©Famous Players—Lasky Corporation. Scene from the Photo-Play THE HUN COMES TO TOWN.©Famous Players—Lasky Corporation. Scene from the Photo-Play THE HUN COMES TO TOWN.
Each evening from each section, and there are four sections to a platoon, the corporal or sergeant in command will detail a couple of men for rationparty. Ration party is no pleasant job; as Tommy terms it, it is "one of the rottenest ever."
©Famous Players—Lasky Corporation. Scene from the Photo-Play "WHO'S THE GIRL, PEAT?"©Famous Players—Lasky Corporation. Scene from the Photo-Play "WHO'S THE GIRL, PEAT?"
The two unhappy boys will crawl out as soon as it is dark. They reach the supply wagon, or it may be only a dump of goods. There they will find the quartermaster in charge, in all likelihood. To him they tell their platoon number—Number Sixteen Platoon, Section Four, perhaps—and the quartermaster will hand them the rations. One man will get half a dozen parcels, maybe more. His comrade never offers to relieve him of any—to the comrade there is designated a higher duty. The quartermaster takes up with care and hands with tenderness to the second man a jar, or possibly a jug.
On going back to the trenches a thoughtless sentry may halt the ration party. I have seen it done. I have heard the conversation. I dare not write it. There goes one of the boys, both arms hugging a miscellaneous assortment of packages. He slips and struggles and swears and falls, then picks himself up and gathers together the scattered bundles. But what of the other? A jug held tightly inboth hands, he chooses his steps as would a dainty Coryphee. He dare not trip. He dare not fall. He MUST not spill one drop. Jugs are hard to replace in France; in fact, it is much easier to get a jug in Nebraska than in France.
The boys finally reach the trench in safety, and next morning the rations are issued at "stand-to." "Stand-to" is the name given to the sunrise hour, and again that hour at night when every man stands to the parapet in full equipment and with fixed bayonet. After morning stand-to bayonets are unfixed, for if the sunlight should glint upon the polished steel our position might be disclosed to some sniper.
To my mind stand-to is more or less a relic of the early days of the war, when these two hours were those most favored by the Germans for attack, and so it has become a custom to be in readiness.
A day's rations in the trenches consists of quite a variety of commodities. First thing in the winter morning we have that controversial blind, rum. We get a "tot" which is about equal to a tablespoonful. It is not compulsory, and no man need take it unless he wishes. This is not the time or place todiscuss the temperance question, but our commanders and the army surgeons believe that rum as a medicine, as a stimulant, is necessary to the health of the soldier, therefore the rum is issued.
We take this ration as a prescription. We gulp it down when half frozen, and nearly paralyzed after standing a night in mud and blood and ice, often to the waistline, rarely below the ankle, and it revives us as tea, cocoa or coffee could never do. We are not made drunkards by our rum ration. The great majority of us have never tasted medicinal rum before reaching the trenches; there is a rare chance that any of us will ever taste it, or want to taste it, again after leaving the trenches.
The arguments against rum make Mr. Tommy Atkins tired, and I may say in passing that I have never yet seen a chaplain refuse his ration. And of the salt of the good God's earth are the chaplains. There was Major the Reverend John Pringle, of Yukon fame, whose only son Jack was killed in action after he had walked two hundred miles to enlist. No cant, no smug psalm-singing, mourners'-bench stuff for him. He believed in his Christianity like a man; he was ready to fight for hisbelief like a man; he cared for us like a father, and stood beside us in the mornings as we drank our stimulant. Again, I repeat if a man is found drunk while on active service, he is liable to court martial and death. A few years' training of this kind will make the biggest pre-war drunkard come back home a sober man.
Each soldier carries into the trenches with him sufficient coke and wood to last for his four days in. Upon the brazier he cooks his own meals. For the first few months we were unable to place our braziers on the ground; they would have sunk into the mud. If we attempted to cook anything we would stick a bayonet into a sandbag and hang the brazier on it, then cook in our mess tins over that.
To-day there are dugouts, trench platforms and other conveniences which simplify the domestic arrangements of the trenches to a marvelous degree.
A soldier is at liberty to cook his own rations by himself, but as a rule we all chum in together. We may all take a hand in the cooking, or we may appoint a section cook for a day or for a week, according to his especial facility.
After the rum ration we receive some tea and sugar, lots of bully beef and biscuits. The bully beef is corned beef and has its origin, mysterious to us, in Chicago, Illinois, or so we believe. It is quite good. But you can get too much of a good thing once too often. So sometimes we eat it, and sometimes we use the unopened tins as bricks and line the trenches with them. Good solid bricks, too! We get soup powders and yet more soup powders. We get cheese that is not cream cheese, and we get a slice of raw bacon. Often we eat the bacon at once, sometimes we save it up to have a "good feed" at one time. One can plan one's own menu just as fancy dictates.
Then we get jam. The inevitable, haunting, horrific "plum and apple." This is made by Ticklers', Limited, of London, England, and after the tins are empty we use them to manufacture hand grenades. In those days our supply of hand bombs was like our supply of shells, problematic to say the least. After a time, back of the line, instruction schools were opened in bomb making and bomb throwing. One or two out of a platoon would go back and learn "how," and then instruct the restof us to fill the tins with spent pieces of shrapnel, old scraps of iron, anything which came handy, insert the fuse, cotton and so forth, and thus form an effective weapon for close fighting.
We called those bombers "Ticklers' Artillery Brigade," and they tickled many a German with Ticklers' empty jam tins.
