From The Canadian Magazine, Toronto, September
1916, No. 5, Vol. XLVII
With Canadians from the Front
By Lacey Amy
A Series of articles, of which this, the first, depicts
the grim, revengeful determination of the Princess Pats in “That Particular Hell
at Hooge.”
Map from Wikipedia; originally Canadian War
Museum, George Metcalf Archival Collection/drf
He
was seated on the edge of a white-covered cot, one eye concealed by a bandage,
the other, bloodshot and swollen, staring off into a corner of the ceiling. In
the stare, in the pendulous foot, in the limp hands lying over his knees was a
singular air of detachment hard to understand until
it was whispered to me that it was not his bandaged eye that kept him there,
but shell shock, that penalty of modern warfare which technicists have not yet
found time to befuddle under an unintelligible name. Later he pointed to the
neighbouring beds where men lay reading, munching,
talking or watching the distant life of the corridors—New
Zealanders, Welshmen, Englishmen. He was Canadian.
It
was not that being Canadian put him in a different class, but that having just
emerged from that “particular hell” at Hooge, between Sanctuary Wood and
Zillebeke Lake, he had pictures all his own at which to stare.
“They
started shelling us,” he said, “that Friday morning, June the second, about
nine. The Princess Pats and the Mounted Rifles were in the front trenches, with
us on the right.”
“You
were in the front line?” I asked eagerly.
He
looked at me vaguely a moment, then smiled.
“Hell, no! You’ll never talk to anyone from the
front line—not till Germany gives them up. . . . I
saw two come staggering out, blinded, smashed up so bad they
would only be in the road up there when the attack came. Only two! . . . The rest
are—not talking, or in the German hospitals. I was
in a supporting trench a hundred yards back. They let
loose on us with everything they had and lots we didn’t know anybody ever had,
from trench mortars to fifteen-inchers. . . . They didn’t let up till two in
the afternoon.”
I
wasn’t sure whether he shuddered, but his hands were covering the one good eye.
“Pretty
had, I suppose,” I commented weakly.
“Bad!
. . . Say, it was a dream of a day before they started—sun
and blue sky and all that, and we Canadians were feeling fine again, we hadn’t
seen the sun for so long. . . . And then. . . . I didn’t see any more blue sky.
I didn’t see anything but trees falling and flashes bursting right into my
eyes. . . . and I could feel myself bounce every time a shell burst near me. We
got it in the supporting trenches near as bad as they did in the front. I was
buried once, but I remember that didn’t seem to hurt me, except my eyes. . . .
Then at two they came at us over the parapets.”
He
seemed to have finished, contemplating the picture he had been sharing with
me.
“They
say the Canadians ran,” I spurred him on.
Even
one eye can express contempt. “Yes . . . they ran, But—. Back where I was I
could see it all, that next fifteen minutes. Yes, they ran. . . . There wasn’t
a dozen yards of cover in one stretch left of our front trenches when they
stopped their big guns. We didn’t think there’d be a fellow left to stop them
when they came over. But we were wrong. There were a few, most of ‘em cut up—but
they could run. Fritz came over like sheep, thousands of them. They were dead
sure they had it all their own way. And then a few dozen of those boys heaved
themselves up from the front line (hosts of ‘em tried to, but couldn’t) and
ran—you’re dead right there—bang at Fritz.
“Most
of ’em didn’t have a thing but a rifle-barrel or an entrenching tool in their
hands, but they sailed into
that mob of Germans like as if it was a big
game or a movie show. . . I
remember one big fellow right ahead of
me. There wasn’t a sign of cover where
he got up from—all alone—and
he hadn’t a blessed thing in his hands.
he looked like a scarecrow with
his clothes all torn. I watched him.
He grabbed a German bayonet and
spiff! the German just toppled over.
With that rifle he banged
about till I couldn’t see him for
Fritzes. . . . Yes, they ran. I don’t wonder the
Germans said so. They felt ‘em running.
“Then
I had other things to do. I was
the only one left in my bay and the
Germans were coming down the communication
trench. One place their shells had filled
it in and they had to jump out to get to
the next part. I kept my rifle on
that place. I thought I’d got them
all when suddenly one jumped out in
front of me and yelled in English, ‘Hands
up, friend!’ But he was too near
the end of my rifle to work that.
