September, 1918.
Our Divisional Headquarters were now established in the delightful old chateau at Warlus. In Nissen huts near-by, were the machine-gun battalion and the signallers, and, as I had one end of a Nissen hut all to myself, I was very comfortable. The three infantry brigades were quartered in the villages round about. The engineers and artillery were still at the front. As usual our men soon cleaned themselves up and settled down to ordinary life, as if they had never been through a battle in their lives. The weather was very pleasant, and we were all glad at the prospect of a little quiet after the strenuous month through which we had pa.s.sed. Our concert party at once opened up one of the large huts as a theatre, and night after night their performances were witnessed by crowded and enthusiastic audiences. Just across a field towards Bernaville the 15th Battalion was quartered in a long line of huts and in the village itself were the 14th and 16th Battalions. I was therefore quite near the men of my old 3rd Brigade. The 16th Battalion concert party gave a fine performance there one evening, which was attended by some Canadian Sisters who came up from one of our C.C.S"s. The play was called, "A Little Bit of Shamrock," and was composed by members of the concert party. It was exceedingly pretty and very clever, and evoked thunders of applause. The Colonel was called upon for a speech, and, although his words were few, the rousing cheers he got from his men told him what they thought of their commanding officer, who soon afterwards was to be awarded the Victoria Cross. As one sat there in the midst of the men and thought of what they had gone through, and how the flames in the fiery furnace of war had left their cheery souls unscathed, one"s heart was filled with an admiration for them which will never die.
On looking over my diary during those delightful days while we were waiting to make the great attack, I see records of many journeys to our various battalions and artillery brigades. Wanquetin, Wailly, Dainville, Bernaville, Hautes Avesnes-what memories these names recall! I would rattle over the dusty roads in my side-car and pull up at Battalion Headquarters and get an invitation to dinner. On such occasions I used to visit the cooks first and ask them if they had enough food on hand for me in case the officers invited me to dine with them, and in case they didn"t, if they (the cooks) would feed me later on in the kitchen. When the invitation had been given, I used to go back to the cooks and say, "It"s all right, boys, you won"t be bothered with my society, the officers have asked me to dinner." In the evening, before I rode off, I used to go round to the men"s billets, or to the Y.M.C.A. tent, if there was one, and have a talk with the men on the war outlook or any other topic that was perplexing them at the time. Often I was followed to my car by some man who had deeper matters to discuss, or perhaps some worry about things at home, and who wanted to unburden himself to a chaplain. On the way back, when darkness had fallen and my feeble headlight warned us against speeding, I would meet or overtake men and have a talk, or tell them to mount up on the box at the back of the car and I would give them a ride. The rows of tall trees along the road would stand out black against the starlit sky, and in the evening air the sweet smells of nature would fill us with delight. We felt too, that nearer and nearer the hour of the great victory was approaching. Who amongst us would be spared to see it? How would it be brought about? What great and fierce battle would lay the Germans low? The supreme idea in the mind was consecration to a sublime sacrifice, which dwarfed into insignificance all previous events in life. We had our fun, we had our jokes, we met our friends, we saw battalions go on a route march, we watched men play their games in the fields; but to me it seemed that a new and mysterious light that was born of heaven hid behind the sunshine, and cast a glory upon men and even nature. To dine at the rude board table with the young officers of one of the companies of a battalion, perhaps in a bare hut, on the floor of which lay the lads" beds, was something sacred and sacramental. Their apologies for the plainness of the repast were to me extremely pathetic. Was there a table in the whole world at which it was a greater honour to sit? Where could one find a n.o.bler, knightlier body of young men?
In the garden round the Chateau at Warlus were many winding paths, where old trees gave a delightful shade. Here at odd moments one could get away for a time into the leafy solitude and think quietly and wonder. Although we were in rest there was of course no remission of warlike activity and preparation. We knew that the next thing that lay before us was the crossing of the Ca.n.a.l du Nord and the push to Cambrai. That was a deed which would not only tax our strength and courage, but depended for its success upon the care and diligence of our preparation.
On the two Sundays that we were at Warlus I had splendid church parades with the Machine-Gun Battalion. Part of their billets were in huts beside the road to Dainville. In one of them one night I found some Imperial officers who were in charge of the wireless telegraph station. They told me some interesting facts about their work. The night was divided into different periods when the communiques of the various countries would be sent out. These, of course, were for all the world to read. The most wonderful thing they told me, however, was that they could pick up the code messages sent from the German Admiralty Headquarters at Kiel to their submarines under the sea. Of course not knowing the code, our officers could not translate these despatches.
I received a great blow at this time, for my friend Lyons, who acted as the chauffeur of my side-car, was sent off to the 3rd Division to replace one of the despatch riders whom they had lost in the attack. Our own signallers could not give me another man. As I could not run the car myself, a sudden move might compel me to leave it behind. Someone, too, might appropriate it, for the honesty of the army was, as I knew from experience, a grace on which one could not place much reliance. The only person to whom I could apply was my good and kind friend, the builder of my churches and huts, Colonel Macphail, our C.R.E. He was always my refuge in distress. He looked upon the building of churches at the front as an act of such piety that it would guarantee to him at any time the certain admission into heaven. He attributed his piety to the claim which his clan made to be the descendants of St. Paul. Apparently in Gaelic, Macphail means "the son of Paul." The Colonel was always fond of insisting upon his high lineage. He came to see me once when I was ill at Bruay, and after stating the historical claims of his ancestors, asked me if I had not observed some traits in his character which were like those of St. Paul. I told him that the only resemblance to the Apostle which I had discovered in him was that his bodily presence was weak and his speech contemptible. In spite of those unkind thrusts, however, the colonel manifested the Apostle"s quality of forgiveness, and was always ready to try and make me comfortable. I wrote to him now and asked if he could send me a driver for my car. He did not fail me. A few days afterwards, a young sapper appeared, saluted most properly, and told me that he had been ordered by the C.R.E. to report to me for duty as chauffeur. I was so delighted that I at once despatched the following letter to my friend:-
"Dear Colonel Macphail, If I had but a tail I would wag it this morning with joy, At your having provided My car that"s one-sided With a good and intelligent boy.
May your blessings from heaven Abound in this war, And be seven times seven More than ever before."
The possession of a new driver for my car enabled me to pay a last visit to Le Cauroy, where I had left some of my possessions on our trip to Amiens. I found the Cure in high good humor over the way the war was going. The outlook was very different now from what it had been when I was there before. I also visited Arras and the forward area, where I dined one night in a tent with Major Price, who was then in command of my original battalion, the 14th. The men were billeted in trenches and as usual were making the best of things. It was strange to look back to the early days of the war and talk about old times. As I returned in the twilight and gazed far away over the waste land towards the bank of low clouds in the eastern sky, my heart grew sick at the thought of all which those fine young men might have to endure before the crowning victory came. The thought of the near presence of the Angel of Death was always coming up in the mind, changing and transfiguring into something n.o.bler and better our earthly converse.
In the war, the Bible statement, "We have here no continuing city," was certainly true. Our happy life in Warlus and its neighbourhood came to an end. On Friday, September 20th, the Division moved to Achicourt near Arras. I took the opportunity to visit some friends in the 3rd Division who were taking our places. Among them was "Charlie" Stewart, of the P.P.C.L.I. I had taught him as a boy at school when I was curate of St. John"s, Montreal. We talked over old times, and the great changes that had taken place in Canada and the world since we were young. He was killed not long afterwards before Cambrai. I went on through Dainville, where I met the 42nd Battalion, and reached Achicourt in the evening. My billet was in a very dirty room over a little shop. One corner of the house had been hit by a sh.e.l.l, and a great store of possessions belonging to the people was piled up on one side of my room. We knew we were not going to be there long, so we did not worry about making ourselves comfortable. I had a view out of my window of green fields and a peaceful country, but the town itself had been badly knocked about.
On Sunday morning, I got the use of a small Protestant church which stood by a stream in the middle of the town. It was a quaint place, and, instead of an altar, against the east wall there was a high pulpit entered by steps on both sides. When I stood up in it I felt like a jack-in-the-box. I had a queer feeling that I was getting to the end of things, and a note in my prayer-book, with the place and date, gives evidence of this. We had not many communicants, but that was the last Celebration of Holy Communion that I held in France. On the following Sunday I was to leave the war for good. I remember walking away from the church that day with my sergeant and talking over the different places where we had held services. Now we were on the eve of great events, and the old war days had gone forever. After the service, I started off in my side-car on a missionary journey to the battalions that had now gone forward. I went off up the road to the ruined town of Beaurains. Here I found the Headquarters of the 16th Battalion in the cellar of a broken house. The officers" mess was a little shack by the roadside, and among those present was the second-in-command, Major Bell-Irving, who had crossed with me on the "Andania." Alas, this was the last time I was to see him. He was killed in the battle of Cambrai.
After lunch I continued up the long pave road which leads to Croisilles. On the way I saw the 8th Battalion in an open field. Near them were a number of Imperial officers and men of the British Division which was on our right. We made our way through Bullecourt to Hendecourt, near which in trenches were the battalions of the 1st Brigade, and there too Colonel Macphail had his headquarters. There was a great concentration of men in this area, and the roads were crowded with lorries and limbers as well as troops. I stayed that night with the engineers, as the weather looked threatening. The sky grew black and rain began to fall. When one stood in the open and looked all round at the inky darkness everywhere, with the rain pelting down, and knew that our men had to carry on as usual, one realized the bitterness of the cup which they had to drink to the very dregs. Rain and darkness all round them, hardly a moment"s respite from some irksome task, the ache in the heart for home and the loved ones there, the iron discipline of the war-machine of which they formed a part, the chance of wounds and that mysterious crisis called death-these were the elements which made up the blurred vision in their souls.
The next morning the weather had cleared, and I went on towards Cagnicourt. On the journey I was delayed by a lorry which had gone into the ditch and completely blocked the road. Here in a field the 1st Field Ambulance had established themselves. Later on I managed to get to Cagnicourt and found my son"s battery in the cellars of the Chateau. They were getting their guns forward by night in preparation for the attack. They gave me a very pressing invitation to sleep there and I accepted it. We had a pleasant evening, listening to some remarkably good violin records on the gramophone. Good music at such times had a special charm about it. It reminded one of the old days of concerts and entertainments, but, at the same time, as in the background of a dream, one seemed to hear beneath the melodies the tramp of mighty battalions marching forward into battle, and the struggles of strong men in the fierce contests of war.
On the following day I went on to the quarry which was to be our Battle Headquarters near Inchy Station, from which the 2nd Division were moving. I had a view of the smiling country over which we were to charge. Between us and that promised land lay the Ca.n.a.l, the crossing of which was necessarily a matter of great anxiety. It was late at night before I got back to my home at Achicourt, where I had my last war dinner with my friend General Thacker, who, with his staff, was up to his eyes in work. The next day was taken up with arranging for the disposition of our chaplains during the engagement, and about six o"clock I told Ross to saddle Dandy, and on the dear old horse, who was fresh and lively as ever, I galloped off into the fields. The sun had set and the fresh air of the evening was like a draught of champagne. Dandy seemed to enjoy the ride as much as I did, and cleared some trenches in good style. For nearly three years and a half we had been companions. He had always been full of life and very willing, the envy of those who knew a good horse when they saw him. When I returned in the twilight and gave him back to Ross, I said, "You know, Ross, I am going into this battle and may lose my leg in it, and so I wanted to have my last ride on dear old Dandy." It was my last ride on him, and he was never ridden by anyone again. After I was wounded, he was kept at Headquarters until, in order to avoid his being sold with other horses to the Belgians, our kind A.D.V.S. ordered him to be shot. He was one of the best friends I had in the war, and I am glad he entered the horses" heaven as a soldier, without the humiliation of a purgatory in some civilian drudgery.
That night some bombs were dropped near the station at Arras on units of the 3rd Division, which pa.s.sed through Achicourt in the afternoon, causing many casualties, and we felt that the Germans knew another attack was at hand. It was the last night I had a billet in France. On the next morning we moved forward to some trenches on the way to Inchy, and I parted from Headquarters there. This was really the most primitive home that the Division had ever had. We had in fact no home at all. We found our stuff dumped out in a field, and had to hunt for our possessions in the general pile. A few tents were pitched and the clerks got to work. In a wide trench little shacks were being run up, and I was to be quartered in the same hut as the field cashier, which was thus to be a kind of union temple for the service of G.o.d and the service of Mammon. I looked down into the clay pit and saw the men working at my home, but I knew that I should probably not occupy it. I determined to go forward to our Battle Headquarters, prepared for a missionary journey, and find out when the attack was going to be made. I put into my pack some bully-beef, hardtack, tinned milk and other forms of nourishment, as well as a razor, a towel and various toilet necessaries. On the other side of the road, the signallers had their horse-lines, and our transports were near-by. I got my side-car and, bidding good-bye to my friends, left for Inchy. We pa.s.sed down the road to Queant, where we saw the wounded in the field ambulance, and from there started off through p.r.o.nville to Inchy Station. The roads as usual were crowded, and the dust from pa.s.sing lorries was very unpleasant. We were going through the valley by Inchy Copse when we suddenly heard a loud crash behind us which made my driver stop. I asked him what he was about, and said, "That was one of our guns, there is nothing to be alarmed at." "Guns!" he said, "I know the sound of a sh.e.l.l when I hear it. You may like sh.e.l.ls but I don"t. I"m going back." I said, "You go ahead, if I had a revolver with me, I would shoot you for desertion from the front line. That was only one of our guns." He looked round and said, "You call that a gun? Look there." I turned and sure enough, about a hundred feet away in the middle of the road was the smoke of an exploded sh.e.l.l. "Well," I said, "you had better go on or there will be another one pretty soon, and it may get us." With extraordinary speed we hurried to our destination, where I left the car, taking my pack with me. I told the driver, much to his relief, that he could go home, and that when I wanted the car again I would send for it.
The quarry was, as I have said, our Battle Headquarters, and here in the deep dugouts which I had visited previously I found our staff hard at work. They told me that this was "Y" day, and that zero hour when the barrage would start was at 5.20 the next morning. At that hour we were to cross the Ca.n.a.l and then press on into the country beyond. We had a two battalion front. The 4th and 14th Battalions were to make the attack, and be followed up by the other battalions in the 1st and 3rd Brigades. When these had reached their objective the 2nd Brigade was to "leap frog" them and push on to Haynecourt and beyond. I was glad that I had come provided for the expedition, and bidding good-bye to General Thacker, whose parting injunction was not to do anything foolish, I got out of the quarry and made my way down the hill towards Inchy. A railway bridge which crossed the road near me was a constant mark for German sh.e.l.ls, and it was well to avoid it. An officer met me and asked where I was going. I said, "I don"t know, but I think the Spirit is leading me to the old 14th Battalion in Buissy Switch Trench." He told me the direction to take, which was to cross the road and follow the line of railway. The tins of milk and bully-beef cut into my back so I stopped by a culvert and taking off my pack and tunic, sat on the ground and cooled off. There was no sign of Buissy Switch anywhere, but I got up and went on. The evening was closing in by this time, and, as I am never good at seeing in the dark, it began to be difficult to keep from tripping over things. At last the road brought me to a trench in which I found the 14th Battalion. They were getting ready to move off at midnight and wait in the wood by the edge of the Ca.n.a.l until the barrage opened. It made one proud to be with those young men that evening and think what they were called upon to do. What difficulties they would encounter in the Ca.n.a.l they did not know. They said they might have to swim. We hoped, however, that there was not much water, as the ca.n.a.l was still unfinished.
I said good-bye to them and wished them all good-luck. Crossing the road I entered another trench, where I found the 13th Battalion, and beyond them came to the 1st Battalion. By this time, it was dark and rainy, and the ground was very slippery. I had to feel my way along the trench. A company of the 4th Battalion who were to be in the first wave of the attack, pa.s.sed on their way forward to take up their position for the following morning. Probably never in the war had we experienced a moment of deeper anxiety. The men would have to climb down one side of the ca.n.a.l, rush across it, and climb up the other. It seemed inevitable that the slaughter would be frightful. At home in the cities of Canada things were going on as usual. Profiteers were heaping up their piles of gold. Politicians were carrying on the government, or working in opposition, in the interests of their parties, while here, in mud and rain, weary and drenched to the skin, young Canadians were waiting to go through the valley of the shadow of death in order that Canada might live.
CHAPTER x.x.xIV.
The Crossing of the Ca.n.a.l Du Nord.
September 27th, 1918.
When I got to the sunken road above Inchy I found that No. 1 Company of the Machine-Gun Battalion had a little sandbag house there, and were waiting for the attack. I went in and the young officers and men made me at home at once. I divested myself of my pack, coat and steel helmet, and determined to settle down for the night. Suddenly a sh.e.l.l burst in the road, and I went out to see if anyone was. .h.i.t. Two or three men were wounded but not severely. We got them in and the young O.C. of the company bound up their wounds and sent them off. There was a row of these sandbag-huts against the bank, and at one end of them was the entrance to a dugout in which the 1st Battalion and the General of the 1st Brigade had made their headquarters. I went down the steep steps into a long dark pa.s.sage, lit here and there by the light which came from the rooms on either side. The whole place was crowded with men and the atmosphere was more than usually thick. I made my way down to the end where there was a pump which had been put there by the Germans. Here the men were filling their water-bottles, and I got a fresh supply for mine. Not far from the pump a few steps led down into a room where I found the C.O. and a number of the officers of the 1st Battalion. It was about two a.m., and they were having a breakfast of tea and bacon and invited me to join them. After the meal was finished, the Colonel, who was lying on a rough bed, said to me, "Sit down, Canon, and give us some of your nature poems to take our minds off this beastly business." It was very seldom that I was invited to recite my own poems, so such an opportunity could not be lost. I sat down on the steps and repeated a poem which I wrote among the Laurentian mountains, in the happy days before we ever thought of war. It is called, "The Unnamed Lake."
"It sleeps among the thousand hills Where no man ever trod, And only nature"s music fills The silences of G.o.d.
Great mountains tower above its sh.o.r.e, Green rushes fringe its brim, And o"er its breast for evermore The wanton breezes skim.
Dark clouds that intercept the sun Go there in Spring to weep, And there, when Autumn days are done, White mists lie down to sleep.
Sunrise and sunset crown with gold The peaks of ageless stone, Where winds have thundered from of old And storms have set their throne.
No echoes of the world afar Disturb it night or day, But sun and shadow, moon and star Pa.s.s and repa.s.s for aye.
"Twas in the grey of early dawn, When first the lake we spied, And fragments of a cloud were drawn Half down the mountain side.
Along the sh.o.r.e a heron flew, And from a speck on high, That hovered in the deepening blue, We heard the fish-hawk"s cry.
Among the cloud-capt solitudes, No sound the silence broke, Save when, in whispers down the woods, The guardian mountains spoke.
Through tangled brush and dewy brake, Returning whence we came, We pa.s.sed in silence, and the lake We left without a name."
There is not much in the poem, but, like a gramophone record, it carried our minds away into another world. For myself, who remembered the scenery that surrounded me when I wrote it and who now, in that filthy hole, looked at the faces of young men who in two or three hours were to brave death in one of the biggest tasks that had been laid upon us, the words stirred up all sorts of conflicting emotions. The recitation seemed to be so well received that I ventured on another-in fact several more-and then I noticed a curious thing. It was the preternatural silence of my audience. Generally speaking, when I recited my poems, one of the officers would suddenly remember he had to dictate a letter, or a despatch rider would come in with orders. Now, no one stirred. I paused in the middle of a poem and looked round to see what was the matter, and there to my astonishment, I found that everyone, except the young Intelligence Officer, was sound asleep. It was the best thing that could have happened and I secretly consoled myself with the reflection that the one who was unable to sleep was the officer who specialized in intelligence. We both laughed quietly, and then I whispered to him, "We had better go and find some place where we, too, can get a little rest." He climbed over the prostrate forms and followed me down the pa.s.sage to a little excavation where the Germans had started to make a new pa.s.sage. We lay down side by side on the wooden floor, and I was just beginning to succ.u.mb to the soothing influences of my own poetry, when I thought I felt little things crawling over my face. It was too much for me. I got up and said, "I think I am getting crummy, so I"m going off." I looked in on the General and the Brigade Major, and then climbed up the steps and went to the machine-gun hut.
The night was now well advanced so it was time to shave and get ready for zero hour. A little after five we had some breakfast, and about a quarter past I went up to the top of the bank above the road and waited for the barrage. At 5.20 the savage roar burst forth. It was a stupendous attack. Field guns, heavy guns, and siege batteries sent forth their fury, and machine-guns poured millions of rounds into the country beyond the Ca.n.a.l. So many things were flying about and landing near us, that we went back under cover till the first burst of the storm should subside. At that moment I knew our men were crossing the huge ditch, and I prayed that G.o.d would give them victory. When the barrage had lifted I started down towards the Ca.n.a.l, pa.s.sing through a field on my way where I found, lying about, dead and wounded men. Four or five were in a straight line, one behind another, where a German machine-gun must have caught them as they advanced. A young officer of the 2nd Battalion was dying from wounds. Two or three decorations on his breast told his past record in the war. While I was attending to the sufferers, a sergeant came up to me from the direction of the Ca.n.a.l and asked the way to the dressing station. He had a frightful wound in his face. A bit of a sh.e.l.l had dug into his cheek, carrying off his nose. He did not know at the time how badly he had been hit. I asked him if he wanted me to walk back with him, but he said he was all right as the dressing station was not far off. I often wondered what became of him, and I never heard till the following year when a man came up to me in the military hospital at St. Anne"s, with a new nose growing comfortably on his face and his cheek marked with a scar that was not unsightly. "The last time I met you, Sir," he said, "was near the Ca.n.a.l du Nord when you showed me the way to the dressing station." I was indeed glad to find him alive and well, and to see what surgical science had done to restore his beauty.
I went on to the Ca.n.a.l, and found that at that point it was quite dry. I climbed down to the bottom of it in which men were walking and the sappers were at work. Some ladders enabled me to get up on the other side and I had the joy of feeling that the Canadians had crossed the great Ca.n.a.l du Nord. Our battalions were now moving up and I joined them, avoiding a part of a field which the men told me was under the fire of a machine-gun from the mill in Marquion. The country was open and green. The day was fine, and once more we experienced the satisfaction of taking possession of the enemy"s territory. Before us the ground rose in a gradual slope, and we did not know what might meet us when we arrived at the top, but it was delightful to go with the men feeling that every step was a gain. When we got to the top of the rise, we had a splendid view of the country beyond. Before us, in the distance running from right to left, lay the straight Arras-Cambrai road with its rows of tall trees. Where we stood, there were a number of deserted German trenches. Here the M.O. of the 3rd Battalion opened up an aid post, and the chaplain went about looking for the wounded. Our men went on down into the valley and got into some forward trenches. I stayed on the hill looking at the wonderful scene through my German gla.s.ses. On the left in a quarry beside the village of Marquion, I saw two Germans manning a machine-gun. Our 3rd Brigade had taken the place, and some Highlanders were walking on the edge of the quarry just above the Huns, of whose presence they were unaware. I saw the enemy suddenly hide themselves, having noticed the approach of the Highlanders, but when the latter had pa.s.sed the two Boches reappeared and went on firing as before. It was not long before the German artillery turned their guns on our hill and I told some men of the 2nd Brigade, who were now coming forward, to take cover in the trench or go in extended order. I had hardly uttered the words when a sh.e.l.l burst, killing one man and wounding in the thigh the one to whom I was talking. I went over to him and found that no artery had been cut, and the chaplain of the 3rd Battalion got him carried off. Down in the valley our advance had evidently been checked for a time. While I was trying to see what the trouble was, a young officer, called Cope, of the 8th Battalion came up to me. He was a splendid young fellow, and looked so fresh and clean. He had lost a brother in the Battalion in the early part of the war. I said, "How old are you, Cope?" He replied, "I am twenty." I said, "What a glorious thing it is to be out here at twenty." "Yes," he said, looking towards the valley, "it is a glorious thing to be out here at twenty, but I should like to know what is holding them up." He had hardly spoken when there was a sharp crack of a machine-gun bullet and he dropped at my side. The bullet had pierced his steel helmet and entered his brain. He never recovered consciousness, and died on the way to the aid post.
The 2nd Brigade was now moving forward, so I went down the hill past a dugout which had been used as a German dressing station. There I secured a bottle of morphine tablets, and spoke to our wounded waiting to be carried off. Just before I reached the Arras-Cambrai road, I came to the trench where the C.O. of the 3rd Battalion had established himself. The chaplain and I were talking when an officer of the 2nd Battalion came back with a bad wound in the throat. He could not speak, but made signs that he wanted to write a message. We got him some paper and he wrote, "The situation on our right is very bad." The 4th Division were on our right, and they had been tied up in Bourlon Wood. So now our advancing 2nd Brigade had their right flank in the air. As a matter of fact their left flank was also exposed, because the British Division there had also been checked in their advance. I crossed the road into the field, where I found the 5th and 10th Battalions resting for a moment before going on to their objective. In front of us, looking very peaceful among its trees, was the village of Haynecourt which the 5th Battalion had to take. The 10th Battalion was to pa.s.s it on the left and go still further forward. We all started off, and as we were nearing the village I looked over to the fields on the right, and there, to my dismay, I saw in the distance numbers of little figures in grey which I knew must be Germans. I pointed them out to a sergeant, but he said he thought they were French troops who were in the line with us. The 5th Battalion went through Haynecourt and found the village absolutely deserted and the houses stripped of everything that might be of any value. Their C.O. made his headquarters in a trench to the north of the village, and the 10th disappeared going forward to the Douai-Cambrai road.