A stock of weak tea, some sugar, salt, some bully beef, biscuits crumbled down, the whole well stirred and brought to a boil, then thickened by several soup powders, is a recipe for a stew which, as the Irishman said, is "filling and feeding." Of its appearance I say nothing.
Regardless of any, we are the best fed troops in the field. While in the trenches the food may be rough and monotonous, but there is plenty of it, and it is of the best quality of its kind. No man need ever be hungry in the trenches. It is his own fault if he is.
We grouse at our rations, of course, and make jokes and laugh, but we never run short of supplies.
Behind the lines, when we go back for a rest and are in billets, we are supplied with well-cooked and comfortable meals. Three good squares a day.We have here our field kitchens and our regular cooks, and Mulligan (stew) is not the daily portion, but variations of roast beef, mutton and so forth.
It is good food, and I have heard men exclaim that it was better than anything they had had at home. After investigation I usually found that the men who dilated thus on the gastronomic delights of billets were married men!
The authorities are just as careful about sending up a soldier's letters, his parcels and small gifts from home, as they are about the food and clothing supplies. They recognize that Tommy Atkins naturally and rightly wants to keep in touch with the home folks, and every effort is made to get communications up on time. But war is war, and there are days and even weeks when no letters reach the front line. Those are the days that try the mettle of the men. We do not tell our thoughts to one another. The soldier of to-day is rough of exterior, rough of speech and rough of bearing, but underneath he has a heart of gold and a spirit of untold gentleness.
We play poker, and we play with the sky thelimit. Why not? Active service allowance is thirty francs a month—five dollars. Why put on any limit? You may owe a man a hundred, or even two hundred dollars, but what's the difference?—a shell may put an end to you, him and the poker board any old minute. There is no knowing.
Weeks pass and no letters. We play more wildly, squatting down in the mud with the board before us. I have sometimes seen a full house, a straight, three of a kind, or probably four big ones. "I raise you five," says Bill. Bang!—a whiz bang explodes twenty yards away. "I raise you ten." Bang!—a wee willie takes the top off the parapet. "There's your ten, and ten better." Crash!—and several bits of shrapnel probably go through the board. "You're called. Gee, but that was a close one! Deal 'em out, Peat."
Suddenly down the trench will pass the word that the officer and sergeant are coming with letters and parcels. We kick the poker board high above the trench, cards and chips flying in all directions. No one cares, even though he's had a hand full of aces. The letters are in, and every man is dead sure there will be one for him.
We crowd around the officer with shining eyes like so many schoolboys. Parcels are handed out first, but we throw these aside to be opened later, and snatch for the letters. But luck is not always good to all of us, and possibly it will be old Bill who has to turn away empty-handed and alone. No letter. Are they all well, or—no letter.
But Bill is not left alone very long. A pal will notice him, notice him before he himself has had more than a glimpse of the heading of his own precious letter, and going over to Bill, will slap him a hearty blow on the shoulder and say: "Say, Bill, old boy, I've got a letter. Listen to this—" And then, no matter how sacred the letter may be, he will read it aloud before he has a chance to glance at it himself. If it is from the girl, old Bill will be laughing before it is finished—girls write such amusing stuff; but, no matter whom it is from, it is all the same. It is a pleasure shared, and Bill forgets his trouble in the happiness of another.
Kindness, unselfishness and sympathy are all engendered by trench life. There is no school on earth to equal the school of generous thoughtfulness which is found on the battle-fields of Europeto-day. There we men are finding ourselves in that we are finding true sympathy with our brother man. We have everything in common. We have the hardship of the trench, and the nearness of death. The man of title, the Bachelor of Arts, the bootblack, the lumberjack and the millionaire's son meet on common ground. We wear the same uniform, we think the same thoughts, we do not remember what we were, we only know what we are—soldiers fighting in the same great cause.
Some days in the trenches are dreariness itself. Sometimes we get discouraged to the point of exhaustion, but these days are rare and when they do occur there is always an alleviation. In every trench, in every section, there is some one who is a joker; who is a true humorist, and who can carry the spirits of the troops with him to the place where grim reality vanishes and troubles are forgotten.
The nights pass quickly enough because at night we have plenty to do. But even while carrying out duties at night many humorous things happen. Take, for instance, the passing of messages up and down the line.
To the civilian message-sending might appear much the same day or night, but not so. In the day we can speak without fear of being overheard, but at night no one knows but that Hans or Fritz may be a few feet on the other side of the parapetwith ears cocked for all sounds. So communications have to be made with care. Sometimes the change of a syllable might alter the meaning of a sentence and cause disaster.
A message at night is whispered in lowest tones from man to man. This is a branch of the service for the young recruit to practise. It means much, and a thoughtless error is unpardonable. The first man receives the communication from the officer. Through the silence will come a soft "Hs-s-s." The next in line will creep up and get the words. He in turn calls to the next man and whispers on the order.
It was one night early in the fighting that Major Kirkpatrick sent the message down the line four hundred yards along: "Major Kirkpatrick says to tell Captain Parkes to send up reinforcements to the right in a hurry." That was the message as I got it. That was the message as I transmitted it to the next man. To Captain Parkes the message ran in a hurried whisper: "Major Kirkpatrick says to tell Captain Parkes to send up 'three and fourpence' to the right in a hurry."
