The Headquarters of our Division were now at a place called Hooggraaf. It consisted of a few small houses and a large school kept by nuns. Huts were run up for the officers and, at a little distance down the road, a home was built for "C" mess. At one side were some Armstrong canvas huts, one of which was mine. It was a pleasant place, and being back from the road was free from dust. Green fields, rich in grain, spread in all directions. It was at Hooggraaf that the Engineers built me a church, and a big sign over the door proclaimed it to be "St. George"s Church." It was first used on Easter Day, which in 1916 fell on the Festival of St. George, and we had very hearty services.
Poperinghe, only two miles away, became our city of refuge. Many of our units had their headquarters there, and the streets were filled with our friends. We had many pleasant gatherings there in an estaminet which became a meeting place for officers. The Guards Division, among other troops, were stationed in Poperinghe, so there was much variety of life and interest in the town. "Talbot House," for the men, and the new Officer"s Club, presided over by Neville Talbot, were centres of interest. The gardens at the back made very pleasant places for an after-dinner smoke. There were very good entertainments in a theatre every evening, where "The Follies," a theatrical company of Imperial soldiers, used to perform. Poperinghe was even at that time damaged by sh.e.l.ls, but since then it has suffered more severely. The graceful spire, which stood up over the plain with its outline against the sky, has luckily been preserved. We had some very good rest billets for the men in the area around Hooggraaf. They consisted of collections of large wooden huts situated in different places, and called by special names. "Scottish Lines," "Connaught Lines," and "Patricia Lines," were probably the most comfortable. In fact, all along the various roads which ran through our area different units made their homes.
Our military prison was in a barn about a mile from Headquarters. I used to go there for service every Monday afternoon at six o"clock. By that time, the men had come back from work. They slept on shelves, one over another. The barn was poorly lighted, and got dark early in the afternoon. The first time I took service there, I was particularly anxious that everything should be done as nicely as possible, so that the men would not think they had come under the ban of the church. Most of their offences were military ones. The men therefore were not criminals in the ordinary sense of the term. I brought my surplice, scarf and hymn books, and I told the men that I wanted them to sing. They lay on the shelves with only their heads and shoulders visible. I told them that I wanted the service to be hearty, and asked them to choose the first hymn. A voice from one of the shelves said-
"Here we suffer grief and pain."
A roar of laughter went up from the prisoners, in which I joined heartily.
At the front, we held Hill 60 and the trenches to the south of it. In a railway embankment, a series of dugouts furnished the Brigade that was in the line with comfortable billets. The Brigadier"s abode had a fireplace in it. One of the dugouts was used as a morgue, in which bodies were kept till they could be buried. A man told me that one night when he had come down from the line very late, he found a dugout full of men wrapped in their blankets, every one apparently asleep. Without more ado, he crawled in amongst them and slept soundly till morning. When he awoke, he found to his horror that he had slept all night among the dead men in the morgue. There was a cemetery at Railway Dugouts, which was carefully laid out. Beyond this there was another line of sandbag homes on one side of a large pond called "Zillebeke Lake." They were used by other divisions.
From Railway Dugouts, by paths and then by communication trenches, one made one"s way up to Hill 60 and the other parts of the front line, where the remains of a railway crossed the hill. Our dugouts were on the east side of it, and the line itself was called "Lover"s Lane". The brick arch of a bridge which crossed the line was part of our front.
One day I was asked by a British chaplain, who was ordered south, to accompany him on a trip he was making to his brother"s grave at Hooge. He wished to mark it by a cross. As the place was in full view of the Germans, we had to visit it before dawn. I met my friend at 2.30 a.m. in the large dugout under the Ramparts at Ypres. We started off with two runners, but one managed most conveniently to lose us and returned home. The other accompanied us all the way. It was a weird expedition. The night was partly cloudy, and faint moonlight struggled through the mist which shrouded us. The runner went first, and the Padre, who was a tall man, followed, carrying the cross on his shoulder. I brought up the rear. In the dim light, my friend looked like some allegorical figure from "Pilgrim"s Progress". Occasionally we heard the hammering of a machine-gun, and we would lie down till the danger was past. We skirted the grim borders of Sanctuary Wood, and made our way to Hooge. There my friend got out his map to find, if possible, the place where he had buried his brother. He sat down in a large sh.e.l.l hole, and turned his flashlight upon the paper. It was difficult to find the location, because the place had recently been the scene of a hard struggle. The guide and I looked over the ground and we found a line of graves marked by broken crosses. The night was fast pa.s.sing and in the grey of the eastern sky the stars were going out one by one. At last my friend found the spot he was looking for and there he set up the cross, and had a short memorial service for the dead. On our return, we pa.s.sed once more by Sanctuary Wood, and in the daylight looked into the place torn and battered by sh.e.l.ls and reeking with the odours of unburied bodies.
We parted at Zillebeke Bund, and I made my way to Railway Dugouts. It was a lovely morning and the air was so fresh that although I had been walking all night I did not feel tired. The 3rd Battalion was holding the line just behind a piece of ground which was called the "Bean and Pollock." It was supposed that the Germans had mined the place and that an explosion might be expected at any minute. One company had built a rustic arbour, which they used as their mess-room. The bright sun shone through the green boughs overhead. There was intermittent sh.e.l.ling, but nothing to cause us any worry. I stayed till late in the afternoon, when I made my way towards the rear of Hill 60. There I found the 14th Battalion which was in reserve. They told me that the 16th Battalion in the line was going to blow up a mine that night, and offered to give me a dugout if I would stay for the festivities. I gladly accepted, and just before midnight made my way to a dugout that had just been completed. I was told that there was a bed in it with a wire mattress. When I got into the dugout, I lit a candle, and found to my astonishment that the place was full of men lying on the bed and the floor. They offered to get out but I told them not to think of it. So we lit another candle, and had a very pleasant time until the mine went up. We heard a fearful explosion, and the ground rocked as it does in an earthquake. It was not long before the Germans retaliated, and we heard the sh.e.l.ls falling round us. At daybreak I went up to the line to see the result of the explosion. A large crater had been made in No Man"s Land, but for some reason or other the side of our trench had been blown back upon our own men and there were many casualties.
