A big part of trench warfare is the mining operations. I feared the
mines more than anything, I think. It was more terrible than gas
poisoning to think that at any moment the earth would be rent and you
would be thrown a thousand ways at once. The mining operations were
carried on by trained miners, who burrow along under ground about
fifteen feet below the surface. The engineers in charge figure out just
how far they must dig to reach positions under the German lines, and
when they have done so a fuse is run in--and Fritz and Hans and their
friends jump fifty feet toward heaven.
We do this; the Germans do it. It is bad work. And on both sides, we
have to keep men listening all the time for the digging. When it is
discovered that a mine is coming our way, we sink a tunnel deeper still
and blow up their tunnel. And the Germans do the same thing with our
mines. The soldier in the trench never knows when he may be blown into
small pieces--and that is why we always preferred to risk uncertain
dangers between the lines at night, instead of lying down in the wet
trench, helplessly waiting for death.
I never felt so secure, indeed, as when I was on guard between the
trenches, through all the night I could hear the bullets go over me....
And I have seen men of good health grow so weary of the trenches that
they have simply stood up at noon-day. Some machine-guns swiftly ended
them. And others, as I have written, simply stick up their hands above
the trench top and bullets trim off their fingers.
I was twenty days at Laventie. We only had the regular rifle shooting
there, and were fortunate in losing not a single man of our 500 by
bombs. We then marched to a point about one mile to the right of the
now famous Neuve Chapelle, where we caught the Germans by surprise and
took nearly 3,000 prisoners.
For two days and two nights I was firing continuously. My rifle became
so hot that I had to fill my hands with dirt before firing. The
fighting became so fierce that we had to employ men to do nothing else
but carry ammunition to us from 200 yards in the rear. We were two and
one-half miles to the left of the British. The Germans, but for us,
could have got reinforcements, but we Canadians were in the way. We
expected, at first, to attack them, as they were only sixty yards away.
We had constructed special bridges to cross a ten-yard stream near by.
Our work was to fire upon the German reserves in the rear, and this
we easily did, because our guns carried for two miles. The Germans
were defeated largely because they supposed the British had plenty of
reinforcements.
The whole thing began suddenly at 2:30 in the morning, after a quiet
day. It was an earthquake. Our company until then had fought in no real
battle and had lost only five men. Other companies used to declare that
we had some guardian angel to protect us. Anyhow, many say that I had
some guardian angel to protect me--and I am sure that I did.
Three men volunteered to go and cut the wire entanglements. Bullets
were humming through the air. They crawled forth--to their deaths, we
thought--but succeeded in cutting nearly all. So the Germans thought
we were about to attack them. As soon as the Germans discovered what
our men had done, we poured a withering fire over the broken wires, so
that no man could live to reach and repair them.
The English bombarded the Germans for two whole days. Then we heard
cries, and fast by us went the Black Watch, a Scotch regiment, and the
Coldstream Guards. It was between 4 and 5 in the morning that they
passed us, and within ten minutes they had captured the three first
lines of the Germans.
The Germans lost 25,000 men and 3,000 prisoners. Our loss was between
10,000 and 12,000. Two days later troops came to relieve us, and in
time, for we were well-nigh exhausted. We marched at night to Estaires,
a pretty village eight miles away. Our men were so worn out that they
dropped from weariness on the way. We spent eight days in this town and
were royally treated by the French.
At midnight of the eighth day we were warned to get ready for marching
again. We walked twenty-seven kilometers to Cassel, where General
Dorrien, who was in charge of the battle when the English retreated
from Mons in France, in the early part of the war, told us that he
was going to take charge of the whole Canadian division, and that our
regiment would be transferred to another army corps. He gave us three
days' rest, and told us we were to occupy French trenches at Ypres.