When Major Kirkpatrick received three shillingsand fourpence he was almost in a state of collapse. Luckily, the situation was not serious, or possibly we might have lost heavily. This shows how imperative it is to have absolute accuracy.
Again, at nights there are different kinds of raids to be carried out. Probably a raid by wire cutters, or possibly an actual trench raid. Nights in France are not meant for sleep. There is usually one hour on duty and two hours off, and something doing all the while.
But the days frequently grow long and tiresome. We sleep, we tell stories, we read when there is anything to read, and we write letters if we have the materials. Or, above all, we work out some new device to spring upon the Boche.
In the early days of the war we knew nothing about hand grenades. The Germans started to use them on us, but it was not a great while before we fell into line and produced bombs to match theirs. At first we had the Tickler variety as previously described; since then we have used the "hair-brush" and others, but to-day we are using the standardized Mill hand grenade.
I can never forget the first bomb that was thrownfrom our trench. Volunteers were asked for this new and risky job. I will not mention the name of the boy who volunteered in our section, but he was a big, hefty, red-haired chap. He has since been killed. It is noticeable that red-haired fellows are impetuous and frequently ahead of others in bravery, for a moment or two, anyway.
That day there was an additional supply of mud and water in our trench. We were dragging around in it until the bombing commenced, then we crowded like boys round the big fellow, who was close to the parapet, his chest stuck out, his voice vibrant with pride as he said, "Just you wait and see me blow those fellows to smithereens—just you wait and see!"
In those days of makeshift bombs there was a nine-second fuse in each. We were about thirty yards from the Germans' trench. Of course it would not take nine seconds for the bomb to travel thirty yards; rather would it arrive in three seconds, and give Hans and Fritz opportunity to pick it up comfortably and return it in time for its explosion to kill us and not them. Thus the order was to count at least five—one, two, three, four, five—slowlyand carefully, after the fuse was lighted and before the bomb left the hand.
Every one had his eyes glued to the periscope, except myself. I watched the fuse in the hand of that red-haired guy. He started to count—one, two, and his hand began to shake; at three his hand was moving about violently; at four the bomb fell. I wonder if there is any one in the world who thinks that we stopped there to see that bomb explode. No, we didn't.
There was a chance right there for the quick thinker, for the man of extraordinary initiative, to win the V.C. Somehow our initiative took us in the other direction. It is really wonderful how fast the average man can beat it when he knows there is certain death should he linger in one spot very long. The way we traveled round the traverse and up the trenches was not slow.
Usually there is something going on, but there are days when a man would not think there was a war at all. It is not every day at the front that both sides are shelling and strafing. We once faced a certain Saxon regiment and for nearly two weeks neither side fired a bullet. This particular Saxonregiment said to us: "We are Saxons, you are Anglo-Saxons, we are not a bit fussy about shooting as long as you won't." So, as our turns came periodically, we faced them and did not shoot.
Actually we sent out working parties in the daytime, both Saxon and British, but such things do not happen any more. And such a situation never yet happened with a Prussian or Bavarian regiment. Those devils like to shoot for the sake of hearing their rifles go off.
There are days, when fighting at close quarters, that both sides feel pretty good. The morning will be bright, and we may open the proceedings by trying to sing German songs, and they will join in by singing British airs, but always in a sarcastic manner, after putting words to them that I dare not write.
On the first day of July, which is Dominion or Confederation Day, the Germans began by singing to a certain Eastern Canadian regiment the first verse of our national anthem,O! Canada. When they got through, they politely asked the young braves of this regiment to sing the second verse. The Canadian boys sent over a few bombs instead,for they did not know the words of the second verse! Not to know the second verse seems to be one of the idiosyncrasies of the peoples of all nations, bar the German!
Should we get tired of singing, we would shout across to the enemy trenches. We would ask pertinent questions about their commanders and impertinent ones about the affairs of their nation. One thing I can say for Hans—he is never slow in answering. His repartee may be clumsy, but it is prompt and usually effective.
We would inquire after the health of old "Von Woodenburg," old "One O'clock," the "Clown Prince," or "One Bumstuff." Hans would take this in a jocular way, slamming back something about Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Lloyd George, or Sir Sham Shoes, but when we really wanted to get Fritz's goat we would tease him about the Kaiser.
We would shout "Gott strafe der Kaiser!" That would put them up in the air higher than a balloon. We would feel like getting out and hitting one another, but we dare not even raise a finger because a sniper would take it off. But after a lull there is always a storm, so before many minutes a bulletwould go "crack," which would be the signal for thousands of rifles on both sides to commence an incessant firing. All this over nothing, and nobody getting hurt.
It put me in mind of a couple of old women scrapping over a back-yard fence, and as we say back home, "all fussed up and no place to go."
At the outset of the war there was much speculation as to the response the Lion's cubs would make to the call for help. Britain, herself, never doubted that her children, now fully grown and very strong, would rally to the old flag as in the earlier days of their greater dependency. But Britain, England, is of the Brer Rabbit type—she sits still and says nuffin'.
The neutrals speculated on the attitude of Canada. German propaganda had been busy, and certain sections of the Canadian public had been heard to say that they had no part with England—but that was before the war. The speculative neutral had a shock and a disappointment. Not a Canadian, man or woman, but remembered that England was "home," and home was threatened. As one man they answered the short sharp cry.
