by Will R Bird
The weather continued cold and one of our draft became sick. He was in a barn lying on straw and had little attention other than that of his mates. He was a college graduate, from a splendid home, and he died in hospital after being moved, having been neglected too long. Several of the boys were highly roused over it, Tommy especially, and it was rumoured that Christensen, who had become stretcher bearer, wrote a letter to the lad’s parents, a letter which was not allowed to go through, and for which he was again crimed.
The new platoons were formed and we were shifted in our billets. I found myself moved to the other side of the village and teamed with a man named McDonald, an “original” 42nd man who had been in the transport section but had come to grief through some infraction of rules, and so was sent back to the company. He was a very likeable chap and we were soon good friends. Through him I got acquainted with several of the oldtimers: Westcott, a lance-corporal; Martin, a Lewis gunner, and Davies, our sergeant who was the finest non-com I met in France.
One very bitter morning as we went from our billets to the cook kitchen, a considerable distance away, we passed the house where our company commander lodged. As we went by his window we heard him complaining to his batman that his shaving water was too cold. Tommy, a chap named Jasper, Arthur and myself had had for several mornings to use snow as water, rubbing it on our faces in lieu of washing, and trying to force a lather with the same. Water was very scarce. Tommy stopped and gave voice to feelings that we all had, and we appeared for parade without being shaved. Our officer was one sent to the company as a supernumerary, and he took great delight in putting us “up” for company office. Our major asked us why we had not shaved. “My shaving water was too cold,” said Tommy, and Jasper, and Arthur and myself.
The major reddened furiously, he glared, then grinned, and looked severe again, and finally sentenced us to dig a much-needed latrine near our billets, and to do it after the usual parades. When the time came, a burly police escorted us to the garden of a French miner, and ordered us to go to work. In a short time the owner of the place appeared, and asked, in French, what we were doing. Arthur could speak French like a native, and he explained that we were going to plant some doubtful bombs there. They might explode and they might not, but it was not safe to have them in our billets. The Frenchman went wild. He rushed at us and tore the shovels from our hands and he almost clubbed our gallant escort, who finally bade us to stand by for further orders. We went back to our billets and, very strangely, were never recalled.
The 42nd had a fine football team and it defeated the R.C.R.’s, then the 49th, and we were marched to Marle les Mines to watch them play. They won the divisional championship and were presented with a silver bugle. Sir Robert Borden came and reviewed us, then General Lipsett and finally General Byng. All the old hands said that we were in for a bloody slaughter, after so many inspections, but we did not believe them – we had grown accustomed to “cook house” rumours. We knew, nevertheless, that we were to participate in a big battle, for we were training daily over tapes that represented the German trench system on the Ridge.
We had got to know Divion fairly well, and knew where to purchase eggs and chips and, occasionally, French bread. The rations were better than they had been in the line and we began to feel more like living. I often went to the kitchen of my billet to write letters or jot notes in my diary, and soon discovered that madame and her family were not the least disturbed by my presence. Mickey was with me one cold Saturday evening when the two bony daughters of the household calmly bathed beside the stove, and then the father came home and madame scrubbed from him the grime of the coal mines.
I had had just fatigue enough one day to clear me from parade and was going back to my billet when I met a man who, I often thought, came nearest of any to guessing my state of mind. He was Sergeant Cave of the scouts, a tall, shrewd-eyed man who knew his business. He was going then to arrange targets to shoot at and asked me if I cared to go along. I went, and found that the targets were simply tin cans stuck on a hillside, but I surprised the sergeant. In Canada I had made good scores with the Ross rifle, and I could shoot much better than the average soldier. My father, an officer of the old 93rd Regiment, had been an expert marksman.
We shot, five of his snipers and myself, at tin ends on the bank, a small target. In ten times I never missed, and then I punctured one at one hundred and fifty yards. The sergeant was excited and asked my name and my platoon. I talked with him a time and then went back to Tommy and the boys.
