perhaps
explain the reason. Private Gledhill is eighteen
years of age. His grandfather owns a woollen mill
in Ben Miller, near Goderich, Ontario. Ben Miller
was, till lately, celebrated as the home of the fattest
man in the world, for there lived Mr. Jonathan
Miller, who weighed 400 lbs., and moved about in a
special carriage of his own. Private Gledhill,
destined perhaps to confer fresh fame on Ben Miller,
saw Germans advancing down the trench; saw also
that only three Canadians were left in the trench,
two with the machine-gun, and himself, as he said,
"running a rifle." Before he had time to observe
more, an invader's bomb most literally gave him a
lift home, and landed him uninjured outside the
trench with his rifle broken. He found another rifle
and fired awhile from the knee till it became neces-
sary to join the retreat. During that manoeuvre,
which required caution, he fell over Lieut. Brown
wounded, and offered to convoy him home.
"Thanks, no," said the lieutenant, "I can crawl."
Then Private Frank Ullock, late a livery stable
keeper at Chatham, New Brunswick, but now with
one leg missing, said, " Will you take me?" " Sure,"
replied Gledhill. But Frank Ullock is a heavy man
and could not well be lifted. So Gledhill got down
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