An address given in Saskatoon to a number of returned men and colleagues on the first anniversary of the battle of St. Julien. Professor Bateman had been recalled from France to take command of the Saskatchewan Company of the Western Universities' Battalion.
Twelve months ago, on April 22nd, when day broke upon the battlefields of Flanders, the new Canadian army, which had wallowed all winter in the mud of Salisbury, had yet to prove their mettle as fighting men. Ere the sun set that day, they had already won the title, given them throughout the Empire when the story of the fight was known, of "Glorious Canadians." The reputation won at Ypres and St. Julien was fully maintained at the battles of Festubert and Givenchy.
Although we soldiers of the Second Contingent experienced fighting on a smaller scale than our comrades of the First, we had quite enough to enable us to realize, as one who has not been there never can, a great deal of what the first lot went through. I think it is no exaggeration to say that no soldiers of the Second or succeeding contingents think it necessary to look anywhere but to the First Canadians for their highest example of self-sacrifice and devotion to duty.
I have heard people at home complain that they find it hard to get any information from returned soldiers as to their experience, or to get any real idea of what the fighting is like. I think the reason is that we are afraid of giving people a false impression, and that it is impossible to make people grasp the reality of conditions of warfare which have no parallel in history. Everybody at home expects a tale of glory and heroism, but the days of pomp and circumstance of battle are over, and it is only the ideals for which we are fighting that can dignify the mean and ugly reality of present-day war. Besides, when I look back upon the one or two little affairs out of the common in which I have taken part, my impressions are a curious mixture of distinctness and vagueness, as of a dream or nightmare rather than of a real experience, and such impressions are difficult to put into words.
I was in and out of the trenches for six months as an N.C.O., and was in the front line every time but one, so that as far as the ordinary routine of trench life goes, I am qualified to speak. The shortest phrase I know of which attempts to sum up life in the trenches is "Days of unendurable monotony and moments of indescribable fear." That phrase, as far as it goes, is a good description, but it leaves out two important aspects of trench life, the humorous and the picturesque. It is only a sense of humour that can make the monotony of trench life endurable. Any man who went up to the front line expecting to find the heroic defenders grimly defiant and serious over their task would probably be more shocked than amused to find men busy arguing over the division of a pot of jam while Fritz was generously spraying our line with shrapnel; or to discover that some fellow was more elated over having swiped someone else's brazier than if he had bayonetted a dozen Fritzes; or to discover that the breaking of a rum jar was considered a greater calamity by the whole company than if our trench had been blown to pieces.
I have often sat in my dug-out, just a little way down the communication trench, and listened to a ration party going up to the front line in the dark with their heavy loads, wading through mud, plunging into holes, falling over broken trench mats, and I have heard with great pleasure the flow of language; it was immense, nothing like it is to be heard from any other troops in the world's history.
And then there was the picturesque side. My recollections of the trenches come back to me chiefly as a series of pictures.
I see the velvety blackness of the night, cut by streaks of light as the flares go up continually along the front, as far as the eye can see, then shed their weird radiance over the mysterious region of No Man's Land, while every moving thing beneath their light lies still as death till darkness comes again to hide them from the searching eyes that never cease to scan the space between the trenches. I see the muffled sentries at their posts on the firing step; I hear the irregularcrack, crackof rifle fire along the line as they shoot at a flash from the other trench, or at some moving object dimly seen through the darkness; then comes the sharp crackle of rifle fire or therat-a-tat-tatof the machine-gun as we open upon one of Fritz's working parties. I see the flash and hear the bang of bursting shrapnel, or the distantwooshandcr-r-rumpof the high explosive; or there is the dullpopfrom Fritz's line, and high in the air a tract of light makes its way towards our trench. We hear the familiarwhoo-oo-oo-oosh, and we know that one of the dreaded aerial torpedoes is on its way; we wait with horrible suspense for the sickening thud and roar of the explosion, and wonder whether it has got anyone this time, and whether the next is coming our way; or we are roughly awakened from the deep sleep of exhaustion by someone excitedly pulling at our legs and shouting, "Gas!" We crawl quickly out of the dug-out into the darkness to find our comrades "standing to" all along the trench in their weird gas helmets, and presently discover with relief that a nervous listening post has mistaken the mist, which is rolling up from Fritz's trench, for the dreaded chlorine. Or we turn from our posts as we hear the shuffle of the stretcher-bearers along the trench, and we wish some unlucky (or lucky) comrade a safe passage to Blighty. Then there are nights to look back upon around the battered old brazier in the dug-out, when things were quiet, and we smoked a pipe or sang a song, and thought of what we should do when we got that leave that never seemed to come, or the "rest" which had been promised us every time we came out of the trenches for the last three months. And then there was the tramp back to billets through the shell-torn streets of a deserted Flemish village, and the blessed relief of flinging down the pack and rolling up in our blankets for the first straight sleep of many nights.
But best of all to look back upon are the good comrades we found in the trenches, whom we knew we could trust to the death, if need be. However much we appreciate the comfort of home and the kindness of friends here, the deepest thoughts of every returned soldier are now, and will ever be while this war lasts, with the boys they left behind them, "holding the line."
