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COLONEL GEORGE G. NASMITH, C.M.G.
ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
By COLONEL GEORGE G. NASMITH, C.M.G.
McCLELLAND, GOODCHILD & STEWART PUBLISHERS gs a $3 TORONTO
COPYRIGHT, CANADA, 1917 McCLELLAND, GOODCHILD & STEWART, LIMITED TORONTO
TO s _ MY WAR BRIDE
IN FLANDERS FIELDS
In Flanders fields the poppies grow, Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place, and in the sky The larks still bravely singing fly, Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead, short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunsets glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe. To you from failing hands we throw The torch: be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies blow In Flanders fields.
JOHN MACCRAE, ( Lt.-Col.)
By permission of the author.
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CONTENTS
PREFACE
CHAPTER I.
ON THE ROAD TO A GREAT ADVENTURE
CHAPTER II.
ON SALISBURY PLAINS .
CHAPTER III.
EARLY WAR DAYS IN LONDON .
CHAPTER IV.
DAYS WHEN THINGS WENT WRONG
CHAPTER V.
THE LOST CANADIAN LABORATORY .
CHAPTER VI.
THE DAYS BEFORE YPRES
CHAPTER VII.
THE SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES .
ix
PAGE
11
32
46
62
70
83
CONTENTS
PAGE CHAPTER VIII. THE ASTERMATH OF THE GAS a se AS ee CHAPTER IX. THE MEDICAL ORGANIZATION OF THE BRITISH ARMY... 125 CHAPTER X. KEEPING THE BRITISH SOLDIER FIT... .. . 134 CHAPTER XI. LABORATORY WORKIN THE FIELD. . ... .... 152 CHAPTER XII. SKETCHES FROM A LABORATORY WINDOW . . .... 169 CHAPTER XIII. ware Wer MAD Mr 6) OE ER Se ee CHAPTER XIV. TABLE TALK AT\A FLANDERS MESS’ 1 6 $20) Wun eek.) a CHAPTER XV. ON- THE: BELGIAN BORDER! Ia ae
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Colonel George G. Nasmith, C.M.G. .__ . Frontispiece
Mechanical Transports in Salisbury Floods .
Major-General M. S. Mercer, C.B.
German Barrage Fire at Night
French Soldiers Advancing under Cover of Liquid Fire
The Camouflage .
‘Home, Sweet Home”—Mud Terrace
British Tanks as Used in the Flanders Offensive
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PREFACE
On April 22nd, 1915, the writer, in company with Major Rankin, saw the Germans launch their first gas attack near St. Julien upon the section of the line held by the French colonial troops and the first Canadian division. .
This book was written primarily for the purpose of recording this as well as some of the other exper- iences of the first Canadian division as seen from the unusual angle of a scientist, in the course of 18,000 miles of travel in the front line area. It had the secondary object of giving the average reader some insight. into what goes on behind the lines, and the means employed to maintain the health and efficiency of the British and Canadian soldiers in the field.
No attempt has been made to deal with the work of the real fighting men on land and in the air; others far better qualified than I are doing that.
If the book has no other merit, it has, at least, that of being literally true.
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CHAPTER I.
ON THE ROAD TO A GREAT ADVENTURE.
ik began with a wish. That takes me back to a pleasant day in early August, 1914, and a verandah at Ravenscrag, Muskoka—a broad, cool, verandah over- looking dancing dark waters. A light breeze stirred the leaves and gently wafted to us the smell of the pines and the woods, mingled with the sweet odours of the scented geranium, verbena, and nicotine in the rock-girt garden. But my mind was far removed from the peace- fulness of my immediate surroundings: the newspaper I held in my hand was filled with kaleidoscopic de- scriptions of the great European tumult. Unconscious- ly I voiced aloud the thought that was uppermost in my mind: “I would gladly give ten years of my life if I could serve my country in this war.” “Do not say that,” warned my hostess, looking up from her magazine, “for everything comes to you on a wish,” and nothing more was said of the matter at the time.
That day was a very quiet one with our little house- party. We made our usual launch trip through the lakes but nobody talked much. Each was busy with his own thoughts, wondering what England could do in the great emergency. Could she, or could she not, save France from the invading hosts of Germany? And deeper in each mind was the unspoken fear, “‘Per- haps it is already too late to save France—perhaps, even now, the question is ‘Can England save herself?”
]
2
ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
The great depression in men’s minds during those early days of the war when the bottom seemed to have dropped out of life and men strove to grasp at some- thing upon which to reconstruct a new system of thought and life and work, had enveloped us like a chill evening mist. x
Those were ghastly days. While France, Russia and England were feverishly mobilizing, the brave little force of Belgians was being steadily rolled up by the perfectly equipped German war machine and the road to France hourly becoming easier. England had commissioned K. of K. to gather together a civilian army of three million men, and Canada had called for one division to be mobilized at Valcartier Camp, a place somewhere in the Laurentian Hills near the city of Quebec. Little did any of us dream how prophetic was to be that apparently chance remark of our hostess. But the first greeting from the maid when we reached home that evening was, “There is a long distance call for you, sir.” The Minister of Militia had asked me to report in Ottawa immediately. Next morning I waved my friends, ‘Au revoir.” That return was far from being as speedy as we expected, for my wish very shortly came true.
The greeting of the Minister of Militia, Sir Sam Hughes, as he turned from the desk where he sat in shirt-sleeves, with typewriters on all sides of him, was a cordial handshake and a slap on the back. Would I go down to the new camp at Valcartier and look after the purification of the water supply? I was delighted to get the chance.
2 e
ON THE ROAD TO A GREAT ADVENTURE
A short wait at the office gave me a splendid oppor- tunity of seeing a military headquarters office in opera- tion. Officers of all ranks, from Generals to Majors, hurried in one after another to obtain permission to do this or that; prominent men anxious to do anything they might to assist in the great crisis, crowded the office. Telephone conversations, telegrams, cables, in- terviews, dictation of letters, reading of letters aloud— to watch or listen to the incessant commingling of all these, with the Minister of Militia as the centre of energy, was a unique experience for me. Sir Sam cracked jokes, dictated letters, swore at the telephone operator, and carried on conversation with a number of persons—all at the same time. It was a marvellous demonstration of what a man could do in an emergency, if he happened to be the right man—the man who not only knew what needed to be done but had sufficient force of character and driving power to convert his decisions into practical achievements.
The following night on our return from an in- spection of the new camp at Valcartier I stood near the citadel in Quebec watching the moving lights on the St. Lawrence far below. As I looked the flashes of a powerful searchlight swept the river, lighting up the opposite shores and playing upon the craft in the river. This was the first concrete evidence I had that our country was at war; it was also a reminder that there was even a possibility that Quebec might be attacked from the sea.
Of the growth of that wonderful camp, of our experiences there, of the training and equipping of
; 3
ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
33,000 men, of the struggles for position, and of the numerous disappointments and bitternesses because all could not go, I will not here attempt to speak. There was a great deal to do and to learn and the time passed quickly. It had been decided that I was to accompany the contingent as adviser in sanitation and in charge of the water supply, and, despite all delays and disappoint- ments, the day did finally come when we drove in to Quebec to board our steamer for England.
At midnight, the Franconia slipped slowly and silently away from the dock. Only three were there to bid us farewell—a man and two women,—and though they sang with great enthusiasm, “It’s a Long, Long Way to Tipperary,” the effect was melancholy. Imper- ceptibly the pier and the lights of the city receded and we steamed on down the mighty St. Lawrence to our © trysting place on the sea. The second morning after- wards we woke to find ourselves riding quietly at anchor in the sunny harbour of Gaspé, with all the other trans- ports anchored about us, together with four long grey gunboats,—our escort upon the road to our great ad- venture.
The brilliant afternoon sun of a typical Canadian Autumn day shone down upon Gaspé basin. Idly we lounged about the decks, gazing at the shores with their little white fishermen’s cottages, or at the thirty | odd troopships, and the four grey gunboats which studded the harbour. The surface of the water was rippled by a light breeze and all was quiet and peaceful in the shelter of that sunny haven. Even the gulls, gorged with the waste food from the ships, swam lazily about or flapped idly hither and thither.
4 |
~
ON THE ROAD TO A GREAT ADVENTURE
My gaze had fixed itself upon the nearest of the lean, grey gunboats. As I watched, the sleeping grey- hound seemed to move; in another moment the seem- ing illusion gave way to certainty—it was moving; gradually its pace accelerated and it slipped quietly out toward the open sea. A second gunboat followed, then a third, all making for the open. Immediately we were all excitement, for the rumour had been cur- rent that we might be there for several days. But the rumour was speedily disproved as the rattle of anchor chains became audible from the transports nearest the harbour mouth, and one by one they followed their little grey guides; and so, at three of the clock on October the third, 1914, the First Canadian Contingent with guns, ammunition, horses and equipment, left Gaspé en route to the great war.
Gradually method evolved itself out of apparent chaos. Three gunboats took the lead and the transports fell into line about a thousand yards from one another, so that eventually three lines were formed of about a dozen in each and the whole fleet moved forward into the Atlantic. The shores of Gaspé, dotted with white cottages; yellow stubble fields; hills red and purple with autumnal foliage—these were our last pictures of Canada—truly the last that many of us were ever to see, and we looked upon them, our hearts filled with emo- tions that these scenes had never given rise to before. Our ruddy Canadian emblem, the maple leaf, gave its characteristic tinge to the receding shores—a colour to be seen often on the field of battle, but never in the foliage of a European landscape.
5
ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
We were making history; the great epoch-making enterprise of our young country was taking place—an undertaking that would go down in the annals of the Empire of Great Britain as a great incident of the period when the young cubs raced to the assistance of the old lion in her hour of need—this we realized. And yet it was hard to realize that we were actually fortu- nate enough to be taking part in an expedition, the like of which never was before, and probably never will be again. Never before had there been gathered together a fleet of transports of such magnitude—a fleet consist- ing of 33 transports carrying 33,000 men, 7,000 horses and all the motors, waggons and equipment necessary to place in the field not only a complete infantry divi- sion, and a cavalry brigade, but in addition to provide for he necessary reserves.
At night we steamed along like sabi ships. All windows and port holes were carefully screened so that one might walk the deck and see not a single ray of light to reveal the whereabouts of the accompanying vessels.
Off Newfoundland as our three lines of ships were ploughing along, about a mile and a half apart, we picked up H.M.S. “Glory” which took a position about ten miles away on our right. Our ship, the “Franconia,” the flagship of the fleet, had the headquarter staff, the 90th Regiment of Winnipeg, and a number of nurses on board, and she held place in the centre of the middle line.
How an orderly fleet could be immediately dis-
6
ON THE ROAD TO A GREAT ADVENTURE
organized was well demonstrated one morning when our whistle blew sharply several times “Man Over- board.” As we slowed down, with throbbing engines reversed churning the ocean into foam, we could see the tiny speck (a man’s head) floating by. While our lifeboat was being lowered and the man was being _ rescued, the three lines of transports buckled and the ships see-sawed to right and left in their efforts to avoid collisions. |
The man proved to be a painter who, unobserved, had fallen off the “Royal Edward” in front of us, and but for the vigilance of the lookout on our ship, would undoubtedly have perished.
There seemed to be about a thousand nurses aboard the Franconia—the real number was about a hundred but they multiplied by their ubiquity; they swarmed everywhere; sometimes they filled the lounge so that the poor Major or Colonel could not get in for his after- noon cup of tea. The daily lectures for officers, par- ticularly on subjects like “artillery range finding” had an abnormal fascination for the nurses while subjects like “the Geneva Convention” and “Hygiene” which they might have found useful held little attraction for them. Such is the perversity of the nurse when given the rank of an officer and freed from all hospital re- straint. At the concerts few officers could obtain seats and a few of us were mean enough to wish that it would get rough enough to put some of the nurses temporarily down and out. The nurses were in a doubly fortunate position in that they could demand the rights of both
7
ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
officers and women, according to which happened to be advantageous at the moment.
The 90th Regiment “the little black devils” of Winnipeg was a very fine body of men indeed; they were drilled by the hour on the decks, and were given lectures, They entertained themselves in their spare time by getting up boxing bouts and concerts. ‘The antics of a bear cub and a monkey, the battalion mas- cots, amused the men for many hours at a time.
One night the officers gave a dinner party. The first plan was to invite no nurses at all. Then other counsels prevailed and invitations were to be given to a limited number. As this would have caused all sorts of petty jealousies and heart burnings, a compromise was effected by—asking them all.
The dinner was a great success. An eight-piece band, for which the instruments had been purchased the day before we left Quebec, had been practising assidu- ously on the upper deck for days with effects of a most weird character, and there made its first public appear- ance. With the aid of a pipe band it helped to drown the. popping of corks and the various other noises due to the consumption of many bottles of champagne and hock. The dinner was followed by a dance and the nurses were allowed to stay up till midnight instead of being chased to bed at the usual hour of ten o’clock.
One of the unique and most interesting occasions of the trip was when the famous battle cruiser, the “Queen Mary” came up about dusk one evening and ran through our lines amid great excitement. This was the battle cruiser that had not long before convert-
8
ON THE ROAD TO A GREAT ADVENTURE
ed the German cruiser ‘“‘Emden” into a mass of twisted iron in a few minutes. As she steamed slowly by she . presented one of the finest spectacles I have ever seen. Somehow nothing in the world looks as efficient for its particular job as a battle cruiser; it is the personifica- tion of power and beauty.
One morning at six o’clock a light was discovered in the distance. Someone said it was the light-house off Land’s End. So it proved. By eight o’clock we could make out clearly the coast of Cornwall. As the land grew nearer the famous Eddystone Lighthouse came into view, and, making a great sweep around it, instead of running for Southampton as we all had ex- pected, we headed for Plymouth. A number of tor- pedo boats, commonly called “Ocean Lice,” accom- panied us for the last few miles, as a protection against submarines.
The approach to Plymouth was wonderfully sooth- ing. The hills covered with beautiful foliage in shades of brown and olive green were a most restful change from the monotony of the sea. A marked contrast to the peacefulness of the countryside were the fortifica- tions everywhere visible commanding the approach to perhaps the most strongly fortified port in Southern England. With the possible exception of Sydney, Au- tralia, Plymouth is said to be the most beautiful harbour in the Empire. One could well believe it.
Tugs puffed out to meet us, pilots climbed aboard, and we slowly steamed up the long sinuous channel, past Edgecombe to Davenport. All the warships being built or equipped, the forts, the training ships and the
9
ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
docks, indeed every point of vantage was thronged with cheering crowds of people,—civilians, soldiers and sailors. Cheer after cheer from our Canadian soldiers responded to those from our English friends as we slowly made our way up the channel. It seemed as though everybody had gone crazy.
It was a never-to-be-forgotten reception; we felt that we were indeed a part of the Empire in spirit as well as in name. About three o’clock we came to anchor, and during the afternoon ship after ship fol- lowed in and anchored alongside. At night we crowd- ed up even closer to give the late-comers room. For the first time on our trip the vessels were all brilliantly illuminated, the bands played, the giddy ones danced, and all were happy to be once again in sight of solid land. At dinner the commandant, Col. Williams, made a speech and called for three cheers for our Captain, and never, I suppose, did any other Captain receive such hearty cheers and such a tremendous “tiger.” It was the culmination of a marvellous and historic trip.
The trip to Salisbury by motor next day was a dream—a dream of hedges and great trees meeting over- head; of hills and valleys with little thatched cottages and villages nestling in them, of beautiful estates and - sheep, of quaint old English farms, of ancient towns and villages. Through Ivy Bridge and Honiton to Exe- ter, where we stopped tosee the beautiful old Cathedral, so warm and rich in colouring and passing by one long series of beautiful pictures, in perhaps the most charm- ing pastoral landscape in the world, we came to the white-scarred edge of the famous Salisbury Plain.
10
CHAPTER, Tl:
ON SALISBURY PLAINS.
T was on the 15th of October that we landed in Ply-
mouth. A few days later the whole of the 33,000 (with the exception of a few errant knights who had gone off on independent pilgrimages) were more or less settled on Salisbury Plain. The force was divided into four distinct camps miles apart. One infantry brigade and the headquarters staff was stationed at Bustard Camp; one section was camped a couple of miles away, at West Down South; a third at West Down North still farther away, and the fourth at Pond Farm about five miles from Bustard. Convenience of water supplies and arrangements for the administration of the forces made these divisions necessary.
The plains of Salisbury, ideal for summer military camps, are rolling, prairie-like lands stretching for miles, broken by a very occasional farm house or by plantations of trees called “spinneys.” A thin layer of earth and turf covered the chalk which was hundreds of feet in depth; at any spot a blow with a pick would bring up the white chalk filled with black flints. The hills by which the plains were reached rose sharply from the surface of Wiltshire, so that Salisbury Plain itself could be easily distinguished miles away by the white, water worn rifts in the hillsides.
When we first arrived the plains gave promise of being a fine camping ground. Tents were pitched,
11
ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT |
canteens opened, work was begun and our boys settled down impatiently to receive the further training neces- sary before passing over to that Mecca to which one and all looked forward—the battle grounds of Flanders.
For a few days all went well; then it began to rain. About the middle of November it settled down in earnest and rained steadily for a month; sometimes it merely drizzled, at other times it poured; but it never stopped, except for an hour or so. The constant tramp of many feet speedily churned into mud the clay turf overlaying the chalk, and the rain could not percolate through this mixture as it did the unbroken sod. Ina few days the mud was one inch—four inches—and even a foot deep. Many a time I waded through mud up to my knees.
The smooth English roads, lacking depth of road- metal, were speedily torn to pieces by the heavy traffic of motors and steam traction engines. Passing cars and lorries sprayed the hedges with a thin mud-emul- sion formed from the road binder, and exposed the sharp flints which, like so much broken glass, tore to pieces the tires of the motors.
Cold high winds, saturated with moisture, accom- panied the rain and searched one’s very marrow. Nothing would exclude these sea breezes but skin or fur coats, and though accustomed to a severe climate, we Canadians felt the cold in England as we never had at home. Sometimes the temperature fell below the freezing point, and occasionally we had sleet, hail or snow for variety. ‘Tents were often blown down by the hundreds, and it was a never-to-be-forgotten sight
12
ON SALISBURY PLAINS
watching a small army of soldiers trying to hold and pin down some of the large mess tents, while rope after rope snapped under the straining of the flapping can- vas. One day the post office tent collapsed, and some of the mail disappeared into the heavens, never to return. .
The officers of the headquarter staff were fairly comfortable in comparison to the others. Our tents were pitched in a quadrangle formed by four rows of trees and scrub, which had evidently been planted around the site of a former house and served to break the high winds. Each officer had a tent with a wooden floor. Mine was carpeted with an extra blanket to ex- clude draughts and make it feel comfortable under one’s bare feet in the morning. The tent was heated by an oil stove which was kept burning night and day; and at night I slept snug and warm in the interior of a Jaeger sleeping blanket in a Wolseley kit. My batman, Kar- ner, had made a table fromsome boxes and boards which he had picked up, I know not where. It is unwise to ask your batman too many foolish questions as to the origin of things,—take what he gives you and be thankful.
