Chapter XCIVFrequent Moves
It was afternoon when we came into our area, and it was Saturday. The doctor and I had been given a hut almost filled with German high explosives—barrels of cordite, rolls of gun-cotton and boxes of amenol were on all sides. There was just room for us to spread two bed-rolls on the floor. Woe unto any one who smoked in this powder magazine! The cook-house was almost touching us, and sparks flew from the short stove-pipe that pierced the low roof. If a spark or two should happen to fall on our little room! The doctor became uneasy, and hearing that a field ambulance was quartered a few hundred feet away he left and found shelter with his brethren.
During the afternoon we received a draft of three hundred fresh men to reinforce our shattered ranks. I watched them as they stood to attention and were inspected by the colonel. Tomorrow I would have them at Mass, for it would be Sunday.
Sunday morning the wind was blowing a rather stiff breeze, and as I was to say Mass out of doors, I knew it would be impossible to keep my candles lighted unless I should build a windshield—or break-wind. Accordingly, at nine o’clock I called the Englishman who had been appointed to look after my wants, and we went up to the field and tried to build the windshield.
For nearly an hour we labored unsuccessfully withthe material we had at hand. I was quite discouraged when I heard the pipes of the Thirteenth Battalion coming up the road—and I had no place arranged to say Mass! I looked around, not knowing what to do next, and there, not more than a hundred yards away stood the remnants of the corner walls of a house—exactly what I had been trying to build. The two walls were just about five feet high and there was a trough about two feet high and three feet long built into the corner. Quickly the Englishman and I filled this with brick and in five minutes my altar was fitted up and ready for Mass.
I had been told by the staff captain of the brigade to hurry, as the place where I was to say Mass was under German observation. I said Mass very quickly, dispensed with the sermon, and gave a general absolution to the men as they knelt on the green field among piles of shattered masonry.
That evening we moved back to support trenches and I was not sorry to leave my munition store-room. The doctor and I were given a dugout to ourselves. As it was very cold, we made a little trench heater out of an old bean-tin, cutting a number of holes in the sides of it and filling it with pieces of paraffine candles and torn shreds of burlap. When we set fire to this we had quite a brazier. Headquarters was some distance from our trench in a corrugated iron hut, and as Fritz was shelling a balloon headquarters not far away, we often had to run the gauntlet of shell-fire.
We remained here nearly a week and it was relatively quiet. On October 9th, when we went over tolunch, the colonel told us that the Canadians had taken Cambrai. The taking of Cambrai closed the battle of Arras-Cambrai, begun on August 26th, after we had come back from Amiens. From this date the Canadian Corps had advanced twenty-three miles, fighting for every yard of ground and overcoming tremendous obstacles. We had taken over eighteen thousand prisoners, three hundred and seventy guns and two thousand machine-guns.
We held the front line for a few days, then came out to reserve, where the Prince of Wales reviewed us.