Morning in the Trenches—The Artillery Preparation for the Infantry Attack—The P.P's Chosen to Stem the Tide—The Trust of a Lady—Chaos—Corporal Dover—The Manner in Which Some Men Kill and Others Die.
Morning in the Trenches—The Artillery Preparation for the Infantry Attack—The P.P's Chosen to Stem the Tide—The Trust of a Lady—Chaos—Corporal Dover—The Manner in Which Some Men Kill and Others Die.
It seemed as though I had just stepped off my whack of sentry go for my group when a kick in the ribs apprised me that it was "Stand-to." I rubbed my eyes, swore and rose to my feet. Such was the narrowness of the trench that the movement put me at my post at the parapet, where in common with my mates, I fell to scanning the top for the first signs of day and the Germans.
The latter lay on the other side of the ravine from us as they had since the Fourth, except for such times as they had assaulted our position. The smoke of Ypres and all the close-packed villages of a thickly populated countryside rose sullenly on every hand.
Over everything there hung the pallor of the mist-ridden Flemish morning, deadly quiet, as was usual at that time of the trench day when the tenseness of the all-night vigil was just merging into the relieving daylight.
At half past six that stillness was punctuated by a single shell, which broke barely in our rear. And then the ball commenced—the most intense bombardment we had yet experienced. Most of the fire came from the batteries in concealed positions on our right, whence, as on the fourth, they poured in a very destructive enfilade fire which swept up and down the length of the trench like the stream of a hose, making it a shambles. Each burst of high-explosive shells, each terrible pulsation of the atmosphere, if it missed the body, seemed to rend the very brain, or else stupefied it.
The general result was beyond any poor words of mine. All spoken language is totally inadequate to describe the shocks and horrors of an intense bombardment. It is not that man himself lacks the imaginative gift of words but that he has not the word tools with which to work. They do not exist.Each attempt to describe becomes near effrontery and demands its own separate apology.
In addition, kind Nature draws a veil for him over so much of all the worst of it that many details are spared his later recollection. He remembers only the indescribable confusion and the bursting claps of near-by flame, as foul in color and as ill of smell as an addled egg. He knows only that the acid of the high-explosive gas eats into the tissue of his brain and lungs, destroying with other things, most memories of the shelling.
Overhead an aeroplane buzzed. We could even descry the figures of the pilot and his observer, the latter signaling. No gun of ours answered. The dead and dying lay all about and none could attend them: A rifle was a rifle.
This continued for an hour, at the end of which time we poked our heads up and saw their infantry coming on in columns of mobs, and some of them also very prettily in the open order we had ourselves been taught. Every field and hedge spewed them up. We stood, head and shoulders exposed above the ragged parapet, giving them "Rapid-fire." Theyhad no stomach for that and retired to their holes, leaving many dead and grievously wounded.
It was at this time that we saw the troops on our flanks falling back in orderly fashion. I called that fact to the attention of Lieutenant Lane, who was the only officer left in our vicinity. He said that the last word he had received was to hang on.
This we proceeded to do, and so, we are told, did the others. We learned later that the battalion roll call that night showed a strength of one hundred and fifty men out of the six hundred and thirty-five who had answered "Present" twenty-four hours earlier. And the official records of the Canadian Eye Witness, Lord Beaverbrook, then Sir Max Aitken, as given in "Canada in Flanders," state that "Those who survive and the friends of those who have died may draw solace from the thought that never in the history of arms have soldiers more valiantly sustained the gift and trust of a Lady," referring to the Color which had been worked for and presented to us by the Princess Patricia, daughter of His Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught, then Governor-General of Canada.
We were on the apex of the line and were nowunsupported on either side. It was about this time, I believe, that a small detachment of the King's Shropshire Light Infantry, a sister regiment in our brigade, fetched to the companies in our rear twenty boxes of badly needed ammunition and reënforced the Princess Patricias.