Written in England while impatiently waiting to get back to France. Professor Bateman had been recalled from the trenches, where he was sergeant, to become major of the Western Universities' Battalion, and then was forced to wait in England after this unit was broken up, while in France his former battalion was preparing for Vimy. This letter was written shortly after its capture.
April 29th, 1917.
Dear J. V.,
"Letter received and contents noted."
I can understand how you feel about Maunsell's death. Personally, I have long ago given up theorizing about what may or may not be at the back of phenomena. I confine myself to what I can see and know and reason about, and I find that I have quite as much as I can handle even in that narrow sphere. Once one gets into the region of the supernatural, one man's dream or speculation is just as good or as worthless as another's, for neither has any foundation in experience, and experience gives us our only possible basis for the construction of theories about life.
So, though you may allow your thoughts at times to get out of hand and wander about gropingly in a nebulous unknown, you ought not to allow any baseless theories that result to disturb your peace of mind. If you attach any importance to such propositions about the unknown, you can find plenty of comforting ones evolved by greater brains than yours, which you would do better to accept than allow yourself to be worried and made less effective for the business of life by the pessimistic result of your own thinking.
Constant brain work has a tendency to make a man morbid in his speculations. A free, open-air life, practical problems and contact with men who do things rather than theorize about them is a great corrective. No one yet has gone anywhere near solving the riddle of the unknown, and it may fairly be supposed that the human brain is at present incapable of tackling the problem successfully. It may be that the perpetual struggle after a solution may, in ages to come, result in the evolution of a brain which can find an answer to the riddle of life, in the same way as the constant reaching of the giraffe after food resulted in the production of a neck sufficiently long to solve the giraffe's food problem.
Meantime, we must be content to get along with such knowledge as we have, or else accept a supernatural revelation which is bound at the best to be a bit dim and unsatisfactory, because it is communicated to us by means of the same imperfect brain.
Personally, I don't think it matters very much what you believe about the supernatural if you base your actions upon a sane view of what experience has shown to be best. To get and give as much happiness as possible seems to be our plain duty, and if abnormalities on a tremendous scale like this war crop up, it is the duty of every one to get to work and sacrifice, if necessary, his own chance of happiness in order to restore a state of things where happiness is possible for others. (By happiness, I mean contentment, usually temporary, with things as they are.)
Experience has given us ample proof of where happiness is to be found as far as it can be realized in this life, and every one ought to be able to avoid those actions which would seem to bring happiness, but which have been shown by experience to result in the long run in dissatisfaction. Of course, very few are wise enough to accept the experience of others, and most men have to get stung many times over before they learn the lessons which countless billions before them learned in precisely the same way.
Curiously enough, the highest happiness of which humans are capable seems to be found in the sacrifice of self. Maunsell's magnificent devotion to duty and splendid death are of far greater value to us than his continuing to live could have been, and though he could not have fully realized that fact himself, he certainly would not have been happy if he had declined the privilege of giving up his own happiness that general happiness might be secured for the world, thereby paradoxically finding the greatest happiness of all. If he still continues to live, and can look back on earthly experiences, he would probably not desire to change his own fate.
You can see from all this that my desire to get back to the front is, in the main, selfish. I simply cannot be content to stay here handling a job which absorbs scarcely any of my ability or energy, and which could be as well or better done by some one who is not fit to fight. I went away from the front with the full intention of returning there with men whom I had trained to take their part in the scrap. I have been prevented by circumstances from carrying out my scheme, and I shall always regret that I did not consider that those who were actually at the front with me had a greater claim on me than any others. If I had stayed on, I should have got my commission and should have valued it much more than the one I actually did get. I might have been killed, but I was prepared for that, and I think there is no better way a man can die. It is comparatively seldom in the world's history that a man gets the chance to die splendidly. Most deaths are somewhat inglorious endings to not very glorious careers. A war like the present gives a man a chance to cancel at one stroke all the pettiness of his life.
Therefore I think it is up to me to do all I can to get back to France and finish what I began. If I fail to get there, it won't be my fault, and I won't worry about it. If I depended on the powers that be, I should probably be here for the duration of the war, and it is possible that I may be. But I am determined that it is not going to be my fault if I am.
I did not intend, when I sat down, to write you more than a brief note. I think my first sentence shows that. All the rest came of itself, and I hope you won't be bored stiff by reading it.
Best of luck in the "Wall,"[*]
Yours ever,REG.
If you are ever up against it for cash, or if there is any other way that I can help you, I shall be very sore with you if you don't let me know.
If you want some good light reading to take your mind off Syriac and other ancient noises by which people communicated one with the other, try some of O. Henry's books—The Four Million, Options, Whirligigs(very light reading and amusing), Hodder and Stoughton.
[*] Wall Biblical Scholarship, Dublin University.
LONDON: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND GRIGGS (PRINTERS), LTD.CHISWICK PRESS, TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE.