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S.O.S.
STAND TO!
[Illustration: Patching up the "Pipped"]
S.O.S. STAND TO!
BY
SERGEANT REGINALD GRANT 1ST FIELD ARTILLERY BRIGADE, 1ST CANADIAN
DIVISION
ILLUSTRATED
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK LONDON 1918
COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Printed in the United States of America
DEDICATION
IN HUMBLE, REVERENT SPIRIT I DEDICATE THESE PAGES TO THE MEMORY OF THE
LADS WHO SERVED WITH ME IN THE "SACRIFICE BATTERY," AND WHO GAVE THEIR
LIVES THAT THOSE BEHIND MIGHT LIVE, AND, ALSO, IN BROTHERLY AFFECTION
AND ESTEEM TO MY BROTHERS, GORDON AND BILLY, WHO ARE STILL FIGHTING THE
GOOD FIGHT AND KEEPING THE FAITH.
REMARK PREFATORY
The general purpose and scope of the rehearsal of my three years'
personal experience while in the artillery arm of the First Division of
Canada's overseas forces is to lay before the reader an outline of the
movement of our Division as it may be gathered from the performance of
my own specific duties, with especial reference to the battles of Ypres
(the 2nd), Givenchy, Sanctuary Woods (Ypres 3rd), the Somme and Vimy
Ridge.
Very little attention or space has been devoted to the detail of
initiatory camp life, drill, rations and the like; even had I the space
to do so, those features have been liberally covered by a number of
earlier writers; besides, I am of the opinion that the average reader is
more concerned with the desire to be imaginably transported as nearly as
possible to the heart of the struggle,--to live in his own mind the
strain and turmoil of the individual soldier in the desperate conflict
which now rages, the decision of which will determine whether democracy
or military autocracy shall be the predominating factor in the
governments of the peoples of the earth.
INTRODUCTORY
The devastating rush of the gray-clad hordes of Huns into the
peace-loving lands of Belgium and France has demonstrated conclusively
that to win this or any other war the one thing necessary is superiority
in artillery. Without this, an enemy sufficiently strong in numbers and
other equipment, can drive ahead, overcoming and crushing all obstacles.
The average lay reader is too apt to lose sight of the supreme
importance of this arm of the service, to which all other movements are
subsidiary; the dash of the charge by the infantry over the top,
magnificent in its appeal, submerges to a degree the real factor upon
which success or failure of the charge depends, i.e., the blazing of the
trail by the guns. Little thought is devoted to the man who, with hell
bursting on and around him, has to get his shell home in a certain
number of seconds so that the charge can be made.
Neither is it generally known that the percentage of loss in units is
greater in the unit known as the sacrifice battery than in any other
branch of the fighting machine.
Therefore, I may be pardoned if I feel a certain human pride in the fact
that it was my honorable lot to serve in this unit nearly a score of
times during my work over there, and I can account for my failure to be
seriously injured (a dislocation or a little gassing is comparatively
trivial) to nothing other than, as my Major emphatically expressed it,
"Damned horseshoe luck!"
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. CAN'T KILL ME 1
II. THE FIRST NIGHT 17
III. YPRES 30
IV. MY HORSE SHOE WORKING 48
V. HUN HELPERS 58
VI. BITS OF BATTLE 87
VII. SANCTUARY WOODS 101
VIII. A BATH UNDER DIFFICULTIES 129
IX. HAM BONE DAVIS 143
X. BEES, HONEY AND HELL 157
XI. SCOTTY COMES BACK AT THE SOMME 170
XII. BEHEMOTH 185
XIII. THE FAMILY LUCK 203
XIV. THE DEAD SHELL 210
XV. SATAN'S SHELLS AND SCENTED GAS 235
XVI. BEFORE VIMY 262
XVII. VIMY 275
XVIII. BACK TO GOD'S COUNTRY 284
S.O.S. STAND TO!
CHAPTER I
CAN'T KILL ME
"Hello, Central, give me Queen 4000. Is that you, Burt? You are going,
aren't you?"
Burt Young was one of my pals and I had just learned from the morning
paper that enlistments for Canada's first overseas contingent were being
taken that day and I had called up to inquire if he were going.
"Sure, I am going. Where will I meet you?"
We arranged to meet at the exhibition ground and, taking French leave of
the office, I hastened to the camp where the recruiting was going on,
picking up Burt on the way.