The battalion moved to Dumbell Camp, a miserable swamp in a wood near Villers Au Bois. We bagged slimy mud and made shelters, walls three feet high covered with corrugated iron, or rubber sheets, or anything we could salvage, and camouflaged the whole with branches. It rained and was very cold and the rations were very scarce. Never in France was I as hungry as then, and I would have eaten anything in the food line I could find in the muck.
From that mess we were rushed to the front line. The Germans had blown a mine north and adjoining Durrand Crater, and a party of them had been repulsed by our “A” Company which was in the line. Thirty yards of front line had been destroyed and it was important that a new trench be made, with saps leading to new posts. The Germans shelled the Quarry line and all the back area as we marched in, and the mud made the going hard. In addition, we had not had enough to eat and were almost sick from exposure to rains and mud. We had been almost drowned out of our shelters. More new men had joined us and among them was a pair, Slim and Joe, that no one wanted near them. “Slim” was a tall, thin, bony lad, not over seventeen, uneducated, who had been living like a gypsy until the war, and who did not know his parents. Joe, his mate, was a French-Canadian, who also was uneducated, and who had no dependents. They did not get any mail, were very slovenly in dress and drill, and would not wash or shave unless forced to do so.
As we entered the communication trench Slim fell in at my heels; Arthur was next to him and then Laurie. An officer named Stewart took charge of us, and we filed from the cover of the trench to open ground. Sharp orders were hissed. We had to dig in along tapes and we were in range of both snipers and machine guns. The mud was deep and we did not know our location. Each man worked frantically. A brigade wirer led the way and it so happened that I was first man out and farthest over. All around us there was a clamour of shell fire and machine guns were rattling. It was quite dark and flares were soaring in quick succession.
Slim stuck close to me and I had to thrust him back in his position. We dug and dug. I struck barbed wire in tangles, and the brigade man heard me and came with his cutters. As he left he groaned and sank to earth, shot through the body. Bullets were snapping all around us and Slim got down on his knees and huddled close to the earth, yet never slackened his shovelling. I did not draw a full breath until I had gotten below my wire, then I looked around. Arthur was sitting in the mud. I thrust past Slim and went to him and asked if he were sick. He looked at me and shook his head and would not speak. I insisted and he said, so low I could hardly hear him, “Freddy was right.”
“Are you hit?” I asked, and he shook his head, then got up and began to work. I went back to my place, puzzled. He had never acted queerly before.
Almost immediately there was a call for stretcher bearers and then came word that Lieutenant Stewart, a finely built man, had been shot through the stomach. He died that night. I worked on and Slim kept pace with me. We soon had our strip as deep as required, and at last came word for us to go back. We started and had not gone a dozen feet when Arthur pitched over on the bank, shot through the head. A chill crept over me, weakened me. How had he known?
It was daylight when we reached camp, but we sat about a time, cleaning mud from our legs, before we lay down to sleep, and we talked about Arthur. Freddy did not say a word; he had got so that he would not talk. Charley was deeply impressed, though he had not been one of the six. “None of us’ll ever see home again,” he said, as he crawled from sight. “We might as well go now
as any time.”
That night we marched out again, tired as we were. Near me was a lad named Gilroy, a plucky little chap whose boots had almost crippled him. He took them off as we rested by a road and the flesh was worn raw and bleeding. He would not report to the sergeant. Once more we worked under machine gun fire, but were mostly deepening the trenches and making posts, and none of our lot was hit. We staggered and stumbled back to our Camp at daylight, and hardly knew what we were doing. We were moving automatically, trying to follow the man in front, shaking with cold, dull, heavy-eyed in the gray light, every muscle clamouring for rest, for the torpor of sleep. Starved as we were, we would not take more than a drink of tea that waited us before we wormed, mud and all, into our shelters.
A third night we went, forcing ourselves into action, and the Hun shelled more fiercely than before. In the Quarry Line we came in contact with a line of mules going up with rations and ammunition. As our party took the near side of the embankment, the sides of the sunken road, whizz bangs began to erupt all along, and we crouched to cover. Twice we had narrowly escaped a salvo, and then, just before our trench, more shells came. I jumped ahead and squeezed between a mule and the bank. The brute knew as well as I the safety of the earth wall and thrust solidly against me, so that its dirty hide was pressing my face.
