At the first lull in the fighting it is the duty of the medical officer to see to the clearing of the field of those wounded who cannot walk. Any men going to the rear for supplies, and any German prisoners, are commandeered by the M.O. as stretcher parties. In big actions his own trained stretcher bearers are employed only as dressers. In the battle of Vimy Ridge which began at 5:30 a.m., it was twelve hours later ere all the wounded on our front were evacuated to the field ambulances. That was quick work when one considers that some battalions, including my own, had 35 per cent. of their men hit. One hundred German prisoners were sent up under escort to act as stretcher bearers, and gradually the field was cleared.
The only difference between the handling of the wounded during actions and during stationary warfare is the fact that in the former more unavoidable congestion takes place, though this is prevented as far as possible in the forward areas by rushing the cases to the rear or to England. In big actions, where many wounded are expected, this is always done.
After hospital treatment in England or Scotland the men are sent to convalescent homes in Ramsgate, Herne Bay, Whitstable, Sturry, Brighton, or any of the hundred and one other points that are suitable in the British Isles. Later these men are sent before medical boards which decide as to their disposal thereafter. They may be sent directly back to duty; to prolonged rest; to have some weeks, P.T.—physical training—which is not popular with the men, but is often needed; or, they may be marked P.B.—permanent base duty—which means that they are not fit for general service, but are able to perform some duties at the base or at home. Lastly, they may be discharged as permanently unfit for further service, the amount of their pensions being decided by the pension board.
Until the wounded man reaches the C.C.S. his wounds are dressed in very rough surroundings, not the aseptic dressing rooms of peace times. Dugouts, cellars or open trenches are employed for dressing stations. After the battle of Vimy Ridge my boys and I dressed our men for four days in an open, muddy trench, with the shells dropping about all the time. Dugouts are simply holes in the ground, and may be most primitive dressing rooms. Everyone knows how aseptic the ordinary cellar could be made, even with the greatest care on the part of an M.O.'s assistants. But our dressings are folded and wrapped in such a manner that they can be applied, even though the dresser's hands are covered with mud, without the aseptic part of the dressing, which is applied to the wound, being in any way soiled. I have given one hundred and fifty inoculations hypodermically for the prevention of typhoid in a tent in which the men and myself stood ankle deep in mud. Not one case of infection of the point at which the needle was inserted occurred. This illustrates the efficiency one reaches from being accustomed to working in filthy surroundings. Your stretcher bearers and dressers become as skilled in this art as yourself, so that the men really get good attention in spite of the many difficulties in the way. Of course, at the C.C.S., which is five to ten miles from the trenches, the surroundings are as good as they are in the average city hospital. And the base hospitals are often elaborate in their equipment, though they may be situated in large tents or newly constructed wooden huts with stoves to lessen the raw cold of the French winter weather. The base hospitals in England are the highly scientific city hospitals, simply put under military control.
Something that is noticed by all who have served at the front is the drollery of the men in dangerous or uncomfortable surroundings. Sometimes it is good-natured, sometimes ill-tempered and critical, but it is ever present. One cannot but believe that the wag of the company is better than a tonic to the men, in fact is almost as good a pick-me-up as the rum ration. Who has not felt the benefit of a good laugh? Who has not seen a well-developed sense of humor save a difficult situation, or at least alleviate it?
With Tommy the humor crops out in the most unexpected situations. Under circumstances in which the ordinary man would turn ghastly pale, Tommy cracks a joke. Crossing an open space toward a railway embankment I was fifty yards or so from a culvert through which I had intended passing, when a soldier reached it. He was carrying a load on his back, and was sucking on a pipe, his head bowed in thought. A whizz bang shrieked by me, and struck just at the entrance to the culvert, missing him only by inches. Fortunately it banged into the earth four or five feet beyond his position at the moment, so that the fragments spread from him, not towards him. He had escaped death by a hairbreadth. He stopped in his path, took his pipe from his mouth, raised his head and looked with a surprised air at the hole in the ground made by the bursting shell. His only comment was uttered in a slow voice:
"Well, I'll—be—jiggered!" And putting his pipe back into his mouth, he coolly resumed his walk and his meditation, without altering his course by one inch. Thus do men come to accept narrow escapes from death as a matter of course, where such escapes are as common as is plum jam in the rations.
————
The men are plodding along in thick tenacious mud, carrying sixty-pound trench mortars, each foot with its accumulated mud weighing at least twenty pounds, and feeling as if it weighed a ton. They are sweating, and blowing, and tired. They halt for a rest and lean up against the wet, muddy wall of the trench, carelessly chucking the heavy mortars into the mud. Then the wag begins by cursing the bally war, consigning the officers to perdition, condemning the food as unfit for "villyuns," and wishing the Kaiser "wuz in 'ell." "And the blighters hexpect hus to stand an' face the henemy. An' ye betcher life we'll do it too, coz we couldn't run if we want to: we're stuck in the mud!" A smile passes along the tired faces; their rest is over, and more or less rejuvenated, they take up their burdens and pass on.
————
Coming out of the front lines one day when we were relieved by another battalion, my corporal and I were going along a support trench when we came up with some officers of our battalion who were leaning against the parapet, waiting for the Germans to let up shelling the trench twenty-five yards in advance of us. We joined the other officers, and were soon joined by about sixty men who were trying to get out the same way. The Germans were persistent, so we all finally turned back to go out by another trench. The shells followed us along the trench, for which reason none of us slackened our pace. As we hurried along a rich Scotch voice said loudly enough for all to hear:
"By G——, these Hun shells are better than the pipes to make us march."
————
Passing along a muddy support trench, returning from a tour of inspection, we came upon a fatigue or working party of soldiers digging an ammunition dump. They were working on a ridge, and as it was a bright day they could be seen much of the time by the German snipers and might at any moment get some shells or bullets thrown into their midst. It was hard, dirty and dangerous work, but bantering voices reached us:
"What did you do in the great war, papa?" asks one.
"I dug 'oles, m'son," replies another.
"But that's not as bad as 'avin' 'oles dug in ye," adds a third.
"You're bally-well right, it's not," says a fourth. And the work proceeds.
————
Humor, of course, is not limited to the ordinary ranks, O.R.'s as they are called officially. Our battalion was putting on a big raid, "a show." In the end it was carried out very successfully, but owing to the fact that it was a daylight raid, and that a smoke barrage was to be employed, the wind had to be taken into account, and the raid was put off from time to time. Code words had to be arranged to be telephoned by brigade to the battalion. Codes are employed because of the danger of the Germans picking up the messages by a special apparatus for that purpose. An English officer present at the meeting to discuss plans suggested the following code which was employed:
If the raid was to be indefinitely postponed the wordAsquithwas to be used, meaning, wait and see. The wordHaldanewas employed with the signification, put off until tomorrow. And when it was finally decided to be put on,Lloyd Georgewas the code word which meant, to be carried out at once.
Anyone familiar with British politics during the war will agree that it was rather a neat code.
————
And it is said that a French Canadian commanding officer, in whose battalion a murder had been committed, had inserted in his orders of the day the following bit of unconscious humor:
"It is to be regretted that a murder has been committed in this battalion. This is the second murder in our Canadian forces. It is to be distinctly understood that this pernicious habit must cease forthwith."
————
Many amusing stories are told of the contents of letters censored at the front. Usually all the letters of a company or section are censored by the officers of the company or section. One of the best stories was told me by an English officer. A Tommy of his section wrote to his beloved:
"Dear Maggie: I'd a bally sight rather be in your arms than in this trench with a dead German!"
————
I sat one evening smoking a cigar with a Canadian Colonel who was much incensed at the fact that he had served at Gallipoli where he caught an infectious diarrhea of which he nearly died, while in the meantime his other officers who served no better than he were decorated and promoted.
"Manion," he said to me in an angry voice, "I was promised that if I went to the Mediterranean I would get promotion and any decoration they could get for me, and the only d—— thing I got was dysentery, and I wouldn't have got that if my superior officers had had the giving of it."
————
A rather good story with a touch of dry humor provoked by a desire for justice is that of the lonesome soldier. One of our Tommies sent an advertisement to an English daily in which he hinted, rather than said, that he was a duty-loving Briton, honorably doing his bit, and being without friends in the world he would welcome a correspondence with some English girl. He implied that, as the diet was rough, a few comforts would not go amiss, signing his advertisement, "H.H., a lonesome soldier." He was rewarded by a mail large enough for Horatio Bottomley, accompanied by so many parcels that our mail department had to add another man to its staff to handle his portion. Instead of imitating the generosity of these English girls, and sharing his ill-gotten gains with his companions, he chose the selfish part, keeping most of the good things for himself, giving away only what he had no possible use for. And what was still worse, he started a correspondence with each of the priceless young things who had offered him their goods and their friendship. Had this been a fair and square correspondence it might have had nothing to condemn it. But though uneducated, he was sly enough to suit his letters to their recipients. To one he implied the possibility of a strong attachment; to another he was more reserved, speaking only of friendship; while to a third he would send a warm, date-making epistle, hinting at cozy hotels; all according to what he thought their letters to him showed him of their characters.
This went on for some time, the lonesome soldier writing many letters daily, all franked by a kindly government, and all to be censored by a group of H.Q. officers. The friendships he had worked up were getting more friendly, the intrigues deeper, and the passions warmer, when Major E—— decided that in fairness to the young women and in justice to the wily Tommy he would put an end to this planning and plotting. So, in censoring the letters Major E—— saw that the warm, passionate letter to "My Beloved Maisie" was, by mistake, of course, put into the envelope of "Dear Miss Jones;" Miss Jones' letter put into that of "Darling Kiddo," and the latter's into "My Own Emmey's," and so on. The result was a rapid cessation of the letters and parcels to the lonesome soldier, and the straightening out of what otherwise might have been an interminable tangle. To the really lonesome soldier—and there are such—all consideration is due, but to such a one as this may justice arrive swiftly, as it did to him.
Potash is a North American Indian. He was chief of his tribe, is very intelligent, well educated, and the best sharpshooter in his battalion. His intelligence is proven by the fact that he has never indulged in alcoholic drink, nor has he in any other manner allowed his close association with us whites of Canada to deprave him. In other words, he is a living refutation of the remark that the only good Indian is a dead Indian. If it were not for the copper tinge to his skin, one would take him for what he is,—a well-informed, educated North American. He is very proud of the fact that Sir Wilfrid Laurier, when Premier of Canada, presented to him and his bride at their wedding a silver tea set.
Being the only Indian in his battalion he is treated with a good deal of consideration by all. Colonel Blank stood chatting to him one day, the center of a group of officers.
"You are an Indian, Potash. Tell me why it is that alcohol has such a bad effect upon Indians in general."
"You know, Sir," seriously replied Potash, "that alcohol acts principally on the tissues of the brain. And so, the Indians having more brains than the whites, alcohol has a greater effect on them." The colonel and Potash joined in the general laugh.
————
Often shells do not explode, and Tommy calls them "duds," but up to the declaration of war by the United States in April last, these duds often got the nickname, "American shells—too proud to fight."
————
In the lines one often finds evidence of a prejudice against officers of the staff—nicknamed "Brass Hats" by the boys—this prejudice being due to the fact that Tommy looks upon staff jobs as being safety-first positions, and that the man in the line thinks, rightly or wrongly, that too many young fellows who should be doing their bit under fire remain at the rear through family pull or connection. There is also the impression that many of the staff only get under fire when they absolutely have to. Of course this is a much exaggerated idea, but that it exists is shown by the following humorous conversation overheard in the lines:
"Say, Bill, did you hear that peace has been declared?"
"Naw; nothin' to it; hot air; no sich luck."
"Sure it has. Didn't ye see those two Brass Hats goin' along the trenches just now?"
The Tommies call their helmets "tin hats," and on a certain occasion one soldier was heard to ask another if he thought a tin hat as safe as a Brass Hat.
Of course in a war such as that of today mistakes are inevitable at times. Occasionally battalions or companies are ordered to accomplish the impossible. The Charge of the Light Brigade has repeated itself more than once, and the staff get the credit, or discredit, for these mistakes. Sometimes it is the orders which cause the wag of the company to speak of these officers with his fine contempt. Everyone has seen Bairnsfather's picture of a subaltern under heavy fire in the front line, and at the same time having to answer a telephone message as to how many cans of apple jam had been sent in the rations in the past week. It seemed, no doubt, a ridiculous exaggeration, but is no more ridiculous than an order which came through one day to test out a certain rat poison, a sample of which accompanied the order. The battalion receiving this command was at the time holding a very bad bit of line where the Germans did much sniping and dropping over of pineapples, rum jars, whizz bangs, and so forth. The battalion was to test this poison with particular reference to the following points:
1. Adequacy of eight tins per 1,000 yards of trench.
2. Amount of bait consumed.
3. Number of sick or dead rats seen.
4. Post-mortem examination of dead rats.
5. As to diminution of rat population, "staleness of rat holes might be taken as corroborative evidence of diminution."
Then followed three foolscap pages of typewritten directions along this line. (Foolscap in the foregoing is not intentionally sarcastic.)
Do you wonder that the men made jokes? Imagine, if you can, a battalion under very heavy fire night and day trying to carry out tests that might easily be carried out behind the lines as to the efficiency of a rat poison. Imagine a Medical Officer, while not attending the wounded or sick, doing post-mortem examinations of dead rats, or estimating "the staleness of rat holes," with, perhaps, a German sniper trying to get a bead on him!
Of course such an order as this, written by some theorist in a comfortable room two or three hundred miles from the bursting shells, would usually be stopped by the practical men of the staff. When one has inadvertently filtered through, as in this case, can those in the lines be blamed for talking about foolkillers? As is to be expected, the order was ignored until the battalion some time later received a reminder. They protested that this test was surrounded by too many difficulties, and were told to "try it on a small scale."
The gruff voice of the Regimental Sergeant Major said that he supposed they would send up "some small scale rats to try it on." As they were not forthcoming, that is as far as the order got.
But though Staff Officers are disliked almost as much as Medical Officers, Tommy must bear with them, even if it be with a poorly disguised sneer of disgust and tolerance; for an army without a staff would be as incredible and undesirable as sick and wounded without attention. No doubt, in spite of Tommy's humor and banter, when the truth is told, both of the above types perform their duties as ably as they can according to their lights.
————
While dining with the officers of C Company one evening, I heard two of that company's likable young subalterns arguing as to whether the rum ration, so popular with most of the men out there on cold winter nights, would, after the war, conduce to temperance in the nation. The argument grew quite hot, as it often did there, and one of the debaters stuck his helmet on his head, and strode to the entrance of the dugout where he turned and clinched the argument with the sneering remark:
"By gad, Smith, you know less about more things than any other man I've ever met," then made a victorious exit.
And speaking of the rum ration, an old soldier once told me that, being the oldest man in his platoon, the serving out of the rum usually fell to his lot, whereupon he always took from his haversack a little tin vessel which held just the right amount for each man, thus showing his absolute fairness and impartiality. But, as he poured the liquor into the little cup, he kept his thumb on the inside, so that at the end of serving some thirty or forty of his comrades he had thirty or forty "thumbs" of the beverage left as his portion—a form of humor, no doubt, better appreciated by himself than it would have been by the rest of his platoon, had they known how absolutely (im-) partial he always was, to himself.
Practically all men and most women are brave when the occasion requires it. Out there one sees many types of brave men. There are few cases of cowardice in the face of the enemy, though in all the armies in this great conflict men have been shot for this crime. Conscience may make cowards of us all, but war makes brave men of most of us. In this war the pampered few, as well as those who earned their bread by the sweat of their brow, have shown a courage unsurpassed in the so-called chivalrous ages that are gone.
Death-dealing instruments have been multiplied and refined by the inventive resources of our times till they have reached a stage of perfection never even approached in the past. Aeroplanes, zeppelins, artillery, various types of trench mortars, mining, machine-guns, poisonous gases, liquid fire, and the many other means of killing and disabling our enemies have rendered this war the most horrible and terrifying in history. Yet it is rare at the front to see officers or men exhibit cowardice. With few exceptions all face death in its many forms with a smile on their lips, bearing at the same time indescribable hardships of mud, dirt, lice, work and weather with unbeatable stoicism. They are always ready to go forward with their faces to the foe, an irresistible army of citizen soldiers. The hardships are often more trying than the dangers, yet it is always an inspiration to hear gay peals of laughter at the discomforts and hardships borne by men accustomed to all the luxuries of comfortable homes and beloved families.
Just at dark on a zero-cold winter's day our battalion arrived at some new frame huts on the edge of a wood. The huts had just been built; they knew not the meaning of bunks, stoves, or other comforts. The gray sky could be seen through many chinks in the war-contract lumber, and the frozen earth through cracks in the floor. After a cold supper of bully beef, bread, and jam, there lay down on the bare floor of the H.Q. hut to sleep as best they could,—the colonel, a criminal lawyer of Vancouver; the second in command, a lumber dealer of Ottawa; an attached major, a lawyer of the same place; the adjutant, a broker of Montreal; the paymaster, a banker of Kingston; the signal officer, a bank clerk of Edmonton; the scout officer, son of a well-known high court judge of Quebec; and myself. Not a complaint was heard, but jokes were bandied to and fro, and shortly the regular breathing of some and the snoring of others testified that man may quickly become accustomed to strange surroundings. In the morning the boots of all were frozen to the floor!
Men are brave because of many motives. When they are standing shoulder to shoulder facing an enemy, few of them flinch, no matter how dark the outlook is at the moment. Their pride in themselves, their loyalty to their native land, their love of their comrades, and their hatred for the enemy combine to prevent them from allowing fear to conquer them. Fear,per se, is another matter. Practically all men experience fear under fire at times, but they grit their teeth and press on. The quality that makes them do this is what we call courage. Any man who could look into a hole in the ground into which you could drop a small house, and, knowing this hole was made by a large caliber shell, yet feel no fear on going through a barrage of such shells, is not a brave man; he's an imbecile. As Kelly said:
"A man that's not afeard o' thim shells has more courage than sinse."
But even outside of that natural fear of shells there is no doubt that at certain moments during the multitudinous dangers of war all men really feel afraid. It cannot be avoided if a man sets any value whatever upon his life; 999 out of 1,000 conquer that impulse to fly, and carry on, the thousandth allows the impulse to conquer him. He is thereafter branded, "coward," unless he retrieves himself later. Instinctively the brave man is recognized by his fellowmen. In a dangerous advance there are usually a few who drop behind, hide in a shellhole or dugout till the danger passes or lessens, and then rejoin their unit, claiming to have been lost or stunned by a shell. In this way they escape being accused of, and perhaps shot for, desertion. It may be that these men are more to be pitied than blamed. Self preservation is the first law of nature, but it is a physical law, and the moral law that man must not be a coward overrules it. A few hours after the advance over Vimy Ridge, my corporal and I, while dressing wounded on the field, met a number of stragglers, all going toward the front lines. They gave various excuses for being behind their companies, and some no doubt told the truth, but it is also certain that a few had shirked.
There is a legitimate nervousness, named "shell shock." The real cases of this condition, when they are extreme, are sad to see. An officer or Tommy, who has previously been an excellent soldier, suddenly develops "nerves" to such an extent as to be uncontrollable. He trembles violently, his heart may be disorderly in rhythm, he has a terrified air, the slightest noise makes him jump and even occasionally run at top speed to a supposed place of safety. He is the personification of terror, at times crying out or weeping like a child. He is unfit for duty, and will require rest for an extended time. Some cases are not so extreme as this and may simply display sufficient nervousness to prevent their going on.
Shell shock is brought about by the effects of severe shelling; by being buried by an explosion of shell or mine; or by the killing beside the sufferer of a companion. In short, these cases are due to the subjection of the nervous system to a strain which it is unable to withstand, making it collapse instead of resiliency rebounding. The extreme cases are pitiable to observe, and are just as ill as if they were suffering from insanity, or delirium tremens. It is doubtful if the man who has suffered from a severe attack of this malady is ever again fit to serve in the firing line. Only time can tell whether or not any permanent weakness will be left in the nervous system as its result. These are not cases of cowardice, though to a superficial observer they might appear so. Some of them six months later, after that full period of rest and care, still show marked tremor, a fast or irregular heart, are "jumpy" on the slightest sharp sound, and are generally unfit for service.
It is interesting to study the psychology of the coward, but it is more interesting and infinitely more inspiring to study that of the brave man. Brave men and courageous women are so common, as this war has amply proven, that we may find plenty of material for this study. The women—God bless them, and sustain them—have to show more courage than the men; for they have to endure in patience the life-sapping tedium of staying at home, while their loved ones go into danger—and perhaps to death. They have not, as their men have, the variety of change, the interest of novelty, or the excitement of battle to sustain them and occupy their minds. Their duty is to wait, wait, wait—praying and hoping that a good and merciful God will sparetheirloved ones. Oh, you wives, and mothers, and sweethearts, who wait, the world owes to you much more of honor and thanks than it owes to the men at the front! You, in your sublime unselfishness, prefer to see your beloved men-folks get the honors and praise, while you are content and happy to accept the reflected glory!
Every country in the world believes that it has the fairest women and the bravest men, and, to make an Irishism, each is right in believing it. It is only natural that each country should have a national pride in the deeds of its heroes, and this war will give to most countries enough acts of bravery and of chivalry to inspire their youth for a few generations.