I stayed in the trenches all afternoon, and on my way back went to an artillery observation post on a hill which was crowned by the ruins of an old mill. The place was called Verbranden Molen. Here I found a young artillery officer on duty. The day was so clear that we were able to spread out a map before us on the ground and with our gla.s.ses look up every point named on the sheet. We looked far over to the North and saw the ruins of Wieltje. Ypres lay to the left, and we could see Zillebeke, Sanctuary Wood, High Wood, Square Wood, and Hooge. The light reflected from our gla.s.ses must have been seen by some German sniper, for suddenly we heard the crack of bullets in the hedge behind us and we hastily withdrew to the dugout. As I walked back down the road I came to one of the posts of the motor-machine-gunners who were there on guard. They were just having tea outside and kindly invited me to join them. We had a delightful conversation on poetry and literature, but were prepared to beat a hasty retreat into the dugout in case the Germans took to sh.e.l.ling the road, which they did every evening.
Railway Dugouts was always a pleasant place to visit, there were so many men there. As one pa.s.sed up and down the wooden walk which ran the length of the embankment there were many opportunities of meeting one"s friends. On the other side of it, however, which was exposed to the German sh.e.l.ls, the men frequently had a hard time in getting up to the line.
There were several interesting chateaus in the neighbourhood. That nearest to the front was called Bedford House, and stood in what must have been once very beautiful grounds. The upper part of the house was in ruins, but the cellars were deep and capacious and formed a good billet for the officers and men. At one side there was a dressing station and in the garden were some huts protected by piles of sand bags.
A chateau that was well-known in the Salient lay a little to the west of Bedford House. It was called Swan Chateau, from the fact that a large white swan lived on the artificial lake in the grounds. I never saw the swan myself, but the men said it had been wounded in the wing and had lost an eye. It was long an object of interest to many battalions that at different times were housed in the chateau. One day the swan disappeared. It was rumoured that a hungry Canadian battalion had killed it for food. On the other hand, it was said that it had been taken to some place of safety to prevent its being killed. There was something very poetical in the idea of this beautiful bird living on through the scene of desolation, like the spirit of the world that had pa.s.sed away. It brought back memories of the life that had gone, and the splendour of an age which had left Ypres forever.
CHAPTER XI.
The Attack on Mount Sorrel.
Summer, 1916.
Easter Day, 1916, fell on the 23rd of April, and a great many interesting facts were connected with it. The 23rd of April is St. George"s Day. It is also the anniversary of Shakespeare"s birth and of his death, and also of the 2nd Battle of Ypres. The day was a glorious one. The air was sweet and fresh, the gra.s.s was the brightest green, hedgerows and trees were in leaf, and everybody was in high spirits. After services in St. George"s church I rode over to Poperinghe and attended a memorial service which the 1st Brigade were holding in the Cinema. General Mercer, who himself was killed not long afterwards, was one of the speakers. The building was crowded with men, and the service was very solemn.
Life at this time was very pleasant, except for the fact that we never knew what might happen when we were in the Salient. We always felt that it was a death-trap, and that the Germans would never give up trying to capture Ypres. I was kept busy riding about, visiting the different units. Round about Hooggraaf the spring roads were very attractive, and the numerous short cuts through the fields and under the overhanging trees reminded one of country life at home.
One day Dandy bolted as I was mounting him, and I fell on some bath mats breaking a bone in my hand and cutting my face in several places. This necessitated my being sent up to the British C.C.S. at Mont des Cats. Mont des Cats was a picturesque hill which overlooked the Flanders Plain, and could be seen from all parts of the Salient. On the top there was a Trappist monastery. The buildings were modern and covered a large extent of ground. They were solidly built of brick and stone and the chapel was a beautiful building with a high vaulted roof. From the top of the hill, a magnificent view of the country could be obtained, to the North as far as the sea, and to the East as far as our trenches, where we could see the sh.e.l.ls bursting.
Mont des Cats hospital was a most delightful temporary home. There was a large ward full of young officers, who were more or less ill or damaged. In another part of the building were wards for the men. From the O.C. downwards everyone in the C.C.S. was the soul of kindness, and the beautiful buildings with their pleasant grounds gave a peculiar charm to the life. My room was not far from the chapel, and every night at two a.m. I could hear the old monks chanting their offices. Most of the monks had been conscripted and were fighting in the French army; only a few of the older ones remained. But by day and night at stated intervals the volume of their prayer and praise rose up above the noise of war, just as it had risen through the centuries of the past. There were beautiful gardens which the monks tended carefully, and also many grape vines on the walls. We used to watch the silent old men doing their daily work and making signs to one another instead of speaking. In the evening I would make my way up the spiral staircase to the west-end gallery, which looked down upon the chapel. The red altar lamp cast a dim light in the sacred building, and every now and then in the stillness I could hear, like the roar of a distant sea, the sound of sh.e.l.ls falling at the front. The mysterious silence of the lofty building, with the far off reverberations of war thrilling it now and then, was a solace to the soul.
A smaller chapel in the monastery, with a well-appointed altar, was allotted by the monks to the chaplain for his services. While I was at Mont des Cats we heard of the death of Lord Kitchener. The news came to the Army with the force of a stunning blow; but thank G.o.d, the British character is hardened and strengthened by adversity, and while we all felt his loss keenly and looked forward to the future with anxiety, the determination to go on to victory was made stronger by the catastrophe. As the chaplain of the hospital was away at the time, I held a memorial service in the large refectory. Following upon the death of Lord Kitchener came another disaster. The Germans in the beginning of June launched a fierce attack upon the 3rd Division, causing many casualties and capturing many prisoners. General Mercer was killed, and a brigadier was wounded and taken prisoner. To make matters worse, we heard of the battle of Jutland, the first report of which was certainly disconcerting. We gathered from it that our navy had suffered a great reverse. The death of Lord Kitchener, the naval reverse, and the fierce attack on our front, following one another in such a short s.p.a.ce of time, called for great steadiness of nerve and coolness of head. I felt that the hospital was no place for me when Canadians were meeting reverses at the front, especially as the First Division was ordered to recapture the lost trenches. I telephoned to my good friend, Colonel Brutenell, the C.O. of the Motor Machine-Gun Brigade, and asked him to send me a side-car to take me forward. He had always in the past shown me much kindness in supplying me with means of locomotion. Colonel Brutenell was an old country Frenchman with the most courteous manners. When I first discovered that he was the possessor of side-cars, I used to obtain them by going over to him and saying, "Colonel, if you will give me a side-car I will recite you one of my poems." He was too polite at first to decline to enter into the bargain, but, as time went on, I found that the price I offered began to lose its value, and sometimes the side-cars were not forthcoming. It then became necessary to change my plan of campaign, so I hit upon another device. I used to walk into the orderly room and say in a raucous voice, "Colonel, if you don"t give me a side-car I will recite one of my poems." I found that in the long run this was the most effectual method. On the present occasion, therefore, the side-car was sent to me, and I made my way to Wippenhoek and from thence up to the dressing station at Vlamertinghe. Here our wounded were pouring in. Once again Canada was reddening the soil of the Salient with her best blood. It was indeed an anxious time. That evening, however, a telegram was received by the O.C. of the Ambulance saying that the British fleet had sunk twenty or thirty German vessels, and implying that what we had thought was a naval reverse was really a magnificent naval victory. I do not know who sent the telegram, or on what foundation in fact it was based. I think that somebody in authority considered it would be well to cheer up our men with a piece of good news. At any rate all who were at the dressing station believed it, and I determined to carry a copy of the telegram with me up to the men in the line. I started off on one of the ambulances for Railway Dugouts. Those ambulance journeys through the town of Ypres after midnight were things to be remembered. The desolate ruins of the city stood up black and grim. The road was crowded with men, lorries, ambulances, transports and motorcycles. Every now and then the scene of desolation would be lit up by gun flashes. Occasionally the crash of a sh.e.l.l would shake the already sorely smitten city. I can never cease to admire the pluck of those ambulance drivers, who night after night, backwards and forwards, threaded their way in the darkness through the ghost-haunted streets. One night when the enemy"s guns were particularly active, I was being driven by a young boy only eighteen years of age. Sitting beside him on the front seat, I told him how much I admired his nerve and coolness. He turned to me quite simply and said that he was not afraid. He just put himself in G.o.d"s hands and didn"t worry. When he came afterwards to Headquarters and drove our side-car he never minded where he went or how far towards the front he took it. I do not know where he is in Canada, but I know that Canada will be the better for having such a boy as one of her citizens.
When I arrived at Railway Dugouts, I found that there was great activity on all sides, but my message about our naval victory had a most stimulating effect and I had the courage to wake up no less than three generals to tell them the good news. They said they didn"t care how often they were awakened for news like that. I then got a runner, and was making my way up to the men in the front line when the Germans put on an attack. The trench that I was in became very hot, and, as I had my arm in a sling and could not walk very comfortably or do much in the way of dodging, the runner and I thought it would be wiser to return, especially as we could not expect the men, then so fully occupied, to listen to our message of cheer. We made our way back as best we could to Railway Dugouts, and telephoned the news to the various battalion headquarters. The telegram was never confirmed, and I was accused of having made it up myself. It certainly had a wholesome effect upon our men at a critical and anxious moment.
We had a hard time in retaking the lost ground. Gallant were the charges which were made in broad daylight in the face of heavy machine-gun fire. In preparation for the attack, our men had to lie under the cover of broken hedges for twenty-four hours, living only on the iron rations which they carried with them. I went up one morning when one of our battalions had just come out after a hard fight. The men were in a shallow trench, ankle deep in mud and water. As they had lost very heavily, the Colonel put me in charge of a burial party. We buried a number of bodies but were stopped at last at the entrance of Armagh Wood, which the Germans were at the time heavily sh.e.l.ling, and we had to postpone the performance of our sad duty till things were quieter.
Still in spite of reverses, the spirits of our men never declined. They were full of rebound, and quickly recovered themselves. As one looks back to that period of our experience, all sorts of pictures, bright and sombre, crowd the mind-the Square at Poperinghe in the evening, the Guards" fife and drum bands playing tattoo in the old town while hundreds of men looked on; the dark station of Poperinghe in the evening, and the battalions being sent up to the front in railway trucks; the old mill at Vlamertinghe with the reception room for the wounded, and the white tables on which the bleeding forms were laid; the dark streets of Ypres, rank with the poisonous odours of sh.e.l.l gas; the rickety horse-ambulances bearing their living freight over the sh.e.l.l broken roads from Bedford House and Railway Dugouts; the walking wounded, with bandaged arms and heads, making their way slowly and painfully down the dangerous foot-paths; all these pictures flash before the mind"s eye, each with its own appeal, as one looks back upon those awful days. The end was not in sight then. The war, we were told, was going to be a war of attrition. It was to be a case of "dogged does it." Under the wheels of the car of the great Juggernaut our men had to throw themselves, till the progress of the car was stayed. How peaceful were the little cemeteries where lay those warriors who had entered into rest. But how stern was the voice from the sleeping dead to carry on undismayed.
