Vimy

by Pierre Berton

  The situation called for ingenuity. Schroeder seized the nearest dead body, pulled it back into the trench, and lay down beside it like a corpse as the assault waves passed over. Suddenly, a strapping Canadian appeared and, more out of curiosity than anything else, stuck his bayonet into the corpse. That was the worst moment in Otto Schroeder’s life. He couldn’t stay still. The big Canadian saw him flinch and shouted: “Come on!” As Schroeder struggled to understand what he said, the Canadian shrugged his shoulders. As suddenly as he’d arrived, he disappeared, leaving the German alone once more.

  Schroeder was off and running when another Canadian popped out of the ground, fired, and wounded him in the right forearm. As Schroeder stumbled on, bleeding from his wound, a familiar figure jumped out of some cover and greeted him. This was his friend Private Cordes, fortunately unhurt. Now the two men, grasping each other by the hand like two small, lost boys, began to wander aimlessly among the piles of Canadian and German dead mowed down by opposing machine guns.

  At last they found a dugout. Their own heavy guns were now dropping shells directly on the ridge, and so the pair took cover on the dugout’s top steps.

  “Where are we?” Schroeder asked. Cordes thought they were still in enemy territory. Schroeder disagreed.

  “We stay put until our division makes a counterattack,” he declared.

  As they were discussing this plan, a door in the dugout opened and a Canadian stepped out. Now an absolutely astonishing spectacle greeted them. Beyond the door, in the midst of the battle’s fury, were six Canadians contentedly playing cards. They didn’t even look up from their game or pay any attention to the two grey-clad Germans. It turned out they were medical orderlies. When the game ended, one sauntered over.

  “Hello, Fritz,” said he. “Are you wounded?”

  Schroeder nodded. The medic looked at his arm and pronounced “Not good.”

  He bandaged him up and gave the pair something to eat and drink. When Schroeder had gained some strength, the orderly led him back to the dressing station, where he was treated by a Canadian doctor and sent farther back to Neuville St. Vaast. There he saw the reserve battalions and realized that the Canadians meant to hold Vimy Ridge at all costs. He was one of the lucky ones and knew it; hundreds of his comrades lay piled up in mounds on the bloody slopes they had vainly tried to defend.

  3

  Lieutenant-Colonel Chalmers “Whizbang” Johnston, the commanding officer of Gus Sivertz’s battalion, pushed forward at nine o’clock that morning to set up his headquarters in the old German trench system. On the way he noticed the advancing troops trudging along like sightseers on a Sunday stroll, swapping cigarettes or stopping along the way to eat their iron rations. These were the members of the reserve battalion, 5th CMRs, whom Sivertz had encountered as he moved back.

  One man had been left behind, a luckless private named Harold Carter, not much more than a child, really, who had lied about his age when enlisting and was only sixteen on the day of the attack. Carter had had the misfortune to slip and tumble back into the trench when the company went over the top at 6:50 that morning. Two members of the Lewis gun team had already been wounded and were lying at the bottom when Carter fell on top of them. Unable to proceed, they loaded the youth down with four bags of Lewis gun panniers and helped push him out of the trench.

  By this time the three waves of his battalion had moved on, and young Carter, struggling with the sack around his neck as well as his rifle and other equipment, found it hard going over the pitted terrain trying to catch up. This enforced slowdown probably saved his life. It seemed to him that all the Germans in the Kaiser’s army had opened up on him personally. He ducked into a shell hole, lay in the water, and tried to keep out of sight.

  Three times he tried to climb out of the pit; three times enemy bullets splashed around him, throwing mud in his face. He tried putting his helmet on his rifle and raising it above the lip of the pit. More bullets splattered around him. He lay in the mud, silently noting an observation balloon, loose from its moorings, sailing back toward the enemy lines. Once again he raised his rifle. This time there was no reply. His battalion had finally managed to clear out the Germans who had hidden in the shell holes waiting for the first waves to pass over so that they could emerge to harass the troops from the rear. Carter cautiously gathered up his sacks of ammunition, slung them around his neck, climbed out of the muck, and toppled unscathed into the Zwischen Stellung trench to the cheers of the Lewis gunners who surrounded him.