Whizz bang! Whizz bang! Whizz bang! Three explosions so near that I felt the “lift” of concussion. Yells. “Stretcher bearer – stretcher bearer!” A man was down on the rails behind us, and those in front were racing for the trench mouth. I tried to push past my mule and the beast sagged on me so that Tommy had to help get me clear. As I did so the mule dropped dead, and I found that my legs were bathed in its blood.
Up in the trenches we just worked when forced to by the non-coms. Every man was dead beat and nervous under the shelling and machine gun fire. I asked who was hit in the Quarry line and told that it was a man named Cockburn, not one of our draft. Again we reached our camp, and once more I started to worm into shelter, then remembered that I had not seen Laurie. I went over to the stretcher bearer’s mud hole and uncovered him. “Was anyone beside Cockburn hit?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Laurie was hit, shrapnel near the spine, a place you could put your hand in. He’ll not live.”
Laurie and Baxter had been together since we had come to France, but Baxter had been sent to the Brigade Trench mortars. It seemed as if our little company was going fast, I went back to my place, and Charley was there. He looked at me, and he was an unhealthy colour. “Bill,” he said, “how would a man know he was for it?”
“He wouldn’t,” I said vehemently. “That stuff is all bosh. What’s the matter?”
“I saw something to-night,” he said. “Just as we left the trench I thought a big white light flashed around me and that I was picked up on something like a flak car and whizzed away from here altogether. It was the queerest feeling I ever had and – I – believe I’m for it.”
I argued savagely with him. Charley was not a thinker. He was one of the rough and ready type, rugged, used to fun and merriment. He went to his shelter, but I saw that I had not convinced him. McDonald asked me about him and when I told him of Charley’s obsession he jeered and said there was nothing in it. That night we marched in and took over the front line.
No sooner were we established than the sergeant came and told me that I was to go to the sniping section and to report to Cave – I had been transferred. I raged. Smaillie had just arranged that I be on his post, with MacMillan, and I had the next six hours off duty. All the while we had been dragging our souls out through the mud and sleeping in the mud, without proper food, the snipers had been in their warm dugout having it much easier than we.
In that mood I reported. Cave was very kind to me and told me that I would work with Harry, an English chap, who was a reliable sniper. In the next bunk were Sedgewick, a brother to Sammy, and Smoky, a cranky-sounding fellow. They did not offer to make friends with me, and I saw that Smoky was one of the men I had beaten at shooting. Harry, however, was kind and we had long conversations.
The dugout we were in was very long and roomy, and to my delight several of our company moved into the other end. As they sat cleaning their rifles someone discharged his, and the snipers sat up and yelled curses. No one had been hit, but they talked among themselves of those blasted “herring chokers” and “soup eaters,” and wondered why the battalion had not got “our own kind” of men. “Perhaps,” said a voice, “the squaws wouldn’t let them come.”
It was Tommy, or course, who had come to see me.
For a moment there was a challenging tensity in the air, but Tommy was not answered, and soon the matter passed. It was not the first time we had heard that outbreak. Many of the “oldtimers” resented us, for in all the company competitions our men were easily outstanding. The sharp-tongued sergeant had become outspoken on the matter, until one day at Divion he loosed his spite when only men of our draft were with him. Hughey promptly caught him up like a schoolboy and shook him till his teeth rattled. “You’re not enough man to hit,” he said, “but I’ll slap your pretty little face for you,” and he did. The sergeant was white with fury at first, but calmed when he heard all present tell him very plainly what he might expect if things went further. He reported Hughey, however, but gained small satisfaction. The men were the only witnesses and they stuck to the story that the sergeant had attacked Hughey.
