From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade Part 5

"Simultaneously Mr. Doxsee called for reinforcements to repel a direct frontal attack on our forward trench and machine-gun house.

"Reinforcements hurried up along the new communication trench, but were antic.i.p.ated by Mr. Scott and a score or so of men, who dashed across the open and repelled the attack, Mr. Doxsee being unfortunately killed at this point.

"Captain Richardson now took over _machine-gun house_, and his company (No. 2) relieved us along our original trench. The two Toronto companies had entrenched to our right, forming a narrow and very dangerous salient (C F).

"All day this house was the target of the enemy's artillery and machine-guns, the latter sweeping the building so effectively that the garrison was forced to lie flat on the floors.

"Six attacks were made by their infantry and repulsed before they could get closer than two hundred yards, in spite of the fact that our only machine-gun jammed incessantly owing to the rapidity of its firing.

About 2 p.m. one of our own guns came up, and from then on both guns remained in action.

"About this time troops in French uniforms were seen moving down a road on our right toward _St. Julien_. At first no notice was taken of them, but presently it became apparent that these were Germans, who had adopted this ruse to get behind our flank.

"Fire was immediately opened on them with what rifles could be spared from our front line, and one machine-gun was hastily posted in a barn (G), from which it did excellent work.

"At 3.30 orders were received to retire in the direction of battalion headquarters. (These orders had originally been sent out at 2 o'clock, and when Lieutenant-Colonel Watson received no response he sent them again and again until he finally saw the last company pa.s.sing the shattered house that had served alike as dressing station and battalion headquarters, and not till then did he leave the field himself.)

"The retirement took place across open ground swept by both shrapnel and machine-guns, and the men just seemed to melt away.

"Men straggled in for hours, and when the battalion finally a.s.sembled at brigade headquarters at _St. Jean_ the company had lost one hundred and thirty-nine of all ranks, of which four were officers."

It was a black situation. No one knew how other parts of the field had fared or how much ground had been lost. British troops were being rushed up to relieve the 2nd and 3rd Brigades, who in some incredible manner still held on in spite of two attacks with the gas. But they had paid a terrible price. Of the former brigade there were scarcely a thousand men and of the latter not many more.

If this, then, is the account of what one battalion--nay, what one or two companies--accomplished, what must be the stories, as yet untold, of those other battalions of the First Canadian Division that filled the gap that led to Calais?

CHAPTER IX

WITH THE DRAFT

On returning to our barracks we found notices that "the following officers will hold themselves in readiness to proceed to their respective units with the next draft." Eagerly we scanned the list to make sure our names had not been omitted, and then transferred ourselves from the crowd that gathered in the ante-room to those who waited their turn outside the telephone cabinet. Letters and telegrams were being feverishly written in all parts of the building, and a hurly-burly of voices in the mess-room proclaimed the general opinion that we had been pretty badly cut up. A tailor's agent had somehow made his way into that sanctuary, and voices were demanding "Who can lend me a blank cheque?"

in a wild endeavour to get him out again.

Telegrams were also arriving, one or two from the front. A subaltern spread the sheet of flimsy in his hand to find his cousin had been killed in action. There was a sudden hush in the turmoil as he turned and walked slowly to the window; men at such times are mute and trust to the simple pressure of the hand to tell that sympathy which the tongue cannot frame.

A colonel whose hair had grown grey in the service pa.s.sed from one group to another, giving a word of advice here and receiving a word of sympathy there, for his age had debarred any further activities in the field. "But I have one son over there now," he proudly told you, "and my other is coming with the next contingent!"

The orderly room clerk entered and pinned up the daily orders. These were at once surrounded, and would have perished in the _melee_ had the colonel not taken the situation in hand and read them out in his sternest parade voice with appropriate comments of his own.

"All officers and men warned for draft will parade to the ranges at 5 o'clock tomorrow morning--that will teach you to sit up all night playing cards!

"Markers and other details--that includes you, Lyte--will be at the b.u.t.ts and all targets ready for firing at a quarter before the hour, &c., &c.

"Light marching order will be worn by all ranks, including one hundred and fifty rounds per man. Haversack rations to be carried.

"Officers' valises--maximum weight thirty-five pounds--to be rolled ready for transport by 2 p.m., &c., &c."

This last caused an immediate thinning of the crowd, and till late that night we struggled over our kits, rolling and unrolling them to try and bring their weight down to something like the regulation amount.

At 4 o'clock next morning we fell in to march to the ranges, Lyte and his ill-fated companions having left half an hour before, and from then on till the afternoon we toiled in the hot sun. Returning about 3 that afternoon, we found the draft ordered to be ready to proceed at 6 o'clock, barely time for the men to get their tea; and tea in the Army is a meagre meal at the best of times.

Then after some hours waiting on the barrack square the draft moved off down the Cheriton road and through the streets of Folkestone to where the transports lay awaiting us.