This table covered with another blanket, served to support a splendid brass lamp with a green silk shade. for which I had paid a fabulous sum in Salisbury town. It also held some books, brushes, and other necessaries. A shelf underneath displayed a little brass kettle and other paraphernalia for making tea, while my other books were arranged in a neat row beneath.
The tents were wet all the time, and the clothes and blankets of the men soon became water soaked and
13
ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
remained so for weeks at a stretch for they had no stoves or other facilities for drying them. But Tommy, the resourceful, learned that he could get warm by the simple process of wrapping himself up in wet blankets and steaming as he would in a Turkish bath,—with him- self as the heater. He also discovered that a pair of wet socks, well wrung out and placed next his chest at night would be half dry in the morning. He had to sleep in a bell tent with seven others, radiating like spokes of a wheel from the centre tent pole. He had nothing to give him any comfort whatever.
It was impossible to do any work, even route marching, and, having nothing to do but lie around and think of himself, Tommy began to grouse. Each camp had become a morass with mud a foot deep, and Tommy looked out upon it and behold it was not good, and he cursed both loud and long whoever he thought might be responsible for the conditions, and particularly Emperor Bill the cause of it all. The Canadian contin- gent had begun a process of mildewing.
One felt sorry for the poor horses. Picketed in the open plain or in the partial shelter of the occasional “spinneys, they stood with ears drooping and tails to the wind, pictures of dejection. No doubt they, too, cursed the Kaiser. Their feet became soft from stand- ing idly in the mud, and in a good many cases had be- come diseased; in general they went off badly in condi- tion. Standing orders prohibited the cutting down of a bush or tree on Salisbury Plain, but in the night time we could sometimes hear the familiar sound of an axe meeting standing timber, and one could guess that
14
ON SALISBURY PLAINS
Tommy, in his desire for wood to build a fire, and re- gardless of rules, had grown desperate. As one of them said to Rudyard Kipling when he was down visiting them, ‘“‘What were trees for if they were not to be cut downer”
Towards the middle of December, one evening there was a sharp tap on the tent of Capt. Haywood, Medical Officer of the third (Toronto) Battalion.
“Come in” he cried.
The laces were undone and Sergeant Kipple _ stepped into the tent. The Sergeant was a good man —an old soldier and reliable as the proverbial watch.
“Well, what is it?” said the M. O. ‘
‘“T want you to give me somethink to buck me up” said the Sergeant in a tearful voice.
“But what is the matter?” said the M.O. “Have you a coldpe”
“No, I aint got no cold” he said, “I just wants somethink to buck me up; some qui-nine or somethink.”’
“But what’s the matter?” persisted the M. O. “What do you want it for?”
‘“‘Nothing’s wrong with me” said the sergeant, “I jist want somethink to buck me up; this rine is getting on me nerves. It rines all day, and me clothes ’aven’t been dry for a month—if I go out I get more wet. All day long I ’ave to splash about in the blinkin’ mud and rine. At night I cawnt go to sleep. Me clothes are wet; me blankets are soaked. I ’ears the bl— rine coming down on the bl— tent which leaks all over; it makes a ’ell of a noise on the tent and I cawnt sleep. I gets up in the morning and ’ave to do me work and do
15
ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
me dooty. But Doc, it’s gettin’ me goat. I feel like cutting me bl— throat. I ’ave ’ad thirteen years in the awmy and ’ave me good conduc stripes. I ’ave a wife and two kids at ’ome. I didn’t come over ’ere to drown; I came over to fight. I wants to do me work but I cawnt doit. If you don’t give me somethink Doc I am afraid I'll cut me bloody throat and I don’t want to die. Cawn’t you give me somethink to buck me up, Doc please?”
The Doc did give him something, and between that and a little judicious “jollying” Kipple was a different man in a few days.
Of course there was trouble. The contingent was going through a rough experience, and to most of us Salisbury Plain was becoming a nightmare. A fairly large number of the men were given leave, and an equally large number took French leave. ‘The latter migrated in large numbers to the little villages around the outskirts of the plain where they settled down to a few days’ comfort before they were rounded up by the military police.
Some went to London, and, worshipping at the shrines of Venus and Bacchus, forgot about the war, and tarried in the fascinating metropolis. Others sought a few hours’ respite and forgetfulness in the town of Salisbury, where they hobnobbed. with their British confreres and treated them to various drinks. At times the British Tommy, stung at the flaunting of pound notes where he had only shillings, smote his colonial brother, and bloody battles resulted in conse- quence thereof.
16
‘SSGOOTH AUNNASTIVS NI SLYOdSNVUL IVOINVHOUW
ON SALISBURY PLAINS
It was a curious fact that it was the Englishman who had gone out to Canada a few years before and now returned as a Canadian, who was the chief offender in this respect. He had gained a new airiness and sense of freedom which he was proud of, and it brought him into trouble. My own chauffeur, an Englishman, was the invariable champion of all American cars as com- pared with English cars, which he delighted in saying were from three to four years behind the times. ‘This same man four years before had been working on auto- mobiles in London, where he was born.
At one stage it looked as if the force was under- going a process of decomposition, and would disinte- grate. The morale of the men under the very depress- ing conditions which existed, had almost gone and they did not care what happened them. Privates, perhaps college men or wealthy business men.in Canada, frankly said when arrested, that they were quite willing to pay the price, but that they had determined to get warm and dry once more before they were drowned in the mud. It is an easy matter to handle a few cases of this sort, but when you get hundreds of them little can be done, and threats, fines and punishments were of little avail in correcting the existing state of affairs.
As a matter of fact, under the conditions the mili- tary authorities were hard put to it to control the situa- tion. Each night the motor lorries returned loaded with men under arrest, and each day an equally large number left the camp to undergo the same experience.
All the time the wastage went on. One soldier fell off a cart and fractured his skull; another had his:
17 3
ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
legs amputated by a lorry; a third was accidently shot, and another committed suicide. It is astonishing how many accidents can occur among 30,000 men.
New huts were being built at Larkhill, near the ancient Phcenician remains called Stonehenge, but the progress made was so slow that finally our men were put on the job, and the huts began to go up like mushrooms. Hundreds of Canadians, belonging to Highland and other regiments, built roads, huts, and other works, in a country apparently filled with labouring men with no intention of ever going to war, and who, in fact, often did not believe that there was a war. We all felt some- what relieved one night when we heard that the German fleet was bombarding the English coast, hoping that it would shake the country out of its feeling of smug self- complacency and lethargy.
On November 20th, there were 150 men in our hospital at Bulford Manor; three weeks later there were 780. It had rained every day in the interval, and there was a great deal of influenza and bronchial troubles, which made splendid foundation for attacks of other diseases. | _ Towards the end of the year the men began to move into the new huts at Larkhill. We had already officially forecasted in black and white, that the huts, being raised from the ground, would be colder to sleep in, and whereas there had been only eight men in the tent to be infected should one man become ill with a communicable disease, there would now be forty in each
hut; and that in consequence we should expect a great
increase in illness from such diseases. And there was. 18
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It began to increase as soon as the men got into the huts. These huts were heated with stoves, and fuel was provided. Consequently the men, before going to bed, got the stoves red hot, closed and sealed the windows with paper, contrary to standing orders, and went to bed with the huts overheated. When the stoves went out the huts cooled down and the usual story one heard was of the men waking at three or four in the morning cold and shivering. The heat also served to shrink the floor boards so that the draughts came through and made matters worse.
Then the scare came. Prior to this the report of an odd case of cerebro-spinal meningitis had not occa- sioned any concern. Under these menacing conditions cases of the disease became more numerous and when Col. Strange died of it uneasiness culminated in real alarm.
My proposed trip to Scotland for Christmas was postponed and instead I was sent up to London to get an expert bacteriologist on the disease and arrange to start a laboratory. The object was to see what could be done in locating “carriers” of the disease germ, and thereby keep the disease from spreading. Accordingly, on the day before Christmas, I arranged with the Director of the Lister Institute for the loan of Dr. Arkwright of his staff and for the necessary apparatus to equip a laboratory at Bulford Cottage Hospital. It was a for- lorn hope, but it was the only thing that could be done to try to get this elusive disease under control. I spent Christmas day in camp, and it was a melancholy day indeed. The men were all well looked after, and for
19
ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
those in the hospitals the day«was made as bright as possible. It seemed years since we had left Canada.
When we brought down the bacteriological appar- atus by passenger train a few days later we paid excess baggage on 780 pounds but we got it through. It took five men to shove the trucks containing the boxes, and we held the connecting train for five minutes at Salis- bury Junction until we made the transfer. This saved time, for the London people would not guarantee de- livery for five weeks.
The epidemic of cerebro-spinal meningitis proved to: be a blessing in disguise, for it educated both combatant officers and men as to the necessity of observ- ing certain simple precautions to prevent the spread of any contagious disease; and it also showed them that when disease once got out of hand it would be possible to put whole battalions hors de combat. Col. Mercer kept his brigade moving about on the sod in tents all winter, and as a result, there was very much less sick- ness in his brigade than in the other brigades housed in huts.
Then nature came to our rescue, and took a hand in the game. The rains grew less frequent; the sun put in an occasional appearance; training was begun once more, and a rapid improvement was immediately apparent in the men. Again the sound of singing was heard in the tents at night and on route marches; and again one began to see smiling faces. With the im- provement in weather conditions, training went briskly on, and the division began to rapidly round into shape.
Meanwhile the artillery and cavalry had gone into
20
ON SALISBURY PLAINS
billets in the surrounding villages, and were behaving splendidly. The people took to them very kindly, and the men themselves looked so clean and happy that it was difficult to realize that they were the same unkempt, dirty individuals who had been seen not so long before wading through the mud and filth of the plains.
All sorts of rumours were current. A favorite one was that we were to go to Egypt to finish our train- ing there. Another one whispered among the staff was that we would shortly leave for France. The men worked hard at their training, anxious to make good and get to the Front. They had the old Viking spirit of adventure in their blood, and wanted to get to the battle ground. We all knew that many of us would be killed, but we all felt that it would be the other fellow —not ourselves.
After the laboratory had been started, the force had to a large extent been reassured thereby that everything possible was being done that could be done. When, with better weather, the sickness began to abate, I ob- tained permission from our Surgeon-General to try to get the rest of our men inoculated against typhoid fever. We had arrived in England with 65 per cent. of the men inoculated, and it was my ambition to get them all done before the division left for France.
Accordingly I settled down in the Bear Hotel in the little Wiltshire town of Devizes, the head-quarters of the artillery brigade, and began my educational cam- paign.
The old Bear Hotel was one of the famous old coaching houses of former days; it had seen much life
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ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
in ye olden times when it had been the chief stopping place of the bloods of London en route to the famous City of Bath and the historic Pump Room. It was a homey-looking old place, with the usual appearance of comfort pertaining toan English Inn, and themaximum amount of discomfort as judged by our modern stan- dards. The food was good, and the fire places looked bright and cheery, like the bar maid behind the polished bar. It was mostly in looks. No wonder that the Bri- tish people fortify themselves with copious draughts of stimulants to help keep out the cold. There were some magnificent pieces of old furniture and Sheffield plate in the halls—pieces that many a collector had tried in vain to purchase. My room lit by two candles in earthenware candlesticks; and with a fire in a corner grate—at a shilling a day extra—looked cozy enough but the bedroom furniture was ancient and uncomfor- table.
The officers of the Artillery Headquarters lived at the hotel, and I took my meals with them. Col. Bur- stall, the officer commanding, gave me every assistance and’ issued orders to his officers to aid in every possible way in the campaign.
My object was to educate all the artillery and cavalry units on the danger of using impure water, on typhus fever and how it was conveyed by lice, and on the value and necessity of anti-typhoid inoculation.
The following day I gave my first talk in a large shed in the town, to about 700 artillery men of the first artillery brigade. It was a unique experience, standing on a great stack of boxes of loaded ammunition beside
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ON SALISBURY PLAINS
Colonel Morrison and the medical officer Lt.-Col. McCrae, talking to the brigade drawn up at attention around us. It was an attentive audience; the men had to listen, though as a matter of fact, they really seemed interested. When paraded next day 370 uninoculated were discovered and given the treatment; the few who refused were sent to the base depot and replaced by others.
The campaign begun so successfully was carried on from day to day. Arrangements were made by tele- phone or wire with the O. C.’s of the arious units, to have their men paraded for my lectures. The weather was frequently wet, and the talks were given in farm yards, village squares, churches, schools, hay-lofts, and open fields. In some instances the units, broken up into small sections, were scattered about the country so that I would have to talk to 50 men at once instead of several hundred.
One of the most unique occasions was the Sunday when I addressed the 3rd Artillery brigade, after church parade in the market square of Market Laving- don. We arrived early and sat and listened while, from the little stone church high up on the hill above us, drifted the sound of soldiers singing. It was unutter- ably sad to me to hear the full mellow soldier chorus swelling out on “Onward Christian Soldiers, Marching as to War.” One felt that the words must have had to all of them a meaning that they never had had before.
Then the brigade formed up and was played by the village band to the market place where they were drawn up into a square with some gun carriages in the centre.
23
ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
When all was ready I mounted a gun carriage and gave my talk with all the earnestness I could muster, while the villagers congregated at one side, stood and gaped, and wondered what it was all about.
My talk had settled down into a 20-minute dis- course, and | gave variations of it as often as four times in an afternoon at places 10 miles apart. In this way one saw a good deal of the Wiltshire scenery in the late winter season. It was a never-failing source of wonder and pleasure to me to see the ivy covered banks, the ivy clad trees and the rhododendrons and holly trees in green leaf in the middle of the winter. In the garden at the back of the famous old Elizabethan house in Potterne—a perfect example of the old Tudor tim- bered style of architecture—cowslips and pansies were in full blossom, and I was told the wild violets were in flower in the woods. The trim, well kept gardens, hedges and fields of the country side and village were a continual delight to a native of Canada where every- thing in comparison looks so unfinished and in need of trimming. The winter wheat was as green as the new grass of spring time, and many of the meadows also were fairly green. Some shrubs, and in particular an unknown yellow-flowered, leafless vine, were in blos- som. I heard afterwards that it was the Jasmine.
During those January days when the sun shone fit- fully, some wonderful atmospheric effects were to be seen at times on the plains. For the painter who wanted atmosphere and light and vivid contrasts, that was the place to be, for never did I see elsewhere such wonder-
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ON SALISBURY PLAINS
ful pastel effects; never such vivid-colored banks of spray and fog.
The little straw-thatched farm houses with their small paned windows frequently filled with flowers in bloom, nestling in gardens and shrubberies and orchards, had a more or less comfortable and homey look during the day time; but at dusk when the light was failing and the lamp light shone through the windows, these farm houses took on a wonderfully attractive and romantic appearance. It made you feel like going to the door and asking for a glass of new milk or a cup of cider; and you had visions of blazing fires in the great fireplace, and brass utensils, hanging from the walls; comfy ingle nooks, old beam ceilings and ancient oak furniture; hams suspended from the kitchen ceilings, and old blue willow pattern plates on the walls. That nothing can give a house such a homelike appearance as a thatched roof and leaded panes, I am perfectly convinced.
To a Canadian the bird-life of the plain was mar- vellous. ‘There were birds by the tens of thousands. You would see crows settling on a spring wheat field on the open plain by hundreds; you would see starlings in great flocks following the plough, and gulls some- times literally covered acres of newly ploughed ground.
One day as we approached a hamlet near Netheravon, I fancied I was witnessing an optical illu- sion: the whole surface of a field was covered with black and white, vibrating as though waves were pass- ing over it. When we came nearer we saw that the field was covered so thick with gulls that the ground was hidden. The gull was a small white variety about the
25
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ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
size of a pigeon, with a black ruff around its neck. The wave-like motion was made by the birds digging away in the newly turned earth for worms and larve; judg- ing by the way they worked, they must have cleaned up millions of them.
Then there were robins, thrushes, magpies, and scores of other birds which were unfamiliar to us, while later on the larks spiralled with delirious songs into the sky. The pheasants were so tame they would scarcely get out of the way of a passing car.
Salisbury Plain had evidently been the site of many an armed camp and had probobly seen many a battle since the time of the Romans. The archeologists in charge of the unearthing of “Old Sarum,” perhaps the most ancient remains of a city in Great Britain, have, during the last ten years, found many wonderful things. Old Sarum is situated about two miles from the present city of Salisbury on the plain. It was built on the top of an enormous circular mound of earth several hun- dred yards in diameter, and was supposed to have been surrounded by the usual fosse and ditch. Roman, Saxon and. Norman remains have been, and are still being, found, as the stonework of walls and buildings is being uncovered. It is supposed that much of the original stone was used in the 12th century to build the present cathedral of Salisbury. |
One day at the opposite side of the plain toward Tinhead, Colonel (now General) Panet, of the horse artillery, took me out to see the enormous white horse cut in the chalk in the face of the hill ascending to
Salisbury Plain. The figure, representing King Al-
26
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ON SALISBURY PLAINS
fred’s famous white charger is supposed to have been carved in King Alfred’s time, to celebrate a famous vic- tory in the neighborhood. The natives have kept the figure ever since carved white on the hillside by the simple process of digging away the surface earth and sod, and leaving the underlying chalk exposed.
Stonehenge, situated in the middle of the plain, is one of the weirdest and most interesting sights of Eng- land. It consists of two series of colossal stone columns arranged in circles with the lower ends stuck in the ground, and the upper ends supporting huge slabs of stone placed across them. A few of the stones have fallen, and lie prone upon the ground. Perhaps no relics in the world have caused more ‘wonder and evoked more speculation in the lay and scientific mind than these curious stones standing in the middle of the plain, miles from any town. Books have been written about them. They are supposed to be of Phcenician origin. Each stone weighing many tons, must have been brought a great distance, and suggest the use of powerful means of transport not known to-day. Hun- dreds of thousands of people have travelled to Stone- henge and have gone away but little wiser than when they came. What the stones were for no man knows; he can only speculate and wonder.
All over the plain, too, are gently rising circular mounds called “barrows” supposed to be Roman burial places. It is against the law to dig into them or damage them in any way, just as it is unlawful to harm one of the rabbits or hares, which abound on the plains. England has laws to cover all contingencies.
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ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
In about two weeks I had completed my cam- paign, and returned to Bustard Camp where I rounded out my course by lecturing to the officers of the various infantry brigades with the exception of the Highland- ers. In this way, though the returns were not quite completed before the division left for France, it was estimated that 97 per cent. of the men had been inocu- lated against typhoid fever.
During that winter the difficulties of the medical service were very great. At the beginning of December the manor house at Bulford was obtained as a nucleus for a hospital and was equipped and manned by num- ber one general hospital. Across the way from the manor was a field which was utilized as a tent hospital for venereal diseases. Then some new cottages just being completed about 200 yards away were obtained and equipped; two other houses at different places about two miles apart were requisitioned and finally the riding school at Netheravon was taken over as well as some shacks for hospital purposes.
