THE OMINECA MINER, SATURDAY, MAY 4, 1918. “The oN on-Combatant / By Captain Joh MacNab, The dugout measured even feet by ten, the man measured less, but the spirit of the man was immeasurable, The dugout was just an ordinary dugout. Steel sheeting overhead, then sandbags, brick and still more sandbags. It differed from others of its kind only in that it had a canvas sign. Other dugouts too had their sobriquets inscribed, but this was not ‘‘Mageie Mur- phy’s Home,”? ‘‘Unele Tom’s Cabin,” ''Lyddite Shelter,’’ nor “lhe Mudlark’s Nest,’’ but the “YMCA.” Its position was decidedly pre- carious. On one side of it was-a battery of Canadian howitzers, on the other side a battery of 18- pounders. The ground all ’round was torn up by high explosives, Up the road was Ypres—-Ypres, the storm-center of the war's wildest passions—Ypres, where four of the biggest and bloodiest battles of the war have been fought—Y pres, where the first poisonous pas clouds floated over the Allied trenches— Y pres, with Rearee one stone standing on another—Ypres, once a city of princes, now a smouldering Ge- henna. This dugout was close to Ypres. The Non-Comb.tant in charge of the dugout had been a minister in peace time, a native of the breezy western plains of Canada, He had joined the. ranks as a ‘stretcher-bearer and was later transferred from the banner of _ the Red Cross to that of the Red Triangle. He was serving as in- defatigably in this branch to help imen as he had in the other, and the sergeant’s stripes indicated that his work was being appreci- ated. Once again the Ypres salient was resounding with in- Second Divisiona Artillery ltenge artillery fire... The.British holding the captured territory. cost. Our men were returning wounded, broken and weary. In thase days both the man and the dugout were needed.: Early and late he toiled over a’ troublesome gasoline stove to prepare hot co- coa for the wayfarers, A constant stream of heroes came down the road. Men who had not heen too se- verely wounded, in the head or arm, called ‘‘walking’’ patients, were sent to the field dress- sing station lower down, Some had been buried by ‘‘rum jars’’; others were victims of shell con- cussion, but most of them had been struck by shrapnel and were faint from loss of blood. Wounds had taken all the ‘'sand’’ out of them and the hot eocoa was a welcome tonic forthe weary and wounded marchers. At night, working parties crept by. Men who went.up to rebuild parapets and stretch new wire, dragged themselves buck fatigued and un- nerved by their operations in “no-man’s-land’’. under the flare of star shells, It was often the grey dawn be.’ fore they returned, but the Non- Combatant had a hot drink ready when they passed by. -There he toiled all alone, serving hundreds of cups of cocoa daily,stoking the stove, washing the mugs, and by his cheery presence and kindly word comforting the passing men,- He stayed through that furnace of shells whizzing around him in that whole month’s battle} of St. Eloi, and he was still at his post when the battle of Hooge } 25 Miles f