Australia, New Zealand and South Africa providedfood for conversation among the nations then not engaged in the fight. South Africa had a rising, fostered by German money and German lies, but it fizzled out before the determined attitude, not of England, but of the men who counted in South Africa itself. All of these countries, which used to be colonies, came without question when the need arose. They may have had minor disagreements with the Old Country, they may have resented the last lingering parental attitude of the Motherland, but let any one touch as an enemy that Motherland and that enemy had well have cried, "Peccavi!" on the moment.
Above all, the neutrals wondered about India. That vast Far Eastern Empire with her millions of men—what would India do?
What did India do? The maharajahs threw into the coffers of the homeland millions of money, they threw in jewels in quantity to be judged by weight of hundreds, in value to be judged in millions of pounds. They offered their men and their lahks of rupees without reservation. The regular troops of the Eastern Empire, the Ghurkas, the Pathans, the Sikhs, a half dozen others, clamored to be takenover to Europe to fight at the front for the great White Chief.
The Indian troops came to Europe, landed in France, and took up their stand on the western front. To them I must make special reference. Some idea may be abroad that because the Hindu troops are not still in France that they proved poor fighters. This is very far from the truth. The Indian regiments were among our best, but they could not stand the rigors of the European climate. They had been used to the warmth and brightness and dryness of their homeland; they came to cold and rain and mud and unknown discomforts. It was too much. Again, the Indian is made for open, hand-to-hand warfare. Give him a hill to climb and hold, give him a forest to crawl through and gain his point, give him open land to pass over without being seen, he can not be beaten. But the strain, mental and physical, of trench life was too much.
To the Indian, war is a religion. One day I went down the line to where a body of Ghurkas were lying to our left. I walked along about a mile through the muddy ditches and at last came up with one of the men. I stopped and spoke, thenoffered him a fag. After this interchange of courtesies we fell into conversation. He did not know very much English, and I no Hindustani at all, but in a short time one of the Ghurka officers approached. The officers and men of these regiments are very friendly, more chummy almost than are our officers to our men. This officer acted as an interpreter, and together they told me much that I was anxious to know.
After a little I asked the Ghurka to show me his knife, but he would not. The Ghurka knife is a weapon of wonderful grace. It is short and sharpened on both edges, while it is broad and curved almost to the angle of a sickle. It is used in a flat sweeping movement, which, when wielded by an expert, severs a limb or a head at one blow. I was told that at twenty yards, when they throw it, they never miss.
At last, through the agency of the officer, I found that it is against all the laws of battle for a soldier of this clan to remove his knife from the scabbard unless he draws blood with the naked blade. The unfailing courtesy of the Hindu forbade a continued refusal, and as I urged him the soldierat last slowly drew the blade from its sheath. He did not raise it for me to examine, nor did he lift his eyes to mine until he had pricked his hand between the thumb and first finger and raised a jet of his own red blood. Then only did I have the privilege of looking at his treasured weapon.
The Hindu warrior believes that to die in battle is to win at once a coveted eternity in Erewohne. He does not wish to be merely wounded, he desires death in fight rather than immunity from injury. He does not evade danger; rather he seeks it.
Shortly after this, at the great battle of Neuve Chapelle, where the British took over five miles of trenches and four miles of front from the enemy, the Hindu troops distinguished themselves in magnificent charges. They leaped out of the trenches almost before the word of command had reached their hearing. Fleet of foot and lithe of action, they had sprung into the enemy trenches and slashed the Hun to submission before the heavier white men had got across the intervening country. They were wonderful, full of dash and courage, but the difficulties of the situation called for an alteration of their fightingmilieu.
Feeding these troops also was a matter of considerable moment. Their religion forbade the eating of any meat but that of the goat. These animals must be freshly killed and must be killed by the Hindu himself. This entailed the bringing up to the line of herds of live goats. In addition, many other formalities of food supply had to be taken into account.
With the most fervent thanks for the good work done on our western front, the authorities came to the conclusion that our cousins of the East would be even greater in service on one of our other fronts. They have gone since to Egypt, to Saloniki, to Mesopotamia, and to the East and West African fronts. They are playing a magnificent and unforgetable part in the world war. They have endeared themselves to the hearts of the folks at home and they have earned the lasting gratitude of all of us. They have defended their section of the empire as we have defended our northern part of the red splotches which mark Britain on the map.
I was sorry that the Indian regiments had to be removed from the west front, because, undoubtedly, they were the most feared by the Hun. The Indianwas at his best in a charge, but at night he had an uneasy habit of crawling out of the trench toward Fritz, with his knife held firmly between his teeth. Before dawn he would return, his knife still in his teeth, but in his hand a German head.
To-day the Canadians in France are known by the enemy as the "white Ghurkas," and this, to us, is one of the highest compliments. The Ghurkas are considered bravest of the brave. Shall we not be proud to share a title such as this?
As the religion of the Ghurka follows him to the battle-field, so in a different sense does the religion of the white man. We have our thoughts, our hopes and our aspirations. Some of us have our Bibles and our prayer-books, some of us have rosaries and crucifixes. All of us have deep in our hearts love, veneration and respect for the sky-pilot—chaplain, if you would rather call him so. To us sky-pilot, and very truly so, the man who not only points the way to higher things, but the man who travels with us over the rough road which leads to peace in our innermost selves.