It was now quite late in the afternoon. The sun was setting, and I feared that if I did not go back in time I might find myself stuck out there for the night without any food or cover. I thought it was wise therefore to go to Deligny"s Mill, where I understood the machine-gunners were established. In the road at the entrance of Haynecourt, I found a young German wounded in the foot and very sorry for himself. I think he was asking me to carry him, but I saw he could walk and so showed him the direction in which to make his way back to our aid posts. I was just going back over the fields when I met a company of our light trench mortar batteries. The men halted for a rest and sat down by the road, and an officer came and said to me, "Come and cheer up the men, Canon, they have dragged two guns eight kilometres in the dust and heat and they are all fed up." I went over to them, and, luckily having a tin of fifty cigarettes in my pocket, managed to make them go round. I asked the O.C. if he would like me to spend the night with them. He said he would, so I determined not to go back. Some of the men asked me if I knew where they could get water. I told them they might get some in the village, so off we started. It makes a curious feeling go through one to enter a place which has just been evacuated by the enemy. In the evening light, the little brick village looked quite ghostly with its silent streets and empty houses. We turned into a large farmyard, at the end of which we saw a well with a pump. One of the men went down into the cellar of the house hunting for souvenirs, and soon returned with a German who had been hiding there. We were just about to fill our water-bottles, when I suggested that perhaps the well had been poisoned. I asked the German, "Gutt wa.s.ser?" "Ja, ja," Then I said, "Gutt drinken?" "Nein, nein," he replied, shaking his head. "Well, Sir," the men said, "we are going to drink it anyway." "But if the well is poisoned," I replied, "it won"t do you much good." "How can you find out?" they said. A brilliant idea flashed upon me. "I tell you what, boys," I said, "we will make the German drink it himself and see the effect." The men roared with laughter, and we filled a bottle with the suspected liquid and made the unfortunate prisoner drink every drop of it. When he had finished, we waited for a few minutes (like the people who watched St. Paul on the Island of Melita after he had shaken off the viper into the fire) to see if he would swell up or die, but as nothing of that kind happened we all began to fill our water-bottles. Just as the last man was about to fill his, a big sh.e.l.l landed in the garden next to us, and he, catching up his empty bottle, ran off saying, "I"m not thirsty any longer, I don"t want any water."
After their rest and refreshment, the company went over to a sunken road on the east side of the village. It was now getting very chilly and the daylight was dying rapidly. From the ground above the road one could see in the distance the spires of Cambrai, and in some fields to the southeast of us, with my gla.s.ses I could distinctly see numbers of little grey figures going into trenches, apparently with the idea of getting round to the south of our village on our exposed flank. I met a young officer of the machine-gun battalion, and lending him my gla.s.ses pointed out where the Germans were ma.s.sing. He got the men of his section and took up a forward position along a ditch which ran at right angles to the sunken road. Here too were some of the companies of the 5th Battalion. They had hardly got into position when the Germans sh.e.l.led the road we had been on, most unmercifully. I took refuge with a number of the men of the 5th Battalion in a garden, beside a brick building which had been used by the German troops as a wash-house and which was particularly malodorous. Two or three sh.e.l.ls dropped in the orchard, breaking the trees, and we had to keep down on the ground while the sh.e.l.ling lasted. I could not help thinking of the warning the 2nd Battalion officer had given us about the situation on our right. It did seem pretty bad, because, until the arrival of the 7th and 8th Battalions, our right flank was exposed, and the enemy might have gone round to the southeast of the village and attacked us in the rear. When things settled down, I went back up the sunken road, and, as I did so, thought I saw some men going into a gateway in the main street of the village. I made my way to the open trenches where the Colonel of the 5th Battalion had his headquarters, and I determined to spend the night there, so they kindly provided me with a German overcoat. I was just settling down to sleep when a runner came up and reported that some men were wounded and were asking the way to the dressing station. Someone said they thought the M.O. had made his headquarters in the village. Then I remembered having seen some men enter a gateway in the street as I pa.s.sed, so two of us started off to find out if this was the regimental aid post. The night was absolutely black, and my companion and I had to feel our way along the street not knowing who or what we might b.u.mp into, and expecting every moment that the Germans would begin to sh.e.l.l the place as soon as they thought we had had time to find billets there. At last to our great relief, we came to a large gateway in a brick wall and found some of our men, who told us that the M.O. had made his dressing station in the cellar of a building to the right. We went down into it and came upon a place well lighted with candles, where the devoted M.O. and his staff were looking after a number of men on stretchers.