The Canadian Corps seemed to have taken root in the Salient, and, after the severe fighting had ended, things went on as if we were to have a long residence round Ypres. In looking over the notes in my diary for June and July, I see a great many records of visits to different units. How well one remembers the keen active life which made that region a second Canada. There was the small town of Abeele, where our Corps Headquarters were, and where our new commander, General Byng, had his house. Not far away, up the road, was the grenade school where the troops were instructed in the gentle art of bomb-throwing. We had our divisional rest-camp in a pleasant spot, where our men were sent to recuperate. The following is a typical Sunday"s work at this time:-Celebration of Holy Communion at St. George"s Church at eight a.m., Parade Service for the Division at nine fifteen a.m., followed by a second Celebration of Holy Communion at ten a.m., Parade Service followed by Holy Communion for a Battalion at Connaught lines at eleven a.m., service for the divisional rest-camp at three p.m., service at the Grenade School at four p.m., service outside St. George"s Church for the Divisional Train six-thirty p.m., service for the 3rd Field Ambulance and convalescent camp at eight-forty-five p.m. On week-days too, we had to arrange many services for units which had come out of the line. It was really a life full of activity and interest. It filled one with a thrill of delight to be able to get round among the men in the trenches, where the familiar scenery of Sanctuary Wood, Armagh Wood, Maple Copse and the Ravine will always remain impressed upon one"s memory. Often when I have returned to my hut at night, I have stood outside in the darkness, looking over the fields towards the front, and as I saw the German flares going up, I said to myself, "Those are the foot-lights of the stage on which the world"s greatest drama is being enacted." One seemed to be taking part, however humbly, in the making of human history. But it was a grievous thing to think of the toll of life that the war forced upon us and the suffering that it involved. The brave patient hearts of those at home were continually in our thoughts, and we always felt that the hardest burden was laid upon them. They had no excitement; they knew not the comradeship and the exaltation of feeling which came to those who were in the thick of things at the front. They had to go on day by day bearing their burden of anxiety, quietly and patiently in faith and courage. To them our men were always ready to give the palm of the victors.
CHAPTER XII.
The Battle of the Somme.
Autumn, 1916.
It always happened that just when we were beginning to feel settled in a place, orders came for us to move. At the end of July we heard of the attack at the Somme. Rumours began to circulate that we were to go South, and signs of the approaching pilgrimage began to manifest themselves. On August 10th all my superfluous baggage was sent back to England, and on the following day I bid good-bye to my comfortable little hut at Hooggraaf and started to ride to our new Divisional Headquarters which were to be for the time near St. Omer. After an early breakfast with my friend General Thacker, I started off on Dandy for the long ride. I pa.s.sed through Abeele and Steenvoorde, where I paid my respects at the Chateau, overtaking many of our units, either on the march or in the fields by the wayside, and that night I arrived at Ca.s.sel and put up at the hotel. The town never looked more beautiful than at sunset on that lovely summer evening. It had about it the spell of the old world, and the quiet life which had gone on through the centuries in a kind of dream. One did hope that the attack to the South would be the beginning of the end and that peace would be restored to the shattered world. On that day, the King had arrived on a flying visit to the front, and some of his staff were billeted at the hotel. The following day I visited the Second Army Headquarters in the Casino Building, and met some of our old friends who had gone there from the Canadian Corps. In the afternoon I rode off to St. Omer, little Philo running beside me full of life and spirits. It was a hot and dusty ride. I put up at the Hotel du Commerce, where I met several Canadian officers and many airmen. The next day was Sunday so I attended the service in the military church. After it was over, I went with a young flying officer into the old cathedral.
The service had ended and we were alone in the building, but the sunlight flooded it and brought out the richness of contrast in light and shadow, and the air was still fragrant with the smell of incense. My friend and I were talking, as we sat there, about the effect the war had had upon religion. Turning to me he said, "The great thing I find when I am in a tight place in the air is to pray to Jesus Christ. Many and many a time when I have been in difficulties and thought that I really must be brought down, I have prayed to Him and He has preserved me." I looked at the boy as he spoke. He was very young, but had a keen, earnest face, and I thought how often I had seen fights in the air and how little I had imagined that the human hearts in those little craft, which looked like tiny flies among the clouds, were praying to G.o.d for help and protection. I told him how glad I was to hear his testimony to the power of Christ. When we got back to the hotel, one of the airmen came up to him and said, "Congratulations, old chap, here"s your telegram." The telegram was an order for him to join a squadron which held what the airmen considered to be, from it"s exceeding danger, the post of honour at the Somme front. I often wonder if the boy came through the fierce ordeal alive.