  Over on the left, the 7th Brigade had advanced with the same split-second timing as the 8th, moving in section rushes between the series of vast caverns that made up the Crater Line. The brigade reached its first objective right on the dot of 6:02 A.M.

  But now there was trouble! The plans had gone awry. The brigade had come within range of the German machine guns on Hill 145. The guns had not been silenced and were wreaking terrible damage, especially on the Black Watch on the extreme left of the front.

  Bill Breckenridge, manning the phones in the signals dugout well to the rear, got the first hint of trouble when his buzzer sounded and an officer’s voice shouted indistinctly over the sound of the barrage: “What’s the hold up on our left? The flank is open. Get it closed without delay; the Germans are sniping our men and I’m going to lose every man unless that flank comes up immediately.”

  But the flank did not close. No one seemed to be able to make contact with the neighbouring battalion. Shortly after that, the line went dead.

  Nevertheless, the 7th Brigade continued to advance, following the barrage as it crept toward the final objective. Harold Barker, the RCR scout, let his eagerness get the best of him and was hit by his own curtain of shells. During training at Bruay among the tapes that represented trenches, Barker had felt a growing impatience waiting for the simulated barrage to creep forward. It took so long to get moving! The significance of those mounted officers carrying flags, cantering slowly across the counterfeit battlefield, had never quite sunk in. Now, after waiting so long in the cramped trenches, he was eager to push forward. He’d been told that he was the connecting file between “C” and “D” companies – that it was his job to make sure the men on both sides of him kept up. But Barker couldn’t wait. There didn’t seem to be much opposition from the Germans. He plunged ahead, felt something pound into his back, and fell to the ground, bleeding from wounds in the back, mouth, chest, and leg.

  As he lay squirming in the mud a dozen of the enemy walked past him and offered to help. Dizzy from his injuries, Barker no longer knew where he was – just that he had been captured and was now a prisoner of the Germans, who were lugging him across the battlefield. Only when they reached the Grange Subway did it dawn upon the dazed and baffled scout that it was the Germans who were his prisoners.

  The wounded were only too well aware that they would have to fend for themselves until the stretcher-bearers arrived. Their friends could not stop; the line had to be maintained. David Moir, the machine gunner with the RCRs who had slept with a corpse the previous night, saw one of his battalion sitting on what was left of his legs, calmly smoking a cigarette. Moir was impressed by the man’s coolness, for he was bleeding to death and no one could stop to help him. Moir called for a stretcher-bearer to staunch the wounds, but by the time he arrived it was too late.

  As Moir stumbled forward he came upon one of the enemy cowering in a shell hole. Moir was as scared as the German, but it was the German who surrendered, tearing off his wrist-watch and belt as souvenirs. The man was so relieved to be captured that Moir thought he was going to kiss him.

  But the going was hard. Hill 145 was still holding out, and the fire from this uncaptured fortress was withering. By the time Moir and his men reached the crest, only three members of the fourteen-man gun crew were left to set up their weapons. Moir himself came face to face with a wounded German who seemed to be reaching for his rifle just as Moir rounded a traverse in the enemy trench. One of the RCRs stabbed the German to
death with his bayonet. To Moir, the look of hatred on the dying man’s face seemed to say: Okay, buddy, I’ll remember you and be looking for you in the next world. Moir would always remember that and wonder about it, sadly. Had the German been intending to kill him, or was he merely trying to surrender? He would never know.

  The gun crew, what was left of it, was ordered to set up its weapons in a trench the battalion was digging a hundred yards in front of its main forward line-a precaution against a possible German counterattack. From this spot, Moir could look right down on the hamlet of Avion, nestled at the foot of the ridge. But he had little stomach for sightseeing. From Hill 145 directly above them to the left, machine guns and shells pounded the new emplacements. Moir and two others took shelter in one shell hole, while the fourth, a new man named Walker, sought refuge in another hole twenty-five feet away. Moir thought it safer to have two men to each shell hole and so crawled over to join Walker. The new man was sitting quietly reading his mail, which had arrived late the previous night. Moir spoke to him, but Walker didn’t reply; and Moir now saw why. One of the bullets from Hill 145 had struck him in the neck, killing him instantly.