Following the beating off of their infantry attack the Germans gave us a short breathing spell until their machine guns had been trained on our parapet and a school of light field guns dragged up into place. The aeroplane came out again, dropping to within three hundred feet of our trench, and with tiny jets of vari-colored smoke bombs, directed the terribly accurate fire of the enemy guns, already so close to, but so well insured against any harm from us that they attempted no concealment. And the big guns on the right completed the devastation.
This continued for another half hour, at the end of which time there remained intact only one small traverse in the trench, which owed its existence to the fragment of chicken wire that held its sides up. The remainder was absolutely wiped out. This time there was no rapid fire, nor even any looking over the top to see if the enemy were coming on.Instead, the Germans fairly combed the parapet with their machine guns. Each indication of curiosity from us drew forth from them such a stream of fire that the top of the parapet spat forth a steady shower of flying mud, and, which made it impossible for us to defend ourselves properly, even had there been enough of us left to do so.
The rest was chaos, a bit of pure hell. Men struggling, buried alive and looking at us for the aid they would not ask for. Soldiers all. And the Germans now pouring in in waves from all sides, and especially from our unprotected flanks and rear, hindered only by the desultory rifle fire of our two weakened companies in the support trenches. We were receiving rifle fire from four directions and bayonet thrusts from the Germans on the parapet. Mowed down like sheep. And as they came on they trampled our dead and bayoneted our wounded.
The machine-gun crew had gone under to a man, doing their best to the last. I think Sergeant Whitehead went with them, too; at least he was near there a short time before, and I never saw him or any of the gun crew again. The only living soul near that spot was Royston, dragging himself out from undera pile of débris and covered with mud and blood, his face horribly swollen to twice its normal size, blinded for the moment.
To quote "Canada in Flanders" again:
"At this time the bombardment recommenced with great intensity. The German bombardment had been so heavy since May 4th that a wood which the Regiment had used in part for cover was completely demolished. The range of our machine-guns was taken with extreme precision. All, without exception, were buried. Those who served them behaved with the most admirable coolness and gallantry. Two were dug out, mounted and used again. One was actually disinterred three times and kept in action till a shell annihilated the whole section. Corporal Dover stuck to his gun throughout and, although wounded, continued to discharge his duties with as much coolness as if on parade. In the explosion that ended his ill-fated gun, he lost a leg and an arm, and was completely buried in the débris. Conscious or unconscious, he lay there in that condition until dusk, when he crawled out of all that was left of the obliterated trench and moaned for help. Two of his comrades sprang from the supporttrench—by this time the fire trench—and succeeded in carrying in his mangled and bleeding body. But as all that remained of this brave soldier was being lowered into the trench a bullet put an end to his sufferings. No bullet could put an end to his glory."
George Easton was firing with me at the gray mass of the oncoming horde. "My rifle's jammed!" he cried.
"Take mine." And I stooped to get one from a casualty underfoot. But a moment later, as I fired from the parapet, my bayonet was broken off by a German bullet. I shouted wildly to Cosh to toss me one from near by.
Just then the main body of the Germans swarmed into the end of the trench.
Of this Lord Beaverbrook says: "At this moment the Germans made their third and last attack. It was arrested by rifle fire, although some individuals penetrated into the fire trench on the right. At this point all the Princess Patricias had been killed, so that this part of the trench was actually tenantless. Those who established a footing were few in number, and they were gradually dislodged; and so thethird and last attack was routed as successfully as those which had preceded it."
His conclusion that we had all been killed was justifiable even though, fortunately for me, it was an erroneous one. So I am glad for other motives than those of mere courtesy to be able here to set him right.
Bugler Lee shouted to me: "I'm shot through the leg." A couple of us seized him, planning to go down to where the communication trench had once been. But he stopped us, saying: "It's no good, boys. It's a dead end! They're killing us."
Cosh swore. "Don't give up, kid! We'll beat the —— yet!" A German standing a few yards away raised his rifle and blew his head off. Young Brown broke down at this—they had just done in his wounded pal: "Oh, look! Look what they've done to Davie," and fell to weeping. And with that another put the muzzle of his rifle against the boy's head and pulled the trigger.