It was pleasant to meet Bishop Gwynne and his staff once again. There was always something spiritually bracing in visiting the Headquarters of our Chaplain Service at St. Omer. On the Monday I rode off to our Divisional Headquarters, which were in a fine old chateau at Tilques. I had a pleasant billet in a comfortable house at the entrance to the town, and the different units of the Division were encamped in the quaint villages round about. After their experience in the Salient, the men were glad to have a little peace and rest; although they knew they were on their journey to bigger and harder things. The country around St. Omer was so fresh and beautiful that the change of scene did everyone good. The people too were exceedingly kind and wherever we went we found that the Canadians were extremely popular. There were many interesting old places near by which brought back memories of French history. However, the day came when we had to move. From various points the battalions entrained for the South. On Monday, August 28th, I travelled by train with the 3rd Field Company of Engineers and finally found myself in a billet at Canaples. After two or three days we settled at a place called Rubempre. Here I had a clean billet beside a very malodorous pond which the village cows used as their drinking place. The country round us was quite different in character from what it had been further north. Wide stretches of open ground and rolling hills, with here and there patches of green woods, made up a very pleasant landscape. I rode one day to Amiens and visited the glorious cathedral which I had not seen since I came there as a boy thirty-three years before. I attended the service of Benediction that evening at six o"clock. The sunlight was streaming through the glorious windows, and the whole place was filled with a beauty that seemed to be not of earth. There was a large congregation present and it was made up of a varied lot of people. There were women in deep mourning, Sisters of Charity and young children. There were soldiers and old men. But they were all one in their spirit of humble adoration and intercession. The organ pealed out its n.o.ble strains until the whole place was vibrant with devotion. I shall never forget the impression that service made upon me. The next time I saw the cathedral, Amiens was deserted of its inhabitants, four sh.e.l.ls had pierced the sacred fane itself, and the long aisles, covered with bits of broken gla.s.s, were desolate and silent.
From Rubempre we moved to Albert, where we were billeted in a small house on a back street. Our Battle Headquarters were in the Bapaume road in trenches and dugouts, on a rise in the ground which was called Tara Hill. By the side of the road was a little cemetery which had been laid out by the British, and was henceforth to be the last resting place of many Canadians. Our battalions were billeted in different places in the damaged town, and in the brick-fields near by. Our chief dressing station was in an old school-house not far from the Cathedral. Albert must have been a pleasant town in pre-war days, but now the people had deserted it and every building had either been shattered or damaged by sh.e.l.ls. From the spire of the Cathedral hung at right angles the beautiful bronze image of the Blessed Virgin, holding up her child above her head for the adoration of the world. It seemed to me as if there was something appropriate in the strange position the statue now occupied, for, as the battalions marched past the church, it looked as if they were receiving a parting benediction from the Infant Saviour.
The character of the war had now completely changed. For months and months, we seemed to have reached a deadlock. Now we had broken through and were to push on and on into the enemy"s territory. As we pa.s.sed over the ground which had already been won from the Germans, we were amazed at the wonderful dugouts which they had built, and the huge craters made by the explosion of our mines. The dugouts were deep in the ground, lined with wood and lighted by electric light. Bits of handsome furniture, too, had found their way there from the captured villages, which showed that the Germans must have lived in great comfort. We were certainly glad of the homes they had made for us, for our division was in the line three times during the battle of the Somme, going back to Rubempre and Canaples when we came out for the necessary rest between the attacks.
Looking back to those terrible days of fierce fighting, the mind is so crowded with memories and pictures that it is hard to disentangle them. How well one remembers the trips up the Bapaume road to La Boisselle and Pozieres. The country rolled off into the distance in vast billows, and bore marks of the fierce fighting which had occurred here when the British made their great advance. When one rode out from our rear headquarters at the end of the town one pa.s.sed some brick houses more or less damaged and went on to Tara Hill. There by the wayside was a dressing station. On the hill itself there was the waste of pale yellow mud, and the piles of white chalk which marked the side of the trench in which were deep dugouts. There were many wooden huts, too, which were used as offices. The road went on down the slope on the other side of the hill to La Boisselle, where it forked into two-one going to Contalmaison, the other on the left to Pozieres and finally to Bapaume. La Boisselle stood, or rather used to stand, on the point of ground where the roads parted. When we saw it, it was simply a ma.s.s of broken ground, which showed the ironwork round the former church, some broken tombstones, and the red dust and bricks of what had been houses. There were still some cellars left in which men found shelter. A well there was used by the men for some time, until cases of illness provoked an investigation and a dead German was discovered at the bottom. The whole district was at all times the scene of great activity. Men were marching to or from the line; lorries, limbers, motorcycles, ambulances and staff cars were pa.s.sing or following one another on the muddy and broken way. Along the road at various points batteries were concealed, and frequently, by a sudden burst of fire, gave one an unpleasant surprise. If one took the turn to the right, which led to Contalmaison, one pa.s.sed up a gradual rise in the ground and saw the long, dreary waste of landscape which told the story, by sh.e.l.l-ploughed roads and blackened woods, of the deadly presence of war. One of the depressions among the hills was called Sausage Valley. In it were many batteries and some cemeteries, and trenches where our brigade headquarters were. At the corner of a branch road, just above the ruins of Contalmaison, our engineers put up a little shack, and this was used by our Chaplains" Service as a distributing place for coffee and biscuits. Some men were kept there night and day boiling huge tins of water over a smoky fire in the corner. A hundred and twenty-five gallons of coffee were given away every twenty-four hours. Good strong coffee it was too, most bracing in effect. The cups used were cigarette tins, and the troops going up to the trenches or coming back from them, used to stop and have some coffee and some biscuits to cheer them on their way. The place in the road was called Casualty Corner, and was not supposed to be a very "healthy" resting place, but we did not lose any men in front of the little canteen. The work had been started by the Senior Chaplain of the Australian Division which we had relieved, and he handed it over to us.
Under our Chaplains" Service the canteen became a most helpful inst.i.tution; not only was coffee given away, but many other things, including cigarettes. Many a man has told me that that drink of coffee saved his life when he was quite used up.