————
Capt. Gammil was a handsome, dashing chap whose love of fine clothes, bright colors, silk pajamas—which he wore even in the lines, while the rest of us slept in our uniforms, according to orders—and immaculate cleanliness, gained for him the sobriquet, Beau Brummel. His farcical gayety was continuous, and rarely did he appear serious, even though a serious mien would have been more appropriate. His extremes of style made him a daily cause of humorous remarks on the part of his comrades; and yet his courage was unquestioned. I have seen him coolly walking along, daintily smoking his special brand of cigarette, apparently as much at ease as if he were in his own smoking room, with the shells at the same time bursting all about him. Good stories were told of his careless fearlessness at the Somme and elsewhere, as he carried out his duties in tight corners with thesang-froidof a veteran. Here was a fellow one would take to be the lightest of the light, a poseur, a farceur, a dandy of the ladies, who could be as gay and light in danger as in London. He is the type of chap who was, no doubt, "a sissy" in the opinion of his fellow-schoolboys, but is in reality of the stuff that men are made.
Major Billbower, an English bank-clerk who had lived some years in Canada, was rather the reverse of the above. He took life more seriously, and hardly a day went by that he did not put into the orderly room a complaint, great or small, until he got the name, "the grouser." Usually his complaints were on behalf of his men whom he seemed to think were always getting discriminated against by someone. Because he was of the rather extreme, unmixable, aristocratic type his men respected him rather than loved him (though he was a very likable chap to those who really knew him) but they would unhesitatingly follow him through hell-fire, for in danger his handsomely-chiseled features wore a scornful smile as he strode along, gayly swinging his cane, with the same air that he had worn in more peaceful days in Hyde Park. He had been decorated for conspicuous bravery, and well deserved it. On one occasion a large caliber dud shell struck in the doorway of a superficial dugout in which he was writing, and rolled to his feet. Without more than a glance at it, he coolly pushed it to one side with his foot, and continued writing.
Corporal Pare, a red-headed Irish boy, was for a long time my sanitary corporal in the lines and out. He had been serving in the lines for sixteen months at the time of which I write, and was tired of it. He frankly said he was afraid to do certain things, but when ordered to do them, he carried them out cheerfully and smilingly. At the Somme he won great praise as a runner for carrying messages through heavy barrages, always appearing terrified at the prospect, but always getting through. Many a time inspecting the trenches with me he would say, respectfully: "Those pineapples are dropping in just ahead of us, sir. Hadn't we better turn back?" Perhaps to tease him, I would go on, telling him to "come along." "Very good, sir," he would say with a cheerful smile on his red face, and he would trudge along like a faithful dog. He was "homely" in looks, red-headed, not clever, and said he was afraid, but no more faithful or more dependable soldier ever went to the front than Corporal Pare.
Sergeant Gascrain was a small, shriveled, sharp-tongued, five-foot-high, French Canadian who assisted me for some time. He was cynical as to the illnesses of the men, and treated them usually like so many cattle, believing them all to be malingerers, till one day I reminded him that a man may often malinger, but that did not prevent him from occasionally getting sick. He apparently did not believe it, though he often cursed the rheumatism that afflicted his own joints. He said they all had "frigidity of the feet, with a big F." He was at times addicted to alcohol and every few months he lost his stripes because of intoxication. Then he would labor incessantly till, by his good work, he won them back again. And when he did regain them he was as proud as if he had won his marshal's baton, until the next occasion when the great god Bacchus put him back to the ranks with one fell swoop. With all his faults he had an absolute disregard of danger. I sincerely believe that he thought that if a shell should strike him—well, so much the worse for the shell. At the Somme his cool, courageous work under heavy shell fire won for him, at the recommendation of a British colonel who had observed it, the military medal. But one deed he performed which I think deserved more praise than any other. While working on the field a Lieutenant Colonel was brought to him on a stretcher. The Lieutenant Colonel's wound was so slight as to cause a sneer to hover about the sergeant's lips as he dressed it. A stretcher squad carried the colonel to the rear, and another squad, under the sergeant's direction, carried a badly-wounded Tommy. An ambulance came for them. The sergeant had the soldier put in first and then the colonel. But the colonel angrily protested against the Tommy being allowed to go in the same ambulance with him.
"Tres bien, monsieur," replied the sergeant in his quick, sharp tones, and turning to a stretcher squad, said, "Remove the officer." It was quickly done, the colonel staring in angry astonishment, the sergeant coolly continuing his work while the officer awaited the coming of another ambulance. In my opinion this act of an N.C.O. was worthy of a V.C.
Major Peters.—This officer somehow impressed me as being without any semblance of nervousness under any conditions. He was always an interesting study. If a shell burst in our neighborhood, close enough to make most of us "duck," Pete would go on serenely as if on church parade. Rather slow thinking, he was sure in judgment. He never made haste to give his thoughts tongue, "nor any unproportioned thought his act." He had a quiet, dry humor, and generous, kindly nature. He was invariably late on parade, and probably improperly dressed. I have met him on one occasion wandering aimlessly across an area looking for his company, which he had somehow mislaid. If the orderly room gave out an order for some return to be made by company commanders by 8 a.m., his was never in before 10, and then only after he had been reminded of the order. After the Battle of Arras he forgot altogether to put in his recommendations for bravery on the part of any of his men, though by a rush movement he succeeded in getting them in on time.
But with all these faults he had the respect, trust and confidence of everyone. He had won the M.C. twice for coolness and bravery in action. If the holding of the front line was a particularly risky proposition at any time, he would probably be the man in charge of the task. He was never found wanting when cool, courageous action was needed, and all knew it. Many are the good tales told of him in his early front line days. By night he would quietly wander off over the parapet by himself, and an hour or so later would come strolling back, after having had a good look into the German lines, and perhaps into some of their dugouts. In his slow voice he would give any valuable information, not wasting any words in doing it. On one of these trips, as he stepped back over the parapet he was met by a senior officer who, knowing his junior's characteristics, said,—
"Well, Pete, what have you found out this time?"
Pete sat himself down on the firing step of the trench and gave him all the information that he had. Suddenly the senior noticed that a pool of blood was collecting where Major Peters sat.
"Are you wounded?" he cried.
"Well, yes," Peters answered slowly, "guess they got me that time," and he rose and strolled carelessly along to the R.A.P. where his wounds were found to be serious enough to put him out of action for a few weeks. The Germans had thrown a bomb at him.
The major loved dearly going into dangerous zones, just wandering off to see what he could see. After we had taken Vimy Ridge, but not yet progressed beyond it, we had outposts on the German side of it, looking down on Vimy and other German positions, 400 or 500 yards away. A good deal of sniping was going on against us, as our men were so much exposed on the side of the hill, where they had very little protection except an odd shellhole or a few feet of shallow trench here and there. Our battalion was holding this line, and I, on the day Vimy village was taken, April 13th, had occasion to make a hurried trip along this whole front, At one spot, where a trench two feet deep was the only protection from possible sniping or shell fire, Major Peters stood, leaning back against the parados, two-thirds of his body exposed, hands in pockets, gazing pensively across at the Vimy ruins.