Then I could see them coming over
in bunches, so I dropped my outfit
and bolted across to where I heard
firing from the Princess Pat trenches.
I guess I was pretty well locoed,
for I didn’t know where I was going. There
were dead and wounded all about
and one of ’em told me the Pats had
retired along their communication trench
and I dropped into it and followed.
“About
fifty yards back we found a
little cover and there we stuck, a mixed
bunch from the supporting trenches.
They never got us out of that.
I think Fritz was afraid we might
‘run’, too. And they knew we had
more than our bare fists. Then a
shell came along and buried a few of
us, and when I was digging another
struck the same spot. I don’t know
what happened after that.”
He
pointed up to the end bed of the
ward where a soldier lay with closed eyes.
“That’s
the only other one came out of my bay. He was deaf
and dumb at first. He can talk now. Oh, yes, the fellows got him easy enough.
You see, Fritz held that supporting trench only about twenty minutes. There was
enough of it left to be worth taking. Sergeant—, in Ward—, will tell you how
they got it back.”
II.
Not
one Canadian, of the dozens with whom I have talked, emerged from the Sanctuary
Wood fight without showing nerve effects of the terrible
bombardment. Some stage of shell shock was visible or in grudging
retreat. That in itself is proof of the intensity of the gunfire the Canadians
had to endure. Never has there been an engagement where shell shock was such a
general result.
In
a later article I will have something to say about shell shock, its effect,
its treatment and cure. It is the most interesting of the “wounds” of the new
type of warfare, and, like the other wounds, is developing a treatment
discovered in its entirety only as the war progresses.
One
of these shell shock patients, who started even at my appearance in the doorway
fifty feet away, was dallying with his supper. A large, piece of headcheese lay
on the plate beside his cot, and an orderly was dumping some very
appetizing-looking salad and slices of bread and butter inside it. Conversation
with him was difficult, for he was recovering but slowly.
He
had been on a machine gun battery a hundred yards behind the front line
covering a gap. Through the worst of the shelling he lived without a scratch.
In his little bit of trench were three Lewis and four Vickers guns the former a
machine gun too large to carry. Early in the fight the Lewis guns were buried
by the bombardment, and although they unearthed them twice, they were always
buried again before they could be brought into
use. It was evident the Germans knew they had the range.
Accordingly,
with the four Vickers, he and his remaining mates left the trench and hid
themselves a few yards further up in a hedge. Their duty was to keep the
Germans from rushing the gap in the front lines, and this they succeeded in
doing with the Vickers, in spite of the shells that began to search them out.
The enemy succeeded in getting into the front trenches, but they did not
attempt to come any farther.
All
through that afternoon the handful of men and the four machine guns clung to
that hedge, spraying the gap, and later the captured trenches. Not until
darkness came did they retire to their friends, now rebuilding behind their
protection the destroyed trench they had left.
And
when the strain was over, the three unwounded gunners broke down. All alone,
with the front trenches only a few
yards away in the hands of the Germans, with shells showering everywhere,
burying them and their guns repeatedly, with hundreds lying wounded and dying
all about, with no idea how far the Germans had reached in
their rear, they had worked amid a din
that drowned the sound of their own
guns. No human nerves could stand it. The three were taken
back through the darkness to the hospital. What
happened to the other two he did
not yet know.
III.
Tell
the most apathetic shell-shocked
Canadian who survives the Sanctuary
Wood affair how his mates “ran” and
you effect an instant cure, even if it
but temporary. Those of the front line
who ran must have preferred exposing
themselves to the peril the Germans
said they were fleeing, to the
eyes of their friends. The supporting
line did not see them run except
forward. Indeed, those who remain
from the second line won’t admit
even a German gain.
They
point out that, although the Germans
entered the front trenches over a length
of three-quarters of a mile, the Canadians got
back everything of value within a few hours. In the first overwhelming rush of
the Germans following the terrific bombardment, a few of them entered the supporting
trenches, but even at that a few of the Pats in one section held on up at the
front till morning and then retired when no relief came. In twenty minutes the
Germans were scrambling back from the supporting trenches, and had there been
enough trench up at the front to take the Pats would never have had to retire.