  The stench in the RCRs’ trench was dreadful. The decomposing body of a German, uncovered by the diggers, hung over the back wall. To Moir’s astonishment and disgust a new machine gunner – a replacement for the dead Walker – began tearing the body out with his bare hands to see if there were any souvenirs in the corpse’s pockets. The Canadians were known for this incorrigible habit. The Germans had a saying: “The British fight for glory, the Canadians for souvenirs.” How thin, Moir thought to himself, is the veneer of civilization.

  4

  Back at the signals dugout of the Black Watch, a linesman covered with mud staggered in, threw himself on a bunk, and began to give details of casualties. It was the first news of the battle that Bill Breckenridge had had since the line went dead. Now, he and another were detailed to go out and repair it. They followed the wire out into the tunnel and over into the Duffield Crater until they found the break. As he mended the wire and tested the line, Breckenridge could see the British planes flying above him, glittering in the brief noonday burst of sunlight. The Canadian guns were still roaring, but the German shelling was weak.

  At that moment, a German rolled over the lip of the crater.

  “What’s the matter, Heinie?” asked Breckenridge’s fellow linesman. “Are you hit?” The German only tossed his head in agony. He’d lived through the barrage but was bleeding from two wounds in his arm and two more in his chest. The two signallers could only feel compassion and guided him back to the regimental aid post. By now the enemy was so thoroughly cowed that the medical officer of Breckenridge’s battalion, Captain Hale, actually captured five prisoners, his only weapons being a pair of scissors and a flashlight.

  Some of the captives died from their own fire. George Kilpatrick, the battalion’s padre, and a wounded officer were helping a German back to their lines. The prisoner was walking between them when suddenly he slumped. An enemy dumdum bullet had torn out his heart.

  When the battalion moved its headquarters to the crest of the ridge, Breckenridge and the signallers moved as well. The Black Watch was consolidating its position four hundred yards ahead of the 4th Division troops on its left, who were still struggling to seize Hill 145. Thus the battalion was forced to curl its front around to close the gap and form a defensive flank to prevent a German breakthrough. In the first four hours of the battle the Black Watch lost two hundred men.

  One of the wounded, Roy Henley, was surely the youngest Canadian in action that day. He too had lied about his age and somehow managed to get past the recruiting officers even though he was only thirteen when he enlisted. On the day of the battle he was fourteen. By nine that morning, Henley had a bullet hole through his water bottle and two through his kilt. Two more bullets had grazed his foot, actually tearing his sock; yet there wasn’t a scratch on him. The sixth time he wasn’t so lucky. A piece of shrapnel struck him in the back, and for him the battle was over. But he survived that and another wound at Passchendaele and lived to fight and survive again in the Second World War.

  At battalion headquarters, the commanding officer of the Black Watch, Major S.C. Norsworthy, felt a growing sense of frustration. The 54th (Kootenay) Battalion of the 4th Division was supposed to be on his immediate left. Where were they? When Breckenridge handed him the field telephone he could hear the C.O. shouting over the line to the Brigade Major of the 7th, impressing upon him the seriousness of the position.

  “Can you get the unit on the left to do something?” Norsworthy shouted. “If they can’t clean out that machine-gun nest I’ll take a dozen men and clean it out myself.”

  But it would take more than a dozen men. During the past hour the Black Watch had lost fifty dead and wounded from the sniping on Hill 145. Something would have to be done, Norsworthy kept saying, but nothing could be done until the hill was taken. The Kootenay battalion seemed to be in disarray. A few members of the unit had made contact with the Black Watch, but the main body was nowhere to be seen.

  Meanwhile a ration party had arrived at headquarters, and Bill Breckenridge and a fellow signaller were ordered to take the rations to the battalion’s advance headquarters beyond the crest of the ridge. It was not an enviable job. The gap between the two divisions was still open, and the German snipers were busy. The runner sent out to guide Breckenridge was suffering from shell shock, having just seen two of his friends killed by his side; he had lost his bearings and was no longer sure of his direction.

  The trio set off across the shell-torn slopes, tripping over wire, sinking in mudholes to the waist, crawling over corpses. Suddenly the guide turned to the others, white-faced, and announced that he was lost. They stumbled on in the general direction of the front line, their rifles further encumbering their progress, the shrapnel and stray bullets hissing above them.