"What are you trying to do? Get your bally head blown off?" I demanded.
Without looking around, or otherwise changing his position, he replied in his slow voice:
"I don't think there's anyone there to blow my head off." This shows his judgment, for he was right, as it proved a little later when our scout officer, followed by a single platoon, entered it. But it showed also his carelessness as to danger, for at the moment he was only guessing, or surmising, that there was no one in Vimy, and at any moment he might have found it out to his sorrow.
A few minutes after this the accidental explosion of a Mills bomb killed one man, wounded two officers severely, and six men almost as severely, and I was kept busy for some time attending to them. Having finished, I found Major Peters near me, looking longingly toward Vimy, into the ruins of which our scout officer, Lieutenant A——; our O.C. battalion, Major E——; and a platoon in charge of ever-smiling Lieutenant G—— had all disappeared. Major Peters was apparently impatient to go across, though he had no right to do so without orders. Leaving the wounded to be evacuated by my always trustworthy and fearless assistants, Corporal H—— and Private B——, M.M., and their stretcher bearers, I joined him. Though I had even less right to go across than he, we dared each other to go, and off we went. An odd shell was falling about and it was quite characteristic for Pete to remark, slowly and seriously,—
"I don't mind dodging shells, but I do hate dodging that damned orderly room of ours."
But he was as joyously gay as if he were a schoolboy going on some forbidden picnic.
Without encountering a Boche we leisurely strolled through the ruined and deserted streets, passing here and there a dead German, and one Canadian who must have got lost, and been killed while looking for his own lines. On the main road was a wagon of heavy shells with its wheels interlocked with those of another wagon—both apparently deserted in a hurry by the fleeing Germans, for an officer's complete kit lay beside them. We passed the station and went on out 500 yards to where our platoon was "digging in." We joined them, and then wandered on for one hundred yards into what was to be the new No Man's Land, without ever having encountered a German. They had deserted the village by dark, and had not left even the proverbial corporal's guard behind. Guided by the major through the streets which were now in the shadows of evening we unerringly found our way back whence we had come, for he had the path-finding instincts of the North American Indian. On arrival we found that, while my absence had been unnoticed, poor Pete's had been, and for some minutes in the orderly room he was in hot water explaining matters. His explanations ended, as they usually did, by being unsatisfactory, and our strict disciplinarian adjutant, Major P——, turned aside to hide a smile, and murmur,—
"Poor Pete! Always in trouble." No matter what breach he ever made in the rules, Peters was always forgiven, for his sterling worth was too well known to allow anyone in authority to hold anger against him.
One of the best stories told of him is so droll, and yet so typical, that it is worth repeating: He was attending a course of instruction with a number of other officers on measures to be taken during a gas attack. The gas expert had shown carefully how the gas masks should be put on quickly and correctly, and the officers were applying them. They were instructed to take off the masks, and to see which of them could have his on in the shortest time. To the surprise of all present the slow-moving major had his mask on before any of the others. On inquiring of him how it happened, he admitted with that humorous dry smile of his that he had not bothered taking his mask off after the first trial.
CAPT. J. A. CULLUM, C.A.M.C.
Some twelve years ago when I was studying in Edinburgh, at Scotland's famous university, I occupied rooms at the apartment house of a bonnie little Scotch woman on Marchmont Road. Miss Anderson was a mother to us all. How well I remember her smiling, sweet face, above which her white hair made an appropriate halo, as she came in to do for us some kindly, thoughtful act. May she still be in the land of the living and happy!
In the next suite of rooms lived Jack Cullum of Regina, Canada, and for the last month before examinations, the regular lessees of his rooms having returned, he and I occupied the same suite. He was a square-jawed, firm-mouthed, good-looking chap, with a strong arm and leg, made strong by breaking bronchos on the western Canadian ranch where he grew to manhood and prosperity. He was blunt, almost to a fault, but his word was good, his mind fair, and his manners sociable. Other Canadians who were post-graduating there at the same time will remember many a gay evening we passed in the old R.B. on Princes Street, that most magnificent thoroughfare in Scotland, with the old Castle which saw many of the happy and unhappy hours of poor Mary Queen of Scots as a background, Calton Hill and its unfinished Grecian architecture at one end, and that fine Gothic monument to Sir Walter Scott in the center. In all these jolly evenings dear old Cullum was foremost in pay-times and gay-times.
In serious moments and in times of leisure, however, his mind often carried him back in happy reminiscence to his homeland where a pretty Canadian girl, whose photo he carried and often showed, was anticipating his return.
When the war came Jack was among the first to come forward. He went across to France with a Western Canadian battalion. In the next year Cullum was decorated for conspicuous gallantry three times, twice by the King and once by the French Government with the Croix de Guerre. His first act of bravery was performed when the Huns blew up a mine in No Man's Land, injuring many of his battalion. He, heedless of danger—and orders—rushed over the top, and attended his men in plain view of the enemy. For this he was given the Military Cross by King George; and a bar to the M.C. and the French decoration came later for acts of almost reckless courage. He was the first Canadian to win three decorations, and now he was thought to bear a charmed life by his comrades. Shortly after the last bit of ribbon came to him he applied for transfer to the fighting forces, resigning his commission in the medical corps, to accept a lower rank in the infantry. And just following this noble act, while sitting in a mess hut two miles behind the lines at Noulette Wood, a stray shell came through the roof, slightly injuring two other officers, and mortally wounding Cullum. His generous soul displayed itself to the last, for he absolutely refused to have his wounds dressed until after the others had been attended to, maintaining that his injuries were slight. And the gallant Cullum died in the ambulance on his way to the hospital.
But of course they are not all the fine types. You occasionally meet what the English call a rotter, but his kind is exceedingly scarce. After all, the finest type is the ordinary common soldier, without any special qualifications, who, day in and day out, night in and night out, performs the dirty, rough, hard, monotonous, and often very dangerous, tasks of the Tommy; who does his duty, grumbling perhaps, swearing often, but does it without cowardice, without hope of honor or emolument, except the honor of doing his duty and doing it like a man. When his work is done he comes back, if still alive and well, to sleep in wet clothes, on a mud floor, under a leaky roof or no roof, often hungry, or his appetite satisfied by bully beef and biscuit.
Yes; with all his swearing, despite any lead-swinging, the finest type of all, the real hero of the war, is the ordinary common soldier!
Up to the present the greatest aid given by the air service to any of the armies in this war is that of acting as scouts; or, in other words, the air service supplies the eyes of the army and navy.
Much is said of the time when thousands of planes will be used as offensive weapons on a large scale. It is quite possible that in the future this will come to pass; but up to the present, spasmodic bombardments of fortified positions by a few planes, and the useless murder of non-combatants by German zeppelins, has been the limit of the attacking power of air fleets. There are spectacular fights in the air between airmen of the opposing sides; and, when one considers the limited perspective of a man living in a seven-foot ditch, the monotony of such a life, and man's natural love of competition, one can easily understand the deep interest taken in these air duels by the men in the trenches.
One sometimes sees six or seven battles in the heavens in one afternoon, and another dozen machines driven back by shells from our anti-aircraft guns. Tennyson's prophetic words, written long ago in Locksley Hall, are indeed fulfilled:—
For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see,Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there raineda ghastly dewFrom the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue;
Let us hope that after this war for liberty and freedom has ended in the subjugation of militarism, his further prophecy in regard to "the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world" may also come true.
