Thirty Canadian V. Cs., 23d April 1915 to 30th March 1918 Part 4

Turning swiftly, the captain saw a second Albatross rising. He closed with this one till about 150 yards separated them; then, getting the German full on his sights, he sent a blast of thirty rounds into him.

Away went the Albatross, side-slipping into a tree, where it hung a wretched, broken thing.

A third Albatross came up to the combat, while the invader swung over the aerodrome sheds in the midst of a storm of shrapnel from the enemy guns. Bishop cleared the sheds and swept upward a thousand feet, met his third enemy as he mounted and emptied the remainder of his drum of ammunition at him. The Albatross swerved, slid, fluttered and fell to earth within three hundred yards of the spot from which it had mounted but a few moments before.

The invader quickly inserted a new drum and swung round again to where a fourth machine was humming towards him. He took no chances with this antagonist, but opened fire at a fair range as it headed at him.

Already a fifth German was coming out of the blue, trying to sandwich him between it and its fellow. He had no time to waste on the fifth. He kept hammering at the fourth till it also left the fight and planed down to the green sward below, out of control and little better than a wreck.

He faced the fifth--had him, indeed, in a favourable position for ending his career also--when he realized that he had finished his ammunition.

That fact saved the life of the German airman. Captain Bishop regretfully raised his empty drum and waved a farewell to this, his latest adversary, and started on his hundred-mile race for home.

The solitary German was soon left behind; but from another aerodrome came four German scouts who had been sent to the rescue of their friends of the now untidy aerodrome. They had seen the latter part of the battle. Though they were about a thousand feet above him they did not attack, but fell behind after following for about a mile.

With his machine slashed almost to ribbons, Bishop made a safe landing near the bunch of green trees beside the ancient farm. That night there was great rejoicing at the "Abode of Love," for the news spread quickly and men came from neighbouring parts of the line to offer congratulations.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

PRIVATE J. G. PATTISON, 50TH BATTALION

During the morning of April 10th, 1917, the 44th and 50th Battalions were instructed to capture and consolidate, as an outpost line, the Eastern edge of Vimy Ridge lying beyond Hill 145. The men of the 10th Brigade had been in reserve while their comrades swept over Vimy on the previous day and were anxious to get in some good work with the rest of the Corps. There is no doubt that they succeeded.

The men of the 50th made their way to Beer Trench, and at zero hour, 3.15 p.m., went forward with a rush. Opposition was immediate and severe. From every broken tree and battered piece of cover machine-gun fire swept the attack, and casualties were extremely heavy; but the men continued to push forward.

On the right "C" Company attacked, with "D" Company in close support; on the left "A" Company, with "B" Company in support. The leading companies found the "going" extremely hard, but for a time all went well, and though the advance was slow, steady progress was made.

As the incessant fire thinned the waves of attacking troops, greater difficulty was encountered in enveloping the machine-gun nests that barred our progress. In the first stage of an attack made by determined troops the resistance close at hand is easily swamped; but as the men continue to push forward the innumerable obstructions and perils of the battlefield gather against their weakening impact, fatigue slows them, their front is broken and their connecting files are shot down; and so a steady enveloping movement becomes a series of bitterly contested little battles, where small parties in twos and threes fight strategic engagements with isolated strong points of the enemy. Finally a series of partial checks culminates in an abrupt cessation of the advance--and a gathering company finds itself held up before an embattled fortification whose point of vantage covers the whole local zone of attack.

Then the real trouble begins. Time and again in the history of the war one hostile fortification left in otherwise captured territory has changed or materially affected the final issue of the engagement. It may serve as a rallying-point for a determined counter-attack, or by its wide zones of fire hamper the advance of reinforcements on the flanks, or prevent the supply of vital munitions to a new and precarious front line; its effectiveness is limited only by its natural position, and as this has been selected with care and forethought by an efficient enemy, one small but actively hostile strong-point may prove a very capable thorn in the side of a hara.s.sed general.

On that April afternoon the 50th Battalion encountered just such a check. It was on the left of the battalion attacking zone, and the men of "A" Company, gradually gathering in the nearest cover, had organized and carried out several gallant attempts to rush the position. Each time they had been beaten back with heavy losses.

Now "B" Company arrived to reinforce the a.s.sault. Another attack was organized, with no more success than the last; and then, as so often occurs, a critical situation was relieved by the clearheaded bravery of a single soldier.

Private Pattison, an engineer from Calgary, proceeded to deal with the situation. He advanced single-handed towards the machine-gun post in a series of short rapid dashes, taking cover on the way in available sh.e.l.l-holes while deciding his next point of vantage. In a few moments he had reached a sh.e.l.l-hole within thirty yards of the vital strong-point. He stood up in full view of the machine-gunners and under their point-blank fire threw three bombs with such good aim that the guns were put out of action and the crews temporarily demoralized. This was Pattison's opportunity, and he took it without hesitation. As his last bomb exploded amidst the Germans he rushed across the intervening s.p.a.ce and in a moment was using his bayonet upon the unhappy enemy. He had killed them all before his companions had caught him up.

Twenty minutes later all objectives were gained and the Canadians busy consolidating the captured line. Pattison came unscathed through the day's fighting, and through the successful attack on the Pimple on the following day; but he never wore his V.C., though he was aware that he had been recommended for the honour. He was killed on June 2nd in the attack upon the Generating Station.

