The Red Watch Part 15

experience, how to handle men and to get to know them and learn how the military machine was worked. The real reason he stayed with his company was because he was so devoted to his men. He had formed ties which he did not like to break. Every man in the company thought he was the greatest company officer in the division, and I thought so too.

CHAPTER XIX

WITH GENERAL SIR HORACE SMITH-DORRIEN

The battalion paraded early on April 7th and once more we were on the march. We were working north and were to go into billets near Ca.s.sel.

The intended attack on the Rue D'Enfer never took place. It was only an April fool joke.

We did the twenty mile march to Ca.s.sel in heavy marching order in good style and got into our new quarters at four in the afternoon. We were to have a week's rest there. Then we were to take over a piece of trench east of Ypres from the French so that the British line would extend between the Belgians and the French. As it stood, we were in the French line. Our billets at Ca.s.sel were excellent. We were in the Second Army under Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien.

The battalion paraded on April 10th at 9.15 and marched off to Ca.s.sel to be reviewed by General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien. The city of Ca.s.sel is situated on one of two sugar loaf hills that rise about a thousand feet above the adjoining plain. There is a wall around the city and it is now strongly garrisoned by French troops. From the summit of the castle you can, on a clear day, see Dixmude, Calais and the sea. You can also view Ypres, Armentieres and many other towns and villages.

The city was not taken by the Germans in their rush last fall. The hills around Ca.s.sel are rich in historical a.s.sociations, dating back to the Roman period. There is still shown the remains of one of Caesar's Camps, and underneath its walls William the Silent of Orange fought one of his most notable battles.

For review our brigade was drawn up in a field below the city walls.

This field was in the form of an amphitheatre and the troops looked splendid in the bright spring suns.h.i.+ne.

General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien did not keep us waiting long. We presented arms, and he went over each platoon most carefully. While he was inspecting one battalion, the others rolled in the gra.s.s or enjoyed themselves by tossing bits of turf at the tame pheasants that gazed on the soldiers in wonder from the hedges surrounding the enclosure. The General reviewed the 48th and expressed much admiration for the fine physique and soldierly bearing of the men. He said it was a pity that such fine men should be taken from their homes and sent to war, but he was sure they would give a good account of themselves.

When the review was over the General called the officers and non-commissioned officers together and told them that he had never seen a steadier or finer body of troops; that we would soon have some stiff work to do and he knew we would do it, but that he considered the war would be over in a year. He told us that when the Canadians came to France they had been preceded by rumors that questioned their drill and discipline, and that the British doubted their soldierly qualities. They were, however, much surprised to find that the Canadians were most excellent soldiers, that they were as highly trained as any British soldier who had come to France, that their discipline could not be questioned, and that their behavior in the trenches had been splendid. The British generals at first thought the Canadian technical troops, such as the artillery and the engineers, might lack skill. They found that the artillery knew their business as well as the best British artillery, that the engineers were superior in many ways and that now every corps commander wanted the Canadians.

General Smith-Dorrien, at the conclusion of the review, called the men together and addressed them in a similar strain, and then we were ordered to march our battalions off to their billets.

It was a great pleasure to hear a few words of commendation from such a great soldier as General Smith-Dorrien, for the first Canadian Division had been greatly lied about and maligned in England. Every offence on the calendar had been charged against it, and one would have thought, instead of being composed as it was of young, well educated and well-behaved men, it was the off-scourings of the Canadian prisons and jails.

If we were well drilled we owed it all to ourselves. We went to England filled with high hopes that we were to be a.s.sociated with British Regulars and to have the best of British instruction. We were disappointed from the first. No British troops were a.s.sociated with us. We had to work out our own salvation.

But the Canadian officers were a self-reliant lot, so the drill manuals were conned carefully and the men were exercised in a sound system that made the companies great self-confident fighting machines.

Every officer was on his metal and worked hard to bring his men to perfection in spite of mud and rain and all sorts of difficulties worse than we ever encountered in Flanders.

Comparisons are odious, but experience has shown that the Canadian officer, on the whole, is equal to any officer in the British army.

His Majesty graciously ordered that we were to be cla.s.sed as "regular Imperial officers." We had to line up to that standard.

The present war is altogether unlike previous experiences in the British army. "Forget South Africa" became a byword. The numbers are so great and the ground so restricted that new conditions have arisen.

The Canadians quickly a.s.similated the new conditions.

On the morning of April 15th the battalion paraded at its billets at Ryveld and marched to Beauvoorde. This hamlet consisted of a couple of stores and a saloon. The men were quartered on farms. On one side of the road is Belgium, the other side is France. I was quartered in the estament or saloon, and the landlady told me that in the room in which I slept a German Prince Este had slept the night before he was killed by the British near Caestre. This was very cheerful news, and I am thankful I did not have his luck.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TRENCHES AT NEUVE CHAPELLE]

The night before we marched we chopped down a tree at my headquarters and had a bone-fire and singsong. The Germans east of Ypres must have thought Ca.s.sel was on fire. The tree was an old dead one and burnt beautifully, but next day the owner put in a demand for one hundred francs. I agreed to settle for twenty francs cash, or a requisition for one hundred francs. The shrewd old Fleming chose the gold. We had the worth of the money.