German Prisoners after a Successful Canadian AttackGERMAN PRISONERS AFTER A SUCCESSFUL CANADIAN ATTACK, BRINGING WOUNDED MEN DOWN A COMMUNICATION TRENCH.ToList
GERMAN PRISONERS AFTER A SUCCESSFUL CANADIAN ATTACK, BRINGING WOUNDED MEN DOWN A COMMUNICATION TRENCH.ToList
Young Cox from Winnipeg put his hands above his head at the order. His captor placed the muzzle of his rifle squarely against the palm and blew itoff. There remained only a bloody and broken mass dangling from the wrist.
I saw a man who had come up in the draft with me on the 4th, rolling around in the death agony, tossing his head loosely about in the wild pain of it, his pallid face a white mark in the muck underfoot. A burly German reached the spot and without hesitation plunged his saw-edged bayonet through the throat.
Close by another wounded man was struggling feebly under a pile of earth, his legs projecting so that only the convulsive heaving of the loose earth indicated that a man was dying underneath. Another German observed that too, and shoved his bayonet through the mud and held it savagely there until all was quiet.
This I did not see, but another did and told me of it afterward. Sergeant Phillpots had been shot through the jaw so that he went to his knees as a bullock does at the slaughtering. He supported himself waveringly by his hands. The blood poured from him so that he was all but fainting with the loss of it.
A big German stood over him.
Phillpots looked up: "Play the game! Play the game!" he muttered weakly.
The German coolly put a round through his head.
I was still without a bayonet, and seeing these things, said to Easton: "We'd better beat it."
He swore again. "Yes, they're murdering us. No use stopping here. Come on!"
And just then he, too, dropped. I thought him dead. There was no use in my stopping to share his fate or worse. It was now every man for himself. At a later date we met in England.
The other half of the regiment lay in support two hundred yards away in Belle-waarde Wood and in front of the château and lake of that name, where my draft had lain on the fourth. I made a dash for it. What with the mud and the many shell holes, the going was bad. I was indistinctly aware of a great deal of promiscuous shooting at me, but most distinctly of one German who shot at me about ten times in as many yards and from quite close range. I saw I could not make it. I flung myself into a Johnson hole, and as soon as I had caught my breath, scrambled out again and raced for the trench I had just left. I was by this time unarmed,having flung my rifle away to further my flight, notwithstanding which another German shot at me as I went toward him.
As I landed in the trench an angry voice shouted something I could not understand. And I scrambled to my feet in time to see a German sullenly lower his rifle from the level of my body at the command of a big black-bearded officer.
A German Version of a Soldier's Death!—The Courage of Cox—Robbing the Helpless—Water on the End of a Bayonet—The Curious Case of Scott—Prussian Bullies—Why I Was Covered with a Fine Sweat.
A German Version of a Soldier's Death!—The Courage of Cox—Robbing the Helpless—Water on the End of a Bayonet—The Curious Case of Scott—Prussian Bullies—Why I Was Covered with a Fine Sweat.
The Germans were by this time in full possession of this slice of trench, and for the next few minutes the officer was kept busy pulling his men off their victims. Like slavering dogs they were.
He did not have his lambs any too well in hand, however. O.B. Taylor, a lovable character in Number One Company, came to his end here. The Germans ordered him and Hookie Walker to go back down the trench. He had no sooner turned to do so than a German shot him from behind and from quite close, so that it blew the groin completely out, making a terrible hole. We could not tie up so bad a wound and he bled to death. Hookie Walker remained with him to the last, five hours later, whenhe said: "I'm going to sleep boys," and did so. Fortunately, he did not suffer. And all the others except young Cox were equally fortunate, since they were murdered outright.
Taylor's was the most calculated of all the murders we had witnessed and outdid even those of the wounded because the excitement of the fight was two hours old and he was doing the bidding of his captors at the time. The killing of those who resisted was of course quite in order. Why he was killed while Walker was left unharmed and at his side to the last we did not know and could only credit to a whimsy of our captors. No punishment was visited upon his murderer or upon any of them so far as we were able to learn.