It does not matter of what sect or of what denomination these men may be. Out on the battle-fieldthere are Anglican clergy, there are Roman Catholic priests, there are ministers of the Presbyterian, the Methodist, the Baptist and other non-conformist faiths. Creed and doctrine play no part when men are gasping out a dying breath and the last message home. The chaplain carries in his heart the comfort for the man who is facing eternity. We do not want to die. We are all strong and full of life and hope and power of doing. Suddenly we are stricken beyond mortal aid. The chaplain comes and in a few phrases gives us the password, the sign which admits us to the peaceful Masonry of Christianity. Rough men pass away, hard men "go West" with a smile of peace upon their pain-tortured lips if the padre can get to them in time for the parting word, the cheerful, colloquial "best o' luck."
Does the padre come to us and sanctimoniously pronounce our eternal doom should he hear us swear? The clergyman, the minister of old time, is down and out when he reaches the battle-fields of France, or any other of the fronts we are holding. No stupid tracts are handed to us, no whining and groaning, no morbid comments on the possibilityof eternal damnation. No, the chaplain of to-day is a real man, maybe he always was, I don't know. A man who risks his life as do we who are in the fighting line. He has services, talks, addresses, but he never preaches. He practises all the time.
Out of this war there will come a new religion. It won't be a sin any more to sing rag-time on Sunday, as it was in the days of my childhood. It won't be a sin to play a game on Sunday. After church parade in France we rushed to the playing fields behind the lines, and many a time I've seen the chaplain umpire the ball game. Many a time I've seen him take a hand in a friendly game of poker. The man who goes to France to-day will come back with a broadened mind, be he a chaplain or be he a fighter. There is no room for narrowness, for dogma or for the tenets of old-time theology. This is a man-size business, and in every department men are meeting the situation as real men should.
Again, at Neuve Chapelle, there was magnificent bravery. Just across the street, at a turn, there lay a number of wounded men. They were absolutelybeyond the reach of succor. A terrible machine gun fire swept the roadway between them and a shelter of sandbags, which had hastily been put up on one side of the street. By these sandbags a sergeant had been placed on guard with strictest orders to forbid the passing of any one, without exception, toward the area where the wounded lay. It was certain death to permit it. We had no men to spare, we had no men to lose, we had to conserve every one of our effectives.
As time wore on and the enemy fire grew hotter, a Roman Catholic chaplain reached the side of the sergeant. "Sergeant, I want to go over to the aid of those wounded men."
"No, sir, my orders are absolutely strict. I am to let no one go across, no matter what his rank."
The chaplain considered a moment, but he did not move from where he stood beside the sergeant.
A minute passed and a chaplain of the Presbyterian faith came up. "Sergeant, I want to go across to those men. They are in a bad way."
"I know, sir. Sorry, sir. Strict orders that no one must be allowed to pass."
"Who are your orders from?"
"High authority, sir."
"Ah!" The padre looked at the sergeant....
"Sorry, Sergeant, but I have orders from a Higher Authority," and the Presbyterian minister rushed across the bullet-swept area. He fell dead before he reached his objective.
"I, too, have orders from a Higher Authority," said the Roman Catholic priest, and he dashed out into the roadway. He fell, dead, close by the body of his Protestant brother. They had not reached the wounded, but Heaven is witness that their death was the death of men.
Hand in hand with the chaplains at the front is the Y.M.C.A. It is doing a marvelous work among the troops. The Y.M.C.A. huts are scattered all over the fighting front. Here you will find the padre with his coat off engaged in the real "shirt-sleeve" religion of the trenches. Here there are all possible comforts, even little luxuries for the boys. Here are concerts,—the best and best-known artists come out and give their services to cheer up Tommy. Here the padres will hold five or six services in an evening for the benefit of the five or six relays of men who can attend. Here arechecker-boards, chess sets, cards, games of all sorts. Here is a miniature departmental store where footballs, mouth organs, pins, needles, buttons, cotton, everything can be bought.
"What's the place wid the red triangle?" asked the Irish soldier, lately joined up and only out, from a Scotch-Canadian who stood near by.
"Yon? D'ye mean to say ye dinna know the meaning o' thon? Why, mon, yon's the place whaur ye get a packet o' fags, a bar o' chocolate, a soft drink and salvation for twenty-five cents."
Yes; we get all that in the Y.M.C.A. huts where the padre toils and the layman sweats day and night for the well-being of the soldier men. In some of the huts it is actually possible to get a bath. It is always possible to get dry. 'Twas Black Jack Vowel, good friend Jack, who wrote over to tell us that there was no hut at one time near his front.
"Bad luck here, this time in. No Y.M.C.A. hut near. I was coming out last night for a turn in billets when I fell into a shell hole. It was pretty near full of water, so I got soaked to the neck,and I hit against a couple of dead Boches in it, too. Not nice. Reached the billet dripping wet. Have got a couple of sugar boxes, one at my head and one at my feet. Have coke brazier underneath. If I lie here about three hours and keep turning, I guess I'll be dry by then."
"Bad luck here, this time in. No Y.M.C.A. hut near. I was coming out last night for a turn in billets when I fell into a shell hole. It was pretty near full of water, so I got soaked to the neck,and I hit against a couple of dead Boches in it, too. Not nice. Reached the billet dripping wet. Have got a couple of sugar boxes, one at my head and one at my feet. Have coke brazier underneath. If I lie here about three hours and keep turning, I guess I'll be dry by then."
That's when no padre was handy to lead the way to a hut.
Can folk wonder why we love the padres, why we reverence the Y.M.C.A.? Can folk wonder why the men who used to look on such men as sissy-boys have changed their opinions? Can folk wonder that the religion which is Christian is making an impression on the soldier? Can folk deny the fact that this war will make better men?