The hospital, therefore, consisted of six distinct units spread over a five-mile area, and all operated by the same hospital staff. It was very difficult from the standpoint of administration, though it was excellent training for the personnel of the hospital. At the begin- ning it was difficult to obtain drugs. The transportation of sick men from Pond Farm camp to Netheravon a dis- tance of about 16 miles over very rough roads in rain and cold can be better imagined than described. And yet it was the best that could be done under the circum- stances. Salisbury Plain is a great rolling field without
28
ON SALISBURY PLAINS
town or village and the places chosen were the nearest and in fact the only places, that could be found reason- ably close to the camp suitable for hospital purposes.
We had been reviewed by Lord Roberts and the King early after our arrival, and now it was rumoured that the King would review us again. Inspections of various sorts became a daily occurrence; inspectors from the War Office came down and condemned nearly everything we had including motor and horse transport, harness and other equipment. Later on we realized that it had been very wise to sacrifice a few score thousands of dollars worth of equipment in England in order that standard parts and replacements of equipment could be obtained at any time in the field and the efficiency of the force thereby maintained at all times. The authorities were much wiser than we knew.
Of course it rained on the morning of the day that the King came down to review the Division; at break- fast the rain hammered the tin roof of our mess room at Bustard Camp like so many hailstones and the out- look was most gloomy. Later on it cleared, and when the guns boomed out the royal salute announcing the ar- rival of His Majesty, the rain had entirely ceased.
A review by the King in war time is a pretty sure indication that the division will move shortly. I had an excellent point of vantage on a little hill opposite the saluting base where the King and Lord Kitchener stood. That review was the real thing. It lacked, perhaps, something of the wildness of the review that took place on the sandy plains of Valcartier, but it had a dignity that was very inspiring.
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ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
Only the division that was actually going across was reviewed. One felt that it was the last review that many of the men were ever destined to see and it seemed to be peculiarly fitting that before they left for the field of battle they should see that figure,—the head of the Empire—that stood for freedom and that intan- gible something that had made them come thousands of miles to fight and, perhaps, to die.
A young officer—Captain Klotz of the third battalion—of German descent and a very fine boy,— sat with me and chatted for a while as we watched the division march past. Although he was orderly officer of his battalion he had not been able to resist the tempta- tion to slip away for the day to see a little of the march past. Poor chap! He was killed at the second battle of Ypres three months afterwards. The first Canadian di- vision as it swung past was certainly a magnificent spec- tacle and I was quite willing to agree with a General who told me later in the day that though he had been at reviews for many years he had never seen such a fine body of men in the whole of his career. The King and Lord Kitchener both seemed to be greatly impressed with the division.
Finally the time did arrive for the division to leave and one night it disappeared—for Southampton every- body thought—though an officer who had been left be- hind sick was unable to find any trace of it later on in
the day when he arrived at that port. Certainly the
British do not tell all they know. The impedimenta left behind in camp was some- thing to marvel at, and included pianos, a Ford car,
30
ON SALISBURY PLAINS
gramophones, bayonets, rifles and many other things. Why a man should leave behind his rifle, and how he managed to do so without getting caught, will probably always remain a mystery. ‘The first Canadian Division had passed on to the great adventure in Flanders.
31
CHAPTER III
EARLY WAR DAYS IN LONDON.
N the early part of our sojourn in England I was sent
to London on duty. On the surface the city looked about as usual, except that the taxi-cabs, buildings and squares, were plastered with recruiting posters, the chief ones reading “Your King and Country need you”’ and “Enlist to-day.” After you had read them a couple of thousand times they met your eyes with no more significance than do the bricks in a wall or the people in a crowd.
London at night, however, was much different, be- cause the city wag in darkness. The system of darken- ing adopted was rather amusing, as all the squares and circuses, which in other times were most brilliantly illuminated, now were darker than the streets, the con- trast making them, to an aviator, as distinguishable as before. Later on more judgment was used in the control of lighting, as well as many other things in England.
Soldiers were plentiful on the streets and in the theatres, hotels and restaurants,—soldiers on leave from the various camps. But we were more inclined to notice the tens of thousands of physically fit men walking about in civilian clothes. * Nobody seemed particularly disturbed about the war. Kitchener was raising his army, and “the Navy, thank God! was in excellent shape. Just wait till the Spring, and Emperor Bill
32
EARLY WAR DAYS IN LONDON
would get his bumps. We are willing to go if they need us but not till they do. Why worry?”
In Clubland the difference was very marked—it had been deserted by the younger men, and the clubs sheltered only a few of the older men who had nowhere else to go. For, be it said to the eternal glory of the man-about-town,—the wealthy knut who knew little more perhaps than to run an expensive car, give ex- pensive dinners and get into trouble—the upper class drone—that he was among the first to volunteer and get into active service. Perhaps all he could do was drive a car; if so he did it—drove a London bus out at the front, or a wagon; or did anything else at which he would be useful. Many of the idle rich young men, and the majority of the young titled men of England, rose to the occasion and went out and fought and died, and many now lie buried in Flanders for the sake of Old England—for the freedom of the world.
These posters shouting for recruits somehow did not look like England; they were too hysterical; they were not effective: London, with more posters per head of population than any other city in the Empire, re- cruited men less swiftly than any other place.
Thousands of sight-seers crowded to the football matches while the newspapers vainly lashed themselves into fury. It was only when Lloyd George asked for more men, and gave convincing reasons that they were needed, that the country responded. Day by day the newspapers made the best of bad news from the front, and day by day did the readers thereof conclude that England was doing well, and they “supposed that she
33 4
ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
would bungle through.”” No man of prophetic foresight had yet risen to say ‘““This is a life and death struggle for us; we need every man in the country, and every shilling to win the war.” ‘The common talk was that we had stepped in to keep our treaty with France and to assist poor Belgium, whose neutrality had been violated. Englishmen did not feel that England’s fall was first and last the object of Germany’s ambition. They did not realize that Germany saw in England the nation which was always thwarting her and frustrating her desire for “a place in the sun.” |
Should the theatres be kept open? should German waiters be still allowed in the hotels? should German music be played at Queen’s Hall? should horse rac- ing be continued r—these were the questions whose dis- cussion occupied a considerable amount of space in the newspapers. Of course the theatres kept open, German music was played, and horse racing continued: A large section of the public had to be amused, and the liveli- hood of the actors and actresses and their relatives de- pended upon it; if all German music were eliminated there would be little left to choose from; and the im- portant racing horse industry could not be allowed to — languish on account of a mere vulgar war.
So everything went on as before war-time except that gradually the German waiters disappeared. “Business as usual” was the slogan, for the ordinary business man rather fancied that he belonged to a nation great enough to carry on war as a side issue without seriously altering its daily routine.
34
- EARLY WAR DAYS IN LONDON
For a while the big hotels and restaurants had a bad time of it, and the management of the Cecil and Savoy thought of closing down. At this trying junc-: ture Sir Sam Hughes, Minister of Militia for Canada, arrived in London and put up at the Savoy; other off- cers came to see him and stayed there also. Temporary offices were opened; men looking for contracts frequent- ed the place and the Savoy quickly became the Cana- dian headquarters in London.
Special rates for rooms were given Canadian offi- cers and it was possible to obtain a magnificently fur- nished, steam-heated room for no more than was paid at other hotels for much inferior accommodation. The Savoy Hotel, warm, comfortable and American like, located at the heart of things, close to the theatre dis- trict and the War Office, had a “homey” appeal to us, and it speedily became the centre of all things Cana- dian in London; and the patronage of the Canadians tided it over a bad financial period.
If you knew that one of your Canadian friends was in London, all you had to do was to sit in the rotunda of the Savoy and watch the door. You would be sure to see him come through those revolving doors some time during the day. In that rotunda I met men whom I went to school with, men who lived in my own city, but whom I had not seen for 20 years; others whom I met there had travelled all over creation since I had last seen them. It soon got to be quite the natural thing to meet old friends in this way.
In theatre land the problem play had disappeared as if by magic. Several attempts to revive former suc-
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ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
cesses of this type proved absolute failures and the plays were quickly withdrawn; now there were real tragedies to think about, and the old threadbare, domestic tri- angle disappeared from the boards. Revues and musi- cal comedies succeeded, and ““The Man Who Stayed at Home” a war spy play was a tremendous success, as were the comedies “When Knights Were Bold” and “Potash and Perlmutter.” To be a success a play had to have the merit of real comedy, or touch some national sensibility of the moment.
No new great literature had appeared, nor had the tragedy of the world yet brought forth any great poetry. Monographs on special phases of German character, thought and culture, were plentiful in the bookstalls, and translations of Bernhardi and Treitschke sold in vast numbers.
The love of music, so strong in England, was shown by the crowded attendances at the Queen’s Hall and the Albert Hall concerts. A good deal of Russian music was heard, the Russian National Anthem being played on every possible occasion. At the Christmas season not a seat was empty at any of the presentations of the Messiah at Albert Hall. Yet curiously enough Eng- land had banished her military bands, one of the most effective aids to recruiting, and it was only after a violent newspaper controversy on the subject had taken place that she used them again.
Down in the city in Cheapside scarcely a uniform was to be seen; the heart of ancient London seemed to beat as usual. In the theatre district at night, particu- larly on the Strand, Leicester Square and Piccadilly
36
EARLY WAR DAYS IN LONDON
Circus, crowds of women promenaded as usual, like spiders hunting for their prey. And the prey was there too, wanting to be hunted.
This is one of the great tragedies of London,—the terrible maelstrom of fallen humanity which is allowed to circulate there year after year, sweeping into its vortex tens and hundreds of thousands of boys and girls, who, but for it, might and probably would escape. In war time when soldiers were involved, it was more ter- rible than ever, for the results, as the medical men saw them, were disastrous from the military standpoint alone.
From this great ulcer in the heart of London a dealy poison passes far and wide-into the national organism. The ulcer is there still for the knife of some strong man to excise, for there is little doubt that though restrictions will not prevent vice, it is equally true that making vice open, enticing and easy, increases it.
During that first winter, tickets for the theatre were sold at half price to men in uniform. On the other hand, an officer’s uniform seemed to be the signal for increased prices in the shops, particularly in the smaller ones. A London physician, an officer, told me that when he went shopping he always dressed in civilian clothes because it was so much more economical to shop as a civilian.
The badge “Canada” of; course, had been the badge for high prices from the day we landed in Ply- mouth. It was “Canada, our emblem dear” in very truth. It was well known that the Canadian Tommy received a dollar and ten cents a day, whereas the Bri-
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ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
tish Tommy received only 25 cents, and it was assumed that officers were correspodingly better paid than the British officer, while as a matter of fact, we received less, rank for rank. The question of overcharging Canadans became such a scandal that later on it was brought up in the House of Commons in an endeavour to fix prices for certain commodities in the Canadian Shorncliffe area.
The story is told of a Canadian going into a store and asking the youngster in charge the price of some article. The youngster called up stairs and the answer came back Is. 10d. “But it is a Canadian” said the child; “Oh, 2s. 6d.” came back the answer.
The war in France was but faintly felt in England in those early days. ‘There had been no invasion of English soil such as had galvanized France into a united endeavour to repel the invader. No Zeppelins had yet dropped bombs on England. Great Britain had sent an expedition to France,—‘An Expeditionary Force.” — it was called. The very name did not seem even to suggest a nation in arms. And yet away down under- neath it all England was uneasy. Well-informed people whose sons were at the front knew the seriousness of the whole business. Casualties had returned in large numbers, and the rolls of honour published showed the terrible hammering England’s wonderful little army was being subjected to on the continent. Those despised Germans had made great headway, and there were doubts as to whether the French were sufficiently well equipped to stand the tremendous pressure put upon them.
38
EARLY WAR DAYS IN LONDON
The battle off Chili had only been wiped out. by Sturdee’s victory, and the exploits of certain raiders and submarines made the Briton realize that the control of the oceans of the earth was a big undertaking. ‘The rallying of the colonies to his assistance touched him greatly, and made him feel proud; on the other hand, strikes for higher pay in munition factories and ship yards angered and disgusted him.
There was no great leadership anywhere, and the Englishman in his heart of hearts knew it. Lloyd George, whom he acknowledged to be the only genius in the Government, he either idolized or cursed, accord- ing to whether he approved of his socialistic ideas or not. Englishmen I talked to, even in France later on, fairly foamed at the mouth when the little Welshman’s name was mentioned, and refused to read the “Times” which they said was run by “that traitor Northcliffe.” It was all very interesting to us, who hoped against hope that the man who to our perspective was the one great man of vision would be given the opportunity to become the man of action.
It was whea one reached the heart of things, the War Office, that one began to realize the undercurrents which were being set up in the national life as a result of the war. In the court yard of the War Office, which was carefully guarded by policemen, were large num- bers of women, young and old, waiting for news of son or husband, wounded or killed. The looks on their faces were sufficient evidence of tragedies which were increas- ing from day to day, and which would eventually waken England. Inside the door was a reception room where
39
ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
those who had business of any sort showed their cre- dentials, signed the necessary form, and were sent on to the various departments to charge of a boy scout. Cots in the corridors, and specially walled-off offices indicated the expansion going on in the various depart- ments.
The war office authorities were going at the prob- lem in hand is a most unbusiness like way as far as the enlisting of recruits was concerned but already had 800,000 men in training in England. Those in train- ing were not even equipped with rifles and uniforms.
After all the fault-finding in Canada before we left about the slowness in getting us away it was interesting to learn that our contingent had probably been more quickly outfitted and prepared for the field than any other territorial or militia unit in the Empire.
In the course of my stay I dined at many of the famous London restaurants, but the larger ones were usually empty and depressing. One had to eat some- where and one might as well take every\possible oppor- tunity of seeing this phase of life in London in war time. One night at the “Carlton” there were not twenty others present; even the waiters seemed to be dejected, probably at the falling off of their revenue from tips, and we left as soon as possible and went over to the Royal Automobile Club in search of something brighter. There we found a cheery log fire and sat in front of it until early morning, talking of the war.
One heard the Russian and French national an- thems very frequently, not only in the streets, but in the theatres and public performances, such as those in
40
EARLY WAR DAYS IN LONDON
Queen’s Hall. The finest playing of any national anthem that I have ever listened to was the London Symphony Orchestra’s rendering of The Russian National Anthem one Monday night with Safanoff conducting; it was sublime. I had heard the same number on the preceding day in the same hall by another orchestra and the difference was remarkable; —the first one sounding like an amateur organization in comparison. No orchestra ever impressed me as did the London Symphony Orchestra, with the possible exception of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
To be in London, not sixty miles from the firing line, in a city firmly convinced of coming Zeppelin raids and prepared for naval raids, and find the press discuss- ing the plays and the music of the day seemed strange indeed. It must have made the men in the trenches nearly mad to realize that while they were fighting under the most adverse conditions day by day and being killed in the defence of their homeland, there were 30,- 000 slackers at one football match at home.
England is a strange country. We felt that per- haps if a force of 50,000 or 100,000 Germans would land in England she would waken from the long sleep she had slept since her shores had been invaded by William the Conqueror. 30,000 men could watch a football match at the very moment the British line in Flanders was actually so thin that if the Germans had tried to advance there was nothing to stop them. For- tunately, for the moment, the enemy, too, was exhausted and before he could recuperate our reinforcements had arrived. |
41
ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
The dying session of parliament was worth going to see; Bonar Law, Beresford, McKenna, and Winston Churchill spoke. The latter made his defence of the Navy which was as famous and as reassuring to the country as Kitchener’s statement in the house of Lords the day before had been in regard to the Army. Mr. Bonar Law was the smoothest of the speakers; Church- ill gave one the impression of having much force of character, despite his stuttering, but Bonar Law was the man you felt could be trusted to look upon any proposition with coolness and play the safe game for his country.
When the House was adjourned until February 2nd, there were very few members left. This closing of the House of Parliament after a three weeks’ session
in war time and after the raising of billions of dollars —
of war loan by public subscription was remarkable for its simplicity. There was no fuss or feathers, no music or formality. The members just strolled out— those that happened to be there.
From the great window of the Savoy Hotel, I watched the funeral of Lord Roberts, the national hero. The Thames embankment could be seen, but, though a garden of not fifty yards in width separated the build- ing from the embankment, the fog was thick enough to make the people as indistinct as though they had been half a mile away. Beyond the embankment the grey wall of fog shut out everything but an occasional gull which flitted out for a moment and disappeared again.
The embankment road was lined with Highland
42
__ es = aw ~
EARLY WAR DAYS IN LONDON
soldiers in khaki greatcoats and Scotch caps, drawn up in quarter companies, while on either side of the road stood a solid black wall of humanity—waiting, some with umbrellas up to protect them from the fine drizzle. Not a hundred yards away Cleopatra’s needle stood like a tall sentinel in the mist, and one wondered what tales of battle and heroic deeds it could tell, if it could speak. One could imagine that during the long ages it must have witnessed other magnificent funerals of kings and heroes, and smiled, perhaps, at the brevity of human life.
The silence was broken by the long roll of kettle- drums, and the strains of Chopin’s funeral march floated to us through the heavy air; sadder than ever before they seemed to me, and yet, too, more dignified than ever before. Then along the embankment, past Cleopatra’s needle, the head of the procession burst up through the fog as though coming out of the ground.
The band came first, followed by the London Scot- tish with arms reversed, the brass butts of the guns visible before the soldiers themselves, making a curious reflection in the fog.
Then followed other regiments of infantry, squad- rons of horses, Indian troops with strangely-laden mules, guns; then, more cavalry. The horses sent out great spurts of steam from their nostrils into the cold raw air.
Then a space, and the funeral car drawn by six horses with riders approached. The coffin, covered with a Union Jack, looked very small, and a big lump came into my throat as I realized that this was all that
43°
ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
remained of the great little soldier, whose motor car not three weeks before at Salisbury Plain had stopped be- side mine, and whose deeply seamed and furrowed face I had studied with the greatest interest, remarking then that he looked very, very old.
After the car, the General’s horse, with boots re-: versed in the stirrups, was led,—riderless.
Next came a dozen or more coaches bearing the mourners, including the King, and the pall-bearers, one of whom was Lord Kitchener. Squadron after squad- ron of cavalry filed past two and two, until one felt the procession was never going toend. The fog thinned somewhat, and a tug and scow whirled past down the river on the rapidly flowing tide, disappearing again into the mist.
As the last horses Paebealicoeta the crowd began to move; motor cars appeared; and the cortege of one of the ereatest British generals passed on to St. Paul’s, the last resting place of the great soldiers and sailors of the Empire.