Upon my later return to Canada I found that Taylor's sister there had received a letter from a German officer enclosing a letter addressed to her which had been found on her brother's body, together with three war medals and a Masonic ring. The latter was the key to the incident since the officer also claimed to have been a Mason. In his letter this officer said that her brother had met a soldier's death!
Some said that our friendly officer was not a German but an Irishman. I doubted that but it may have been so, for it was true that his speech contained no trace of the accent which is usually associated with a German's English speech. His was that of an English gentleman. And to him we undoubtedly owed our wretched lives that day.
I in particular have good cause to be grateful. A German, all of six foot four, who swung a tremendously broad headsman's axe with a curved blade, tried several times to get at me. Each time the officer stopped him. Still he persisted. He apparently saw no one else and kept his eye fastened on me with deadly intention in it. He pushed aside the others, Prussians and prisoners alike; he whirled the shining blade high above a face lit up with savage exultation, terrible to see, and which reflected the sensual revelling of his heated brain in the bloody orgy ahead. As I followed the incredibly rapid motions of the blade, my blood turned to water. My limbs refused to act and my mind travelled back over the years to a little Scottish village where I had been used to sit in the dark corners of the shoemaker's shop, listening to him and others of theold 2nd Gordons recount their terrible tales of the hill men on the march to Kandahar with "Bobs." And now I felt that same tremendous sensation of fear which used to send me trembling to my childish pallet in the croft, peering fearfully through the darkness for the oiled body of a naked Pathan with his corkscrew kris. Terror swept over me like a springtime flood. He saw no one else. His eye fastened on me in crudest hate. But as he stood over me with feet spread wide and the circle of his axe's swing broadening for the finale, the thread of rabbit-like mesmerism broke and I sprang nimbly aside as the blade buried itself deep in the mud wall I had been cowering against. I endeavoured to dodge him by putting some of my fellow prisoners between us. No use. He followed me, shoving and cursing his way among them, swinging his axe. My hair stood on end and I felt rather critical of their much-vaunted Prussian discipline. Another endeavoured to bayonet Charlie Scarfe. The officer at last stopped them both.
Our captors belonged to the Twenty-first Prussian Regiment and were, so far as we knew, the first of their kind we had been up against, allprevious comers on our front having been Bavarians and latterly of the army group of Prince Ruprecht of Bavaria—"Rupie," we called him. They wore the baggy grey clothes and clumsy looking leather top boots of the German infantryman. The spikedpickelhaubenwas conspicuous by its absence and was, we well knew, a thing only of billets and of "swank" parades. In its place was the soft pancake trench cap with its small colored button in the front.
The enemy were armed for the most part with pioneers' bayonets, as well adapted by reason of their saw edges for sticking flesh and blood as for sawing wood; and, if for the former, an unnecessarily cruel weapon, since it was bound to stick in the body and badly lacerate it internally in the withdrawal; especially if given a twist.
The trench front had been about-faced since its change of ownership and the Germans were already casting our dead out of the shattered trench, both in front and behind, and in many cases using them to stop the gaps in the parapet; so that they now received the bullets of their erstwhile comrades.
We were ordered up and out at the back of the parapet and then made to lie there. The Germanartillery had ceased. We had none. Odd shots from the remnant of our fellows still hanging on in the supports continued to come over, but none of us were hit. In all probability, they withheld their fire when they saw what was afoot. Some German snipers in a farmhouse at the rear were less considerate, but fortunately failed to hit us.
Later we were ordered to take our equipment off and those who had coats, to shed them. We did not see the latter again and missed them horribly in the rain of that day. Two of the Prussians "frisked" us for our tobacco, cigarettes, knives and other valuables.
This was in bitter contrast to our own treatment of prisoners under similar conditions. True, we had always searched them but had invariably returned those little trinkets and comforts which to a soldier are so important. And I think our men had always showered them with food and tobacco.