In Contalmaison itself, there had once been a very fine chateau. It, like the rest of the village, survived only as a heap of bricks and rubbish, but the cellars, which the Germans had used as a dressing station, were very large and from them branched off deep dugouts lined with planed boards and lit by electric light.
The road which turned to the left led down to a waste of weary ground in a wide valley where many different units were stationed in dugouts and holes in the ground. Towards the Pozieres road there was a famous chalk pit. In the hillside were large dugouts, used by battalions when out of the line. There was also a light railway, and many huts and shacks of various kinds. Pozieres looked very much like La Boisselle. Some heaps or rubbish and earth reddened by bricks and brick-dust alone showed where the village had been. At Pozieres the Y.M.C.A. had another coffee-stall, where coffee was given away free. These coffee-stalls were a great inst.i.tution, and in addition to the bracing effect of the drink provided, the rude shack with its cheery fire always made a pleasant place for rest and conversation.
After Courcelette was taken by the 2nd Division, our front line lay beyond it past Death Valley on the slope leading down to Regina Trench, and onward to the villages of Pys and Miraumont. Over all this stretch of country, waste and dreary as it got to be towards the end of September, our various fighting units were scattered, and along that front line, as we pushed the enemy back, our men made the bitter sacrifice of life and limb. It was a time of iron resolve and hard work. There was no opportunity now for amus.e.m.e.nt and social gatherings. When one spoke to staff officers, they answered in monosyllables. When one rode in their cars, one had very fixed and definite times at which to start and to return. The army had set its teeth and was out to battle in grim earnest. It was a time, however, of hope and encouragement. When, as we advanced, we saw what the German defences had been, we were filled with admiration for the splendid British attack in July which had forced the enemy to retreat. If that had been done once it could be done again, and so we pressed on. But the price we had to pay for victory was indeed costly and one"s heart ached for the poor men in their awful struggle in that region of gloom and death. This was war indeed, and one wondered how long it was to last. Gradually the sad consciousness came that our advance was checked, but still the sacrifice was not in vain, for our gallant men were using up the forces of the enemy.
Ghastly were the stories which we heard from time to time. One man told me that he had counted three hundred bodies hanging on the wire which we had failed to cut in preparation for the attack. An officer met me one day and told me how his company had had to hold on in a trench, hour after hour, under terrific bombardment. He was sitting in his dugout, expecting every moment to be blown up, when a young lad came in and asked if he might stay with him. The boy was only eighteen years of age and his nerve had utterly gone. He came into the dugout, and, like a child clinging to his mother clasped the officer with his arms. The latter could not be angry with the lad. There was nothing to do at that point but to hold on and wait, so, as he said to me, "I looked at the boy and thought of his mother, and just leaned down and gave him a kiss. Not long afterwards a sh.e.l.l struck the dugout and the boy was killed, and when we retired I had to leave his body there." Wonderful deeds were done; some were known and received well merited rewards, others were noted only by the Recording Angel. A piper won the V.C. for his gallantry in marching up and down in front of the wire playing his pipes while the men were struggling through it in their attack upon Regina Trench. He was killed going back to hunt for his pipes which he had left in helping a wounded man to a place of safety. One cannot write of that awful time unmoved, for there come up before the mind faces of friends that one will see no more, faces of men who were strong, brave and even joyous in the midst of that burning fiery furnace, from which their lives pa.s.sed, we trust into regions where there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, and where the sound of war is hushed forever.
One new feature which was introduced into the war at this time was the "Tank." A large family of these curious and newly developed instruments of battle was congregated in a wood on the outskirts of the town, and awoke great interest on all sides. At that time we were doubtful how far they would be able to fulfill the hopes that were entertained of them. Some of them had already been knocked out near Courcelette. One lay partly in the ditch by the road. It had been hit by a sh.e.l.l, and the petrol had burst into flames burning up the crew within, whose charred bones were taken out when an opportunity offered, and were reverently buried. The tank was often visited by our men, and for that reason the Germans made it a mark for their sh.e.l.l-fire. It was wise to give it a wide berth.