Early the next morning the battalion paraded again and marched to Abeele, where thirty-eight motor busses that had been brought over from England carried the men with their kits to the eastern outlet of Poperinghe, where we alighted and marched down the famous road to Ypres along which thousands of Canadians marched never to return.

We crossed a stone bridge over the Yperlee Ca.n.a.l, pa.s.sed by a large basin for s.h.i.+ps with docks and warehouses, and found our billets in the north section of the city. My billet was at an old gas works by the railway and the house, which was a modern brick, had previously been sh.e.l.led, as a large hole through the wall and floor of the parlor showed. The chimney of the old gas plant made an excellent mark. The man of the house, his wife and nine children, were living in the house. I took the front dining room as an office, put the telephones up in the back parlor and took down the half inch steel plates that were over the windows to keep out the shrapnel and let in the light of day.

It is wonderful what fatalists we become in the trenches. This war is not like any other modern war. In previous wars if a man was under fire once a month he was doing well. Here on the western front of Flanders in the British section if he gets out of rifle and sh.e.l.l fire one day in a month he is doing well.

The effect upon the men is very evident. They sobered up as it were.

They were very happy and cheerful, but every man that goes in the trenches soon makes his peace, with past, present and future. The Protestants attend service every time they get a chance. There was a great service in Estaires before we left for Ca.s.sel and every man attended. The Roman Catholics attend Ma.s.s regularly and there is very little attention paid to politics. At home in Canada they were warring in Parliament over giving the soldiers the vote. In the trenches no one cared. What did it matter to a man who was appointed pound-keeper or member of Parliament, at home in Canada, if to-morrow a sh.e.l.l should take his own head off. The petty affairs and jealousies that affect politicians at home and give them spasms and sleepless nights do not interest the man who sleeps on his arms in a dugout with the thunder of cannon shaking down the clay on his face. Religious controversies are also forgotten. The men of this war are not inspired with religious enthusiasm like the men of Cromwell's time or the j.a.panese and Russians. There is religion of a deeper kind. The Bible is constantly in evidence. The Protestant and the Roman Catholic sleep side by side in the consecrated ground of Flanders. Both deserve the brightest and best Heaven there is, for they were all heroes and gave their lives for the cause of justice and humanity. In the church yard at Estaires, close by the wonderful church steeple which no German sh.e.l.l had so far been able to find, they buried the dead heroes of Neuve Chapelle in long trenches, three and four deep, with the officers who fell at the head of the mounds. In the corner of every farmyard and orchard you will find crosses marking graves, black for the Germans, and white for our soldiers.

In the presence of constant death, of wounds and anguish, it is wonderful the spirit that pervaded our men. They were reconciled with death and, often when I took a wounded Canadian by the hand and expressed regret that he was hurt and suffering the answer always was, "Its all right, Colonel, that's what I came here for." We all realized what we were fighting for, and the destruction wrought upon the poor Belgians has been so great that we all felt if we had a hundred lives we would cheerfully give them to rescue stricken Belgium and aid brave unconquerable France.

The Canadians that survive this war and return home will have a higher viewpoint, and there will be very few reckless drunken men among them.

The "rough-neck" swearing soldier has found no place in this war.

With our brigade was Canon Scott of Quebec, an Anglican clergyman with a stout heart and a turn for poetry. He never tired of going about the billets among the men. There was no braver man in the division and his influence was splendid. Everybody loved him, and he was an ornament to the church to which he belonged. He reminded us often of the old fighting Crusaders.

On the evening of our arrival at Ypres I visited the Cloth Square a short distance away, and reviewed the ruins of the fine Gothic building known as Cloth Hall. This building was one of the glories of Flanders. In every niche over its hundreds of pointed windows there was a full-sized statue of some noted Count of Flanders and his wife.

But the place was one great ruin, the inside having been blown out, and now it is turned into an horse stable. The town itself was resuming some of its wonted activity and workmen were busy mending the scars of war in the tiles and brick of the houses of the city.

Ypres was, in days gone by, the capital of Old Flanders. Within its walls there was an Irish convent, and in this convent was shown one of the few colors ever taken from a British regiment. Clare's Irish Regiment in the service of France, it is said, took this flag at the Battle of Fontenoy.

We were now among the Flemings proper, and they are a fine race of tall people, some with light brown eyes and flaxen hair, a rather odd combination. They are very clean and very friendly, worthy descendants of the warlike Belgae. They wors.h.i.+p King Albert, who they say is the greatest warrior and king that Belgium has ever seen. The Belgians of to-day will not rank him second to even Claudius Civilis, the companion of the Roman Emperor Vespasian, nor to any of those heroes of Tacitus, who took up arms for Belgian liberty against the Romans, nor yet to Charlemagne, the great conqueror of Middle Europe.

We were to garrison Ypres for four days, and then we were to take over the piece of trench occupied by another battalion in our brigade, the Canadian Scottish. Our position in the line was the extreme point of the great salient of Ypres that has been held so valiantly for months by the British, French and Belgians.