We were then marched to the rear, with the exception of one, who, by permission of the officer, remained with the dying Taylor.
There were ten of us all told. I have only heard of a few others who were captured that day.Roberts is still in Germany and Todeschi has been exchanged and is now in Toronto. The latter lay with a boy of the machine-gun crew for a couple of days in a dug-out, both badly wounded. A German stumbled on to them. They pleaded for water. The German said, "I'll give you water" and bayoneted the boy as he lay. He raised his weapon so that the blood of his comrade dripped on Todeschi's face.
"All right," Todeschi cried in German, "kill me too, but first give me water, you——"
The German lowered his rifle in amazement: "What, you schwein, you speak the good German? Where did you learn it?"
"In your schools. For Christ's sake—give me water—and kill me."
"What! You live with us and then do this? Schwein!"
"All right, I will give you water and I will not kill you; just to show you how well we can treat a prisoner."
Todeschi was then taken to the field dressing station where according to his own account his mangled leg was amputated without the use of anyanesthetic. But that may have been because in such a time of stress they had none. Later he was exchanged.
I met Scott in the prison camp a few days later and he told his tale. It appears that in the confusion of the earlier fighting he had become separated from the regiment, became lost and eventually floundered into an English battalion. He reported to the officer commanding the trench and told his story. The officer had no idea where the Patricias lay and so ordered Scott to remain with them until such time as an inquiry might establish the whereabouts of his regiment.
They were captured, but under less exciting circumstances than occurred in our own case. And the Germans had word that there was a Canadian amongst these English troops. It was one of the first things mentioned. They did not say how they had acquired their information, but shouted out a request for the man to stand forth. When no one complied, they questioned each man separately, asking him if he was a Canadian or knew aught of one in that trench.
They all lied: "No." The Germans were socertain that they again went over each man in turn, examining him.
Scott was at the end of the line. He began to cut the Canadian buttons off his coat and to remove his badges. Several men near by assisted and replaced them with such of their own as they could spare; each man perhaps contributing a button. They had no thread nor time to use it if they had, so tacked the buttons into place by all manner of makeshifts, such as broken ends of matches thrust through holes punched in the cloth; anything to hold the buttons in place and tide the hunted Scott over the inspection. He passed. The Germans were quite furious.
Scott and his companions could only guess at the cause of this strange conduct, but presumed that the Canadian was wanted for special treatment of an unfavorable, if not of a final nature.
To return to our own case:
About the middle of the afternoon we were herded by our guards into a shallow depression a short distance in the rear of the trench and there told to lie down. The officer and his men returned to the trench. Until we were taken back to the trench atsix we were continually sniped at by the Germans in the captured trench. We had no recourse but to make ourselves as small as possible, which we did. And whether owing to the fact that the hollow we were lying in prevented our being actually within the range of the enemy vision, or whether they were merely playing cat and mouse with us, I do not know, but none were hit. Young Cox suffered stoically. His mangled hand had become badly fouled with dirt and filth, and the ragged bones protruded through the broken flesh. So, in a quiet interval between the sniping periods we hurriedly sawed the shattered stump of his hand off with our clasp knives and bound it up as best we could. It was not a nice task, for him nor us, but he did not so much as grunt during the operation. The nearest he came to complaining was when he asked me to let him lay his hand across my body to ease it, at the same time remarking: "I guess when they get us to Germany they'll let us write, and I'll be able to write mother and then she'll not know I've lost my hand." He was a most valiant and faithful soldier.
The perpetual rain and mist peculiar to that low-lying land added to our wretched condition andincreased the pain of the wounds that most of us suffered from.
At six o'clock our guards returned and curtly ordered us to our feet. We were taken back to the trench, where our officer friend had us searched again. Here for the first time my two corporal's stripes were noticed and a mild excitement ensued. "Korporal! Korporal!" they exclaimed and crowded up the better to inspect me and verify the report, and jabbering "Ja! Ja!" Apparently a captured corporal was a rarity. Strangely enough, they paid little or no attention to the sergeant of our party, although he had the three stripes of his rank up.