It
didn’t take long to convince the Germans that they had taken a larger bite than
they could masticate, and when they saw that it was nothing like demoralization
they faced from the supporting trenches they turned tail to the mixed band of
Canadians that charged up from only fifty yards away. For a couple of hours a
few held the intervening bushes and shell-holes, while their friends worked feverishly
behind them to bring the old Canadian front line into something like
protection, but after that No Man’s Land was that hundred yards between what
had been the first and supporting trenches of the Canadian line. That the
unorganized counterattack of the Canadians within twenty minutes should have
retaken the second line is sufficient comment on the German morale before a
“running” enemy.
It
was there a member of the 49th took up the tale.
“We
had been in reserve perhaps a mile in the rear. We knew there was a big row up
in front, but the German curtain fire kept us from moving till night. Then we
got up to what had been our former supporting trenches, now our front line.
There wasn’t a lot of cover even there, but the fellows who’d been in the
thick of it were making the most of it and throwing up more. We sent them
back, although some over at the side of us hung on for four days before they
were relieved. All night long the Germans shelled us in spasms. They sure were
nervous that night, and every little while
they’d cut loose with artillery
enough to have cleaned us out
behind that cover if it had been daylight.
“We
knew we were down for a counter-attack
in broad daylight When the enemy’s expecting
you it isn’t what you call a picnic.
But it wasn’t ourselves we were anxious
about, but whether we could
last out to those front trenches in
the face of all those guns. We didn’t dare
try in the dark, because we didn’t
know what there was left to take
or what we aught to prepare for.
“Well,
next morning at eight we got the
word. Down the line we could hear
them hot at it, and then we
got into the thick ourselves. Before
started we saw that the Germans
had been able to do little towards
digging themselves in, but they were there
thick, and back of them the
machine guns. We got it heavy. Men
were falling all about, but we kept
on I don’t know exactly how far we
got but I remember feeling kind of
lonely and looking around. There
weren’t more than fifty of us moving,
but a little way back I saw the
rest digging in. It didn’t seem worth
while—fifty of us bucking up against
a few million Germans, so we dropped
down and crept back.”
He
chuckled, and snatched from his head excitedly an old knit cap and banged it on
the table beside the cot.
“What
had happened was we’d gone clean through our old front line with-out knowing
it, there was that little of it left, and we were making across for the German
trenches.
“We
dug in there as best we could but the German guns kept tearing it down as fast
as we could got it and that night we went back to the other line and made
things solid there. But, you bet, if we couldn’t hold it the Germans were in
for a time trying to. I got mine late in the afternoon, but managed to crawl
out that night when relief came.”
The
story was rounded off by one of the relieving troops.
By that time the Germans were content to
leave the new front line in undisputed possession of the
Canadians, and the latter were willing to grant the Germans for the time the
tragic prize of their former front line on which the Allied artillery was now
turned. The new forces sent up made life miserable for the Germans for four
days. In the meantime the
Canadian wounded had to be treated in the trenches, because the Germans were
turning their guns on the stretcher-bearers
from the first
of the fight.
“Tuesday,”
said one, “things were quieting down a bit. We
couldn’t understand why we weren’t getting a chance to get
back, but it was frightful weather and the Germans were
welcome for a while to the
beautiful job of holding down that front line till we were good and ready to
make it solid when we took it. Then that night they banged at us again, and in
the midst of it they set off a big mine close to Sanctuary Wood.
I happened to be there. I
guess I’m about
the only one who got back to a hospital. But
they didn’t get the hole. The company
next us crowded over and sat
in that.”
One
sleeve of his shirt hung loose, but from the
outline I judged that his arm was in a sling underneath.
“You’ll
get your chance,” I said, for his eyes were
flashing and his left fist was clenched.
His
face clouded, and he raised his left
arm to his right shoulder. “It’s not
for me,” he said. “I lost this. I’m
having another slice taken off in a
few days. But, tell me, did they Hooge
back? I know the rest. Here’s
a letter from a chum who was through
it—a lieutenant now.”
I
couldn’t tell him we had Hooge; but
in the letter he allowed me to read
was the spirit that reconquers the
Hooges of life anywhere.
It told of the third stage of
the fight, of the final sweep of
the victorious Canadians.
The
battle was divided into three distinct actions. There
was the German bombardment and attack, the immediate counter-attack whereby
the Canadians won back the old lines, but found them not worth the holding, and
the great attack a week later by
which the lost trenches were recaptured
except in the village of Hooge and reorganized to their former strength.