CHAPTER XX

THE HISTORIC SALIENT AT YPRES

On April 17th we received orders not to gather in groups on the street if hostile aircraft were seen, and also that officers were to keep close to their billets. Three of my companies were moved out to farms in the outskirts. They had been billetted in a big factory, and if a sh.e.l.l had come in many would have been killed. I went out to see Brigadier-General Turner at noon. His headquarters were located at a large farm northwest of St. Julien. I found General Alderson and several of his staff there, and the matter of the defence of the Canadian line was discussed. From this point with my field gla.s.ses I could get a good view of the greater part of the salient at Ypres.

Let me here explain the line of the salient of Ypres held by us. South of Ypres, about four miles away, at St. Eloi, the opposing trenches ran straight south of Armentieres, a city named after Thomas de Armentieres, envoy of Flanders to Philip of Spain of Armada fame. From St. Eloi the German line was bent northeast running to what is called Hill 60, and from there northeast past Chateau Hooge to the village of Zonnebeke. From there the line ran almost north across Gravenstafel ridge to where Stroombeek Creek crossed the road from St. Julien to Poelcappelle, thence the line ran northwest past Langemarck to Bixschoote, on the Yperlee Ca.n.a.l which runs northwesterly. The British held the southern face of the salient as far east as Zonnebeke. The Canadian Division replaced a French division on the extreme toe along Stroombeek brook almost to Langemarck. From there on to Bixschoote two French divisions were garrisoning the northern face until they came in touch with the Belgians.

Roughly speaking the whole British front from north to south on the whole Flemish frontier is only about forty miles. All the Ypres salient is historic ground and every foot is rich in sentiment. Every farmhouse, every field bore the scars of war,--the houses and barns with their broken tiles, the fields with almost every hundred feet, a "crump" hole where a sh.e.l.l had fallen and exploded! Some of these holes were ten feet deep and thirty feet across. Life was cheap in this great salient and the Canadians were given "the post of danger, the post of honour."

There was no strategical reason why this salient should be held so far east of Ypres. If we kept our artillery west of the ca.n.a.l where they could not be enfiladed, the sh.e.l.ls would not reach where the Canadian battalions were holding the trenches six miles away. If the guns were brought into the salient they could be bombarded by German artillery from each flank as well as the front. If the infantry line was broken at any point the whole would be compromised. There was the danger also of the ca.n.a.l in the rear with only a few pontoon bridges. The ca.n.a.l would be filled with our guns and dead. Very few of our men could escape. There were no troops but ours and the French on the left between us and Calais. Two weeks after the Battle of St. Julien the salient was flattened to conform with sound strategy.

The weather had been very fine and it was a bright clear day with clouds scudding across the sky, such as we see in Flemish pictures.

Everywhere tall lines of elms and stubs of pollard willows filled the landscape. The cattle were grazing in the field and everything looked very peaceful. The larks were soaring and singing on high. Every now and then a m.u.f.fled roar alone told us that there was war. Somewhere along the horizon to the south I could see the famous Hill 60, and east of it the Zillebeke ridge where, on October 31st, Moussey's Corps, with a division of the French Ninth Corps, made a great stand against the Germans and foiled their attack by calling in the cooks and transport men and dismounting their cavalry. There again in the evening of November 6th our Household Brigade under Kavanagh saved the situation that cost the British Blues and Second Life Guards their commanders. Along the same ridge towards Gheluvelt Cawford's Brigade came out of action reduced to its brigadier, five officers and seven hundred men.

A little to the north, on the afternoon of October 31st, the Worcesters made a famous stand, and on November 10th the Prussian Guard was wiped out by the Black Watch on the same spot. They tell how General French told the Black Watch that they had many famous honors on their colors that told of many glorious days, but that the greatest day in the history of the Black Watch was that on which they met the Jager Regiment of the Prussian Guard and the Jagers ceased to exist as a unit.

Every little farm was dotted with graveyards where the British and French had buried their dead. On the way back to Ypres, Major Marshall and I took a short cut across the fields and ran into a battery of 4.7 British guns, Territorials. When they saw us coming they loosened up for our special benefit, and the first thing we knew the answer came back in the form of a heavy German sh.e.l.l that came within a few hundred yards of the British batteries.

That evening the British blew up Hill 60. Captain Frank Perry had been told off to a.s.sist the British engineering officers in this work. The explosion was followed by a most terrific cannonade and rifle fire which continued all night. This was a hot corner. During the night my slumbers were disturbed with the whistling of German high explosive sh.e.l.ls in our vicinity.

On Sunday, April 18th, Canon Scott preached a sermon to the men.

During the day several sh.e.l.ls burst in the town and some of them not far from our billets. The inhabitants had begun to flee.

About eleven o'clock at night Canon Scott wandered into my billets. He had been holding service with the men and had lost his way. I was afraid he would get killed or drowned. He was so zealous, and such a charming character, he made an ideal chaplain. No hour was too late, no road too long for him. His son was wounded with another corps and would lose his eye.