THE WINTER MONTHS
November brought with it a week of steady rain, and we knew the winter
months were at hand. In less than two weeks our trenches, once the pride
of the division, were a series of collapsed heaps where the sandbag
walls had been undermined by the seepage of water.
But we suffered nothing like the discomforts endured by the British
troops during the previous winter. Rubber boots reaching to the thigh
were issued, sparingly at first, but gradually until every man had a
pair, and whale oil and spare socks were available in large quantities
to aid in the fight against trench-foot. Nothing, however, could prevent
the mud, which lay a foot deep along the gangways of the trench. Pumps
were issued, but the mud was too thick to pump; our only hope lay in
drainage, and by the time proper drains were constructed the mud was too
thick to run, even though we were on a hill top.
[Illustration: AFTER A FEW SHELLS AND A WEEK'S RAIN.]
So we pumped and drained and built new sandbag walls all winter, and as
fast as one portion of our line was renewed another portion would
collapse, or, more disheartening still, be shelled to bits by the big
"minenwerfer."
This was a German gun brought up to this front to counteract our trench
mortar. Throwing a shell about six inches in diameter of high explosive,
it could in three bursts do more damage than a whole company could
repair in a night. And regularly twice a week three shells were dropped
along Delta Road, a communication trench forming the third side of the
little salient.
The effect of the "minenwerfer" was very local, however, owing to the
thinness of the shell wall, but such men as it killed were not a pretty
sight. Fortunately, too, the shells could be seen both by day and night,
and rose to such a height before dropping that men could scamper for
shelter from the threatened spot. But no dug-out could withstand its
explosion, and a series of craters, eight or ten feet in depth and
twelve feet in diameter, marked the "minenwerfer's" work.
Every battery that covered our area had, by the time winter was over,
reported they had silenced "Minnie," but when we left that area months
later she was still doing business at the old stand.
To relieve the monotony of this sort of thing the Canadian Corps
organised a series of night raids on the German trenches.
The first, and most brilliant, of these was conducted by the 5th and 7th
Battalions of the 2nd Brigade on a barricade or forward trench that had
been constructed by the enemy near our old position opposite the Petite
Douve Farm.
This raid was made on a villainous night blacker than Egypt during the
plagues and raining as only Flanders can.
With faces blackened with charcoal, the raiding parties crept out to the
enemy wire and cut it strand by strand, a process lasting several hours.
During this time the cooks of one of the battalions carried out
pannikins of hot tea to the men who were lying in the mud hacking at the
wire.
Finally the path was reported clear except at one point where a deep
ditch full of water could not be crossed, and at the appointed moment
the raiding parties swooped in on the enemy trench.
Secure, as they thought, on such a vile night, the enemy were
completely surprised, but put up a stubborn resistance. An officer and
about thirty men were secured as prisoners, and where resistance was
more determined the enemy was driven from his trench with bombs. Then on
a given signal the raiders returned to their own trenches, bringing
helmets, saw-tooth bayonets, and Mauser rifles as souvenirs of their
midnight call.
By this time the alarm had spread through the German lines, and his
artillery, in response to red signals shot up by men very lately
deceased, began to pound their own trench, thus catching their own
bombing parties, who, now the trench was only occupied by dead and
wounded, had regained the barricade.
But we had another surprise awaiting them. A field-gun had been
man-handled up to our front line and at point-blank range proceeded to
blow the barricade to bits. This was done and the gun successfully
withdrawn by a car from a motor-machine-gun battery, in spite of the
fact that the first car sent for this purpose had to be hauled from the
ditch into which it had skidded.
So thorough had been the preparations, and so well organised the raid,
that an account of it was published in the orders of the French Army as
an example of efficient preparation.
The prisoners taken in the Petite Douve affair had boasted of the
preparations they were making for a gas attack on a scale hitherto
unknown, and on the Sunday before Christmas the enemy made another
attempt to gain the Ypres salient by this means.
Early in the morning of the 20th the smell of gas was evident even down
as far as our position a few miles south of the salient, and our guns
began a desultory bombardment of the enemy lines. Thinking we were as
deficient in artillery as in the previous April, the enemy infantry
advanced in mass formation about 9 o'clock. Then our artillery did open
fire. About noon another attack was made, and also failed without a yard
of our line being lost.
There were no further attempts!
On Christmas Eve we were relieved by the Toronto Battalion and marched
out to rest billets in divisional reserve.
It was a weird march out. Not a rifle was fired nor a single flare shot
up from either trench as the two battalions interchanged.
We wondered if on the morrow there would be the handshaking and
hymn-singing that had characterised the first Christmas of the war; a
routine order had been published forbidding such demonstrations of good
feeling, but it was hardly necessary--flame projectors and asphyxiating
gas had attended to that!
Everything was very peaceful in the little hamlet when we arrived,
however. It was a clear, starlit night, a little snow in the fields, and
the dark silhouettes of the houses and church loomed up against the
clear sky. The little church was in darkness--no midnight mass was being
sung this year--and we slipped into our various billets in silence, very
tired and not a little homesick.
Christmas Day the men were marched into Bailleul, where a big dinner was
given them by the officers of the battalion. In the evening another
dinner was held for the officers themselves. There were the usual toasts
and speeches, and before the party broke up Captain George T. Richardson
asked for a few minutes' silent prayer for those who would not be
present at our next dinner. It was a wonderful tribute to his sincerity
that this was granted, for the evening was well advanced, and soldiers,
as a rule, dislike having their religion tampered with by anyone but
chaplains and other authorised personages.
Poor George! he was the first of us to go but a few weeks later!
We relieved the Toronto Battalion on the 29th, giving them a chance to
celebrate the New Year in a similar fashion.
Then the second week in February we attempted a raid similar to those
made on our right and left by other battalions. The most obvious point
was selected for the attack, and, by an unfortunate chance, a night when
the moon was nearly full.
As a result we were unable to get the wire cut, and the proposed raid
was cancelled, the enemy having men dug in amongst their wire watching
it.
For some reason or other Captain Richardson, who was in charge of the
affair, again went over the parapet, possibly to see that all were
safely in, and was discovered a little later fatally wounded in amongst
our own wire. He passed away a few hours later in the little dressing
station at the Support Farm.
So died a man who never gave a command he would not himself have
executed willingly, and whose character and ideals were such that all
who knew him envied him.
And on his grave his brother officers placed a wreath with these simple
words: "He played the Game."
EPILOGUE
Our later experiences are too recent for publication to-day; here, then,
this brief story of the Canadians must make an end.
THE WHITEFRIARS PRESS, LTD., LONDON AND TONBRIDGE.