Once again I mention Major the Reverend John Pringle. Best of pals, best of sports, best of sky-pilots! Many a time as we have been marching along we have met him. He would pick out a face from among the crowd, maybe a British Columbia man. "Hello! salmon-belly!" would good Major John peal out. Again, he would see a Nova Scotian: "Hello! fish-eater—hello, blue-nose!"
Then through us all would go a rush of goodfeeling and good heart. Through all of us would go a stream of courage and happiness and a desire to stand right with the man as he was.
"Hello! Sky-pilot!"
We had only been about ten weeks in France when we were moved out of the trenches and placed in Ypres in billets. Some of us were actually billeted in the city itself, and others of us had a domicil in the environs.
Ypres, or Wipers, as Tommy Atkins called it, was then considered a "hot" spot. The Germans say no one ever comes back from Ypres without a hole in him. Tommy says, when he curses, "Oh, go to ——; you can't last any longer than a snow ball in Ypres!"
At this time Ypres was not yet destroyed by the enemy. I have seen many cities of the world. I have seen the beauties of Westminster Abbey, the Law Courts; I have seen the tropical wonders of the West Indies; I have seen the marvels of the Canadian Rockies, but I have never seen greater beauty of architecture and form than in the cityof Ypres. There was the Cloth Hall, La Salle des Draperies with its massive pillars, its delicate traceries, its Gothic windows and its air of age-long gray-toned serenity.
There was Ypres Cathedral! A place of silence that breathed of Heaven itself. There was its superb bell tower, and its peal of silver-tongued chimes. There were wonderful Old World houses, quaint steps and turns and alleys. It was a city of delight, a city that charmed and awed by its impressive grandeur.
Now the city was massed with refugees from the ravaged parts of Belgium. In peace times possibly the population would have numbered thirty-five to forty thousand, at this time it seemed that sixty thousand souls were crowded into the city limits. Every house, everyestaminet, every barn, every stable was filled to its capacity with folk who had fled in despair before the cloven hoof of the advancing Hun.
Glance at the map on page 142 and judge of the condition of a city practically surrounded on all sides by the enemy. Three miles away to the left, three miles away to the right, and a matter ofonly ten miles away from the immediate front of the city. For months the Germans had shelled the town every day. Not with a continued violence, but with a continued, systematic irritation which played havoc with the strongest nerves. Not a day passed that two or three women, or half a dozen children or babies did not pay the toll to the war god's lust of blood.
But still the people remained in the city. There was no alternative. Conditions behind Ypres were just the same, and all the way back to Calais. Every town and every village, every hamlet and every farm had its quota of refugees. Here they stayed and waited grimly for the day of liberation.
One day I walked out from Ypres a few miles. I came to the village of Vlamentinge. I went into anestaminetand called for some refreshment. From among the crowd of soldiers gathered there a civilian Belgian made his way over to me. He was crippled or he would not have been in civilian clothes.
"Hello, old boy!" he said to me in perfect English. "How are you?"
I replied, but must have looked my astonishmentat his knowledge of my language, for he went on to explain.
"I got over from the States just the week war broke out. I worked in North Dakota, and had saved up and planned to come over and marry my sweetheart, who waited in Brussels for me. I have not seen her. She must be lost in the passing of the enemy. I have gathered a very little money, enough to start on the small farm which is my inheritance. Come and see it—come and have dinner with me."
I accepted his invitation, and we walked over together. The Belgian spoke all the way of his fine property and good farm. All the while there was a twinkle in his eye, and at last I asked him what size was his great farm.
"Ten acres," said he, and laughed at my amazement at so small a holding.
We reached the house, which proved to be a three-roomed shack. In a little, dinner was served and we went in to sit down. Not only the owner and myself, but fifteen others sat down to a meal of weak soup and war bread. The other guests at the table were fourteen old women and one younggirl. They sat in a steady brooding silence. I asked the Belgian if they understood English. They did not, and so I questioned him.
"Very big family this you've got," I remarked. I knew what they were, but just wanted to draw him out.
"Oh, they're not my family."
"Only visitors?" I queried.
"Darned good visitors," said he, "they've been here since the second week of August, 1914."
"Refugees—" I commented.
"Yes, refugees, not one with a home. Not one who has not lost her husband, her son or her grandson. Not one who has not lost every bit of small property, but her clothes as well. You think that I am doing something to help? Well, that is not much. I'm lucky with the few I have. There's my old neighbor over yonder on the hill. He owns five acres and has a two-roomed shack and he keeps eleven."
"And how long do you expect them to stay?"
"Why, laddie," said he. "Stay—how should I know? I was talking to an officer the other day and he told me he believed the first ten years of thiswar would be the worst. They are free and welcome to stay all that time, and longer if need be. They are my people. They are Belgians. We have not much. My savings are going rapidly, but we have set a few potatoes"—he waved his hand over to where four of the old women were hoeing the ground. "We get bread and a little soup; we have enough to wear for now. We shall manage."
That is only one instance in my own personal experience. Every place was the same. The people who could, sheltered those that had lost all. It was a case of share and share alike. If one man had a crust and his neighbor none, why then each had half a crust without questions.
It is for Belgium. It is to-day, in the midst of war and pillage and outrage, that man is learning the brotherhood of man. In peace times no man would have imagined the possibility of sharing his home and income, no matter how great it might have been, with fifteen other persons. The fifteen unfortunates would have been left to the tender mercies of a precarious and grudging charity. To-day, charity is dead in its old accepted sense of doling out a few pence to the needy; to-day, charityis imbued with the spirit of Him who, to the few said, "I was hungered and you gave me meat."