The Germans were determined that we should not have a quiet night and very soon, as we had expected, they began to sh.e.l.l the village. The dressing station was in a building which they themselves had used for the same purpose, so they knew its location, and sh.e.l.ls began to fall in the yard. We got all the men we could down to the cellar; but still there were some stretcher cases which had to be left in the rooms upstairs. It was hard to convince them that there was no danger. However the "straffing" stopped in time, and I went down to the end of the cellar and slept in a big cane-seated chair which the Germans had left behind them. In the morning I went back again to our men in the line. The 10th Battalion had established themselves partly in a ditch along the Cambrai road not far from Epinoy, and partly in outposts behind the German wire. The country was undulating, and in places afforded an extensive view of the forward area. German machine-gun emplacements were in all directions, and our men suffered very severely. I was in an outpost with one of the companies when I saw in the distance one of our men crawling on his hands and knees up to a German machine-gun emplacement. The helmets of the enemy could be distinctly seen above the parapet. It was very exciting watching the plucky fellow approach the place of danger with the intention of bombing it. Unfortunately just as he had reached the side of the trench the Germans must have become aware of his presence, for they opened fire, and he had to crawl back again as fast as he could.
Though many wounded were brought in, we knew that some were still lying out on the other side of the wire in full view of the enemy. As soon as it was dark enough, a bearer party, which I accompanied, started off to try and collect these men. With my cane I managed to lead the party through a gap in the wire. I came to a poor fellow who had been lying there since the previous night with a smashed arm and leg. He was in great pain, but the men got him in safely, and the next time I saw him was in a Toronto hospital where he was walking about with a wooden leg, and his arm in a sling. I went down to an outpost where I saw some men. We could only talk in whispers, as we knew the Germans were close at hand. They told me they were one of the companies of the 10th Battalion. I asked, "Where are your officers?" They said, "They are all gone." "Who is in command?" They replied, "A Lance-Corporal." I rejoined the bearers and we had great difficulty in getting back, as we could not find the gap in the wire, which seemed to go in all directions.
The 10th Battalion was relieved that night by the 8th, the C.O. of which made his headquarters with the C.O. of the 5th Battalion in a large dugout by the sunken road. There, late at night, I shared a bunk with a young machine-gun officer and had a few hours of somewhat disturbed sleep. The next morning, Sunday, September the 29th, the fourth anniversary of our sailing from Quebec, our men were having a hard time. The German defence at Cambrai was most determined, and they had a large quant.i.ty of artillery in the neighbourhood. I went back to the road and into the trench beyond the wire and found a lot of men there. The parapet was so low that the men had dug what they called, "Funk holes" in the clay, where they put as much of their bodies as they could. Sitting in a bend of the trench where I got a good view of the men, I had a service for them, and, as it was that festival, I read out the epistle for St. Michael and All Angel"s Day, and spoke of the guardianship of men which G.o.d had committed to the Heavenly Hosts. Going down the trench later on, I came to a place from which I could see, with my gla.s.ses, a German machine-gun emplacement and its crew. I went back and asked for a sniper. A man who said he was one came up to me and I showed him the enemy and then directed his fire. I could see from little puffs of dust where his bullets were landing. He was a good shot and I think must have done some damage, for all of a sudden the machine-gun opened fire on us and we had to dive into the trench pretty quickly. I told him that I thought we had better give up the game as they had the advantage over us. To snipe at the enemy seemed to be a curious way to spend a Sunday afternoon, but it was a temptation too hard to resist. I crawled back through the trench to the road, and there finding a man who had just lost his hand, directed him to the aid post near Battalion Headquarters. I accompanied him part of the way and had reached the edge of the sunken road, when a major of the Engineers came up to me and said, "I have got a better pair of German gla.s.ses than you have." It was an interesting challenge, so we stood there on a little rise looking at the spires of Cambrai and comparing the strength of the lenses. Very distinctly we saw the town, looking peaceful and attractive. Suddenly there was a tremendous crash in front of us, a lot of earth was blown into our faces, and we both fell down. My eyes were full of dirt but I managed to get up again. I had been wounded in both legs, and from one I saw blood streaming down through my puttees. My right foot had been hit and the artery in the calf of my leg was cut. I fell down again with a feeling of exasperation that I had been knocked out of the war. The poor major was lying on the ground with one leg smashed. The same sh.e.l.l had wounded in the chest the young machine-gun officer who had shared his bunk with me the night before. I believe an Imperial officer also was. .h.i.t in the abdomen and that he died. The chaplain of the 10th Battalion who happened to be standing in the sunken road, got some men together quickly and came to our help. I found myself being carried off in a German sheet by four prisoners. They had forgotten to give me my gla.s.ses, and were very much amused when I called for them, but I got them and have them now. The major not only lost his leg but lost his gla.s.ses as well. The enemy had evidently been watching us from some observation post in Cambrai, for they followed us up with another sh.e.l.l on the other side of the road, which caused the bearers to drop me quickly. The chaplain walked beside me till we came to the aid post where there were some stretchers. I was placed on one and carried into the dressing station at Haynecourt. They had been having a hard time that day, for the village was heavily sh.e.l.led. One of their men had been killed and several wounded. I felt a great pain in my heart which made it hard to breathe, so when I was brought into the dressing station I said, "Boys, I am going to call for my first and last tot of rum." I was immensely teased about this later on by my friends, who knew I was a teetotaller. They said I had drunk up all the men"s rum issue. A General wrote to me later on to say he had been terribly shocked to hear I was wounded, but that it was nothing in comparison with the shock he felt when he heard that I had taken to drinking rum. Everyone in the dressing station was as usual most kind. The bitter thought to me was that I was going to be separated from the old 1st Division. The nightmare that had haunted me for so long had at last come true, and I was going to leave the men before the war was over. For four years they had been my beloved companions and my constant care. I had been led by the example of their n.o.ble courage and their unhesitating performance of the most arduous duties, in the face of danger and death, to a grander conception of manhood, and a longing to follow them, if G.o.d would give me grace to do so, in their path of utter self-sacrifice. I had been with them continuously in their joys and sorrows, and it did not seem to be possible that I could now go and desert them in that bitter fight. When the doctors had finished binding up my wounds, I was carried off immediately to an ambulance in the road, and placed in it with four others, one of whom was dying. It was a long journey of four hours and a half to No. 1 C.C.S. at Agnez-les-Duisans, and we had to stop at Queant on the way. Our journey lay through the area over which we had just made the great advance. Strange thoughts and memories ran through my mind. Faces of men that had gone and incidents that I had forgotten came back to me with great vividness. Should I ever again see the splendid battalions and the glad and eager lives pressing on continuously to Victory? Partly from sh.e.l.l holes, and partly from the wear of heavy traffic, the road was very b.u.mpy. The man above me was in terrible agony, and every fresh jolt made him groan. The light of the autumn afternoon was wearing away rapidly. Through the open door at the end of the ambulance, as we sped onward, I could see the brown colourless stretch of country fade in the twilight, and then vanish into complete darkness, and I knew that the great adventure of my life among the most glorious men that the world has ever produced was over.
