CHAPTER NINE
The attack came as a total surprise to the brothers George and Haig Ballantyne and to all other members of Number 38 Company, Number One Forestry Group, Canadian Forestry Corps.
Number 38 Company spent most of that Saturday in a state of innocence and isolation.
Around noon a liaison officer from the U. S. First Army, into whose command the company had been transferred two days before, checked into the town hall, now the orderly room. “Hear any shooting this morning, Major?” he asked the officer commanding over a cup of fortified tea.
“Well, more than we used to hear in Scotland. Sounded reassuringly far away.”
“Yes, I guess so. I dropped into the map room at advance corps around eleven hundred hours. The G-2 was playing all sorts of queer games with his colored pencils.