To-day, it is not necessary to go to Ypres, to Namur, to Liége, to Verdun, or to any of the bombarded cities of Belgium and France to see the ruin that has been wrought by war among the people. It is the populace who suffer, even in greater degree than do the fighting men. They must give way in every instance before the irresistible barrier of martial law. It is the old men, the women, the children, the babies and the physically imperfect who must bear the brunt of dreadfulness.
Go to any of the cities of France, a hundred or more miles from the firing line. Go to Rouen, to Paris, to the smaller inland towns, to St. Omer, to Aubreville, and there is war.
The streets and boulevards, which a few years since were gay with a laughing crowd of joyous-hearted men and women, youths and maidens, to-day are gloomy, with the shadow of sorrow and death on them. On a conservative estimate it will be found that in all the towns and cities of France, one in three women will be dressed in black.
The French woman carries through life the traditionof the veil. She is christened, and over her baby face there lies a white veil. She is confirmed, and a veil drapes her childish head. She is married, and a trailing lace veil half conceals her happy smiles. She mourns, and a heavy veil of black crape covers her from head to foot.
We of the Canadians learned to know the wonderful emotion of the French. As we marched along the streets we would see a Frenchwoman approaching us. She recognized the strange uniform of an Ally and her eyes would sparkle, and perchance she'd greet us with a fluttering handkerchief. The shadow of a smile would cross her face; she was glad to see us; she wanted to welcome us. And then she would remember, remember that she had lost her man—her husband, her son, her sweetheart. He had been just as we, strong and virile. He had gone forth to a victory that now he was never to see on earth. His had been the supreme sacrifice. She would pass us, and the tears would come to her eyes, and we'd salute those tears—for France.
Over the topOver the top
And the men, what of them? There are no men. You will see old men, shaken and weak; possibly they have experienced the German as he was in1870, and they know. You will see boys, eager strong boys, who impatiently await the call to arms. You will see young men who now look old. You will see them blind, and led about by a younger brother or sister. You will see the permanently crippled and those that wait for death, a slow and lingering death from the Hun's poisonous gases.
With the best of luckWith the best of luck
It is no uncommon sight to see the peasantry of France and Belgium, the old and young women, the children and the very old men, working in their fields and on their tiny farms, less than a mile from the trenches. It is their home. It is France or it is Belgium, and love of country and that which is theirs is stronger than fear of death. Some one of them may be blown to pieces as he works; it makes no difference. They do not leave as long as it is possible to remain, or as long as the Allied armies will permit them to stay.
Their houses may be leveled, they may only find shelter in a half ruined cellar. Often they may go hungry, but always there is a grim determination to stick to their own, to till the ground which has kept them, which has kept their parents and great-grandparents, and which they mean shall keeptheir children when victory, which they know is inevitable, is complete.
They have a wonderful faith.
The casualties of the French army have never been made public. We do not know them. It may be that they will never be told to a curious world. France may have had her body crushed almost beyond endurance, but the unspeakable Hun—the barbarian, the crusher of hope and love and ideals—has not even made a dent on the wonderful spirit of France.
France is superb. In the parlance of the man in the street, we all "take off our hats" to this valiant country.
I could tell of the most horrible things possible for human mind to conceive. I have seen things that, put in type, would sicken the reader. I do not want to tell of these things here, evidence of them can be had from any official document or blue-book. And yet, in justice to Belgium, I must tell some of the least dreadful of the things I have seen and only those that have come to me through personal experience. I do not tell from hearsay, and I tell the truth without exaggeration.
In common with thousands of other Canadian and Imperial soldiers I saw the evacuation and destruction of Ypres. On the morning of April 21, 1915, we marched along the Ypres-Menin road, which road was the key to Calais, to Paris, to London and to New York. We marched along in the early hours of the morning, just after dawn. To our left passed a continuous stream of refugees. We looked toward them as we went by. We saluted as they passed, but many of us had dimmed vision.
We had heard of German atrocities. We had seen an isolated case or two as we marched from town to town and village to village. We had not paid a great deal of attention to them, as we had considered such things the work of some drunken German soldier who had run riot and defied the orders of the officers. Though we had certainly seen one or more cases that had impressed us very deeply. The case I cited earlier in this book never left my thoughts. But here on the king's highway, we saw German atrocities on exhibition for the first time. I say exhibition, and public exhibition, because it was the first time we had seen atrocities in bulk—in numbers—in hundreds.
Ypres had been destroyed in seven hours, after a continuous bombardment from one thousand German guns. It was a city of the dead. The military authorities of the Allies told the civilians they must leave. They had to go, there was no alternative. The liberation they had hoped for was in sight, but their road to it was of a roughness unspeakable.
There was the grandfather in that procession, and the grandmother,—sometimes she was a crippled old body who could not walk. Sometimes she was wheeled in a barrow surrounded by a few bundles of household treasure. Sometimes a British wagon would pass piled high with old women and sick, to whom the soldiers were giving a lift on their way.
There was the mother in that procession. Sometimes she would have a bundle, sometimes she would have a basket with a few broken pieces of food. There was a young child, the baby hardly able to toddle and clinging to the mother's skirts. There was the young brother, the little fellow, whimpering a little perhaps at the noise and confusion andterror which his tiny brain could not grasp. There was the baby, the baby which used to be plump and smiling and round and pinky white, now held convulsively by the mother to her breast, its little form thin and worn because of lack of nourishment.