Our chaplains were working manfully and took their duties at the different dressing-stations night and day in relays. The main dressing-station was the school-house in Albert which I have already described. It was a good sized building and there were several large rooms in it. Many is the night that I have pa.s.sed there, and I see it now distinctly in my mind. In the largest room, there were the tables neatly prepared, white and clean, for the hours of active work which began towards midnight when the ambulances brought back the wounded from the front. The orderlies would be lying about taking a rest until their services were needed, and the doctors with their white ap.r.o.ns on would be sitting in the room or in their mess near by. The windows were entirely darkened, but in the building was the bright light and the persistent smell of acetylene gas. Innumerable bandages and various instruments were piled neatly on the white covered tables; and in the outer room, which was used as the office, were the record books and tags with which the wounded were labelled as they were sent off to the Base. Far off we could hear the noise of the sh.e.l.ls, and occasionally one would fall in the town. When the ambulances arrived everyone would be on the alert. I used to go out and stand in the darkness, and see the stretchers carried in gently and tenderly by the bearers, who laid them on the floor of the outer room. Torn and broken forms, racked with suffering, cold and wet with rain and mud, hidden under muddy blankets, lay there in rows upon the brick floor. Sometimes the heads were entirely covered; sometimes the eyes were bandaged; sometimes the pale faces, crowned with matted, muddy hair, turned restlessly from side to side, and parched lips asked for a sip of water. Then one by one the stretchers with their human burden would be carried to the tables in the dressing room. Long before these cases could be disposed of, other ambulances had arrived, and the floor of the outer room once more became covered with stretchers. Now and then the sufferers could not repress their groans. One night a man was brought in who looked very pale and asked me piteously to get him some water. I told him I could not do so until the doctor had seen his wound. I got him taken into the dressing room, and turned away for a moment to look after some fresh arrivals. Then I went back towards the table whereon the poor fellow was lying. They had uncovered him and, from the look on the faces of the attendants round about, I saw that some specially ghastly wound was disclosed. I went over to the table, and there I saw a sight too horrible to be described. A sh.e.l.l had burst at his feet, and his body from the waist down was shattered. Beyond this awful sight I saw the white face turning from side to side, and the parched lips asking for water. The man, thank G.o.d, did not suffer very acutely, as the shock had been so great, but he was perfectly conscious. The case was hopeless, so they kindly and tenderly covered him up, and he was carried out into the room set apart for the dying. When he was left alone, I knelt down beside him and talked to him. He was a French Canadian and a Roman Catholic, and, as there happened to be no Roman Catholic Chaplain present at the moment, I got him to repeat the "Lord"s Prayer" and the "Hail Mary," and gave him the benediction. He died about half an hour afterwards. When the sergeant came in to have the body removed to the morgue, he drew the man"s paybook from his pocket, and there we found that for some offence he had been given a long period of field punishment, and his pay was cut down to seventy cents a day. For seventy cents a day he had come as a voluntary soldier to fight in the great war, and for seventy cents a day he had died this horrible death. I told the sergeant that I felt like dipping that page of the man"s paybook in his blood to blot out the memory of the past. The doctor who attended the case told me that that was the worst sight he had ever seen.
One night a young German was brought in. He was perfectly conscious, but was reported to be seriously wounded. He was laid out on one of the tables and when his torn uniform was ripped off, we found he had been hit by shrapnel and had ten or twelve wounds in his body and limbs. I never saw anyone more brave. He was a beautifully developed man, with very white skin, and on the grey blanket looked like a marble statue, marked here and there by red, bleeding wounds. He never gave a sign by sound or movement of what he was suffering; but his white face showed the approach of death. He was tended carefully, and then carried over to a quiet corner in the room. I went over to him, and pointing to my collar said, "Pasteur." I knelt beside him and started the Lord"s Prayer in German, which he finished adding some other prayer. I gave him the benediction and made the sign of the cross on his forehead, for the sign of the cross belongs to the universal language of men. Then the dying, friendless enemy, who had made expiation in his blood for the sins of his guilty nation, drew his hand from under the blanket and taking mine said, "Thank you." They carried him off to an ambulance, but I was told he would probably die long before he got to his destination.
On the 26th of September I spent the night in a dressing station in the sunken road near Courcelette. I had walked from Pozieres down to the railway track, where in the dark I met a company of the Canadian Cyclist Corps, who were being used as stretcher bearers. We went in single file along the railway and then across the fields which were being sh.e.l.led. At last we came to the dressing station. Beside the entrance, was a little shelter covered with corrugated iron, and there were laid a number of wounded, while some were lying on stretchers in the open road. Among these were several German prisoners and the bodies of dead men. The dressing station had once been the dugout of an enemy battery and its openings, therefore, were on the side of the road facing the Germans, who knew its location exactly. When I went down into it I found it crowded with men who were being tended by the doctor and his staff. It had three openings to the road. One of them had had a direct hit that night, and mid the debris which blocked it were the fragments of a human body. The Germans gave the place no rest, and all along the road sh.e.l.ls were falling, and bits would clatter upon the corrugated iron which roofed the shelter by the wayside. There was no room in the dugout for any but those who were being actually treated by the doctor, so the wounded had to wait up above till they could be borne off by the bearer parties. It was a trying experience for them, and it was hard to make them forget the danger they were in. I found a young officer lying in the road, who was badly hit in the leg. I had prayers with him and at his request I gave him the Holy Communion. On the stretcher next to him, lay the body of a dead man wrapped in a blanket. After I had finished the service, the officer asked for some water. I went down and got him a mouthful very strongly flavoured with petrol from the tin in which it was carried. He took it gladly, but, just as I had finished giving him the drink, a sh.e.l.l burst and there was a loud crack by his side. "Oh," he cried, "they have got my other leg." I took my electric torch, and, allowing only a small streak of light to shine through my fingers, I made an examination of the stretcher, and there I found against it a shattered rum jar which had just been hit by a large piece of sh.e.l.l. The thing had saved him from another wound, and I told him that he owed his salvation to a rum jar. He was quite relieved to find that his good leg had not been hit. I got the bearer party to take him off as soon as possible down the long path across the fields which led to the light railway, where he could be put on a truck. Once while I was talking to the men in the shelter, a sh.e.l.l burst by the side of the road and ignited a pile of German ammunition. At once there were explosions, a weird red light lit up the whole place, and volumes of red smoke rolled off into the starlit sky. To my surprise, from a ditch on the other side of the road, a company of Highlanders emerged and ran further away from the danger of the exploding sh.e.l.ls. It was one of the most theatrical sights I have ever seen. With the lurid light and the broken road in the foreground, and the hurrying figures carrying their rifles, it was just like a scene on the stage.
The stars were always a great comfort to me. Above the gun-flashes or the bursting of sh.e.l.ls and shrapnel, they would stand out calm and clear, twinkling just as merrily as I have seen them do on many a pleasant sleigh-drive in Canada. I had seen Orion for the first time that year, rising over the broken Cathedral at Albert. I always felt when he arrived for his winter visit to the sky, that he came as an old friend, and was waiting like us for the wretched war to end. On that September night, when the hours were beginning to draw towards dawn, it gave me great pleasure to see him hanging in the East, while Sirius with undiminished courage merrily twinkled above the smoke-fringed horizon and told us of the eternal quietness of s.p.a.ce.