One felt that Lord Roberts was greater than all those soldiers who had gone before him, for his life had been without blemish. Seldom—indeed, never before —had any British soldier or statesman the opportunity to say to the nation “I told you so.” For ten years with- out avail, Lord Roberts had been warning the nation about the great need of being prepared for a war that was bound to come; he had tried by every possible means to wake it from its sleep and had failed; and when the great war came as he said it would, he offered no word in the way or reproach or self glorification,
44
EARLY WAR DAYS IN LONDON
but bent all his energies to help his Empire to his utmost in the hour of her greatest need. And although he “passed over” before victory had come to us, he had seen enough to know that the ultimate result would bring security to the Empire and freedom to the human race.
CHAPTER IV.
DAYS WHEN THINGS WENT WRONG.
NE day things went wrong; they are always going
wrong in the army,—that is part of the game. It takes a considerable portion of an officer’s time correct- ing mistakes of brother officers; otherwise there wouldn’t be much to do in peace times.
Well, as I was saying, things went wrong. We had been on the qui vive for two weeks, expecting a telegram from the war office to leave for France. We had every- thing ready to pack aboard the motor truck in one hour. Then, by diligent enquiry, we discovered that our truck was to go to France when a spare convoy of trucks went over.
The Colonel in charge at Bulford Camp said it would not be this week—there might possibly be a convoy going over the next week or the week after— or next month—he could not really say when. He had a letter from the war office on his desk about the matter and would notify us at the earliest possible moment.
We went away tearing our hair out, and we have no superfluous hair to lose. We held a council of war. We leaped into our trusty car and sped swiftly into Salisbury. The Canadian General, the object of our quest, had just left for Shorncliff and would be back, perhaps, in two or three days. We hunted for the A.A. & Q.M.G. of the 2nd Canadian Division. After searching the register of three hotels we ran across an
46
DAYS WHEN THINGS WENT WRONG
officer who said that the A.A. & Q.M.G. had also gone to Shorncliff. We had arrived too late to obtain assis- tance from this quarter.
As it was now after 7 o’clock we had to have dinner. This was on ordeal for we hated the Salisbury hotels; they had been so crowded that winter with Canadian officers and their wives that the proprietors had lost their heads. They didn’t care whether they served you or not. One of them even paid a “boots” to stand at the door and insult possible guests, the idea being to turn as many away as possible. The hotel keepers must have heaped up untold wealth that winter, and the abundance of custom had ruined their sense of hospi- tality.
So we discarded the idea of a hotel dinner. We referred to our chauffeur, who was “some chauffeur, believe me.” “What about that little chop house (‘The Silver Grill’) which he had frequently lauded with ful- some praise?” He did not now wax enthusiastic—a point we noted, and of which we found the explanation —but he drove us there.
The Silver Grill was a curious old place, with winding stair-case, ancient beamed ceilings in the smok- ing-room, and a general appearance indicating that it had seen service at least two hundred years. Climbing to the attic, we entered a little dining room, perhaps twenty feet long, with room for about sixteen diners. The tables were occupied chiefly by officers, and we took the settee next the wall and ordered the chef d’ceuvre—a steak smothered in onions, and French fried potatoes.
47
ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
Norah, the one serving maid, a pretty little thing, was evidently a great favorite with the habituees of the place. The wife of the proprietor was a handsome big woman dressed in a close fitting black frock, with the figure of a Venus de Milo. She hovered about talking to the men and acting “mother” to them all. One officer was plainly “overseas”. The landlady watched him like a sister, got him to put his hat and coat on properly and steered him past the smoking-room and bar to the front door, and she was careful to explain to us two, knowing we were Canadians, “I have never seen Captain X like that before. You know we have be- come very fond of the Canadians. Poor Lt.—who was killed last week came to wish me good-bye.” And, dropping into a chair beside us, she talked of this and that Canadian officer; of how nearly all the medical men and veterinary officers had dined at the Grill; she told us also about her three children, including the baby which was now eight months old and could talk.
By this time all the diners had gone except one, a civilian, sitting in the farthest corner of the room. The land-lady had again begun to talk about the Cana- dians, when the civilian suddenly interrupted sneer- ingly “The Canadians! what good are theyre An ex- pense to the country. What have they doner If I had my way I’d hang every one of them.”
For a moment we were petrified with anger. “What do you mean?” I finally managed to demand.
“Oh! you know” he sneered.
“No I don’t” I returned; “that is strange talk; you will have to explain yourself.”
48
DAYS WHEN THINGS WENT WRONG
“T don’t need to explain anything” he said.
“Then allow me to tell you that you are a d— liar” put in Captain E— glaring at the man ferocious- ly; “I say you are a d— liar” repeated the Captain with greater emphasis and deliberation.
But the cad was very thick-skinned; he made not the slightest show of resentment at the opprobrious epithet. So we got up and walked over to him.
“You miserable shrimp” said Captain E— as he stood over the fellow with hands a-twitching to take hold of him. “You mean, skulking coward, to talk like that of men who have come over to fight in the place of wretched gutter-snipes and quitters like you.”
“Three of us here are Canadians” I added, ‘“‘and if you will be so accomodating as to step outside, any one of us will be delighted to give you the darndest licking you ever got in your life.”
The skulker didn’t even move. Captain E— got worked up to the point of explosion as he watched the fellow unconcernedly keep on'eating. “You snivelling cur “I’ve a good mind to rub your face in that gravy, by G— I will rub it in that gravy!” exploded the Cap- tain, and in the instant he seized the dinner-plate in one hand and the fellow’s head in the other and brought them quickly together, rubbing the man’s chin and nose _ briskly round and round in the mixture of congealing gravy and potatoes.
“Be very careful what you are about” sputtered the creature, looking up when Captain E— had desisted, and wiping the streaming grease from his face with his pocket-handkerchief.
49 5
ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
It was tremendously ludicrous; the utter spine- lessness of the creature so at variance with the boastful scorn of his previous words and tone so obviously showed him to be a coward that all we could do was laugh and turn away. You could no more think of strik- ing that weak, backboneless nr oivgne than of hitting a six months’ old baby.
We tendered the landlady a sovereign in payment for our dinner, but she only kept eying with intense anger and dita and shame this wretched specimen of a fellow-countryman who had wantonly insulted two of her colonial guests in her house and in her presence. During the gravy-rubbing performance she had run downstairs to tell her husband in case there should be a “scene,” and he had retailed the story to the crowd of “select patrons” gathered in the little smoking-room. Again we called the lady’s attention to the proffered coin, but in her agitation, it took her at least five minutes to total our bill correctly.
We offered our apologies for our forcible language, but she considered no apology necessary. “You were insulted in my house” she said, ‘“‘and I admire you for the stand you took. That man will never enter this place again.” Following us downstairs she begged us to step into the smoking-room “just a minute, to see that all our customers are not like that one” and when she thought we were not going to accede to her request she laid a hand on my arm and almost beseeched me to come back and have a cup of coffee or something to drink.
Her husband, a fine looking, tall, curly-headed
50
DAYS WHEN THINGS WENT WRONG
Englishman, seconded her invitation, and we went back to the smoking-room. As we entered, every man stood up and bowed, and several made room for us. They had heard the story, and, by their reception of us they tried to show that they strongly disapproved of their countryman’s insult to the colonials.
A few minutes afterwards, the clock struck nine, and the doors were closed upon all but Captain Ellis and myself. Nothing was too good for us, and to the accompaniment of numerous cups of coffee, brought by Norah, we talked away till ten o’clock. Both the land- lord and his wife walked out to our car with us, and continued to offer their regrets for the treatment which we had received. |
By the time we got “home” we were fairly cooled off, and we went to bed that night with the proud feel- ing that we had saved the name of Canada.
Another time “things went wrong” was one Satur- day afternoon when we took a half-day off. It was not that we needed the holiday from overwork, because, for two weeks, three of the four of us had been doing nothing. The fourth man, a captain of Highland de- scent, had, unlike the rest of us, really been working hard. Yet we all needed the holiday, for loafing any- where is usually the hardest work in the world; but loafing on the edge of Salisbury Plain with little to see was work even harder than the hardest. Napoleon is said to have remarked that “war is made up of short _ periods of intense activity followed by much longer periods of enforced idleness” or something to that effect. Of the “intense activity” of war we as yet had had no
51
ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
experience but with “enforced idleness,” we were all
too distressingly familiar. In civilian life we had been very busy men; and here we had been plunged into a world where for months at a time there was almost nothing to do—and what was worse, there was no place to go to and forget about it.
So, after a hard two-week’s work doing nothing, we studied the map and decided that the sea was within easy range of our four-cylinder thirty. Accordingly we struck out for the sea, followed the track of the little river Avon, which flows past Salisbury Plain, through Amesbury and the ancient city of Salisbury and empties into the British channel at Christchurch.
It was a glorious March afternoon, with intervals of brilliant sunshine; the roads were good, and we rolled along through the little English villages with their thatched-roofs, at a speed which quickly brought us to the New Forest. All of a sudden a strange, famil- lar tang in the air thrilled us. Every man sat instantly erect and gulped down, in wonderment at his own ac- tion, a succession of great, deep satisfying breaths: And then the explanation broke from two of us at the same moment, “Canada!” It was the familiar Cana- dian smell of the autumn forest fires that had for the moment penetrated from the outward senses to the in- most soul of each and it left us for the moment just the least bit homesick.
Less than an hour and a half brought us to the prosperous city of Bournemouth, filled with the omni- present ‘““Tommy.” The sea looked mighty good to us, for we hadn’t seen it since our landing in October,
52-
Rate am =
DAYS WHEN THINGS WENT WRONG
though we had seen plenty of water—rain water—since. We raced our car along the beach, got out and snap- .shotted one another, admired the views, and cut up generally like a gang of boys let loose from school. Then somebody said “tea,” and we drove to a little rather suspicious looking “Pub” on the beach.
There we got tea and toast but we didn’t stay long, for out of the window we could see the chauffeur under- cross-fire of a policeman, and in England that always means trouble.
An itinerant dog fancier had two diminutive “Nor- wegian truffle ’unters’”’ which he was anxious to part with, but we couldn’t wait to talk to him. Nor had we time to ask him whether truffle growing was an industry in Norway, or whether the substituting of dogs for pigs in hunting truffles was a recent innovation.
The Cop had been watching for us from across the way, and we were hardly out when he was already upon us.” “Excuse me, sir, but you ’aven’t a hidentification number on your car” said the Cop.
“We have not” I replied, “what is the sense of hav- ing a number?”
“To hidentify the car, sir,” said the Cop.
“Can’t you identify the car with that label on” I queried, pointing to the bonnet upon which was a label reading: Canadian Government; the car also had three O.H.M.S. signs upon it.
“Our orders is, sir, to see that all cars on ’is Majesty’s service ave Hidentification numbers”’ persist- ed the Cop.
‘We are very sorry,” I replied, “that we had our
53
ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
identification all printed out so that you could read it, instead of getting a number; it was stupid of us.”
“Orders is orders” said the Cop.
“You people make me sick” suddenly broke in Mac. “We came over here to fight for you and all you do for us is make it as damned disagreeable as possible; you are a miserable people.”
“Pardon me, sir” said the Cop softly, “I thought I was speaking to a gentleman.”’ During the contro- versy we had got into our car and without ceremony we drove off, leaving behind us a discomfited policeman. Fortunately Mac had not heard the parting remark of the policeman. Had he done so it is doubtful if we would have left Bournemouth that night, for heaven only knows what would have happened to that police- man. When I chaffed him by repeating the police- man’s sally when we were a mile away, Mac was for a moment knocked speechless with anger, then be begged us to go back and help him find the policeman.
Having escaped the arm of the law we went fora little drive about town, with its wonderful shops: the shops of Bournemouth are the best I have seen in Eng- land, and are rivalled only by those of Glasgow. Then we drew up at the best hotel in town—‘“‘The Royal Bath Hotel,” which, with its long low facade and its lack of upper stories looked more like a luxurious club house than a modern hotel.
The main lounge was something to marvel at. Apparently it had been given over to a band of decora- tors and furnishers gone delirious, for the evidence of their delirium was to be seen on every side. The walls
54 ‘
DAYS WHEN THINGS WENT WRONG
were all broken up: One wall was covered with hang- ings; two parts of the remainder had an upper border of hand-painted men in battle array; a glass wall through which the dining-room could be seen made a third; and the fourth was occupied by a balcony from which one descended scarlet carpeted stairways into the room. :
The woodwork was a hideous golden-oak. ‘The ceiling was broken by a series of beams radiating un- evenly from one annular space, in all directions, and with no apparent design. The furniture was rattan and plush, upholstered and plain, and was crowded to- gether with a few writing tables scattered here and there. It was a discordant orgie of decorative effects and the result was unutterably depressing. é
We sank into chairs and gazed about us in awe. No hotel had ever affected any of us like this before. At first we talked in whispers; then as our courage revived, we became critical. Then somebody thought of having a “‘Scoot’’; tremulously he pressed the button for the waiter. The waiter came and they had two ‘“Scoots” each. Then somebody made a funny remark and one of us laughed out loud. Suddenly the laugher stopped and said, “I feel as if I ought not to laugh; I feel that nobody ever laughed in this place before.”
Dinner time approached. Old ladies in wonderful dresses began to appear, followed by old English gentle- men in dress clothes. The dining-room began to fill up. We decided to wait till the room was nearly full before going in so that we could get an idea of the fashionable watering place people of England. Somebody thought
55
ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
that it would be as well to reserve a table, and Captain R— was deputed to do so. In fifteen minutes he came back twisting his black moustache and looking de- pressed.
“Nothing doing,” he reported in disappointment.
“What!” we cried.
“Nothing doing” he repeated mechanically. “We may possibly get a table after 8.30.”
“Do you mean to say” cried Mac, jumping from his chair in a rage, “that we can’t get anything to eat?” Captain R— nodded. “Let’s leave this d— morgue; I hate it anyway” stormed Mac, and we filed sadly out.
In the hall we had a try with the head clerk, and another with the head waiter, but it was no use. “Guests must be served first’ was the only argument; pointing out that there were a dozen tables yet unset made no difference. Our chauffeur had gone, so we left our address for him, ordered a taxi, and drove to the Bur- lington Hotel two miles away. Before dismissing the taxi we took the precaution of seeing that we could get dinner, and finding that the hotel authorities agreed to furnish us with a meal we clambered out; after divest- ing ourselves of our overcoats we were ushered into a dining room crowded with beautiful women and, mostly, ugly men. There were some hummers among the women. }
The relief at the change from the dismal, delirious- ly-decorated hotel to this bright, cheery room, was so great that we suddenly grew exceedingly gay and en- joyed ourselves hugely. A little concert afterwards add-
56
DAYS WHEN THINGS WENT WRONG
ed to the enjoyment, which was only slightly marred by a bill for forty-two shillings.
Our homeward journey was through little villages all asleep, and silent as the adjacent churchyards; and as we two tumbled into our cots at midnight we voted that we had spent ‘‘a fine day” in spite of the mischiev- ous tendency of things “‘to go wrong.”
Another of these “days” came later. We had been waiting at Bulford Cottage for three weeks for orders from the war office to leave for France, and we were growing decidedly fidgety. The fine weather feeling of Spring in the air may have had something to do with our restlessness. ‘The buds were swelling on the great trees near by, and the leaves had actually broken from their bonds on some of the hedges. The air was full of bird songs; the lark in particular seemed to be mad with the joy of springtime. At Bulford Manor I had picked the first wall-flowers in bloom in the open garden; Ro- -man Hyacinths, Daffodils, Snowdrops, English daisies, and another little unfamiliar white flower were in blossom, and even the Japonica was bursting into scarlet against the sunny walls.
It was a pleasant time for loafing and under any other circumstances we would have enjoyed it; but this was war time. Already our Canadian Division had been at the front for four weeks and here were we doing nothing, when we might have been making ourselves useful at the front. The war office was advertising for “one hundred sanitary officers who would be of vital service to the force in the field” and here were two of us, with long experience in practical sanitation and
57
ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
eager to make use of that experience, idling in the valley of the Avon on Salisbury Plain.
Our chief was in France, and in our impatience we concluded that something had gone wrong at the war office in regard to our little unit. The only way to find out was to go to London; so we set out,—the Medical Officer of Health of Ottawa, Captain Lomer; the provincial bacteriologist of Alberta, Captain Ran- kin; and myself. We left Bulford at eleven o’clock, or to be precise, at five minutes to eleven. We stopped twenty minutes at Andover to send a cablegram, and were held up at a level crossing for five minutes. At one thirty we passed the official centre of London, Hyde Park corner, and were having our dinner in the Mar- guereta Restaurant in Oxford Street at a quarter to two. We therefore had covered the distance of ninety-eight miles in two hours and fifteen minutes actual travelling time, or at an average speed of nearly forty-four miles an hour. At one time our indicator registered sixty- five miles an hour and for quite a number of miles we travelled steadily at fifty-six miles an hour. Of course this was in England, where roads are as smooth as as- phalt and where raised or sunken culverts, the curse of motorists, are unknown.
We did enjoy that Bohemian dinner. We had all the things that one does not have in a military mess on Salisbury Plain. Hors d’ceuvres, salad, fish, duck, and so forth. We were just finishing, and had lit our cigar- ettes while waiting for coffee, when the door porter came in and whispered to Captain Rankin that a police- man had our chauffeur in charge and wanted to see one
58
—
DAYS WHEN THINGS WENT WRONG
of us. The doughty Captain went out, and came back in a minute to say that the cop wanted him to go to the police station and explain why we did not haveanumber on our motor. He also added that there was a number of people around the car. “What did you tell hime” I asked. “I said I would go after I had finished my dinner,” said the Captain, which seemed to me quite Canadian and reasonable.
He had not raised his cup to his lips when the same porter tapped him a second time on the shoulder, with “Beg pardon, sir, but the officer says he can’t wait.” We were grieved, and looked it.
“Tt’s very unreasonable,” said the Captain, “to dis- turb us at dinner like this.”
“Tf we don’t go now I guess it will take a good deal longer to get the car away from the police station,” I said. “Besides, supposing Rad has cheeked them and they lock him up, we won’t be able to get back till to- morrow. None of us can run the car well enough to get out of London without getting into a smash up.” So saying, I put on my coat and sallied forth.
Before I got to the front door I could tell there was something doing, for the restaurant windows were filled with diners standing on chairs. —Through a vacant space I could see a great crowd and two policemen’s helmets standing up above the middle of the throng. They con- siderately opened a passage up for me to the two police- men who were standing beside the car with Rad at the wheel looking quite unconcerned.
“What is the matter?” I demanded.
“Your car has no number on it,” said a policeman.
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ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
It was so similar to our experience the week before at Bournemouth that I smiled inwardly, and went through the same formula.
‘Why should a government car have a number?” I asked.
‘To identfy it, sir, those are our orders, sir.”
“Can’t you identify that car?” I asked. “It says, written in big letters on the front, “Canadian Govern- ment, Divisional Headquarters,” in case you can’t read! The car belongs to the Canadian Government. We are waiting to go to France; we came into London less than an hour ago on business to the War Office. Is there anything. more you want?”