It was as if a baseball championship series were on; the crowd
good-naturedly swayed and jammed as each man struggled to get to the
door and signed up before the quota was full. With only the loss of a
hat and some slight disarrangement of my collar and tie, I was one of
the lucky ones.
And we were lucky! Although visions of lands to be seen and adventures
to be had flitted rapidly through my mind, and although I believe none
of us on that day dreamed of what we were getting into, yet, looking
back over it all, I would not have missed my place in Canada's First
Division for anything I ever hope to have on earth.
In two hours I was in khaki and in another hour I had bade the folks
farewell and was standing on the station platform waiting for the train
that would take us to Valcartier, the greatest gathering place of
soldiers that Canada has ever known.
Some idea of my knowledge of things military may be gleaned from the
following:--chatting with Burt, he suddenly espied a large car, with two
girls, shooting up the street to the station, and called my attention to
it. One of the girls was my sister. I immediately scented trouble. I
skipped across to the other side of the depot, intending to board the
train from the other side when it came in; I was not going to have my
soldiering interfered with if I could help it. Standing in the shelter
of a pillar, I did not notice two husky recruits in khaki behind me.
"Is your name Grant?" they asked. "Yes." "The Colonel wants to see you
at once," they informed me, and they marched me back.
As I approached, my sister was talking earnestly and energetically to
the Colonel and I could plainly see I was the object of the
conversation. I waited.
"How is this, Grant, this lady says you are not of age. Is that so?"
asked the Colonel.
"I am of age and--"
"Stand to attention!" snapped the Colonel. I straightened up and folded
my arms respectfully across my chest.
"Stand to attention, damn you! Don't you know how to stand to
attention?" I shifted my feet a little uneasily, wondering how he wanted
me to stand.
"Put those heels together," he snorted. I did so. "Keep your toes
apart," he half hissed and half shouted. I spread my toes apart. I still
had my arms folded. Almost purple in the face with his violence, he
roared, "Put those damned hands of yours down!" and he grabbed my wrists
and flopped them down. "Young lady, you'll have to take this matter up
at Valcartier; there is no time to do anything now. You can go," this
to me. I turned on my heel.
"Here," he roared. "Don't you know enough to salute your superior
officer? Salute!" I gingerly raised my hand to my forehead and held it
there, much after the fashion, I think, of a man shading his eyes from
the sun, or a nautical chap gazing intently seaward.
"You idiot!" he bellowed, as he grabbed my hand and fiercely flung it
down. "Don't you know how to salute? Here, do this"--and he saluted. I
followed as well as I was able, but the utter disgust that was plastered
all over his visage as he turned on his heel would not have left much
hope for soldierly qualifications in one any less hopeful and
enthusiastic than I was.
My sister, in spite of her tears, could not keep back the smile as I
again kissed her good-by.
It was about noon next day when I reached Valcartier and after a month
of solid work, the like of which I had never before experienced, I was
as hard as a nail, and as tough, as indeed was every man in that honor
division of Canada's expeditionary forces.
We received orders to leave for England on the 14th day of September,
1914. I was detailed on a gun limber of my subsection of the First
Battery, the artillery being the arm of the service to which I was
assigned. Starting about 4:30 in the afternoon, in torrents of rain, we
headed for the city of Quebec. Along the way the people had thoughtfully
built large bonfires on either side of the road, serving the double
purpose of lighting our way during the night and enabling us to jump off
and warm ourselves, as we were thoroughly chilled.
The road was in a horribly bad condition and the rain did not improve it
any, and while the limber was lurching from side to side, like a ship
staggering in a storm, it was the better part of wisdom for me to keep
my eyes open to save myself from being thrown off and having my precious
neck broken.
To prevent in some measure the rain trickling down my neck, I took a
rubber sheet, used to cover the horses, tied the two corners together,
making a sort of cape of it, and put it round my neck.
Then I settled myself down to hold on to the limber and think at the
same time of the great game of which I had become an infinitesimal
part. I was sitting on the right hand side of the limber close to the
wheel and, before long, the effort to think and hold on at the same time
was too much for me, and I fell into a fairly sound sleep, Sergeant
Johnson, my companion, doing likewise.