With dawn the enemy"s artillery became less active and we sent off the wounded. Those who could walk were compelled to follow the bearer parties. One man, who was not badly hit, had lost his nerve and refused to leave. The doctor had to tell him sharply that he need not expect to be carried, as there were too many serious cases to be attended to. I went over to him and offered him my arm. At first he refused to come, and then I explained to him that he was in great danger and the thing to do was to get back as quickly as possible, if he did not wish to be wounded again. At last I got him going at a slow pace, and I was afraid I should have to drag him along. Suddenly a sh.e.l.l landed near us, and his movements were filled with alacrity. It was a great relief to me. After a little while he found he could walk quite well and whenever a whiz-bang came near us his limbs seemed to get additional strength. I took him down to a place were a battalion was camped, and there I had to stop and bury some men in a sh.e.l.l hole. While I was taking the service however, my companion persuaded some men to carry him, and I suppose finally reached a place of safety.
There was a large dressing station in the cellars of the Red Chateau in Courcelette, whither I made my way on a Sunday morning in September. The fighting at the time was very heavy and I met many ambulances bringing out the wounded. I pa.s.sed Pozieres and turned down the sunken road towards Courcelette.
Beside the road was a dugout and shelter, where the wounded, who were carried in on stretchers from Courcelette, were kept until they could be shipped off in the ambulances. A doctor and some men were in charge of the post. The bearers, many of whom were German prisoners, were bringing out the wounded over the fields and laying them by the roadside. I went with some of the bearers past "Dead Man"s Trench," where were many German bodies. Every now and then we came upon a trench where men were in reserve, and we saw also many machine gun emplacements, for the rise in the ground gave the gun a fine sweep for its activity. The whole neighbourhood, however, was decidedly unhealthy, and it was risky work for the men to go over the open. When we got to the ruins of Courcelette, we turned down a path which skirted the old cemetery and what remained of the church. Several sh.e.l.ls fell near us, and one of the men got a bit nervous, so I repeated to him the verse of the psalm:
"A thousand shall fall beside thee, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee."
We had hardly arrived at the heaps of rubbish which surrounded the entrance to the dressing station, beside which lay the blackened body of a dead man, when a sh.e.l.l burst, and one of the bits broke the leg of the young fellow I was talking to. "What"s the matter with your text now, Canon?" he said. "The text is all right, old man, you have only got a good Blighty and are lucky to get it," I replied. The cellars below had been used as a dressing station by the enemy before Courcelette was taken and consisted of several large rooms, which were now being used by our two divisions in the line. Beyond the room used for operations, there was one dark cellar fitted up with two long shelves, whereon lay scores of stretcher bearers and cyclists, and at the end of that, down some steps, there was another, in which more bearers awaited their call. Only two candles lit up the darkness. As there must have been between three and four hundred men in the Red Chateau, the air was not particularly fresh. Our choice lay, however, between foul air within and enemy sh.e.l.ls without, for the Germans were making direct hits upon the debris overhead. Naturally we preferred the foul air. It showed how one had grown accustomed to the gruesome sights of war, that I was able to eat my meals in a place where rags saturated in human blood were lying on the floor in front of me. Two years before it would have been impossible. The stretcher bearers were doing n.o.ble work. When each case had been attended to, they were called out of the back cellar and entrusted with their burden, which they had to carry for more than a mile over those dangerous fields to the ambulances waiting in the sunken road. Again and again a bearer would be brought back on a stretcher himself, having been wounded while on the errand of mercy. Once a party, on their return, told me that one of their number had disappeared, blown to atoms by a sh.e.l.l.
About four o"clock, though time had little meaning to us, because the only light we had was from the candles and acetylene lamps, I went into the cellar where the bearers lay, and, reminding them that it was Sunday, asked if they would not like to have a service. One of them handed me a candle, so we had prayers and a reading, and sang "Nearer My G.o.d to Thee," and some other hymns. When the service was over, I asked those who would like to make their Communion to come to the lower cellar at the end, where there was more room. We appropriated one of the corners and there I had seven or eight communicants. More than a year afterwards, in London, I met a young soldier in the Underground Railway, and he told me that he had made his communion on that day, and that when he was lying on the ground wounded at midnight, the sh.e.l.ls falling round him, he thought what a comfort it was to know that he had received the Sacrament. I did not leave the Red Chateau till late the following afternoon, when I went back with a ration-party.
The most unpleasant things at Albert were the air raids, which occurred every fine night. One moonlight night I lay on my bed, which was in the top storey of our house, and listened to some German planes dropping bombs upon the town. The machines were flying low and trying to get the roads. Crash would follow crash with great regularity. They came nearer and nearer, and I was just waiting for the house to be struck when, to my great relief, the planes went off in another direction. Next day a sentry told me that he had heard a hundred bombs burst, and, as far as he knew, not one of them had done any damage, all having fallen among the ruined houses and gardens of the town.
I had been asked to look up the grave of a young officer of a Scottish battalion, who had been killed in the July advance. I rode over to Mametz and saw all that historic fighting ground. The village was a heap of ruins, but from out of a cellar came a smartly-dressed lieutenant, who told me that he had the great privilege and honour of being the Town Major of Mametz. We laughed as we surveyed his very smelly and unattractive little kingdom. I found the grave, and near it were several crosses over the last resting places of some of our Canadian Dragoons, who had been in the great advance. All that region was one of waste and lonely country-side, blown bare by the tempest of war.