As I happened to be in the lead of our party and the first to enter the trench, I was the first man searched and so had to await the examination of the others. Worn out by the events of the day and the wound I had received early in the morning from a shell fragment, I fell asleep against the wall of the trench where I sat.
I was awakened by a poke in the ribs from Scarfe. "Time to shift, mate."
I rose to my feet and, following the instructions of the officer, led the way along the trench. TheGermans had already, with their usual industry, gotten the trench into some sort of shape again, with the parapet shifted over to the other side and facing Belle-waarde Wood. And everywhere along its length I noticed the bodies of our dead built into it to replace sandbags while others lay on the parados at the rear.
It was not nice. The faces of men we had known and had called comrade looked at us now in ghastly disarray from odd sections of both walls. Already they were taking a brick-like shape from the weight of the filled bags on top of them. In places the legs and arms protruded, brushing us as we passed. However, this was war and quite ethical.
Naturally we had to crowd by the other occupants of the trench. And each took a poke at us as we went by, some with their bayonets, saying: "Verdamnt Engländer" and: "Engländer Schwein,"—pigs of English. Also quite a number of them spoke English after a fashion. There was in these men none of the soldier's usual tolerance or good-natured pity for an enemy who had fought well and had then succumbed to the fortunes of war. Instead, a blindand vicious rage which took no account of our helpless condition.
They cuffed us, they buffeted us, they pricked us cruelly with their saw bayonets and then laughed and sneered as we flinched and dodged awkwardly aside. Then they cursed us.
Shortly, we were led into the presence of a man whom I shall remember if I live to be a hundred. He wore glasses and on his upper lip there bloomed such a dainty moustache as is affected by "Little Willie" as Tommy calls the German Crown Prince. He had the eye of a rat. It snapped so cruel a hate that one's blood stopped.
He seized me by the right shoulder with his left hand: "You Corporal! You Corporal!" as though that fact of itself condemned me, and at the same time tugging at his holster until he found his revolver, which he placed against my temple. Then and there I fervently prayed that he would pull the trigger and end it all. I was fed up. The all-day bombardment, the last terrible slaughter of helpless men, the rain and cold, combining with the pain of the raw wound in my side, had gotten on my nerves.With the revolver still at my head I turned to Scarfe: "They're going to do us in, Charlie. I only hope they'll do it proper. None of that bayonet stuff. Bullets for me." Already the Prussians were crowding round us threateningly again, with their saw-edged bayonets ready, some fixed in the rifle, others clasped short, like daggers, for such a butchering as they had had earlier in the afternoon, when I had been so nearly axed.
"Might as well kill us outright as scare us to death," complained Scarfe bitterly.
Nevertheless our hearts leaped when a moment later our mysterious black officer friend hove in sight. Life is sweet.
He asked them what they did with us. The tableau answered for itself before the words had left his lips. And then we had to listen to our fate discussed in language and gesture so eloquent and so fraught with terrible importance to us that our sensitized minds could miss no smallest point of each fine shade of cruel meaning.
"Little Willie" thought it scarce worth their while to bother with so small a bag; that it would not beworth the trouble to send a miserable ten ofVerdamnt Engländerback to the Fatherland—Better to kill them like the swine they were.
Our blood froze to hear the man and to see the poison of that rat soul of his exuding from his every pore, in every gesture and in each fresh inflection of his rasping voice. And all his men shouted their fierce approval and shook in our faces their bloody butcher's bayonets. It was a bitter draught. If they had killed us then it would have had to have been done in most cold blood, exceeding even the murder of Taylor in planned brutality. He at least had not known that it was coming and had not felt this insane fear which we now experienced and which made us wonder how they would do it. Would each have to watch the other's end? And would it be done by bullet or by bayonet? We greatly feared it would be the latter. We pictured ourselves held down as hogs are—our throats slit——!
The dark officer thought otherwise and minced no words in the saying. Our hearts leapt out to him warmly, in gratitude.