‘We would like the chauffeur’s name,” said the cub policeman, who had caused the trouble. I spelled it out to him three times; it sounded very German, but he said nothing.”
Then in turn I took out my note book and took the numbers of the policemen. The crowd had listened with great interest, and were evidently against the policemen. A boy looked under a policeman’s arm and grinned; I winked at him covertly, and he went into a paroxysm of laughter. Then with dignity I got into the car and we drove off to the bank, leaving behind the discomfited policemen and a crowd of several hundred people.
‘Where did the cop get hold of you, Rad?” I en- quired.
“Over on Bond Street,” he said, “he insisted on my going to the police station with him. “AIlI right,” I said, “jump in, and he did so. I knew where the police
60
DAYS WHEN THINGS WENT WRONG
station was in a street off Oxford Street, but when we got to the street I passed it. The officer called out, but I didn’t hear him. At the next corner he yelled again, but I got in front of a convenient bus.”
“Why didn’t you turn there,” he said.
“Then you would have had a real charge against me,” I said, “for breaking the rules of traffic.”
Finally he asked “‘Are you going to turn or note” and I said “I guess we will turn here and turned around, stopping in front of the Marguereta Restaurant.”
“What are you stopping for?” he asked.
“The officers who are in charge of the car are in there at their dinner,” I said, “you had better speak to them. Gee, he was mad.”
All the rest of the afternoon I chuckled with de- light at the picture of the anger of that cub six foot two policeman as he was being whirled along Oxford Street against his will, to a restaurant he did not want to go to, to meet people he didn’t want to see.
61
CHAPTER V.
THE LOST CANADIAN LABORATORY.
T the War Office in London, in the autumn of
1914, I met Captain Sydney Rowland of the staff of the Lister Institute. He was a man who had made a reputation in the scientific world and had just been authorized by the British War Office to purchase a huge motor caravan to be equipped as a mobile labora- tory. The caravan had been built originally by a weal- thy automobile manufacturer at a cost of 5,000 pounds, and had been completely equipped for living in while touring the country. It even had a little kitchen, and the whole affair was lined with aluminium. Tiring of it, the builder had sold it to a bookmaker who used it for less legitimate purposes.
Captain Rowland had heard of this machine and finally located and purchased it. All the expensive in- terior was torn out and replaced with work benches and sinks, while shelves and racks were provided for glassware and apparatus. It was a beautifully equipped, compact machine, and he was justly proud of it.
When he took it over to France he drove it up to the army area himself, and told me that as he ap- proached the front through villages and towns at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour he had an absolutely unimpeded road. After one look at this huge affair, which was about the size of one of our large moving vans, bearing down on them like a runaway house,
62
a ~ >
THE LOST CANADIAN LABORATORY
people fled or took to the side roads. Captain Rowland described with great glee the sensation it had caused, and his enjoyment of that drive.
That was the first mobile laboratory, the beginning of the field laboratories and the model upon which all others were constructed. The list of equipment pre- pared and used by Captain Rowland was also used as the basis for the requirements for all mobile labora- tories subsequently equipped. A second bacteriological laboratory and two hygiene laboratories were sent out before permission was obtained from the Director of the Canadian Medical Service, to send out a Canadian laboratory. For some unexplained reason the Cana- dian Government refused the necessary funds for the chassis so that we were compelled to pack our equip- ment in twenty-four numbered cases, all of which could be carried on a three-ton motor lorry. I had discovered that the officers in charge of these laboratories at the front had already found them too small to work in comfortably, and had removed and placed the equip- ment in some convenient house, using the lorry merely to carry their equipment. We were able to carry twice as complete an equipment, costing altogether less than $2,000 in a borrowed lorry, and saved the cost of $10,- 000 for the motor chassis.
When the first Canadian Division went to ‘Badioe.
No. | Canadian General Hospital had been left be-
hind on Salisbury Plain, to take care of the sick. It had been decided that I was to go to France in com- mand of the Canadian Mobile Laboratory, and that I should take with me two officers and several men from
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ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
the staff of that hospital. The Lozier car which had been given me by the Canadian Government was also to go as part of the equipment. After working in the office of the Director of Medical Services for a couple of weeks straightening out the records in regard to ty- phoid inoculation, and cerebro-spinal meningitis, and in purchasing the necessary equipment, I received word that the laboratory was to go to the front immediately. The Surgeon-General accordingly made all the neces- sary arrangements, and left for France, while I went down to Bulford to wait for the expected telegram which was to speed us on our way.
We waited over three weeks for the message, grow- ing more and more desperate every day. Finally we went up to London and found that somebody had made a mistake and that we were supposed to be in France long ago. We were instructed to leave on the second day following.
The men were all greatly excited at the good news. We had a farewell dinner that night at the mess, which assumed a somewhat convivial character, and when I left to drive two visitors into Salisbury, the hospital dentist was making a rambling, tearful plea to a few hilarious auditors, on behalf of Ireland, while the great majority were paying no more attention to him than if he did not exist.
Next morning with our equipment, men and car, we set out for Southampton, amid the envious fare- wells of our brother officers, whose call had not yet come. Everything was loaded on board the transport
64
MAJOR-GENERAL M. S. MERCER, C.B.
Former Officer Commanding Third Canadian Division. Killed in action, June, 1916,
“a
THE LOST CANADIAN LABORATORY
at noon, and late in the afternoon we left for Havre, accompanied by two torpedo boat destroyers.
After some delay at the Havre docks for petrol, we got away and reported our arrival at one of the rest camps on the outskirts of the city. Our elation at hav- ing finally arrived in France was marred. only by the news that we would probably be detained at the base for two or three days. Having been informed that the Hotel Tortoni was the liveliest place in town to stay, and not to go there on any account, we went and con- cluded that we had been the victims of a practical joke, for we had not seen anything so dull in all our lives; it was as dull and as good as a hotel at Chautauqua. There was more “‘life” to be seen in an English hotel in a minute than one could see in the Hotel Tortoni in a month.
As there were no theatres or concerts to go to and nothing else to do, we went to bed in the chilliest bed- rooms that I had ever been in up to that time. I soon learned that French hotel bedrooms in winter have the same cold, clammy feeling as the interior of refrigera- tor cars in summer. ‘This accounts, perhaps, for the French being a hot-blooded people.
Of all the cities of the world that it has been my privilege to visit, the city of Havre is the dirtiest, the ugliest, and the least interesting. We could find no public buildings with even the slightest pretence to beauty, and the rest of the city was as dull and com- mercial as it is possible for a seaport town to be; one can say little more than that, in consideration of any city. With the exception of the docks and the casino there is
65
ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
nothing of interest, and even the casino, like all the casinos in France, had been converted into a hospital.
After two days of killing time, our orders came through to leave for the front, two of us to go by motor and the rest by train. Our experience with the British officer at the base had certainly been pleasant and proved to be a happy augury of our future relationships with them. The British officer in France is quite a different man from the same officer in England, and does not impress you with the fact that the war is being carried on by his individual efforts. |
At the base we learned for the first time that we had been a great source of anxiety to some of the officials of the British army three weeks before, when the war office had announced our departure from England. When we had failed to report our arrival at Havre the author- ities had assumed that we, being Canadians and more or less independent, had gone off on a little trip of our own into the interior of France. In their efforts to locate us they had telegraphed far and wide; conse- quently when we did arrive everybody knew of us as “The Lost Canadian Laboratory” and seemed to be quite pleased that we had been found. When anything goes astray in the army it causes a tremendous amount of consternation and trouble until it is located; the easiest thing to lose is a soldier in hospital but as he can talk this matter usually rights itself sooner or later.
The morning on which we set out on our first day’s “march” to the front was misty and raw, and motoring was very cold. Even this early in the season—mid March, 1915—the fields were being ploughed, but the
66
THE LOST CANADIAN LABORATORY
ploughing and harrowing was being done by women, old men and boys. Hardly one able-bodied man was to be seen, the contrast with England in this respect at that time being very marked. A crowd of schoolboys pleading for souvenirs were made to earn them and amuse us by running races while we had a tire replaced.
The banks on the roadside were yellow with the first primroses, and patches of golden daffodils could be seen in the woods, though spring seemed to be far enough away that chilly day. It was characteristic of one’s experience in France that, as we sat down to din- ner that evening in an Abbeville hotel I had beside me an officer in the British army who had been in Canada for a number of years and who had, during that time, been a frequent caller at my home in Toronto. The spontaneous manner in which the two of us rose and rushed at each other with outstretched arms would have done credit to native born Frenchmen.
As we approached the front, the long straight French roads gave way to winding narrow ways, fre- quently paved with cobble stones called pavé. The country became flat, and the roadside ditches were filled to the brim with water. That we were within the sphere of military operations became more and more evident. Motor cars carrying officers passed frequent- ly; motor transports carrying food and fodder rumbled along the roads or were parked in the outskirts of villages or in village squares; motor ambulance con- voys were drawn up in front of hospitals, and, in general, we felt that we were nearing the real seat of operations, the front line.
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ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
It was a drive of a hundred miles to the little town which was to be our headquarters for nine long months, and I remember the thrill that I had when we first saw the effects of shell fire—a hole about two feet in
diameter in the bricks above the door of the Hotel de .
Ville. As we later discovered, the village authorities had decided not to repair that hole but to leave it as a memorial of the day when the Germans had been driven from the town and had fired some shells back into it, killing a dozen of the inhabitants.
After reporting to the corps headquarters in town, we were instructed to attach ourselves to No. 7 Clearing Hospital, where we were made most welcome by the commanding officer and his staff. Colonel Wear found billets for us in the town, and a splendid room for a laboratory in the Hotel De Ville. This room, 22 x 36 feet, had been the banquet hall and band room, and was well lighted by windows and gas. When equipped as a laboratory it presented a most imposing appearance, and from it we had a fine view of the village square, commonly called the Grande Place. As everything going through the town had to pass by our windows in order to cross the bridges over the canals, we could view a continuous panorama of never-failing interest when- ever we had the leisure to look down upon it.
Captain Rankin found his billet at the top of a house on the opposite side of the square from the la- boratory; Captain Ellis found his in a house in the corner of the square, and mine proved to be a little room over a grocery shop on another corner of the square. My room was reached by passing through the shop, up
68 ’
THE LOST CANADIAN LABORATORY
a very steep staircase, and through a storeroom filled with boxes of soap, biscuits, bundles of brooms, and other staples. The room itself was clean but without heat, and I usually fell asleep after a couple of hours of shivering in the depths of a damp, cold, feather mat- tress. Eleven crucifixes and two glass cases of artificial flowers, together with portraits of the pope and local curé, constituted the decorations of the room, and was typical of the region, for this part of France was thor- oughly Catholic. |
Our equipment did not arrive for three days, so that we had some opportunity to look around and get our bearings in the area in which we were to work. The Director of Medical Services of the army had called just after we arrived, and had given us instruc- tions. Like all the British officers we met m the field, he treated us with the greatest kindness and con- sideration. Faultless in dress, precise in manner, with monocle and carefully trimmed hair and moustache, he gave one the impression of just having stepped from his dressing room after a bath. And yet his knowledge of the military game as it applied to the medical service was just as accurate, precise and complete as his external appearance indicated. He was a tremendous worker and efficient to the last degree, as his record since has demonstrated.
CHAPTER VI.
THE DAYS BEFORE YPRES.
HE following day we drove over to Estaires, five
miles away, to see the first Canadian division com- ing back into rest after a month in the trenches. As we passed the infantry on the road it was pleasant to see broad smiles spreading over the faces of the men who recognized us as having been with them at Val- cartier and Salisbury Plain. Fit and rugged they looked as they swung along with the confident air which newly arrived troops often seem to possess. Their off- cers were pleased with them, and were satisfied that the division needed only an opportunity to make good. The division had been on the left at the battle or Neuve Chappelle, and had had no real fighting as yet; but it had received an excellent month’s training in trench warfare, and was now well broken into the new game.
The division remained for a week in that neighbor- hood resting, and we had several opportunities of visit- ing our friends. On Sunday three of us called on my old friend General Mercer of the first brigade, and had tea with him and Majors Van Straubenzie and Hayter of his staff. General Mercer expressed himself as being delighted with the men and as having the highest con- fidence in them.
We also had dinner with Colonel (now General) Rennie and our old friends of the third (Toronto) battalion who were located in a little peasant cottage
70
a
THE DAYS BEFORE YPRES
in Neuf Berquin. In a room adjoining Captain Hay- wood, the medical officer of the battalion, lay on a pile of straw with symptoms of appendicitis. He was not too sick to give some extremely graphic descriptions of his first experiences in the trenches, while we all sat around and smoked. The room was lighted by a single stable lantern which also smoked and we sat on boxes; I have seldom passed a more pleasant evening in my life than that spent in the little peasant cottage with my soldier friends, Captains George Ryerson, Muntz, Wickens, Major Allan (all since dead), Major Kirk- patrick (now a prisoner in Germany), Captains Hut- chison, Bart Rogers, George, Lyne-Evans, Robertson, (of the first battalion) and others. Some of these chaps I knew well in Canada and we talked of home and the old times, all the while realizing that some of us would never again get back. The feeling was now fast sett- ling down upon us that we were actually at war, and that soon some of the men we had grown to admire and love would have to pay the price.
During the evening two stocky little French girls came in and sang ‘‘Fet’s a longa, longa wye to Teeper- aree”’ in English for the “seek Capitan.”
The Canadian division was in rest during those early April days when the cold, long-drawn out spring became almost imperceptibly warmer and the buds were beginning to swell on the trees and bushes.
On the first day of April, Bismarck’s birthplace, we were expecting something unusual along the front and were not disappointed. While driving up to the Clear- © ing Station to breakfast, we noticed a couple of Hun
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ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
aeroplanes being shelled by our “Archibalds.” When we returned to the town half an hour later we found that the place had been bombed.
One bomb had gone right through Rankin’s billet, exploded in the workshop on the ground floor and blown out all the windows; another had fallen in the square about twenty yards in front of my billet and had failed to explode, while six others had fallen in different parts of the town, half of which were “duds.” Nobody was hurt and no other damage was done. :
Bittleson, Captain Rankin’s batman, who hap- pened to be looking out of the top window at the time, swore that the bomb which went through the roof be- side him had grazed his forehead.
The bomb which had failed to explode in the square was taken possession of by our staff sergeant and placed on my laboratory table as a souvenir. A staff officer from heaquarters, fortunately, came along be- fore we returned and bore it off to his chief after pro- mising to return it. Needless to relate it never came back, much to my relief and to the disgust of the staff sergeant who on several occasions referred to the ini- quity of this high handed action.
On Easter Sunday we were invited to some sports by the divisional cavalry. As we drove up to the or- chard specified in the invitation a crowd of typical big western cowboys with their broad brimmed Stetson hats came streaming up the road from a nearby farm where they had been foregathering.
A clear stretch of turf was selected, a ring formed by the crowd and the first event was announced—a cock
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THE DAYS BEFORE YPRES
fight between Von Kluck and Joffre. Cock fighting is the native sport of the countryside in that region where nearly every farmer keeps a couple of game cocks and fights them on Sunday afternoons, incidentally betting on the results.
_ After everybody had been warned not to move, the two birds were placed gently on the ground on opposite sides of the circle. Carelessly, and without apparently having noticed one another, the roosters walked about picking at the grass but gradually getting nearer to one another. When they got within a yard of each other they became more wary, though still feigning careless- ness, until one seeing an opportunity, sprang into the air and struck at the head of the other with the curved wire nails attached to his legs in place of spurs. The other dodged and counter attacked and the action be- came general.
Using beak, wings and spurs they jumped, flew and struck at one another as opportunity afforded, until Joffre got a strangle hold on Von Kluck and buried his spurs again and again into the prostrate body until he finally struck a vital spot and the combat was over. Then, stretching himself, the victor flapped his wings once or twice as if to say “bring on the next” and went on picking at the grass as before.
It was the first time that I had ever seen a cock fight and I hope it will be the last. The concentration on the faces of those men as they watched the cruel “sport” and the play of expression passing over them was intensely interesting to me; you could almost tell what some of them were saying within their minds and
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ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
it was pleasant to know that to the great majority of them the game was as repulsive as it was to us. It was obviously unsuited to the taste of our new country and men who might themselves be dead in the course of a week or two.
One other cock fight was put on and then we turned to a game much more suited to our men—a wrestling bout on horseback. Four men on each side mounted on horses, without saddles or bridles, were drawn up at opposite sides of the field. —The men were dressed in trousers and shirts only; the horses were guided solely by a halter.
At a given signal the two parties approached one another at a trot, each man selecting as his antagonist the one opposite him. In the first crash a couple were dismounted almost instantly, and the battle resolved itself into several separate encounters.
The horses seemed to enter into the spirit of the thing and backed up, wheeled, side-stepped and did their best to help their owners win.
Meanwhile the riders, grasping one another by body, arm or leg, did their utmost to tear one another off their horses. When it became three against two, the two would tackle one opponent and it was the task of the single man to try to keep the two others on the same side so that they could not grasp him on both sides at once. It was exciting enough to see one man being pulled by one arm from one side, while another man was trying to throw his opposite leg over the horse. Even when they succeeded in accomplishing this he clung to the horse’s neck and it was only with the greatest difficulty
74
¢ i ¢ ri Rc
THE DAYS BEFORE YPRES
that his feet were made to touch the ground and he was thereby put out of the game.
One or two obstreperous animals who objected to the game ran away with their riders and tried to brush them off on the apple trees. The contestants were all as hard as nails and could stand any amount of rough usage such as they received in this gladiator-like contest.
After the games were over we adjourned to the Colonel’s billet for afternoon tea and music. ‘The Colonel was exceedingly fond of his gramophone, and, being troubled somewhat with insomnia, would some- times rise in the middle of the night and put on a few of his favorite records, much to the annoyance of the rest of the staff billeted in the same house. Knowing this, one did not think it so strange as it might other- wise have seemed, that, during the course of a move of the division, the gramophone fell from a wagon and was run over by six other wagons. What did seem mysterious was the fact that none of the drivers had seen the gramophone in the road until it had been crushed as flat as a board.
When I visited the divisional cavalry a few months later the Colonel was still carrying forty dollars’ worth of records with him but had not yet ordered a new gramophone.
Gradually the Canadian division moved on. One night we found them in the neighborhood of Winni- zeele and Oudezeele, hamlets near the Belgian border. In searching for a battalion headquarters we asked one soldier sitting in front of a barn what village this was and received the not uncommon answer “I don’t know.”
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ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
It was astonishing how frequently that answer was given. Apparently some men were quite content to be moved about like pawns in a game of chess without question as long as they were fed and clothed; they seemingly had adopted the attitude of the Mohamme- dan, “It is the will of Allah.”