From
the first line trenches very few Canadians have come out to tell the tale. The
second stage is told here. The heroes
of the third, who swept the Germans before them with a fury that had been
bottled for days, are still fighting in France, or were kept there in the
hospitals until the big push, now on at the time of writing, was about to
commence. No interview can present the picture painted for me in a letter from
one of the wounded in the final drive to his friend in an English hospital from
the effects of the first few days of the German success. The friend with whom I
talked was minus an arm—the
one I have just written about. The wounded writer in France had just been made
a lieutenant as his share of the rewards for fighting well done. His
jubilation, irrepressible by mere physical incapacity, is too contagious not to
give in his own words:
“It
was hard to think of you fellows going out that way. I know you’d like to have
waited here until we got even. And they’d have kept you, I know, until the boys
bunged up like you were fitter for travel. But there was not going to be room
over here for you when we got going, because when we started after that lost
trench there was going to be work for the hospitals here without you fellows
choking things. And there is.
“I’m
tickled to death you’re getting along so well. I knew you would. That’s the
best of living like you have. My own case doesn’t look quite so sure, but I’m
not fretting. It would be different if we hadn’t done it.
“It
was five or six days. I think, after they carted you
away that they let us loose at the Huns. We had been stewing to get at them,
and I guess our officers knew
something had to happen pretty soon. It did not look
as if there was trench enough up there to be worth
a scrap, but the Germans had
it, and it once belonged to us, and that
was enough. Well, up there at
the top of Sanctuary Wood, where
you went up among the tree-tops,
we had a whale of a time after they
blew that hole. Say, that was some place where we dug in. We
were pounded with a terrific shell fire for days. Then they relieved us for a
few days—not before it was time—for
a lot of us were jumping with the noise and almost deaf, and nearly dead for
sleep. And then we went into the same place again, and the assault took place
through us.
“I’m
sorry, old chap, you didn’t last it out so you could have been along. Lord, it
was fine. I could feel that terrible fretting of the past week just oozing out
as the boys jumped the parapets and smashed across to where our old first line
had been. I don’t think anything could have stopped them. I didn’t get in with
the first bunch, because my company was held on the edge watching for the
counter-attack, if it came too soon for our fellows to make a stand.
“When
we got going we went through the Germans like a knife through cheese. They
didn’t know what to do with us but throw down their rifles and bolt, or hold up
their hands. They said we ran. You should have seen them skedaddle for home and
ma, what didn’t throw themselves on the ground and beg to be taken. We went
clean to the old line and captured some hundreds of prisoners. Our artillery
had kept them from doing much in the digging-in line, and so we had a chance
to slam them good and plenty. And you bet we did.
“Then
we had to take ours. They had the range of us to a
nicety, and they gave us particular hell with shell
fire for days before and during the
assault. When we went up and took over the line
from the assaulting troops we had to take another dose of iron, which the Huns
put on while they
were getting their counterattack ready. But the counter attack never
came off—at least, not what we’d call an attack.
Our artillery got them in the belt and cut them up too bad to want to come to
close steel with us. So
we settled down in a day or two as if there hadn’t been even a brush,
and Fritz was glad to let it go at that.
“During
nearly all the last turn-in the
rain poured down in torrents off and
on, and you can imagine the state the
lads were in, with freshly-dug trenches
and everything being blown to
smithereens by shell fire. Towards the last our trenches
consisted of shell holes connected by ditches
and carpeted with water and
some Flanders
mud. If a shell burst within a hundred
yards we had to get someone
to scrape the plaster from our eyes before we knew if we
were hurt. You couldn’t tell a
captain from a Tommy and
it didn’t matter much just then.
“I’m
mighty glad I lasted through it.
After they’ve got me spliced and refurnished
it’s Canada for mine, I guess. It is if the
refitting takes. I’m not so bad just now,
and I feel cocky enough to win out.
Already
I’m short a leg, and goodness know what else I’ll need to
forage from the factory before they’re
through with me.
“But
we did it, old sport, we did it. We got good and even with them for trying to
wipe out the old bunch. Why, the Huns were lying so thick when we drove through
that we had to jump them all the way. You and I, old pal, can go back to Canada
and join forces and make a whole man between us.”
The next
article of this series is entitled “The Life-Savers”. It gives a graphic and
touching description of the work of the stretcher-bearers, the ambulance men and the workers of the Blue Cross.
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