Very few men of Pattison's age now reach the honour of the Victoria Cross, as this war has set almost too high a standard for their physical activity. Pattison was 42 years old--a smart soldier and a good fellow.

His son, a young soldier in his father's battalion, wears the ribbon upon his right breast, and probably will wear it on his left side too, before this war is over.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

PRIVATE HARRY BROWN, 10TH BATTALION

Most men who have won the Victoria Cross have gained it by some act of violent, pa.s.sionate valour. Private Harry Brown, Number 226353, of the 10th Battalion, won it by suppressing the impulse to violence. Whilst others on the same field of battle were earning the decoration in the impetuous fury of a.s.sault Harry Brown was earning it by the terrible, pitiless restraint which he imposed on his emotions. His was the supreme courage of self-control, the silent valour of abnegation.

The 10th Battalion took part in the attack on Hill 70, near Loos, which began on the 15th of August, 1917, and lasted for several days. Before midnight of the 14th the battalion was in position, and at 4.25 a.m. the attack began. The first German line was captured in face of fierce opposition, the fighting continuing intermittently throughout the day; but the position was held. During the night, attempts were made to consolidate the new line; but the 7th and the 8th Battalions were in difficulties and the 10th Battalion was ordered next morning to move to their a.s.sistance.

This second attack began at four o'clock on the afternoon of the 15th.

Chalk Pit, the redoubt on the left of Hill 70, was a.s.saulted by "A," "B"

and "C" companies. "A" company encountered terrible enemy machine-gun fire when within two hundred yards of the pit and were forced to take cover in sh.e.l.l-holes for a time. After a short rest the position was captured in a rush, the waves of attackers, carried forward by the impetus of the advance, reaching a trench seventy-five yards beyond Chalk Pit. The German occupants were all either killed or captured.

The position was being consolidated when Sergeant J. Wennevold and a party of men of "C" company went out to reinforce a post to the right of the new battalion front in order to protect the flank from a counter-attack. Consolidation of that position was terrible work. To the men who tried to dig into the hard, chalky soil that attempt must always remain a nightmare. They could make little impression on the earth. In one part of the front the result of the previous night's labour was a trench scarcely two feet deep, blunted tools and aching hands and backs.

While the work was in progress the Germans poured a hurricane of fire from machine-guns and field-guns on the position. Men were killed and wounded faster than others could take their places. The crisis of that day and night of endurance and agony came at a quarter to five o'clock in the afternoon, when the Germans were seen ma.s.sing for an attack on the right.

By this time every wire to headquarters was cut by the enemy artillery.

If they were allowed to attack, the companies in the trench would be annihilated and the hard-earned position lost. The situation was desperate.

Only one chance of averting disaster remained.

A runner must get through with a message to our artillery asking them to smash the German attack. Private Harry Brown and another runner undertook to deliver the message. When they set out on their desperate mission a hostile barrage was raking the open behind the newly occupied ground, the enemy's intention being to prevent supports coming up. The messengers had to get through this curtain of fire, a curtain under which nearly every yard of ground was being churned into a mess or torn up savagely in tons and tossed on high as if by some unseen Brobdignagian hand.

They had gone but a little way on their adventurous journey when one was killed and Brown was left, the only link between his isolated battalion and its hope of succour. If he failed to get through his comrades would be wiped out to a man.

He continued to stumble along, sinking into new, smoking craters, now and then up to the waist, dragging himself out and crawling through the debris, lying still for short intervals till the shock of the explosions had pa.s.sed. Flying missiles. .h.i.t him and shattered an arm. He was bleeding and exhausted. He sat down, dazed and uncomprehendingly. But his will forced him to his feet again. He staggered onward towards the support lines, walking like a man in a dream, his brain in constant dark motion, his thoughts in a flux even as the ground on which he strove for a footing.

It was a pained, dreary thing, sore and weary, that kept doggedly crawling and staggering on through the intensity of the shrapnel and the high explosive. His strength ran from him with the blood from his mangled arm. His steps were automatic. The last part of the journey was the worst. It was his _Via Dolorosa_.

An officer standing in a dug-out in the support line was peering out at the devastation which the enemy artillery was spreading so prodigally.

Sh.e.l.ls rained on every side, the earth shuddered and shrank at every blow. But the telephone to headquarters was working.

A dark form crawled out of the ruin and stumbled towards the dug-out. It was a soldier--hatless, pale, dirty, haggard, one arm hanging limp and b.l.o.o.d.y by his side, his clothing torn and stained. He reached the steps of the dug-out, and seeing the officer, tried to descend. But his strength was gone, his limbs refused to act. He fell down the short stairway, spent--utterly spent and dying.

The officer lifted him gently and brought him into the dug-out and laid him down. Then Brown handed over his precious slip of paper.

"Important message," he whispered.

And Private Harry Brown lay back and drifted into unconsciousness. He died a few hours later in the dressing station.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

COMPANY SERGEANT-MAJOR ROBERT HANNA, 29TH BATTALION

When the first big attack was made by the Canadian troops on Hill 70 on the 15th August, 1917, the 29th (Vancouver) Battalion moved forward to the support of the 5th Brigade, remaining in the area for three days while the battle raged in the forward lines.