We had dinner with Colonel Rennie and his staff that night, and a pleasant dinner it was. I remember yet how envious we were of Major Kirkpatrick who took us up to his room and there opened up a box just received from his wife in England—a box containing cigarettes, chocolates, taffy, gum, magazines and other things so greatly appreciated by the soldier in the field, and so liberally shared by them with less fortunate ones. Some men were very lucky in having wives who seemed to spend a great deal of thought—and money—1in things that would be appreciated by their husbands in France. The Major was taken a prisoner a fortnight later and I sincerely hope that he was as lucky in having his boxes come through to him in Germany.
After dinner we accompanied some of the younger officers to a mysterious place called “The Club’—an Estaminet in the village, operated by a French woman and recently “out of bounds” for several days because of failure to observe the early closing law.
The scene in that little French “Pub” that evening might have been from a comedy written of the period of one hundred years ago. In the common room were a number of officers playing cards at little tables. The air was blue with smoke and numerous bottles of wine stood on the tables.
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THE DAYS BEFORE YPRES
A young French woman sat over in a corner chat- ting confidentially in French to a Canadian officer who’ thought he was replying in the same language. Neither understood a word that the other said, though both were obviously delighted at their success in making them- selves understood, so what was the difference?
The scene, which grew more and more interesting as the evening advanced, was brought to a sudden con- clusion by the entrance of a Lieutenant, who announced that nine o’clock had struck; in a moment the room was emptied, lights were out and we were all wending our ways homeward.
The first impressions of a soldier at the front are invariably the most vivid. A week after we had settled down to routine work we had occasion to visit one of the advanced dressing stations in our area. Leaving our little town by motor we crossed the canal by the lift- bridge after waiting to allow three Dutch barges to pass through. These lift bridges are hinged about one third of the way from one end and are raised by means of stout cables hitched to the other end and passing back to towers. They are so balanced that little effort is required to raise or lower them.
Turning to the left we struck into a pavé road which led for some distance along the canal bank. Pavé is not a bad road when kept in good repair as this one was, and when you get used to the vibration of the car bouncing from one cobble stone to another; when, how- ever, it is not kept in repair, depressions form which rapidly increase as cart and motor wheels fall into them and hammer them deeper and deeper.
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ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
A little grey tug boat, painted the regulation battle- ship grey, slipped quietly along through the canal tow- ing several barges loaded with road metal and lumber.
_ A buzz like a huge bee approaching us across the fields attracted our attention, and we looked up to see an aeroplane, like a gigantic dragon fly bearing directly down upon us. A hundred yards away it left the ground and passed over our heads climbing steadily in a great spiral into the sky. Another aeroplane, and another followed till there were five circling above us, getting smaller and smaller as they soared into the heaven, looking like herons in flight among the clouds. They then made off towards different parts of the Ger- man lines to their daily task of reconnaissance.
The women, old men and children, were busy on the farms ploughing, harrowing and putting in the seed. Though the men were away there was no dearth of labour on the farms and everything was going on as it — should. The silly-looking, heavily-built, three- wheeled carts, empty or loaded with manure, bumped along be- hind the broad-backed Flemish horses, guided solely by a frail looking piece of string. ‘The driver, seated crosswise on a projecting tongue of wood, guides the horse by mysterious signals conveyed through jerks of the piece of string, and steers the cart by leaning over and shoving the small front steering wheel to the right or left by hand. The Flemish horses are very placid and are never startled by motors, gun fire, or anything else. ‘
Away to the right we could see the spires of a church in a little village nestling among the trees. Our
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THE DAYS BEFORE YPRES
road took its tortuous course through fields as flat as a board. Tall trees flanked the roadside which was separated from the fields by ditches three or four feet wide, serving to drain both road and fields and ultimate- ly emptying into some canal or creek. In this particu- lar part of Flanders hedges were not in universal use for fences. In one place we execrated the Germans for having cut down dozens of the roadside trees, only to discover later that the British themselves had cut them down in order to clear the course for aeroplanes ascend- ing and descending to the aerodrome close by.
We overhauled a trotting dog team dragging a heavy little milk cart and driven by a boy who ran alongside. At the sound of the motor horn the dogs turned sharply to the right without waiting for orders from the boy, ran over his foot, and nearly upset the cart. One judged that they had had some previous and possibly not pleasant experiences with motor cars, and were taking no chances. What the boy said to them was shameful, judged even by our limited knowledge of French and the short time we were within hearing of him.
Coming into the little town of La Gorgue we could see to our right a chateau in quite pretentious gardens— a Chateau in which the German Crown Prince is said to have been staying when a British shell crashed through the roof and made him move on the double quick. This town like our own was intersected by a canal which was used both as a sewer and source of water supply for washing purposes. The streets in this town are dirty and ill kept; the stores uninteresting, and
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ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
the houses squalid; it ran into the next town of Estaires by the continuation of the main street.
Canadian soldiers were everywhere in evidence, wandering along the roads in the manner so character- istic of them. Canadians have never been over fond of saluting officers, and have never quite accepted the state- ment that it is the uniform of the representative of the King they are called upon to salute—not the man.
The first story | heard was about a chauffeur | had had in Valcartier. He had been standing at the doorway of a store trying to talk to a French girl when a couple of British officers passed. ‘The man did not see them till they were just going by and drew him- self up to a sort of a half attention. The officers passed, halted, and came back.
“Why didn’t you saluter” queried one officer.
“T didn’t see you,” replied the man.
“Oh, yes, you did; you came to a kind of sloppy attention as we passed,” said the officer.
“Yes,” said the man. “I did as you were almost past; but anyway we don’t salute much in our army.”
‘““Whatr” said the officer, “are you a Canadian?”
“Yes, sir,” said the chauffeur proudly, and the Bri- tish officers went on laughing heartily.
The officers we came to see were out and we seized the opportunity to run over for a look at the shell-shat- tered town of Laventie—the first battered town we had seen. To us, at that time, it was an awe-inspiring spec- tacle, though nowadays it would be considered a com- paratively undamaged town.
The houses on the outskirts were quite intact, but
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THE DAYS BEFORE YPRES
as we approached the centre of the town, shattered windows, pitted walls, and scarred woodwork indicated that the town had been heavily shelled. Near the church the buildings were wrecked; roofs were lifted off, windows blown out, and walls were frequently half down or had great holes in them, while the block right around the church was a heap of rubbish.
The church itself had been hit scores of times, and the walls though still standing were perforated like a sieve. ‘The stones in the foundation of the church were fractured by the force of the exploding shells into tiny fragments, still pressed together with the weight of the material above them. So crushed were they that if re- moved, a tap with a hammer would make them fall into thousands of splinters.
The houses round about the church had been completely razed -to the ground. Those adjacent were partly unroofed, with perhaps a wall blown out showing an upstairs with a stairway swinging from the floor, beams from the roof fallen over the iron bedstead, sheets of wall paper dangling from the walls, and every other imaginable combination of wreckage. And yet a few doors away down the street where the houses had not been very badly damaged they were occupied by civilians who tried to eke out an existence by selling candy and foodstuffs.
It is a never-failing source of wonder to see people in such places which were being shelled daily, hanging on desperately to the old homes, not knowing when a shell might come through the roof and kill them all. That was brought home to me later on when, as I
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ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
passed through a village one afternoon, I saw three wo- men being dug out of the cellar of a house in which a shell had exploded a minute before. On another occa- sion in a village close by a mother with her babe at her breast, three children of various ages, the husband and the grandmother, were all killed in one room by a Ger- man shell, the walls, ceiling and floor being splattered with blood and brains. And so it goes on day after day among the civilians in the shelled area in France. Most of them escape but many of them pay the price.
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CHAPTER VII.
THE SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES.
T was a glorious spring day on Saturday, April 17th, 1915, when I motored to Ypres. The first Cana- dian Contingent had gone into the salient several days before, and had now settled down to business in the trenches. Our laboratory had been given permission to keep a check on the purity of the water supply of the Canadians; hence this trip from our laboratory, located twenty miles away in another part of the line. The cobble stone or pavé road between Poperinge
and Ypres was like a moving picture to our, as yet, un- satiated eyes. Here a small party of soldiers marched along quickly; there three blue-coated French officers, with smartly-trimmed moustaches, cantered by on horse- back; a pair of goggled-despatch riders on throbbing motor cycles dashed along at terrific speed, leaving long trailsof dust behind them; a string of transport waggons with hay and other fodder, creptalong leisurely ; a motor ambulance convoy sped past with back curtains up, showing the boots of the recumbent wounded, or the peering faces of the sitting cases with heads and arms bound in white linen; some old women arrayed in their best dresses, and with baskets on arms, were coming from market gossiping volubly; boys and girls garbed in the universal one-piece black overdress of the coun- try, played games on the roadside; an armoured-motor machine gun halted beside the children to make some
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ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT
adjustment; great three-ton lorries lumbered along; officers in touring cars, sometimes with red and gold staft hats, flew by, taking salutes with easy nonchalance, while we, with ears and eyes wide open, bowled along towards the famous city of Ypres.
It was war,—apparently an easy going, leisurely sort of game. Everybody seemed to be going about as if they had been at this sort of thing all their lives; as if, in fact, they couldn’t do anything else.
Every vehicle and every person that went into the salient had to travel on that broad highway, flanked with tall trees, and paved with cobble stone. Wire en- .tanglements and trenches traversed the roads at inter- vals, and shell holes filled with water in the adjacent fields showed the road to be within range of the German guns. ,
As we approached Ypres we could see that, like all the towns of northern France and Belgium, it was sharply separated from the adjacent fields; there were no extensive suburbs such as are found around the modern British or American city causing them to merge gradually into the surrounding country. When we passed the first houses we were practically in a solid compact town.
According to the custom in Flanders, the houses and stores of Ypres were built close together, right on the sidewalk, without gardens or spaces between them. Many were white, and the effect of the white stucco and red brick gave the city a clean and sanitary appearance. It was a town with a population of less than 20,000, a mere reminiscence of that ancient city of Ypres of the
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THE SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES
12th century which had had a population of 200,000 inhabitants and which had been the most powerful city in Flanders and one of the richest in the world,—a city larger and more powerful than London. Ypres was famous for its cloth in the 13th century, when it had 4,000 looms in use. Through wars and religious per- secutions the population of Ypres had dwindled at one time to 5,000 people. Her fortifications had long ago been dismantled, and with the exception of a few mag- nificent buildings, her ancient glory had departed.
As our car slowly passed through the town evi- dences of shell fire were abundantly apparent. Here was a house with its roof blown off; another with the windows blown out, the woodwork splintered and the walls pitted with shrapnel; while another had been completely gutted. We turned to the right and came upon the famous church of St. Martin’s. Great piles of stone and debris lay in front of it, the roof was gone and the windows had disappeared, but the tower was still intact; the houses in the neighborhood had been blown to atoms.
Our hearts beat faster when we came upon the building adjacent to it, facing the Grande Place,—the glorious cloth hall of Ypres, beautiful even in its ruin. Few such wonderfully majestic specimens of architec- ture as this ancient monument of the weavers of Ypres have come down to us through the ages. On the great square in the heart of the city it stood, nearly 500 feet long and half as wide. The walls were yet fairly intact, also the main square tower in the centre and the grace- ful pointed turrets ateach corner. Most of the roof was
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gone, but enough remained to show that it had been very high-pitched, and that the proportions of the building must have been perfect. ‘The interior was a mass of rubble; here and there direct hits had blown holes in the wonderfully carved walls, and some of the statues of the famous men of the ancient city had been tumbled from their niches between the third tier of windows. None of the woodwork of the famous paint- ed panels of the interior remained; it had all been destroyed by fire from the incendiary shells of the apostles of culture.
I stood and gazed, quite carried away by the beauty of even the fragments of the magnificent bit of Gothic architecture, and with indignation at its destruction. The warm spring sun of midday played about its col- umns, making heavy shadows under the windows and ruined arches; soldiers crossed the square and stood about as if they were a thousand. miles from the Ger- man lines. Several officers could be seen wandering about studying the ruins; two of them I knew and they came over to shake hands. I asked where I could get some dinner, and was directed to the only decent restaurant left in the town, located just beyond the Cloth Hall on the square.
As we stopped at the door of the estaminet Lt.- Col. (Canon) Frederick Scott, one of our Canadian poets, came by and stopped for a chat. I had not seen him since the memorable days of Salisbury Plain, and he was full of his experiences as a regimental chaplain. He drew from his pocket the manuscript of a newly-
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written poem and, oblivious of his surroundings, stood by the car and recited it to me.
The little restaurant was well filled with officers even at this late lunching hour of two o’clock. It had been a millinery store, but latterly there had been little sale for millinery and there had been a great demand for food; the three pretty Flemish sisters who owned the shop had therefore accommodated themselves to the situation and now served most excellent food daintily on clean tables, though not with great despatch. At any rate, my omelette, cheese, toast and coffee tasted very good to me that day, while I chatted to two en- gineers who had countermined and blown up a German mine at St. Eloi a few days before.
After lunch we hunted out No. 3 Field Ambu- lance, whose personnel came largely from Toronto. Colonel McPherson of Toronto, the officer com- manding, seemed glad to see me, as he always did, and showed me over the ambulance and billets where the officers were quartered. I took water samples for ex- amination of their drinking water supply, which was not above suspicion. The garden at the rear of their temporary home was vibrant with sunshine; the pears, trained against the walls in the rectangular manner so much in vogue in France, and the peach trees, were al- ready bursting into clusters of pink and white blossoms. I picked some beautiful blue pansies to press in my pocket book and send home as souvenirs of my first visit to Ypres. :
Upon leaving the ambulance we passed over the river by the bridge, where soldiers were filling water
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carts by means of hand pumps; passed the ancient ramparts on the river’s edge and through the hamlet of St. Jean to Wieltze, where the advanced dressing station of the ambulance was located. Here I saw my friend Captain Brown and collected water samples for examination. Returning to Ypres we went out to Brielen to see the A.D.M.S. of the Canadian Division and there found some letters from home waiting me. While in the office a sudden commotion among a group of soldiers outside and the raising of glasses sky- ward drew us forth to watch an aerial battle in progress. With the aid of borrowed glasses I could see six ma- chines in the sky manceuvring for position. Two in particular seemed to be closely engaged when the Ger- man suddenly turned tail and fled. A white puff of smoke beside him indicated that the Archibalds had been watching the combat closely. A second, third and fourth followed in rapid succession until suddenly at the fifteenth burst the Taube began to drop and flutter down, like a leaf falling from a forest tree on a quiet October day. Five minutes later, far out in the salient, we saw a second driven down in a straight nose dive, making the third for that day in the vicinity of Ypres. One might watch for months, as I afterwards did, without seeing another aeroplane brought down. When we were on our way back from Ypres on our return, a horse ridden by an officer suddenly curvetted across the road in front of us. Rad pulled up the car to a full stop, and the officer pulled in his horse at the same time. The horse reared, his front feet caught in the fender, he pawed the air wildly for a moment and,
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losing his balance, he fell over backward rolling on the officer. Soldiers quickly caught the horse and pulled him to one side, and greatly to our relief the officer was able to get up and walk. It was characteristic of the British officer that he had no feeling towards us on account of his accident; on the contrary, bruised and aching as he must have been though he would not ad- mit it, he came over to the car and apologized for hav- ing caused us inconvenience. It is the British way of doing things. |
As we traversed Ypres on our homeward route, a little girl held up bouquets of spring flowers and we - stopped while I bought a large bunch of daffodils for the equivalent of two pennies. Crossing the railway tracks by the shell-shattered station we struck into the Dickiebush—Bailleul Road, and drove slowly home- ward over the rough pavé.
Near Dickiebush the fields were pitted with numerous shell holes, and the rails of a light railway at one place pointed heavenward where a shell had exploded between them. |
A pup, evidently unused to motor traffic on this bad bit of road, took a chance and tried to dash across in front of the car but miscalculated his distance and was bowled into the ditch.
It was curious to see one field ploughed with shells and full of holes, and the next field with pro- minently placed new signs bearing the inscription, “It is forbidden to walk over the growing grain.” As we passed through the rolling land of Belgium under the brow of “The Scherpenberg,” with Mount
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Kemmel over to the right honeycombed with dugouts, it was difficult to believe that, locked in a death grapple, not three miles away, were thousands of soldiers living underground like moles, and that at any moment the air might be filled with hills carrying death and de- struction.
At the end of a peaceful day we reached our little French home town, glad to have seen our friends in their new area by the famous old city of the Flemish weavers.
Springtime had come in truth; the hedges of Northern France were beginning to bloom white, and the wild flowers were quite thick in the forest of Nieppe near Merville. It was the time in Canada when the spring feeling suddenly got into the blood, when one threw work to the winds and took to the woods in search of the first violets.
On the twenty-second day of April the very essence of spring was in the air; I felt as if I had to go out into the open and watch the birds and\bees, loll in the sun, and do nothing. We struggled along until noon with our routine work, and having completed it Captain Rankin and I left for Ypres. A soldier had been transferred to us, and as we did not need him we decided to register a formal protest and see if he could not be kept with his present unit.. Our road lay through Dickiebush and we made good time, again reaching Ypres about two o’clock.
It was quite evident to me as I retraversed the streets of Ypres that it had been heavily shelled since I had been there a few days before. Many more houses
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had been smashed, and unmended shell holes were seen in the roads. As we crossed the Grande Place there was scarcely a soldier visible. ‘The Cloth Hall, which the Captain had not seen before, showed further evidences of shell fire. After viewing the ruins we drove to the little restaurant kept by the pretty milliners, only to find that the place had completely disappeared—titer- ally blown to atoms. Later on we found that a fifteen- inch shell had landed in the building next door and both houses had simultaneously vanished. A _ well known officer, Captain Trumbull Warren of the 48th Highlanders, Toronto, coming out of a store on the opposite side of the square had been killed by a flying fragment of the same shell.
We wondered whether the milliners had escaped, and somewhat depressed, drove along in search of an- other retaurant. A sign “Chocolat” on a door in a side street made us inquire, and, curiously enough, we found this also to be a little restaurant kept by two ‘other milliners. They informed us that the first three milliners had escaped when the bombardment began, and before their restaurant had been blown up. One’s interest in a place or in a battle is often in direct propor- tion to the number of one’s friends or acquaintances there.
After lunch we drove to Brielen, but found that the A.D.M.S., whom we were in search of, and his dep- uty were both out. We were shown maps of the salient, and had the area pointed out to us where the French joined up with the second and third brigades of Cana- dians, and where the British troops joined up with the
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Canadians. When about to leave, a friend, Major Mac- laren of the 10th Infantry battalion, riding a mettle- some horse, rode up and I got out of the car and held the bridle while we had a long talk about the experi- ences of the Canadians since we had left Salisbury Plain.
We then drove back to the Ypres water pool, which was the largest supply of drinking water in the area. ‘There were at least thirty-five water carts in line waiting their turn to fill up at this presumably good supply. We were told that it was safe because twice a week a couple of pounds of chloride of lime were chucked into the middle of the pool. We took samples of the water and passed on to Wieltze, intending to walk into the salient to see what “No man’s Land” was like. Men had told us that, unlike the rest of the front near the trenches, there were no growing crops, and no birds sang in that desolate, dreary, shell-shattered area, and we wanted to see it for ourselves.