Curiously, the “originals,” and they were very few, seemed to dislike us because we did not seem to care for hard liquor or the red lights of Bruay. Most of the lads played poker when in rest billets. Very few of them ever got drunk, or bothered with French women. Quite a few of us had books in our packs and read when we had an opportunity. The old “hard” men could not understand us.
That night the Germans bombarded our trenches but no one was hurt. “Rum jars” put our candles out and brought down showers of chalky earth, but the roof held. In the morning Harry and I went out, as soon as it was light, to a sniping post on the crater line. A steel plate was placed on a high point, and camouflaged on the enemy side with wire and rubbish. We swung back the small plate that covered our observing slit and watched for a victim.
It was interesting to lie there and scan the German lines through a glass that brought everything to you with startling clearness. I could see their coloured sandbags, spades lying on the parados, tiny curls of smoke from a dugout, and several times a big pot helmet bobbed along the trench, just high enough for us to get occasional glimpses. Keen to spot a Hun, I lay there until I was more cramped and chilled than I realized, and then went back to the dugout. What a change! We simply went, whenever we felt like it, and got a drink of hot tea and had something to eat. In the afternoon we went again and I studied a tangle of wire and stakes away over on the left, and had as my reward a momentary view of a gray figure flitting to cover.
Sedgewick and Smoky, I gathered, were scouts, and did their work at nights. I heard them reporting their prowl of the previous night, and thrilled as I listened. Scouting appealed to me more than anything else, and I talked a little with Cave about it after they were in their bunks. He eyed me sharply, as if doubtful of my ability, and explained that it was a grim game, requiring special qualities of character and training, nerve power, and instinct of hearing, and the sense of direction in darkness. Often a man was required to play a lone hand in a tight situation, and always he must be prepared for the unexpected. I simply replied that I was sure I could do as well as the others.
Harry and I went out a second day, and never had a shot. He was a cool-going fellow, and never seemed hurried or impatient. He told me that he had shot over eighteen Germans and expected to get many more. Then, on the third morning, I got my fill of such sport. We were in our usual position when I saw a German in full pack rise almost waist-high in a place in their trench. I was so amazed that it took me a moment to discover that during the night our guns had blown in the parapet. The German apparently was a new man to th
at sector, or else had grown careless of danger. He did not hurry and I tingled all over as I scored my first hit. It was not a great shot, the distance was not one hundred yards, and I had cross-hair sights, but at last I had really killed a Hun.
Harry was tickled. He rubbed his hands and noted down the facts in his book but had not finished when a second German, also in pack, rose in the same place. I shot him as soon as he appeared, as I was excited and taut on the trigger. Hardly had he fallen than a third man stepped on the piled earth, and stared all around. I shot him very carefully, aiming directly at his left breast, and through my telescopic sights could see his buttons. As he pitched down beside the others, two more Germans appeared, but they had thrown off their packs and big helmets and they flung themselves down by the broken parapet and peered toward me. One had an immense head, round, enormous, and he glared like a bull. His mate was very dark and his hair was close-cropped. They remained with their chins resting on the bags, as if watching me, and Harry gripped my shoulder, “Shoot, man,” he rasped in my ear, “you won’t get a chance like this again.”
A queer sensation had made me draw back. I handed him the rifle. “Go ahead yourself, if you want,” I said, “I’ve had enough of this bloody game.”
He seized the Ross and took quick aim and I saw the dark flush that spurted over the face of the bigheaded man. He sank from view, his fingers clawing and tearing at the bags as he went. His companion ducked slowly, just escaping Harry’s second shot. Then over on the left by the wire tangle, a German got up and walked overland and he carried a big dixie. It was a cook, and it clearly proved that a new battalion was in the line. Harry shot him with great satisfaction, and then potted a third man, an officer, who stepped up on the blown-in part and waved to a working party. When he fell he first stepped back, then ahead. No other Germans came in sight, though we could see their shovels as they cleared their trench. Harry shot at a helmet top several times, and twice a spade waved a miss. Then he led the way back to the dugout and told me that unless I explained myself to Cave he would have to report me.