When airmen fly over their opponent's lines, they are first met by shells from anti-aircraft guns and bullets from machine-guns, and between the two they are often forced to return to their own side of the lines. It is a beautiful picture, on a clear day, to see these machines, swerving this way and that, diving, ascending, out of the path of this rain of shot and shell that greets them, though it rarely brings them down. The swaying machine, cutting its way through the hundreds of white and black puffy balls, caused by the bursting shells, is a sight for gods and men; and the men, at least, never tire of watching it.
A very amusing incident, in this connection, is told by the officers of a certain Canadian battalion of infantry. Their original Lieutenant Colonel, now a General, came of a well-known and able, though rather egotistical and bombastic Canadian family. When in the trenches this Lieutenant Colonel always insisted on being accompanied by his batman or a special runner whose duty it was to carry a Ross rifle ready loaded. When he saw a German plane soaring over No Man's Land toward him, anywhere from ten thousand to fifteen thousand feet in the air, he would cry:—
"Quick, give me that rifle!" and, putting it to his shoulder, he would pump shot after shot in the direction of the distant airman. If the latter chanced to go back from whence he came, the Lieutenant Colonel would turn to those about him with a satisfied and triumphant smile of self-approbation:—
"Ah, I've turned him back," he would say.
When he learned, as he occasionally did, that he had been filling the sky with lead in a mistaken effort to hit one of our own machines, it worried him not at all, for the knowledge he had that he had "turned back" hundreds of Hun planes prevented an occasional slight mistake from damping the ardor of a spirit such as his.
When the war is over he may rest assured, as he no doubt will, that no Canadian, no Britisher, yes, it might even be written, no man, had done more in this great war to accomplish the defeat of the Hun than he!
Very often, while you are looking up at a shelled aeroplane, the bits of shrapnel and shell are heard thudding into the earth all about. On one occasion my commanding officer and I lay on the ground in a shower of this kind, while a short distance away a soldier of another battalion was severely wounded by a piece of shell casing. It is strange that more men are not hit in this manner, and the same remark may be made of the few who are wounded in proportion to the number of shells poured over in an ordinary bombardment.
A young airman described his work to me as "much monotony, and a few damned bad frights"; and this may be taken as a description of almost any branch of the service at the front. The phrase, "a young airman," is very appropriate in speaking of most of our heroes of the air, for they are often only boys of nineteen or twenty years of age who, with the recklessness of youth, but the courage of veterans, risk their valuable young lives in dangerous reconnaissances or in battling with the enemy a mile or two in the air. Strange that buoyant, happy young fellows like these, with all their lives before them, should value the future less than those who have lived more than half of theirs. But this is the case; and it is stated, truly, that the steadiness of nerve of these heroic youngsters surpasses that of older men.
One day we relieved the —— battalion in the lines, and as the trenches were veritable mudholes, Major P—— and I took to the fields and crossed overland to our rear lines, passing through our long line of Howitzers and field guns on the way. As our batteries were just about to open a heavy strafe on the enemy, to find out the strength of their artillery on this front, we sat on the edge of a shellhole to smoke a cigarette and watch the effect of the bombardment. The batteries near us had eight or ten men to each gun, using a small derrick to carry into the dark breech of the gun the heavy shell. This was pushed home, and behind it was shoved in the charge of guncotton. Then the metal door—for all the world like the door of a small safe—was closed and bolted. The range having been given from a row of figures called across by an artillery lieutenant with field glasses, the gun was brought to the proper level by one man turning a wheel, while another, gazing through a clinometer, told when the proper range was attained. Another man pulled a string, the gun belched forth its death-dealing load, and we watched the shell bursting a mile or two away over the German lines, with a flash, a great upheaval of earth, and a cloud of smoke high in the air.
Presently to our right we heard a machine-gun playing its rat-a-tat-tat. Looking up we saw one of our own planes spitting its stream of fire at a large, red, German flyer that had been doing much damage to our machines on this front for some weeks. The Hun plane was above, thus having the advantage. Suddenly his machine made a nose-dive downward, like a hawk swooping down on its prey, and as the German had speed very much in his favor, he quickly arrived at the position he desired. His machine-gun poured forth bullets, and to our horror we saw that the tail of our aeroplane was cut cleanly off by them, as though by a huge sword. The machine, having no guiding rudder, immediately turned nose downward, and we sighed sadly and felt sick at heart as we thought of the gallant young chaps falling rapidly to their death.
It is always with a sinking feeling that you watch one of your own machines brought down. You can't be entirely without pity even for the enemy under the same conditions. For when a man dies in a charge, or even when he is mortally hit by a sniper's bullet or by a shell, he is either killed instantly, or he is brought back on a stretcher with hopes of recovery. But when an aviator is ten thousand feet in the air, carrying on a duel with a foe, it is often only his machine that is disabled, and while it noses down the long ten thousand feet, though it is only a matter of moments, he has time to realize that death is about to conquer him, and not in a pleasant manner.
Just before our unfortunate machine in this fight crashed into the earth one of the occupants fell or jumped from it. The other remained in his seat, facing his quickly-coming death with the same courage that made him take the chance. The tail of the machine, being the lighter, came down more slowly and struck the earth not far behind the body to which it had been attached.
In the meantime the German soared triumphantly above, but now he circled down, sailing close to the earth over his fallen opponents, apparently to see the result of his work. Then he soared aloft again, as all about him are fleecy white clouds or puffs of smoke from the explosions of shells from our anti-aircraft guns in the neighborhood. They burst everywhere except in his quickly-changing path, and he sailed back over his own lines in safety.
Stretcher bearers hurried forward from a nearby field ambulance dressing station to find that the man who had fallen from the machine was still alive, though probably fatally injured. He was hurried off to receive attention. The other was beneath the machine and beyond human aid. As the smashed machine was in plain view of the Germans it might at any moment become the target of their artillery, and the stretcher bearers here, as in all their work, showed an absolute disregard of personal danger. All honor to them! One-half hour later, being nearby with my corporal, we crossed over to the ruined aeroplane. Already the Royal Flying Corps had a guard on it to save it from souvenir hunters, and we were warned away, but were later allowed to go around it, and had a good view at close hand of its tangled mass of wires, machinery, and armament. There, with his youthful face looking up toward his Maker, lay the other occupant of the plane. Shortly his loved ones at home would receive the sad intelligence of the untimely, but honorable and courageous, death of this boy who gave up the life he was to live, the sons he was to father—"his immortality," to use the words of Rupert Brook—in order to do his share in holding aloft the lamp of liberty and freedom.
Sometimes it is difficult to say who has command of the air at a certain section of the line. This big red plane, and a few others of its type, seemed to be speedier than any of ours on this front; but just as we have gradually surpassed the German in artillery, in the morale of our men, in control of No Man's Land, and in general offensive power, it was only a matter of a short time till we again took control of the air on this front, as we have on others.