  A German 5.9 shell hit twenty yards ahead, sending up a geyser of mud that showered them as it fell. Breckenridge had jumped into a shell hole to escape the blast and was now stuck fast in three feet of muck. Another shell landed beside them with a crump, piling more earth on him.

  “For God’s sake,” cried Breckenridge, “pull me out and let’s beat it before we get hit!”

  The other two hauled and grunted and the signaller emerged, leaving half his clothing on the barbed wire at the bottom of the hole. They ran two hundred yards to another shell hole, sat on its edge with their legs in the water, and began to laugh uncontrollably, partly out of nervousness, partly out of relief.

  “She’s a great old war,” Breckenridge said. “That damn fool of a Fritz almost got us.”

  “It was close enough,” his companion replied. “The mud saved our necks.”

  After two hours of stumbling about the lines they finally found their advance headquarters and tossed the rations off their shoulders.

  “Here are your blinking rations,” Breckenridge growled, and explained their close shave.

  “That’s too bad,” said one of the headquarters men. “We’ve got all kinds of German rations here. If we’d have known we would have called and told you to remain at your H.Q.”

  He waved an arm around the dugout to indicate mountains of German rations stacked in every corner. Breckenridge nodded glumly, went into the dressing station, handed the medical officer ajar of rum-the one item the Germans hadn’t left- and then headed back to his own lines.

  Over on the right, Private George Johnston of the 1st CMRs was talking to a German prisoner, a former cook who’d worked in New York and spoke good English.

  “I’m sorry for you,” said the German.

  “Why?” asked the astonished private. “You’re going back to live in a prison camp.”

  “Yes,” replied the prisoner, “but you don’t know if you’re going to get killed or not. I’m not.”

  And that was all too true, for the battle was not yet over. The 4th Division had not been able to ach
ieve its objective.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The 4th Division

  1

  What had happened to the 4th Division?

  By mid-morning it had become terribly clear that the left flank of the Vimy assault was in chaos. Few of the attackers had been able to reach their objectives, and many who did had been hurled back; there were gaps all along the line. Worst of all, the fire from Hill 145, which was supposed to be seized by the battalions of Victor Odlum’s 11th Brigade, was creating havoc among the neighbouring units of the 3rd Division digging in on the ridge to the immediate right.

  The planners had badly underestimated the strength of this bastion, by far the toughest and best-defended section of the ridge. Although it lay only six hundred yards from the Canadian trenches, the slope was far steeper and higher than the gentler rises to the south. The Canadian guns had not been able to blast down to the honeycomb of concrete tunnels and dugouts-the deepest on the escarpment-that sheltered the German reserves. Nor did they realize that the Germans had carefully camouflaged a network of concrete machine-gun nests on their side of the crest. These hidden guns were purposely kept out of action until the moment of the attack. Thus, the division was lured into a hail of fire.

  The 4th was also the weakest division in the Corps as a result of the abortive gas raid that had left it badly mauled on March 1. That débâcle had shaken the troops. Close to seven hundred men were casualties; a dilution of green troops had reduced the fighting capacity of the division. The worst blow was the loss of so many officers. Two of the battalions chosen to make the final assault on Hill 145 had lost their commanders. In addition, they had had to replace half their officers and NCOs just five weeks before the Vimy battle.

  Victor Odlum’s system of trench rotation, which made it impossible for his battalions to train as a team, may also have contributed to the anarchy that reigned on his front that cold morning. The other divisions removed entire battalions from the line for rest and training. But Odlum’s had to rehearse piecemeal because he maintained permanent battalion sectors in which smaller units were rotated. Because each battalion always had some men in the front line, its commander naturally kept his eyes focused on the front, where the danger lay, while lesser officers took over the training. Clearly, in the Canadian Corps senior officers were given a good deal of leeway, encouraged to act on their own initiative. Byng had let Currie have his way in the matter of trench raids. Watson of the 4th had let Odlum have his way in the matter of troop rotation. And Odlum let Major Harry Shaw, the acting C.O. of the Grenadier Guards (87th), have his way when he asked that the artillery leave one German trench undamaged. It was a major miscalculation.