Chapter XCICanal Du Nord
On the night of September 26th we moved up to the trenches just before the Canal du Nord. It was arainy night and quite dark. We marched a long time, for our guides had lost their way. Finally, as we approached the trenches, Verey lights hissed a trail of light through the sky and as they broke to descend we stood very still. Every little while orders came for us to fall on our faces, and we lay motionless on the ground listening to that strange, sweeping sound of machine-gun bullets as they tore their way through the air just above us.
Before we entered the trenches we had supposed all the Germans to be on the opposite bank of Canal du Nord. But we were not in the trenches very long till we learned that there were machine-gun outposts on our own side. Indeed, not forty-eight yards from where we stood was a machine-gun nest. Every time a flash-light would show, or some one would speak above a whisper, there would be a rat-tat-tat from almost beside us, and then a pattering of machine-gun bullets. I listened to the grim preparations that were being made to surround the nest just as soon as our barrage would open up.
At 5:20 a. m. two thundering crashes from an eighteen-pound gun broke the stillness, then the whole barrage opened up, the like of which had never before been heard on the Western Front. I quote below from “The Canadians in France.”
“Never had the world known anything to compare with the strength and majesty of that terrible artillery fire. It was as if the pillars of the earth had fallen and God had struck the Germans in his anger. The gloom behind the advancing troops was blazing withfire, and the gloom in front. The night overhead shrieked and moaned and howled with the passing of the shells, hurrying—hurrying—hurrying to keep their appointment with death. The German machine-gunners in the Canal and immediately behind it were blown to pieces and the German guns were throttled with their answers to their lips.”
We stood in the trenches listening to the terrible roaring and crashing of the guns. When we spoke we were obliged to yell in order to make ourselves heard. It was still quite dark, yet all about us were sharp yellow flashes of light from our guns. In a little while the men were ready to start over the Canal. The officer in command looked at me. “Coming, Padre?” he asked. I smiled. I was not free to go then. I must stay with the doctor, to attend the wounded that would be brought in by the stretcher-bearers. Later I was to go with the field ambulance.
Shortly after daylight I was moving along the Canal looking for the Second Field Ambulance, with which I was to follow, when I saw coming up through a shower of shell explosions the young officer who had come to see me at Monchy Breton. He was looking for the Sixteenth Battalion. He was no longer downhearted. The light of battle was in his clear blue eye. He shook hands with me and smiled a bright, fearless smile as the shells dropped about us. He told me he had been sent up to the battalion, which was sadly in need of officers. As he spoke, all about us were dead men and horses.
I found the field ambulance at a cross-roads nearInchy and I worked with them till noon. It was terrible work, performed under great difficulties, as all morning long a constant rain of enemy shells poured over the roads. A great number of wounded passed through. As the morning advanced, the day became very warm. I took off my trench coat and began to carry it on my arm. I remember laying it down on the side of the road as I went to minister to a wounded lad. When I had finished my work and had wiped the blood from my hands on the thick grass alongside of the road, I turned to pick up my trench coat. It was no longer where I had put it. I looked everywhere but I could not find it. It was a very serviceable coat, lined with oiled silk and rubber and impervious to rain and wind. Now I had no coat whatsoever. My overcoat and cloak had been burned, and now my trench coat was gone! I often smile when I recall that morning. I worried more at the time over the loss of what was in the pockets than I did over the loss of the coat itself. In one pocket was the tin of sardines that I had bought a few days before. I had not yet broken my fast and I did not know when I might do so. In the other pocket was a “Baby Ben” alarm clock: it was very useful sometimes when I wanted to sleep between attacks. I never found the coat. I think some stretcher-bearers must have placed it on a wounded man thinking it had been left by some officer who had been wounded or killed.
It was now the 27th of September and I was not fitted out very well to stand the rigors of a fall campaign.Just before I left the Sixteenth I had been given an old wagon cover, which George and I had converted into a bed-roll, and I had been able to procure two army blankets; but now I had no overcoat.
During a little lull in the afternoon I made my way to headquarters of the Fourteenth, which was in a dugout that the Germans had left them. There I had some food, after which I made my way back to the field ambulance.
That night I slept on the opposite side of the Canal du Nord. We had gained another great victory and had captured one of the strongest positions that the enemy still held. Nearly five thousand prisoners had been taken and about one hundred field-guns, together with a great number of machine-guns and large quantities of stores.
For several days one battle followed another; at almost every hour of the day some brigade of the Canadian corps was attacking. I followed with the field ambulance and I was kept very busy.