The control of the air depends in great part, not on the courage of the aviators, but on the efficiency of their machines. Two days later I saw this red plane, or one of its type, daringly fly over our lines, and only about 300 feet above them—an exceedingly low flight over enemy lines. A scouting plane of ours, much inferior in speed and fighting power, but manned by some brave boy who cared not for his life so long as he did his duty, flew straight at the red machine.
We watched in strained silence, while they circled about each other, their machine-guns spitting fire, and once they nearly collided, head on. The Hun decided to retreat, and flew back over his own lines; and our man, or boy, sailed away in another direction to continue the observation work he had been doing when the Hun came. Had our boy lost, his would have been just another name added to the long list of heroes of the Royal Flying Corps; for his act, in risking his life in attacking a much speedier and more dangerous machine than his own, was the act of a noble, courageous, fearless boy, well worthy of all praise, and of the finest decoration. Had he succeeded in downing his enemy, luck would have been on his side, for success in fighting in the air, as in ordinary life, often depends on chance.
Besides the courage displayed by the youthful members of the air service, they and their German enemy-rivals usually display toward each other a chivalry perhaps not equalled in any other branch of the army. It is partly due, no doubt, to the fact that the men who go into the air service, outside of their courage, are naturally lovers of the picturesque and spectacular. It is also due to the unconscious admiration one brave man has for another; the pity which he must feel for a fellowman whom he may shoot to his death ten thousand feet in the air; and finally, the knowledge that it is only a matter of time, if he remains in the service, till he meets a superior machine, if not a braver man, who may give him the same fate. This feeling does not prevent them fighting most fiercely, for each knows that while to the winner may come rewards and decorations, to the loser comes almost certain death. But if by chance they both escape through poor firing, exhaustion of ammunition, or that great element, chance, there is little or no personal hatred, but rather admiration for a brave foe.
The greatest of British airmen, the late Captain Ball, V.C., D.S.O., told of a contest in which he and a German both exhausted their machine-gun ammunition without serious injury to either; and then, after having done their best to kill each other, they sailed along side by side, laughing one at the other, till they parted company with a friendly wave of the hand to return to their own lines.
It was not uncommon, in the early part of the war, when one of our men was brought down behind the German lines, for the Germans on the following day to fly over our lines and to drop a note telling us that Lieutenant Blank had been killed in a fight on the previous day, and had been buried behind their trenches with all military honors. Needless to say our airmen displayed the same courtesy toward their opponents. The knowledge thus given often saved that depressing uncertainty on the part of the missing hero's relations and friends, which is more disheartening than the knowledge of his death.
Personal bravery is not the monopoly of any one nation. The airmen of our brave French, Belgian, Italian, or Russian allies require no praise from my feeble pen; and those of us who have been out there have seen too many incidents of the courage of our enemies to belittle them, and we have no desire to do so. They have often been barbarous in their uncalled-for cruelties and outrageous in their acts, but they have been sometimes brave, careless of death, and chivalrous.
On one occasion I saw a German airman fly so low over our lines from the front to the rear that we could see him leaning out over the side and looking down at us in the trenches. Some companies of infantry in the front lines raised their rifles and peppered away at him. But he carelessly flew on toward the rear where a company of pioneers were digging trenches; and so struck were they at this reckless trick that they pulled off their helmets, and swinging them in the air, they cheered him. Another instance of British—Canadian in this case—love of any brave act!
The annals of our British air service are so crowded with tales of heroic deeds that they seem almost to dwarf the heroism shown in the infantry, artillery, or naval branches of our forces. Many stories worthy of the classic heroes are yet untold of boys twenty-one or twenty-two years old who grappled with their enemies in the clouds with the same undaunted fearlessness displayed by Horatius at the bridge in the brave days of old.
Now, the ordinary combatant officer who perhaps will read these lines may expect a diatribe against what the boys call, "the brass-hats," but, if so, he will be grievously disappointed. Outside the fact that Staff Officers, like Medical Officers, are a necessary evil, the writer has the vivid recollection of one occasion on which he might have been court-martialed, and perhaps shot, forlèse majesté, or something akin to it, but for the good humor of a well-known Brigadier General. So there will be no scathing denunciation of Staff Officers here.
At noon I was sitting in a dugout in the lines when I received an order to immediately relieve Captain ——, of the —steenth Canadian Battalion. The order gave no information as to the whereabouts of this Battalion, and as it turned out the order had been wrongly transmitted, and I had been directed to go to a Battalion which was not on our front. However, I did not know this at the time, and so, I quickly got my things together, hung my steel hat, my cap, haversack, pack, overcoat, stick, and other odds and ends on various parts of my person,—for an officer, like a private, seems to be made to hang things upon.
To get out of the lines to where I was to be met by an ambulance was a long, hard trudge. The ambulance was over one hour late, and hours followed in which we searched everywhere to find a trace of the Battalion. Night came on and we were still searching, and as no food had accompanied us, and a mixture of snow and rain was falling, I was cold, wet, hungry and pugnacious, when I entered a Headquarters in order to try to get some information. Forgetting I was only a Captain, and stalking angrily in, I demanded:—
"Where the hell is the —steenth Battalion?" An officer rose, came forward and smilingly asked me what the trouble was.
"I have been hunting for hours," I replied hotly, not even looking for his rank, "searching for this bally Battalion, and I'm fed up to the neck with being pushed around like a basket of fruit," for I had had many moves recently.
"And a pretty healthy looking basket of fruit you are, too," he returned with a good-humored laugh, while he proceeded to put me on the right track, and at last I noted his rank. He was the General of my Brigade. So now you have the reason that I will say nothing against Staff Officers.
A story akin to this of an incident that happened in one of our trenches may be worth relating, though it has nothing to do with Staff Officers. My Colonel who always, even in his busiest times, had a vivid sense of humor, was sitting in his dugout when a Tommy's voice yelled down:—
"Say, Bub, how do we get to the Vistula railhead from here?" The Colonel's voice floated up giving directions. But the Tommy, thinking he was talking to another Private, said:—
"Oh, say, Bub, don't be so damned lazy, come up and show us the way," and the consternation of the Tommy as the Colonel good-naturedly came up and showed him the way was good to look at.
On a drizzling, rainy day when our Battalion occupied the front lines on part of the Vimy Ridge, I was standing in front of a so-called dugout, which consisted of a room about twelve feet by twelve, in which, through lack of space, two Medical Officers and their four Assistants and two batmen, ate, slept, and attended the wounded and sick. We were sheltered from shells by a tin roof, on which someone had piled two layers of sandbags.
The trenches were of sand with no revetments of any kind, so that the rain, which had been pouring for days, washed the earth down and formed mud to the knees. Sometimes the mud was rich and creamy, and, except for the fact that whoever happened to be in front of you spattered it in your face, it was easy to get through. The other variety of mud was mucilaginous and tenacious, and in getting through it one was very likely to lose his boots—particularly if they were the long rubber kind—and socks, or to get stuck fast. There were many cases where men had to be dug or pulled out; and not one but many men, and on one occasion an officer, came into this dugout of mine during the night in their bare feet. They had come for hundreds of yards in some cases in this manner.
On the day of which I speak I was standing in the creamy mud half way to my knees listening to the sharp crack made by bullets whizzing over head, and to the singing of shells, by way of a change from the rather poisonous atmosphere in the dugout, made offensive by the carbon monoxide from a charcoal fire, when I heard someone splashing along through the mud.