He sharply ordered them to desist, at which theyslunk sullenly away, as hungry dogs do from a bone.
I felt an uncomfortable physical sensation and ran my hand uneasily beneath my shirt. I was covered with a fine sweat.
Polygon Wood and Picadilly Again—German Headquarters—Surprising Kitchener—"Your Infantry's No Good"—The Germans Give Us News of the Regiment.
Polygon Wood and Picadilly Again—German Headquarters—Surprising Kitchener—"Your Infantry's No Good"—The Germans Give Us News of the Regiment.
We were then escorted under heavy guard out over the fields in the rear, past the nearby farmhouse, which was simply filled with snipers. The latter, however, did not shoot at us, presumably because they might have hit some of our numerous guards. We seemed to be working right through the heart of the German Army. Everywhere the troops were massed. Along the road they lay in solid formation on both sides. If we had had artillery to play on them now they would have suffered tremendous losses. The whole countryside presented a living target. All the way they shouted "Schwein" and taunted us in both languages. Every shell-hole, farmhouse, hut, dugout and old trench on thethree-mile stretch between the Front and Polygon Wood contributed its quota.
The regiment had evacuated Polygon Wood on the night of the third. Across the old trail our fatigue parties had tramped new ones in the mud, up past Regent Street, Leicester Square and Picadilly. We passed them all.
We were marched over to the little settlement of pine-bough huts which the regiment had previously taken over from the French. The men with me greeted them like old friends. Here was the Sniper's Hut, there the Commanding Officer's. This was the hut in which the brave Joe Waldron had "gone West," that on the site of one where fourteen of "ours" had stopped a shell while they slept. Memories submerged us and made us weak. Even the guiding rope that our men had used to hold themselves to the trail of nights still held its place for groping German hands.
Beside it lay the fragments of the French signboards, jocular advertisements of mud baths for trench fever, thehôtelthis and themaisonthat. One of my companions pointed to a larger hut which he said our fellows had called the Hotel Cecil. Theboard was missing now. And no German signboard took its place. Their wit did not run in so richly innocent a channel.
The huts lay just off the race track in front of the ruined château, buried deep in the remnants of what had once been the beautiful park of a large country estate. These huts were now the German headquarters.
There was as much English as German talked there that day. Everywhere there was cooking going on, mostly in portable camp kitchens.
As we came to a halt one big fellow smoking a pipe observed nonchalantly: "You fellows are lucky. Our orders were to take no Canadian prisoners."
The man was so casual, so utterly matter-of-fact and there was about his remark so simple an air of directness and of finality that there was no escaping his sincerity, unduly interested though we were.
Another officer said "Engländer?"
The big fellow said "Kanadien." The other raised his brows and shoulders: "Uhh!"
Wounded Canadians Receiving First AidWOUNDED CANADIANS RECEIVING FIRST AID IN A SUPPORT TRENCH AFTER AN ATTACK.ToList
WOUNDED CANADIANS RECEIVING FIRST AID IN A SUPPORT TRENCH AFTER AN ATTACK.ToList
A younger officer came up: "Never mind, boys: Your turn to-day. Might be mine to-morrow."Turning to the others, he too said: "Engländer?"
"No! Canadian."
"Oh!" And he appeared to be pleasantly surprised. He asked me for a souvenir and pointed to the brass Canada shoulder straps and the red cloth "P. P. C. L. I.'s" on the shoulders of the others. But I had already shoved my few trinkets down my puttees while lying back of the trench that afternoon. Scarfe, however, gave up his "Canada" straps.
The young officer gave him in return a carved nut with silver filigree work and gave another man a silver crucifix for the bronze maple leaves from the collar of his tunic. And, more important still, he gave us all a cigarette, while he had a sergeant give us coffee.
That, the cigarette, was I think much the best of anything we received then or for some time to come. Since the bombardment and our wounding, our nerves had fairly ached for the sedative which, good, bad or indifferent, would steady the quivering harp strings of our nerves. And a cigarette did that.