There was no means of feeding these thousands of helpless ones. Their only means of sustenance was from the charity of the British and French soldiers, who shared rations with them.
And there was sister, the daughter—sister—sister. At sight of these young girls—from thirteen up to twenty and over—we learned, if we had not learned before, that this is a war in which every decent man must fight. Some Americans and Canadians may not want to go overseas; they may be opposed to fighting; they may think they are not needed. Let them once see what we saw that April morning and nothing in the world could keep them at home.
They dragged along with heads low, and eyes seeking the ground in a shame not of their own making. I am conservative when I say that one infour of the hundreds of young girls who walked along in that sad crowd had a baby, or was about to have one.
And that was not the only horror of their situation. Many of them had one or the other arm off at the elbow. They had not only been ruined, but mutilated by their barbarous enemies.
That evening we camped just outside the city of Ypres. We rested all night, and the next day we went into action. During the afternoon of April twenty-second the Germans, for the first time in the history of warfare, used poisonous gas. And they used it against us as we lay there ready to protect the Ypres salient.
Less than three months before this we were raw recruits. We were considered greenhorns and absolutely undisciplined. We had had little of trench experience. At Neuve Chapelle we had "stood by." At Hill 60 we had watched the fun. But our discipline, our real mettle, had not yet been put to the test.
That evening of the twenty-second of April when we marched out from Ypres, little did any of us realize that within the next twenty-four hours more than one-half of our total effectives were to be no more.
I feel sure that our commanders must have been nervous. They must have wondered and asked themselves, "Will the boys stand it?" "How will they come out of the test?"
We were about to be thrown into the fiercest and bitterest battle of the war. There were no other troops within several days' march of us.There was no one to back us up. There was no one else, should we fail, to take our place. "Canadians! It's up to you!"
I could tell of several stirring things that happened to other battalions during that night, but I am only telling of what I saw myself, and it will suffice to write of one most stirring thing which befell the Third.
As we crossed the Yser Canal we marched in a dogged and resolute silence. No man can tell what were the thoughts of his comrade. We have no bands, nor bugles, nor music when marching into action. We dare not even smoke. In dark and quiet we pass steadily ahead. There is only the continued muffled tramp—tramp—of hundreds of feet encased in heavy boots.
To the far right of us and to the far left shells were falling, bursting and brilliantly lighting up the heavens for a lurid moment. In our immediate sector there were no shells. It was all the more dark and all the more silent, for the noise and uproar and blazing flame to right and left.
We were on rising ground now. Up and up steadily we went. We reached the top of the grade,when suddenly from out of the pit of darkness ahead of us there came a high explosive shell. It dropped in the middle of our battalion. It struck where the machine gun section was placed, and annihilated them almost to a man.
Then it was that our mettle stood the test. Then it was that we proved the words Canadian and Man synonymous. Not one of us wavered; not one of us swerved to right or left, to front or back. We kept on. There was hardly one who lost in step. The commanders whispered in the darkness, "Close up the ranks." The men behind those who had fallen jumped across the bodies of their comrades lying prone, and joined in immediately behind those in the forward rows.
The dead and wounded lay stretched where they had fallen. Coming behind us were the stretcher-bearers and the hospital corps. We knew our comrades would have attention. This was a grim business. We pressed on.
There was a supreme test of discipline. It was our weighing time in the balance of the world war, and we proved ourselves not wanting. We were Canadians—that's all.
That afternoon the gas came over on us. The Germans put gas across on us because they hated us most. It is a compliment to be hated by the Germans. Extreme hatred from a German in the field shows that the hated are the most effective. They hated the French most at first, they hated the Imperial British, they hated us; they have hated the English again; soon, when the United States comes to her full effectiveness, she will take her place in the front rank of the hated.
We Canadians were a puzzle to them. When we went into the trenches at first, the enemy would call across the line to us, "What have you come over here to fight us for? What business is it of yours? Why did you not stay back home in Canada and attend to your own affairs, and not butt into something that does not concern you? If you had stayed at home in your own country, WHEN WE CAME OVER AND TOOK CANADA, we would have treated you all right. Now that you have interfered, we are going to get you some day and get you right."
Yes; when they came over and took Canada. That was the very reason we were fighting. Wewanted to keep our own part of the empire for ourselves. It is ours absolutely, and we had no intention that Germany should own it. We knew exactly what the Hohenzollern planned to do. If France were subdued, if England were beaten on her own ground, then Canada would be a prize of war. We preferred to fight overseas, in a country which already had been devastated, rather than carry ruin and devastation into our own land, where alone we would not have had the slightest chance in the world for beating Germany.
In the front lines of the Ypres salient was the Third Brigade, made up of Canadian Highlanders, whom the Germans, since that night have nicknamed "The Ladies from Hell." In this brigade were men from parts of Nova Scotia, Montreal, from Hamilton, Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver.
To the left of these lay the Second Brigade of Infantry. These were men for the most part from the West. There was the Fifth, commonly known as the "Disappointed Fifth," from Regina, Moose Jaw and Saskatoon. There was the Eighth, nicknamed by the Germans "The Little Black Devilsfrom Winnipeg." The Tenth, the famous "Fighting Tenth," with boys from Southern Alberta, mainly Medicine Hat and Calgary and Lethbridge. And there was the Seventh of British Columbia.