Looking up, I saw three Staff Officers with the distinguishing red bands on their caps, for they were not wearing helmets. Two of them wore raincoats, so that their rank could not be seen; the third wore no overcoat, but an ordinary officer's uniform with ankle boots and puttees. He strode doggedly behind the others, apparently caring nothing for mud or rain, and to my surprise he had upon his breast, though he looked no more than twenty years of age, the ribbons of a number of decorations.
They stopped just before they came to where I was. Taking out a map of these trenches they and their guide, or runner, began studying it, while I stood wondering how a boy of twenty could have won these coveted decorations, finally deciding that he must be in the Air Service. While I was still wondering he turned to me, and, though he was of my own rank, he saluted and, with a pleasant smile, asked me if I could give them any information as to this front. I joined them, and for some time I answered their questions, which, rather strangely, were in regard to a cemetery to which Guillemot trench—the one in which we stood—led on its way to the firing line 500 yards away.
"After we go there," asked one of the older officers, "what is the easiest way out?"
I explained that the easiest way was overland to Neuville St. Vaast, and then down the road, but as we still heard the bullets passing a few feet above the parapet it might not be the safest. He smiled whimsically, and said he would personally rather take the risk than plow through this dreadful mud, but perhaps they'd better stick to the trenches. We chatted a few moments more, and they put their feet once again to the task of getting them through the trenches, the rather thin legs of the young officer pushing him determinedly along behind the others.
That evening the Colonel informed me that he had learned at Brigade that my questioner of the afternoon was the Prince of Wales, who is Honorary Chairman of a Commission in charge of British cemeteries in France. And this removes, for me at least, the idea which many of us had that, while the Prince is in France, he is kept well out of the danger zone. For on this day he was well up toward the front lines and under filthy trench conditions at that. A Prince with as much red blood in his veins as he displayed in making that journey should not have enough blue blood to prevent his being some day a strong and righteous monarch.
On Easter Monday, April 9, 1917, occurred on the western front the great push which has been named by the press the Battle of Arras. For some days previously our bombardment of the enemy lines had been almost continuous, the so-called "drum fire" which sounded like rolls of thunder. At times during the night the rumble would become a roar, and one of my tent mates would half awaken, and say:
"Well, they're giving poor Heiny hell tonight," and the tone would almost imply pity. A grunt from the rest of us, and then we'd roll over on our steel-hard cots to try unsuccessfully to find a soft spot, and shortly the snores from one of the officers who was notorious for snoring would drown even the roll of the guns.
Since the Somme advance in 1916 no great pushback of the Germans had occurred. After all the many and great preparations had been completed, an attack was now to be made on a ten-mile front north and south of the ruined city of Arras by British and Canadian troops. To the Canadians fell the lot of taking the famous Vimy Ridge which they, with the absolutely necessary assistance of almost unlimited artillery, successfully took, consolidated, and held, on Easter Monday, April 9.
The argument which sometimes occurs as to whether the artillery or infantry did the greater work in the taking of the Ridge is beside the question; one was as necessary as the other. The artillery could have hammered the Ridge until it became absolutely uninhabitable by the enemy, but the artillery could not consolidate and hold the Ridge, which could be done only by foot-soldiers. Without the proper aid being given by artillery, no foot soldiers in the world, be they ever so valorous, could have taken this strongly fortified hill.
The taking of this Ridge was considered a most difficult achievement for the reason that the French in 1915 nearly captured it, but with losses estimated unofficially at from 150,000 to 200,000 men. Anyone who has been in this neighborhood and has seen the areas dotted with equipment and bones of killed French soldiers, and the trenches marked at almost every turn by little white wooden crosses, "Erected to an unknown French soldier," by their British allies, could hardly doubt these figures. Then the Allies, after holding the conquered part of the Ridge for some months, were pushed off it by the Germans, who successfully held it till the Battle of Arras.
Before this battle it was said that French and British were betting odds that the Canadians would not succeed in this project of taking the Ridge. These facts are not given in any spirit of rivalry or criticism, but only as points of interest and to give honor where honor is due. The Canadians certainly can never complain that they were denied their proper meed of praise by the British press and public for their work at Vimy, but neither can it be gainsaid that they deserved the praise accorded.
The advance was to have taken place much sooner, but preparations were not complete. Easter Sunday, then Easter Monday became the day decided upon, and 5.30 a.m. of that day was to be the zero hour, or hour of attack.
Promptly at that hour the wonderfully heavy artillery barrage multiplied one hundredfold. Three minutes later the soldiers began going over the top and following the barrage. So complete were the arrangements, and so successful every move, that objectives were taken almost to the minute as planned, and returns coming in to Brigade H.Q. on the immediate front on which our battalion attacked were as optimistic as could be hoped for by the most critical.
A little over one hour after the first wave of Canadians started across No Man's Land, our O.C., Lieutenant Colonel J——, with an orderly room staff, signalers and scouts, started for the German lines to open a battalion H.Q. at Ulmer House dugout, about 600 yards behind the trenches which two hours before this had been the enemy front line. I accompanied the party, for I was to establish a Regimental Aid Post somewhere near the H.Q.
When we stepped out of the tunnel which led from Zivy cave to the center of No Man's Land, we had the misfortune to arrive in a sap—a trench leading toward the Hun lines—which sap at the moment of our arrival was being very heavily shelled by German artillery. As the sides of the sap were no more than two or three feet in height, and as the shells were dropping so close that we were continually in showers of mud from them, our party became broken up, leaving the Colonel and five of us together.
Some two hundred yards on our way we stopped to rest. The Colonel and I were sitting behind a small parapet, our bodies touching, when a shell dropped beside him, pieces of it wounding him in five or six places. He pluckily insisted on going on toward our goal, but soon fell from exhaustion. The problem then was to get him back in safety, for there had been no cessation in the shelling. Fortunately this was accomplished with no other casualties, with great pluck on the Colonel's part, and some slight assistance on the part of his companions.
Major P——, M.C., then took charge, and with most of the original party set out for Ulmer House. Our route this time was slightly altered by dodging the unlucky sap and going directly overland. Stepping around shellholes and keeping well away from a tank stuck in a mud hole to our right, in order to avoid the numerous shells that the Germans were pouring about it, we proceeded on our trip through the German barrage, which was somewhat scattered now.
In passing it may be said that on this immediate front, because of the depth of the mud, the only assistance given by the five or six tanks to the troops was that of drawing and localizing the enemy fire to a certain extent, and so marking out areas of danger that it were well to avoid. None of them got even as far as our first objective, but remained stuck in the thick mud till they were dug out by hand. On hard ground they are no doubt dangerous weapons of war, but in this deep mud their only danger was to their occupants and to those about them.
Our trip across this time was not particularly eventful. Veering this way and that to avoid the most heavily shelled bits of ground, stepping over corpses of Germans, or, what was more trying, of our own Canadian boys, saying a word of comfort to some poor wounded chaps in shellholes, we gradually and successfully made our way across the shell-devastated and conquered territory to Ulmer House. We suffered only two slight casualties, a wounded hand to the assistant adjutant, Lieutenant C——, and a bruised chest to the signaling officer, Captain G——.