The headquarters staff appeared on the scene. They wanted information, just as ours would have done under similar circumstances, but these took adifferent method to acquire it. As before, in the trench, they selected me for the spokesman. The senior officer, a general apparently, addressed me: "How many troops are there in front of our attack?"
I lied: "I don't know."
He shook a threatening finger at me. "I'll tell you this, my man: We have a pretty good idea of how many troops lay behind you and if in any particular you endeavour to lead us astray it will go very hard with all of you. Now answer my question!" His English was good.
I cogitated. It would not do to tell him the terrible truth. That was certain. So I took a chance. "Three divisions." He appeared to be satisfied. The fact was, there were none behind us. We were utterly without supporting troops.
"And Kitchener's Army? How many of them are there here?"
"Why, they haven't even come over yet, sir."
"Don't tell me that: I know better. They've been out here for months."
"But they haven't," I persisted. I told the truth this time.
"Yes," he shouted angrily.
"No," I flung back.
"Well, how many of them are there?"
The division yarn had gone down well. And perhaps I was slightly heated. My spirit ran ahead of my judgment. "Five and a half to seven million," I said.
He exploded. And called me everything but a soldier. I could not help but reflect that I had overdone it a bit. And I certainly thought that I was "for it" then and there.
To make matters worse he asked the others and they, profiting by my mistake and following the lead of the first man questioned, put Kitchener's army at four and a half million; which was only a trifle of four million out. So I determined to be reasonable. When he came to me again I confirmed the latter figure, explaining my earlier statement by my lack of exact knowledge. And so that particular storm blew over.
The general came back to me again. "You Canadians thought this was going to be a picnic, didn't you?" He was very sarcastic.
"No, we didn't, sir."
"Well, you thought it was going to be a walk through to Berlin, didn't you?"
"Why, no. We thought it was the other way about, sir," I ventured.
He shifted: "Well, what do you think of us anyhow?"
"Your artillery was all right but your infantry was no good." I began to feel shaky again. However, he took that calmly enough.
"Oh! So our infantry was no good."
"We could have held them all right, sir."
He ruminated on that a moment, rumbled in his throat and abruptly changed the subject, in an unpleasant fashion, however.
"You're the fellows we want to get hold of. You cut the throats of our wounded."
I denied it and we argued back and forth over that for several minutes, and very heatedly. He referred to St. Julien and said that this thing had occurred there. I said and quite truthfully that we had not been at St. Julien, that we were in the Imperial and not the Canadian Army and had been spectators in near-by trenches of the St. Julien affair. I even went into some detail to explain thatwe were a special corps of old soldiers who, not being able to rejoin their old regiments, had at the outbreak of war formed one of their own and had been accepted as such and sent to France months ahead of the Canadian contingent. I added that I myself had just rejoined the regiment, having got my "Blighty" in March at St. Eloi and as proof of my other statements I further volunteered that I was one of the 2nd Gordons and after the South African War had gone to Canada where I had finished my reserve several years since.
He listened but was plainly unconvinced. Another officer broke in: "I can explain it, sir. These men were in the 80th Brigade and the 27th Division. Colonel Farquhar was their Commanding Officer and Captain Buller took command when Colonel Farquhar was killed." We stared at one another in amazement, for it was all quite true.
This finished that examination. We did not tell them that Colonel Buller had been blinded a few days before and had been succeeded by that Major Hamilton Gault who had been so largely instrumental in raising us.
None of our wounds had received the slightestattention. Cox in particular suffered cruelly but refused to whimper. Royston's head was swollen to the size of a water bucket and he was in great pain. We left them here and never saw them again. Cox died two weeks later of a blood poisoning which was the combined result of our rough surgery and the wanton neglect of our captors. I do not think he was ever able to write his mother as he wished. At least she wrote me later for information. There was no need of his dying even though it might have been necessary to have amputated his arm higher up. Royston was exchanged to Switzerland and recovered from his wounds except for the loss of an eye.