Here the British Navy took hold of us again, and there were no further delays. The men were led below decks and packed as close as they could stand to one another, the officers having the privilege of being able to sit on their valises, which were piled unceremoniously on the deck.

Then when all were accounted for the mooring ropes were cast off, and with no more ceremony than the tinkle of the s.h.i.+p's telegraph we slid out of the harbour under cover of the scudding clouds.

But we were not alone. A long, lithe shape, strangely suggestive of a greyhound, crept out of the darkness around us and came up alongside, and a brief conversation, ending in "All right, full speed," was held.

The telegraph tinkled again and our s.h.i.+p bounded forward, leaving a long trail of phosph.o.r.escent foam in her wake.

The sighing of the rigging in the wind, the slap-slap of the Channel breakers at our sides, and the las.h.i.+ng "hish" of the spray across the decks blended with, but did not break, our thoughts.

And the dark shapes of the destroyers and the other transports momentarily revealed by gaps in the scudding clouds, the gleaming wake of the s.h.i.+p, and the faint white of the life-belts, that showed dimly where little groups of two or three stood or sat together, made a fitting scene for such an orchestral accompaniment.

Thus we reached France.

There followed a long march through the darkened streets of Boulogne to a camp on the Plains of St. Martin, not far from the tall column that marks where Napoleon gathered his great army and waited for the time that never came, when he would be master of that little strip of water we had just crossed.

A drizzling rain had started, and the men had now been nearly eight hours without food and practically a whole day without a proper meal. We were able to draw bully beef and biscuit at once from the stores, but the situation was really saved by the ladies at the Y.M.C.A. tent, who supplied hot cocoa and cake to all who cared to apply. A nominal charge of one penny was made to those who wished to pay, but no man was refused because of his inability to find this sum, small as it was.

Only a small thing, you may think, but it is only the smallest part of what this wonderful organisation is doing for the soldier at the front.

And a smile and a cup of coffee at 5 o'clock in the morning "look pretty good to me," as one recipient expressed it.

We were held in camp all the following day and then, carrying two days'

rations, we entrained for the north. For a while we made vain attempts to find our destination from the French railway staff, but concluded they either did not understand our variation of their beautiful language or were sullen brutes knowing nothing.

As we continued northward the throbbing of distant gunfire became plainer, and a strange flickering could be seen in the morning sky. This strange light, caused by the flash of the guns and the flares or illuminating fuzees shot up by the infantry, resembled nothing so much as our own Aurora Borealis, and we were not surprised to find, a little later, that our men had already nicknamed them the "Northern Lights."

Dawn brought us to a halt by some little town where the engine-driver proceeded leisurely to fill his boiler. We availed ourselves of the chance to exercise our French on some Algerian troops who were lying wounded all over the platform. A rough tent had been made with waggon tarpaulins, and under this lay the worst cases--ghastly wrecks of men with blood-soaked bandages and blood-encrusted clothing, face muscles twitching convulsively as ma.s.ses of flies settled on them. One French medical orderly with a strip of silver on his sleeves and an a.s.sistant seemed to be the whole staff of the place.

One tall chap with a handsome beard showed us how a bullet had torn through his cap and grazed his head, while a rude sling and a crutch spoke of a more serious injury of which he said nothing. His white teeth and smiling face turned to a horrible scowl as he continued talking, and thinking we were over-exciting him, we moved away. Had we only known, he was trying to describe to us the terrible effect of the asphyxiating gas on his comrades who were less educated than he!

A few miles further on we detrained at Poperinghe and were soon marching along a beautiful avenue of poplars--now perhaps the most famous highway in Flanders, the Vlamertinghe road.

Refugees pa.s.sed us with all their worldly effects piled on a waggon, the women and little children clattering along behind in their wooden sabots. It seemed so unnecessary. The guns that had been pounding away all night were now strangely silent, and the fields on either side seemed peaceful enough. There was even a farmer plowing stoically in one.

A little further on we saw a horse that had been hurriedly cut out from a gun or waggon team. It needed but one glance to tell us that shrapnel had done its deadly work there, and we wondered vaguely what had become of its rider, for the saddlery and harness were still on it.

On entering Vlamertinghe we saw signs of sh.e.l.ling on most of the buildings, particularly around the church and the square, the steeple of the former forming, of course, the aiming mark for the German guns.

Here, too, the body of a woman lay half in and half out of a doorway.

The place seemed absolutely deserted. An aeroplane droned overhead, but whether our own or the enemy's we could not ascertain. However, we took no chances and marched on, hugging the shelter of the walls on either side of the street.

In this formation we were met by the gaunt figure of old Joey ----, our quarter-master. He fell in beside Major V---- and guided us to our transport lines, a farm a little on the Ypres side of the town. Here we lay for half an hour munching biscuits and bully beef and watching an anti-aircraft gun sh.e.l.ling the aeroplane we had noticed before, which was now low enough to distinguish the sinister black crosses painted on its wings.

This was the reason for the extraordinary silence on the part of the guns, so skilfully hidden all around us.