We were surprised and delighted to find Captain Scrimger, whom we had left convalescing at Bulford, England, in charge of the Advanced Dressing Station. He had just arrived that afternoon, and was in hopes of getting his old battalion again, explaining that on account of his illness in England he had been tempor- arily replaced as regimental medical officer by Captain Boyd. We talked with him in the little estaminet in which the dressing station was located, while the old woman who kept the place and two peasants chatted quietly together in a corner and drank beer. I wonder- ed at the time whether they were spies. Captain
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Scrimger walked with us up to the edge of the village and then returned to his charge.
At the outskirts of the village we noticed a peasant planting seeds in the little garden in front of his house. The earth had all been dug and raked smooth by a boy and a couple of children. ‘To our “Bon jour” he replied, and added “Il fait bon temps n’est ce pas?” looking up at the sun with evident satisfaction.
No motor transport was allowed to pass Wieltze because the road beyond was exceedingly rough, and it would only have been inviting disaster from break- downs and German shells to have proceeded farther.
As we tramped along towards St. Julien our atten- tion was attracted to a greenish yellow smoke ascend- ing from the part of the line occupied by the French. We wondered what the smoke was coming from. Half a mile up the road we seated ourselves on a disused trench and lit cigarettes, while I began to read a home letter which I had found at Brielen.
An aeroplane flying low overhead dropped some fire-balls. Immediately a violent artillery cannonade began. Looking towards the French line we saw this yellowish green cloud rising on a front of at least three miles and drifting at a height of perhaps a hundred feet towards us.
‘That must be the poison gas that we have heard vague rumours about,” I remarked to the Captain. The gas rose in great clouds as if it had been poured from nozzles, expanding as it ascended ; here and there brown clouds seemed to be mixed with the general yellowish
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green ones. “It looks like chlorine,” I said, “and I bet itis.’ ‘The Captain agreed that it probably was. The cannonade increased in intensity. About five minutes after it began a hoarse whistle, increasing to a roar like that of a railroad train, passed overhead. “For Ypres,” we ejaculated, and looking back we saw a cloud as big as a church rise up from that ill-fated city, fol- lowed by the sound of the explosion of a fifteen-inch shell. Thereafter these great shells succeeded one an- other at regular intervals, each one followed by the great black cloud in Ypres.
The bombardment grew in intensity. Over in a field not two hundred yards away numerous coal boxes exploded, throwing up columns of mud and water like so many geysers. General Alderson and General Bur- stall of the Canadian Division came hurrying up the road and paused for a moment to shake hands, and to re- mark that the Germans appeared to be making a heavy attack upon the French. We wondered whether they would get back to their headquarters or not.
Shells of various calibres, whistling and screaming, flew over our heads from German batteries as well as from our own batteries replying to them. The air seemed to be full of shells flying in all directions. The gas cloud gradually grew less dense, but the bombard- ment redoubled in violence as battery after battery joined in the angry chorus.
Aross the fields we could see guns drawn by gallop- ing horses taking up new positions. One such gun had taken a position not three hundred yards away from us when a German shell lit apparently not twenty feet
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away from it; that gun was moved with despatch into another position.
Occasionally we imagined that we could hear heavy rifle and machine gun fire, but the din was too great to distinguish much detail. The common expres- sion used on the front, “Hell let loose,’’ was the only term at all descriptive of the scene.
Streaking across the fields towards us came a dog. On closer view he appeared to be a nondescript sort of dog of no particular family or breeding. But he was bent onone purpose, and that seemed to be to put as great a distance as possible between himself and the Germans. He had been gassed, and had evidently been the first to get out of the trenches. Loping along at a gait that he could, if necessary, maintain for hours, he fled by with tail between his legs, tongue hanging out and ears well back. And as he passed he gave us a look which plainly said, “Silly fools to stand there when you could get out; just wait there and you will get yours.” And on he went, doubtless galloping into the German lines on the opposite side of the salient.
By this time our eyes had begun to run water, and became bloodshot. The fumes of the gas which had reached us irritated our throats and lungs, and made us cough. We decided that this gas was chiefly chorine, with perhaps an admixture of bromine, but that there was probably something else present responsible for the irritation of our eyes. |
A lull in the cannonading made it possible to dis- tinguish the heavy rattle of rifle and machine gun fire, and it seemed to me to be decidedly closer.
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The Canadian artillery evidently received a mes- sage to support, and down to our right the crash of our field guns, and their rhythmical red flashes squirting from the hedgerows, focussed our attention and added to the din.
Up the road from St. Julien came a small party of Zouaves with their baggy trousers and red Fez caps. We stepped out to speak to them, and found that they belonged to the French Red Cross. They had been driven out of their dressing station by the poisonous gas, and complained bitterly of the effect of it on their lungs.
Shortly afterwards the first wounded Canadian appeared—a Highlander,—-sitting on a little cart drawn by a donkey which was led by a peasant. His face and head were swathed in white bandages, and he looked as proud as a peacock.
Soon after, another Canadian Highlander came trudging up the road, with rifle on shoulder and face black with powder. Hestated that his platoon had been gassed, and that the Germans had got in behind them about a mile away, in such a manner that they had been forced to fight them on front and rear. Finally the order had been passed, “Every man for himself,” and he had managed to get out; he was now on his way back to report to headquarters.
Then came a sight that we could scarcely credit. Across the fields coming towards us, we saw men run- ning, dropping flat on their faces, getting up and run- ning again, dodging into disused trenches, and keeping every possible bit of shelter between themselves and the enemy while they ran. As they came closer we could
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see that they were French Moroccan troops, and evi- dently badly scared. Near us some of them lay down in a trench and lit cigarettes for a moment or two, only to start up in terror and run on again. Some of them even threw away their equipment after they had passed, and they all looked at us with the same expression that the dog had, evidently considering us to be madmen to stay where we were. It was quite apparent that the Moroccan troops had given way under the gas attack, and that a break, doubtless a large one, had been made in the French front line.
Then our hearts swelled with a pride that comes but seldom in a man’s life—the pride of race. Up the road from Ypres came a platoon of soldiers marching rapidly; they were Canadians, and we knew that our reserve brigade was even now on the way to make the attempt to block the German road to Calais.
Bullets began to come near. Neither of us said a word for a while as we saw spurt after spurt of dust kicked up a few yards in front of us.
“T think we had better move, Colonel,” said Cap- tain Rankin at last. As he spoke, a bullet split a brick in the road about three feet away from me, and slid across the road leaving a trail of dust.
“T think we had,” I said as I walked over, picked up the spent bullet and dropped it in my pocket. An- other bullet pinged over head and another spat up the road dust in front of us. ‘Those are aimed bullets,” I said. “The Germans cannot be far away; it’s time to move.”’ It was then about 6.30 and we walked back to
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Wieltze, near which we met our anxious chauffeur com- ing out to meet me.
Canadian soldiers with boxes of cartridges on their shoulders ran up the road towards the trenches; others carrying movable barb-wire entanglements followed them. A company of Canadians took to the fields on leaving Wieltze, and began advancing in short rushes in skirmishing order towards the German front, while their officer walked on ahead swinging his bamboo cane in the most approved fashion. Another company was just leaving the village, loading their rifles as they hurried along. I overheard one chap say, as he thrust a cartridge clip into place, “Good Old Ross.”
As we approached Wieltze we could see ammuni- tion wagons galloping up the other road which forks at Wieltze and runs to Langemarck. ‘Turning into the fields they would wheel sharply, deposit their loads, and gallop wildly off again for more ammunition, while the crashes and flashes of the guns showed that they were being served with redoubled vigor.
At the edge of the village the peasant, whom we had seen preparing his little garden and sowing seeds earlier in the afternoon, came down to the gate and asked rather apologetically if. we thought that the Germans would be there to-night; ‘“‘in any case did monsieur not think it would be wise for the women and children to leaver”’
Behind him, standing about the door steps, were the members of his family, each with a bundle suited to their respective ages. The smallest, a girl about six years of age, had a tiny bundle in a handkerchief; the
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next, a boy about eight, had a larger one. All were dressed in their best Sunday clothes, and carried um- brellas—a wise precaution in the climate of Flanders. We agreed with him that it was wise to move away, be- cause it would be possible to return, ‘if the Germans were driven back, whereas if they stayed they might be killed.
As we talked to the father, the eldest, a boy of eighteen, came down to the gate with his grandmother, a little old lady perhaps eighty years of age, and weighing about as many pounds. The boy stooped down to pick her up in his arms, but she shook her head in indignant protest. Accordingly he crouched down, she put her arms around his neck, he took her feet under his arms, and set off down the road towards Ypres with the rest of the family trailing behind him. About ten o’clock that night my friend, Captain Eddie Robert- son, standing with his regiment on the roadside ten miles nearer Poperinge, waiting for orders to advance, noticed a youth with a little old lady on his back, trudging by in the stream of fleeing refugees.
Wieltze was a picture; the kind of moving picture that the movie man would pay thousands for, but never can obtain. The old adage held that you always see the best shots when you have no gun. Small detach- ments of Canadian troops moved rapidly through the streets. Around the Canadian Advanced Dressing Sta- tion was a crowd of wounded Turcos and Canadians waiting their turn to have their wounds dressed. All the civilians were loading their donkey or dog carts
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with household goods and setting out towards Ypres, sometimes driving their cows before them.
As we climbed into the car, which had been placed for shelter behind the strongest looking wall in the town, and slowly started for Ypres, a section of the 10th Cana- dian Battalion came along with our friend, Major Mac- laren, whom I had talked to at Brielen earlier in the afternoon, at its head. I waved my hand to him and called “good luck.” He waved his hand in answer with a cheery smile. A couple of hours later he was wounded and was sent back in the little battalion Ford car, with another officer, to the ambulance in Vlamertinge. While passing through Ypres a shell blew both officers’ heads off.
At the fork of the roads, Lt.-Col. Mitchell of Toronto, of the headquarters staff, who was directing traffic, came over and asked us if we had seen certain Canadian battalions pass by. We told him we had and we shook hands as we wished each other “good luck,” not knowing whether we should ever meet again. We picked up a load of wounded Turcos and took them into the ambulance at Ypres. Fresh shell holes pitted the road and dead horses lay at the side of it. One corner in particular near Ypres had been shelled very heavily, and broken stone, pavé and bricks lay scattered about everywhere.
All the while the roar of guns and the whistle of flying shells had increased. We reached the ambu- lance in Ypres between dusk and dark; it was light enough to see that the front of the building, which had been intact earlier in the afternoon, had been already
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scarred with pieces of flying shells. The shutters which had been closed were torn and splintered, and the brick work was pitted with shrapnel. We forced our Turcos to descend and enter the ambulance, though from their protests I judged they would have much preferred a continuous passage to the country beyond Ypres.
As we entered the door Major Hardy (now Colonel Hardy, D.S.O.) was found operating on one of his own men; the man had been blown off a water cart down the street and his leg and side filled with shrapnel. It was rather weird to see this surgeon coolly operating as if he was in a hospital in Canada, and to hear the shells screaming overhead and exploding not far away, any one of which might at any moment blow building, operator and patient to pieces. That is one of the beauties of the army system; each one in the army “carries on” and does his own particular bit under all circumstances.
A terrific bang in the street outside, followed by the rattling and crash of glass and falling of bricks, caused Rad to remark “there goes the good old Lozier car.” At the same time the piercing shrieks of a woman rang out down the street, shrieks as from a woman who might have had her child killed. We went to the door and looked out; the Lozier was still intact, though later on we found the rounded corner of the metal body of the car bent as though a piece of pavé or metal of several pounds weight had struck it, and the floor of the car was covered with bits of broken glass and brick.
Major Hardy asked us to take his patient on to Viamertinge as it was doubtful when a motor ambu-
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Jance would return, and we were glad to do so. After being given the usual dose of anti-tetanic serum, he was wrapped in blankets and made comfortable in the back seat. We shook hands with the Major and started off for Vlamertinge.
It was too risky to go through the centre of the town on account of falling walls, chimneys, and the swiftly descending fragments of houses blown sky- ward. So we skirted the town and tried to get down a side road to Vlamertinge. It was choked with refu- gees and transport, and the military traffic policeman strongly advised us to take the main road from Ypres. As there was no alternative we drove back to the water tower in the city. This road was clear, for nobody was going into Ypres at that time by that particular inter- secting road.
We made all possible speed to get through the town and into the main Ypres-Vlamertinge road. ‘There wagons began to pass us going the opposite way, the horses whipped into a gallop as they made haste to get through the town to the bridge-head on the far side. Motor transport lorries also drove at full speed to get by this danger point as quickly as possible. As we cleared the town again, the traffic became heavier, and we gradually worked into and formed part of a great human stream with various eddies and back currents.
It was now dark, and but for the feeble light of a young moon, which sometimes broke through the clouds and faintly illuminated the road, nothing could be seen. All headlights were out, and not even the light of a hand lantern or flashlight was permitted. Yet one’s eyes be-
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came accustomed to the dark, and when the pale moon- light came through we could dimly see over on our right a line of French Turcos moving like ghosts along towards Vlamertinge. Next them were the fleeing refu- gees with their bundles, wagons and push carts, and their cows being driven before them. If there was a cart, the old man or old lady would invariably be seated on the top of the load, sometimes holding the baby.
In the centre of the road we groped our way along with infinite care. A shadow would sometimes bear down on the car, and suddenly swerve to one side as a horseman trotted by. A motor lorry would approach within a few feet of us before the driver would see, and stop before we crashed into each other. On the left were troops standing by all along the roadside, and we felt very proud as we realized that they were Canadians, and that they were the only troops at hand to plug the gap made by the German poison gases.
At one time the road became jammed, and we had visions of staying all night in the midst of a road block. Gradually, with the aid of mounted gendarmes and our military police, the mass, composed of cows, wagons, horses, dogcarts, refugee men, women and chil- dren, with hand wagons and baby carriages; motor lor- ries, horse transport, lumber wagons, motor cycles, tour- ing cars, and mounted horsemen, was dissolved, and slowly began again to flow in both directions. Look- ing backward we could see the red glow of fires burning in different parts of Ypresand the bright flashes of shells as they burst over that much German-hated city. All around the salient star shells flared into the sky and re-
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mained suspended for a few minutes as they threw a white glare over the surrounding country, silhouetting the trees against the skylike ghosts before they died away and fell to earth.
At last we reached Vlamertinge and turned into the yard occupied by No. 3 Field Ambulance. Our car was known, and several officers came forward to see if we had any authentic news. Our patient, whom they recognized as belonging at one time to themselves, was carried into shelter, and we also entered the building. Lying on the floors were scores of soldiers with faces blue or ghastly green in colour choking, vomiting and gasping for air, in their struggles with death, while a faint odour of chlorine hung about the place.
These were some of our own Canadians who had been gassed, and I felt, as I stood and watched them, that the nation who had planned in cold blood, the use of such a foul method of warfare, should not be allowed to exist as a nation but should be taken and choked until it, too, cried for mercy.
We could not help smiling as we shook hands with Captain Boyd, who had been shot in the calf of the leg and was now getting the wound dressed, particularly when he heard that Captain Scrimger had already been ordered to replace him. Captain Scrimger won the V.C. the following day).
We offered our car to the Colonel of the ambu- lance for the night, but he had to stay at his work, and the car was not very suitable for evacuating wounded. As we could not be of use, we reluctantly passed on out
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of the fighting zone toward home, and the refugees being not so numerous we could travel faster.
Near the entrance to Poperinge a British Major came over to our car as we were showing our passes to a military policeman. “Are you Canadian officers?” he said.
“We are,” I answered.
“Then would you mind telling your Canadian transport drivers to stop going up and down this road; they insist on doing it, and I can’t stop them.”
“There is a big battle up in the salient,” I said. “Shells and many other things are needed; our men have been sent for them and know what they want; I wouldn’t interfere with them if I were you.”
He looked at us as though we were hopeless idiots, and we drove on. The motor ambulance convoy, which we had been asked to have sent forward, had already gone, and our last errand was done. Putting on our headlights and opening the throttle, we tore homeward, reaching Merville at eleven o’clock.
When we arrived at the Mess, Captain Ellis, who had been anxiously waiting, said that we looked grey, drawn and ghastly, partly perhaps from the effects of the poisonous gas. We had an intensely interested listener as we recounted our experiences and drew plans of the line as we thought it probably existed at the moment. Whether the Germans could get through or not was the dominant question. Nothing lay between them and Calais but the Canadian Division, and whe- ther the Canadians could hang on long enough in face of this new terror of poison gas until new troops arrived,
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no one could even venture to guess. We felt that they would do all that men could do under the circumstances, but without means of combating the poison it was doubt- ful what any troops could do. Supposing the Germans just kept on discharging gas? Nothing under heaven apparently could stop them from walking over the dead bodies of our soldiers, choked to death like drowned men. We could not decide the question that time alone could answer, and we went to bed to spend a long sleep- less night longing for the day, when we would get news of the battle.
The next afternoon I was sent for by General Sir Henry Rawlinson, commanding the corps in our area. He had heard that I had seen the gas discharged the day before and wanted to know what the gas was, what the effect had been, how it could be combated and, in fact, all about it. When I had finished my narrative he placed a large map in front of me and asked me to sketch out the part of the line where the gas had been discharged, and how I thought the line should be at the present moment. I did my best, tyro as I was. It was one of the satisfactory moments of my life when the General drew the map to one side and showed me a map of the line as it really was, given him by General Foch that very morning. The maps were identical, and the General smiled a smile of appreciation as he thanked me for the assistance that our laboratory had given in helping to diagnose and combat this new mode of warfare, and I left his office feeling that we had been of some real use in the war even if we never did anything else.
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CHAPTER VIII.
THE AFTERMATH OF THE GAS.
HE day after the gas attack I reported to head-
quarters, that in my opinion the gas used was chlor- ine with possibly an admixture of bromine, and that a mask with a solution of “Hypo” to cover the nose and mouth would probably absorb the gas and destroy its effectiveness. I also suggested that the battle area be searched for masks which the Germans were sure to have had prepared as a protection for their own men. (Most of the morning I had spent in bed with an attack of bronchitis suffering from the effects of the gas.)
Later I learned that German prisoners had given the information that the gas was contained in cylinders but would not admit that they knew what kind of gas it was. They also said that the men who operated the tanks wore protective masks and gloves.
All that day the Indians of the Lahore division from our area were passing through our town on the way to Ypres.
On Sunday afternoon Captain Ellis and I left for Vlamertinge to find out just what had happened. The suspense had become terrible and we felt like quitters because we were not in the salient fighting with our fellows. At Poperinge we saw a cart on the road beside a house which had been recently blown down by a shell. As we drove slowly by, a wounded old woman was carried out and laid beside the bodies of two other
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white-haired women who had just been dug out of the ruins. Though fatally injured, they were still living, and I shall never forget the pitiful looks on those ashy gray faces as they looked up into my face with eyes like those of sheep about to be slaughtered.