CHAPTER x.x.xV.
Victory.
November 11th, 1918.
They took me to the X-ray room and then to the operating-tent that night, and sent me off on the following afternoon to the Base with a parting injunction that I should be well advised to have my foot taken off; which, thank G.o.d, was not found necessary. From the C.C.S. at Camiers, two days later I was sent to London to the Endsleigh Palace Hospital near Euston Station, where I arrived with another wounded officer at 2.30 a.m. I was put in a little room on the seventh storey, and there through long nights I thought of our men still at the front and wondered how the war was going. The horror of great darkness fell upon me. The hideous sights and sounds of war, the heart-rending sorrows, the burden of agony, the pale dead faces and blood-stained bodies lying on muddy wastes, all these came before me as I lay awake counting the slow hours and listening to the hoa.r.s.e tooting of lorries rattling through the dark streets below. That concourse of ghosts from the sub-conscious mind was too hideous to contemplate and yet one could not escape them. The days went by and intimations at last reached us that the German power was crumbling. Swiftly and surely the Divine Judge was wreaking vengeance upon the nation that, by its over-weaning ambition, had drenched the world in blood.
On November 11th at eleven in the morning the bells of London rang out their joyous peals, for the armistice had been signed and the war was over. There was wild rejoicing in the city and the crowds went crazy with delight. But it seemed to me that behind the ringing of those peals of joy there was the tolling of spectral bells for those who would return no more. The monstrous futility of war as a test of national greatness, the wound in the world"s heart, the empty homes, those were the thoughts which in me overmastered all feelings of rejoicing.
On Sunday morning, the 4th of May, 1919, on the Empress of Britain, after an absence of four years and seven months, I returned to Quebec. On board were the 16th Battalion with whom I had sailed away in 1914, the 8th Battalion, the Machine Gun Battalion, the 3rd Field Ambulance and some of the Engineers. Like those awaking from a dream, we saw once more the old rock city standing out in the great river. There was the landing and the greeting of loving friends on the wharf within a stone"s throw from the place whence we had sailed away. While I was shaking hands with my friends, an officer told me I had to inspect the Guard of Honour which the kind O.C. of the vessel had furnished. I did not know how to do this properly but I walked through the rows of stalwart, bronzed men and looked into their faces which were fixed and immovable. Each man was an original, and every unit in the old 1st Division was represented. For four years and seven months, they had been away from home, fighting for liberty and civilization. Many of them wore decorations; many had been wounded. No General returning victor from a war could have had a finer Guard of Honour.
The troops had to wait on board the ship till the train was ready. All along the decks of the great vessel, crowded against the railings in long lines of khaki, were two thousand seven hundred men. Their bright faces were ruddy in the keen morning air. On their young shoulders the burden of Empire had rested. By their willing sacrifice Canada had been saved. It made a great lump come in my throat to look at them and think of what they had gone through.
I went back to the gangway for a last farewell. In one way I knew it must be a last farewell, for though some of us will meet again as individuals it will be under altered conditions. Never again but in dreams will one see the great battalions marching on the battle-ploughed roads of France and Flanders. Never again will one see them pouring single file into the muddy front trenches. All that is over. Along the coasts of the Atlantic and Pacific, among our cities, by the sh.o.r.es of lakes and rivers and in the vast expanse of prairies and mountain pa.s.ses the warrior hosts have melted away. But there on the vessel that day the fighting men had come home in all their strength and comradeship. I stood on the gangway full of conflicting emotions.
The men called out "Speech," "Speech," as they used often to do, half in jest and half in earnest, when we met in concert tents and estaminets in France.
I told them what they had done for Canada and what Canada owed them and how proud I was to have been with them. I asked them to continue to play the game out here as they had played it in France. Then, telling them to remove their caps, as this was our last church parade, I p.r.o.nounced the Benediction, said, "Good-bye, boys", and turned homewards.