At No. 3 Canadian Field Ambulance we found that 2,600 Canadian casualties had already passed through during the three days since the gas attack. We heard there that Major Mothersill, Medical officer of the Eighth Battalion, had been lying out in front of the lines for two days, unable to move and apparently paralyzed. It was one of those personal experiences which brings the war home to us with startling reality, _for I had made a tour of his area with him just a few days before. You hear of the loss of a thousand men and it affects you very little, but if you know personally a single one of the thousand, the news of his death may give you the blues for days. The loss of a million un- known Russians does not really mean as much to one as the loss of a single friend.
On our return trip we passed a large number of London busses loaded with wounded; they were all sitting-up cases and were a very happy look- ing lot. It was an odd sight to see bus after bus tear- ing down that long, straight road, with the tall trees on either hand, each bus with rows of soldiers seated on the upper deck, with heads and arms bandaged, looking about at everything with the greatest interest,—like tour- ists rather than men who had just come from the very gates of hell. They waved hearty greetings to the
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French artillery which was then pouring up the side roads.
As the French 75’s bumped along the roads, drawn by rat-tailed, wiry horses, they looked like pale blue, painted wooden guns, instead of what they were—the deadliest weapon that the war had till then produced. An officer who watched them the following day gallop onto the field, unlimber and start firing, told me that the way their fire covered that front was an absolutely uncanny sight. With mathematical precision the shells would begin to drop at one end of a field and cut out a belt across it from side to side, the belt growing as each explosion threw up a splash of dust from the showers of shrapnel; having completed the belt they would be- gin another a few yards farther back until the whole field had been covered and not a soldier hiding any- where in it left alive.
On the day of the first gas attack there were soldiers everywhere back of the line; that day as we drove home there was not a single one to be seen. They had all gone forward toward the front where they could be of the greatest use.
When the French people of the little villages through which we passed saw the name “Canadian” on our car they nudged each other and repeated the word “Canadien.” It was the name in everybody’s mouth those days, for it was now general knowledge that the Canadian divison had thrown itself into the gap and stemmed the German rush to Calais. The whole world was ringing with the story of how the colonial troops had barred the road to the channel to a force many times
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its size in men and guns, and armed with poison gas, the most terrible device of warfare that had yet been invented.
And well may it be said that the 22nd of April, 1915, was, to the allies, one of the two most vital days since the beginning of the war. The Germans had planned to break through and seize the French coast along the narrowest portion of the channel. Once established there they would have attempted to cover the channel with their long range naval guns, while they would have established for their submarines harbours which could be protected by the same guns. Under such circumstances, cross channel traffic and the maint- enance of our lines of communication would have proved to be a very difficult matter indeed, for the subs would then, at any time, have easy access to our channel path. |
The importance of the Canadian fight during that first twenty-four hours was out of all ratio to the size of our forces. The whole successof the battle hinged on the attack by two battalions on the morning of the 23rd of April. These two battalions were sent up into the centre of the gap left in the line by the retreat of the French colonials. Supported by four field guns, they advanced steadily under a terrific fire from the enemy. As General Mercer said to me afterwards, it was, according to the book, probably as crazy a bit of mili- tary tactics as could possibly have been tried, but the very daring of the attempt proved its success. The Germans, believing that such a counter attack must be backed up by much stronger forces, hesitated to come on
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and the day was saved, for while they hesitated and made sure of their ground, troops were hurried up from other parts of the line and the Huns had missed their chance. That first night if the Germans had simply walked ahead they would have found nothing to stop them, but they were too much dazed with their own success to realize the situation and take advantage of it.
Naturally we were thrilled with pride at the suc- cess of the division; we had been present at its birth; we had watched it through the various vicissitudes of its eventful career; and now its great opportunity had come. Now its name had been indelibly written on the scroll of fame. It had saved the situation in one of the most critical happenings of the whole war.
The next day the General of the fourth corps, accompanied by his staff, paid a visit to our laboratory, and the General told us that the Germans had tried their gases on the Belgians the very day after they had gassed the French and Canadian colonial troops. But the Belgians breathed through wet handkerchiefs till the gas had passed over, and when the Germans came on, full of confidence in the efficacy of their deadly new weapon, the Belgians gave them a severe punishing. —
On April 27th the three of us started out after 5 o’clock to the Canadian area in search of news. The military policeman on the road at the outskirts of Poperinge on being queried said, “All right, no shells to-day in Pop.” But we got only about 150 yards into the town when there was a terrific hair-raising explo- sion near us, followed by showers of bricks and bits of whizzing shell. It was a shell of very high calibre,
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and as we passed the next cross street and looked up it, we could see four houses settling into dust and a few people running towards the spot. A telephone wire cut by a flying fragment fell upon a car just ahead of us. It looked funny to see the doors of the houses along the street belch forth their inmates who rushed to the shutters, banged them to, rushed in again and no doubt hid themselves in the cellars. It reminded us exactly of the actions of a flock of chickens when a hawk ap- pears in the sky.
A moment after, as we were leaving the town, an- other shell went screaming overhead, exploded to our right near the station close to the road, while a third went off on our left. Some Belgian soldiers who were bringing in a wounded man on their shoulders dropped flat upon the ground, letting the poor wounded chap fall with a crash. We opened the throttle and speeded on. A motor ambulance convoy loaded with wounded _ flew by us toward the base; in fact everything on the road was going at top speed that evening. We buttoned our coats up to our throats and took a fresh grip on our cigars as we tore up the road into that “unhealthy” dis- trict, feeling that we must go on. “This is the life,” said the Major with a grin. Perhaps it was foolish but the excitement was worth the danger.
In the fields by the roadside were picketed cavalry horses, saddled and bridled, and ready to be mounted at a moment’s notice. No contingency appeared to have been overlooked; everything had been put into readi- ness for any thinis that might happen.
At Vlamertinge everybody was standing . ready
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for the word to move. Heavy shelling had been going on all day and the shells were still coming pretty thick- ly. The street was littered with broken bricks, fresh plaster and other debris; on all sides were crumbled walls and ruined houses. The office of the A.D.M.S., Colonel Foster, had a shell hole right through it and his desk was covered with plaster. ‘The office staff occupied the cellar and they informed us that the offi- cers were housed in a white chateau on the opposite side of the street. ‘There were several officers there; most of them evidently thought that we were fools to come voluntarily into a place that they would have given a good deal to be out of. |
The front line was being held, and things were going fairly well in the salient. But sitting around in a building that was liable to be blown up any moment was not pleasant work for either officers or men, and some of the men who had been subjected to the strain for several days showed unmistakable evidences of it. The Canadians had lost heavily but as yet no accurate figures were obtainable on account of the complicated nature of the fighting and the fact that the wounded were going through several ambulances.
We did not stay any longer than was necessary to obtain the news and our return trip to Poperinge was a record one. We saw freshly-killed horses on the roadside, and in the Grande Place in “Pop” the fresh shell holes showed that the process of hammering was still going on with undiminishing vigour. Dinner was half over when we reached our mess that evening. As we entered the room a tin bowl fell to the floor with a
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' crash. Every person in the room started as though it were a bomb, and we, fresh from our day’s experiences, ducked our heads for safety. ‘Tired out, we said nothing about our trip and went to bed early.
The next few days were full of interest. The news from the Canadian Division was both good and bad. they had had 6,000 casualties,—practically half of the infantry,—but all the reports, even thoseof the Germans themselves, agreed in giving them credit for having fought like fiends and having spoiled the great German plan. The first lists of the killed had come out and con- tained the names of many of my personal friends, and the sense of a great pride in the achievements of one division was marred by the sorrow for their loss.
The town of Poperinge was now deserted. Travel- ling in that direction one morning I met streams of refugees coming from it and on entering it found it like a city of the dead. Not a soul could be seen except one small unit which had been temporarily forgotten. ‘The French gendarmes had driven the inhabitants out of the place because it was said to be full of spies who had been of great assistance to the enemy at a time when any bit of information might be of incalculable value to them. From one of the men of this stranded unit I ob- tained a three-pound piece of the 15-inch shell which had exploded close to us a few days before.
A non-com of the sanitary section who had come through Ypres an hour before told me that he had seen an old woman over 80 years of age sweeping the front sidewalk and polishing the windows. She was perhaps the only remaining resident.
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The city was being steadily reduced to ruins by a continuous avalanche of shells and he spoke to her and tried to induce her to come with him but without avail. ‘She had lived there all her life and she intended to die there; it had been her custom to clean the windows and sweep the sidewalks, and if Providence willed that shells should come and knock down her neighbors’ houses and make a lot of dust, she would just have to sweep oftener, what was the difference anyway?” And so he had to leave her.
The laboratory at this time was a place of much interest and many distinguished generals and medical men came to find out about the gas and methods of combating it. General Headquarters had sent for me to watch some practical field experiments and to give them the benefit of our experience on this question. With the chief engineer of the local army we carried out some experimental work of our own on a large scale. These experiments led to certain recommendations which were later found to be of value in making the German gases less effective. We also did a good deal of experimental laboratory work with other gases which might possibly be used, with the object of discovering their antidotes.
On May 5th the Canadian transport was strung along the roads leading from Ypres and we knew that the division was out for a rest. We hunted out some of our friends in Bailleul,—some of the few that were left. There were 7 of the 25 officers in the 3rd (Toron- to) battalion and 6 out of the 25 in the 48th Highlan- ders of Toronto, though the missing ones had not all
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been killed. They were greatly changed in appearance, were very tired, and could tell little of their experiences in any connected way; at that time they had simply a succession of blurred impressions; they could recall a terrible excitement but had little idea of the sequence of events. The men, sitting around the streets of Bailleul in the sun, looked as if they had seen and ex- perienced more than they could ever tell.
One of my officer comrades had gone insane, and another had been so shell shocked that he was of no further use and had been sent to England,—the latter was one of those officers whom I had seen in the little club house at Winnezeele. Two of my friends had been buried out in the front one night with two other officers | —all in the one shell hole.
The medical officer, Captain Haywood, conducted the burial without candle or book. The green white light from the German flares and the red flashes of the guns was the only light to show the sad little party where their erstwhile comrades rested. The lay par- son, exhausted with seventy hours’ continuous work, and unable to recall a single word of the burial service, broke huskily into this rugged commendation, “Well, boys, they were four damn good fellows; let us repeat the Lord’s prayer,” but they couldn’t manage to say even the Lord’s prayer among them.
What a setting for a soldier funeral! The black night, the roar and flash of the guns and the green flare of the German star shells silhouetting those bowed heads above the soldiers’ grave. What a fitting tribute to a soldier! The broken voice with the rough and
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ready words of praise: “They were four damn good fellows.” What more could be said? What more would any soldier desire?
One chap had seen General Mercer, with his aide- de-camp by his side, crossing a fire-swept field deliber- ately stop in the middle of it to light his pipe. Every- body agreed that the General was the coolest man in sight that day. The Aide himself assured me that it took several matches to light the General’s pipe and that the matches were the slow-burning variety; he said that it seemed to him to have taken about an hour to light that pipe, and all the time he was wishing himself safe in the shelter of a ditch. It had not been mere bravado on the General’s part but a deliberately planned act to steady his men.
Some of the Canadian soldiers came into the dress- ing stations during the battle, accoutred in wonderful equipment that had taken their fancies. One wounded chap wore an Indian’s turban, a French officer’s spurs and a British officer’s pistol.
Major W. D. Allan had seven bullet holes in his clothing, two of them through his hat; and yet his skin was not broken. The nearest approach to a wound was a big triangular bruise on his shoulder, made by a piece of spent high explosive. One of the bullets had gone through his hat and tipped it over his eyes as his unit was falling back from one trench to another; he said that he was positive he had broken the world’s record for a hundred yards in the next few seconds.
The First Battalion, at whose mess I dined one night, had lost 400 out of a total of 800 men during a
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600-yard advance into the breach made by the German gas in the face of a terrific fire.
Meanwhile preparations were in progress for a battle in our area evidently for the purpose of relieving the pressure on the line elsewhere, and on the 9th of May we were wakened at 4.30 a.m. by the final bom- bardment. I had been invited to witness the battle by a general on the staff but I was unable to go.
The first wounded came in about noon and by four o’clock the hospital where we took our meals was filled. From the windows above we could see scores of wound- ed lying in rows on stretchers in that sunny courtyard, some conscious and others unconscious. Every con- scious wounded soldier held a cigarette between his lips and I even saw them going in to the operating table smoking. The wounded were a depressed lot that day; the men themselves realized that they had been badly cut up for little purpose, for the wire had not been destroyed and they had been unable to make any pro- gress. The authorities in England had not yet realized that high explosives were necessary to cut wire in spite of the fact that everybody in the field knew it. It re- quired a newspaper agitation to convert some of the authorities as to the need of high explosives.
After a rest the Canadians took over a new piece of line near Festubert, and a hot spot it was. We knew this area well as far forward as the advanced dressing stations, and had been there by day and night in the car.
When the Canadian attack at Festubert began, I was wakened one night by a lull in the booming of the
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guns, and got up to sit by the window. It was one of those still nights in June when every sound carries for miles. The odours of sweet flowers floated up from the garden below, and the splash, splash of frogs hop- ping into the river could be heard from time to time. The guns had stopped, but the rattle of rapid rifle fire was as distinct as if it had been only half a mile away; then the rattle of machine guns could be distinguished, succeeded by the explosions of hand grenades, and I knew that the Canadians were hard at it, probably with the bayonet. It was not a comfortable feeling to sit seven miles away and listen to a succession of sounds so full of meaning, nor is a vivid imagination a good thing for a soldier to have in the field.
The following day a young lieutenant whom I had hunted out three days before, came in to the clearing station down the street, wounded in shoulder, head, hip and leg, with shrapnel. That boy is now Major Mavor, M.C., D.S.O.
Two days after, we drove over to headquarters of the Ist army. With the sun setting in a gorgeous glow, and with hedges in full blossom, Flanders was trans- formed for once that evening into a land of beauty.
About ten o’clock we heard a hum of an aeroplane overhead and then a series of explosions, like those of a heavy gun. Flashes were seen in the direction of a French town where there were great steel works and we drove home that way. The inhabitants of the country and the hamlets along the road were all out of doors gazing at the sky, and as we entered the bombed town we found everybody quite excited. Eight bombs had
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been dropped in the place, but none of them had any effect, except to rouse the populace to a condition of ex- citement.
Our headlights were burning, and suspicion was evidently aroused as to the possibility of this being con- nected with the attack, for we were suddenly halted by a blue-coated French soldier stepping in front of the car and holding his gun above his head in the usual way while eight other French soldiers surrounded us. Some. of them pointed bayonets threateningly at us while we were all covered by rifles. It was quite a picture. Our headlights shone brilliantly on the three men in front, while the faces of the others, nearly all with moustachios and goatees, lit up by the moon and the glare of the red lights from the works, looked most ferocious. The slender, flashing French bayonets seemed to be at least three feet long.
As we waited to be identified, a British sergeant lounged forward, a little the worse for beer, and nodded cordially as he leaned carelessly on the front door and explained all about the bombs. At a word from him the Frenchmen fell back, and we moved on. Every house seemed to have a soldier on guard, but we were not questioned further, and drove peacefully home along the canal, whose iris-decked banks were perfect- ly reflected in its glassy waters in the brilliant moon- light.
Again I changed my billet by the bridge to live at a fine old house farther up the river. It had a beau- tiful old garden which was separated from the street by a high iron fence on a brick foundation. Walnut trees
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from the garden overhung the street and shaded a little octagonal summer house. The old-fashioned, square, red brick house faced the lawn, in the centre of which was an elongated brick-lined pool of water with a bridge over it. In the centre of the lawn was a large polished silver ball on a pedestal; this was regarded as a fine ornament. The lawn was separated from the gar- den by a high hedge. The garden proper, a real old- fashioned one, containing many berry bushes, fruit trees, and a few old-fashioned flowers, ran right back to the river. A brick boundary wall kept the river from washing away the banks, and brick steps led down to a little floating platform. There was much shade in that old French garden; it was the most peaceful and restful place that I ever found in France. Even aeroplanes sailing overhead on their missions of destruction seemed from my garden to be harmless.
I always took my French lesson there after dinner, when the bees droned about and one had an irresistible desire to sleep. My teacher, Professor Paul Balbaud, had been a lecturer in Toronto University, and at this time was drawing the magnificent sum of one cent a day as a private in the French 77th territorial regiment. On one occasion he presented me with ten days’ pay which he had received that very morning, and I had the two five-sou silver pieces made into watch charms. Monsieur Balbaud was engaged in the telegraph ser- vice, and was an excellent teacher. Later on that year the pay of the French soldier was raised to five cents a day.
Madam Carré, a dear old lady, owned the house
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and she was kindness itself. Nothing was too good for the Canadians. Her grand-daughter, a tall good look- ing girl of Spanish descent, twenty-one years of age, had been married seven months when the war broke out, and her husband, an artillery man, had been killed. Three times a day during that first year did the girl-go to church to pray for the safety of her husband, for she would not believe him dead.
I was wakened the very first night at my new billet, about 2 a.m., by the rat-a-tat of a kettle-drum, and two dreary notes continuously repeated by a bugle. It was the alarm for a fire at a farmhouse about half a mile from town. Our men from the hospital helped to get most of the furniture out, and were standing around watching the farmhouse and barns burn down, when the 17 Brigade Lancers appeared with the hand hose-reel, which, however, proved to be useless. —The Lancers had broken into the fire hall and stolen the apparatus.
The local firemen afterwards came to the fire hall but found the engine gone; after some discussion they went home and donned their white duck trousers, blue tunics, and polished brass helmets. The fire chief and first deputy then had a dispute about something which resulted in the deputy going home in a huff, while the chief and the second deputy (the whole fire brigade) resplendent in their spotless uniforms of white, blue and gold, marched out to the fire. The British soldiers
lined up when they saw them coming, and gave them ©
three rousing cheers, while one of the Tommies solemn- ly swept the road before them with a broom. As my
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chauffeur “Rad” said, “It was just like a scene from a blinking comic opera.”
The area was now well known to us, for, in the course of our work, we had been over every bit of road init. It was very noticeable how the farmhouses along some roads, which paralleled the front line trenches about one and a half miles behind it, gradually disappeared. On Monday perhaps we would have to go down to a certain battery located on this road, and there would be a dozen intact farmhouses in the course of a half mile. On Friday of the same week, one or more of them would be burned down, while the shell holes in the fields and road around them indicated deliberate concentration of fire.
Our work was interesting and we kept busy all the time. The monotony of working seven days a week, however, becomes very great after a few weeks and seriously affects the health and the ability to work. In the other army services work came in periodical bursts; ours was a steady grind of seven days a week.