While dozing, the string from the end of the cape engaged itself with
the axle, wound itself round and round and started pulling me down. When
I awoke it had a grip on me and every moment I was being drawn closer to
the wheel. I yelled to the driver to stop the horse, but the rattling
and rumble of the limber and the gun carriage drowned my call; neither
he nor the Sergeant heard me. Numb with cold, absolutely helpless, my
head almost down to the wheel, I gave one more yell for dear life. The
Sergeant suddenly and providentially woke up; he thought he had a
nightmare. I was almost choked and could hardly breathe, but managed to
make him understand, and he whipped out his knife, cut the string and
released me from what in a couple of seconds more would have been
instant death, as I would have been pulled from my seat and crushed to a
jelly between the wheels. This was my first close shave from death. I
had no horseshoe or four-leaf clover with me, and I can account for my
escape in no other way than that it was my lucky star that has
accompanied me throughout the long months of times that try men's souls
and that has never deserted me.
No further mishaps befell until I was safely aboard ship. I was in
charge of a fatigue party, bringing hay from the bulkheads of the ship
up on to the different decks for the horses; there was a pulley leading
to the bottom of the boat by means of which the hay was hoisted up, and
in going down each man gripped it and was slowly lowered. On the trip
down the men would cling to the rope, two or three at a time, with about
ten to twenty feet of space between them. In making a downward trip I
was second; the man ahead of me going down was over twenty feet from me;
and the rope suddenly slipping off the pulley and out of the hands of
the men running it, I dropped fifty feet. The man below on the rope
broke his leg and on top of him I fell. Although my drop was twenty or
thirty feet longer than his, on account of the space between us being
that much greater, I was none the worse except for a bad shaking-up.
Like all the men in Canada's First Division, my pal was in excellent
physical shape, and it was not long before his leg mended and he was
himself again. Nothing of further moment happened until we heard the
welcome call of land!
The different batteries were ordered to remove their guns, limbers and
horses from the boat, and I had charge of one party unloading guns and
limbers. A derrick and cable was used to lift our pets from the vessel's
hold, swing them up across the side of the boat and over on to the dock.
In my duty I was stationed on the dock, catching hold of the guns and
wagons as they were swung out and over by the derrick, and pulling them
across on to the dock. While pulling over a gun, the cable skidded and
the gun, coming on top of me, caught me partly under it, knocking me
unconscious. Luckily the weight of the gun did not fall on me in its
entirety; if it had, I would not be telling this story; it caught me on
the hip, dislocating the hip bone. I was removed to the ship's hospital
and was under the doctor's care till morning, and from there I went to a
hospital in Plymouth City for six weeks. From there I was removed to the
field general hospital in Salisbury Plain, where I tarried an
additional ten days. While here I had a two-fold adventure.
The hospital was in a tent where I reclined with forty other patients,
and directly opposite our tent was another in which were confined under
guard a number of patients who were subject to fits, some of a very
serious nature. Lying in bed, my leg encased in its plaster-of-paris
cast, about ten o'clock one night, when just dozing off, I was
frightened into wakefulness by a scream. A man, who turned out to be an
escaped epileptic, was standing in the doorway screaming, his eyes
bulging out of his head. He had escaped by striking the sentry over the
head with the fire brazier, used to keep the sentry warm. Staring wildly
about the room for a couple of seconds, he made a leap for the nearest
man and bit him in the arm; he then jumped at the next patient, biting
him; I was the following recipient of his devotions, getting a bite on
the wrist. Utterly unable to help or defend myself, as I was bound down
in my plaster-of-paris cast, I had to content myself with landing a
couple of punches on his mad mug, but he didn't seem to mind them in the
least,--rather enjoyed them, I fancy.
By way of diversion he then took hold of the beds and started upsetting
them, rolling the patients out on to the floor, causing a tremendous
amount of excitement, as well as pain and suffering to the men upset
who, some of them, like myself, had casts on their limbs. In the midst
of his mad capers the guard and orderlies rushed in, but before he was
subdued he managed to fasten his molars in the arm of a guard.
A bite from a man in his condition is no laughing matter and the doctors
took no chances; every man who was bitten had the wound immediately and
thoroughly cauterized and was inoculated.
My other adventure was the honor and pleasure of receiving a handshake
from their Majesties, the King and Queen of England, who were on a visit
of inspection to the camp. The visit of their Majesties was concluded by
a splendid little speech from Queen Alexandra in which she complimented
us and thanked us for our loyalty.
After my release from the hospital due to the effects of the accident at
Plymouth, I set to work looking after our horses and performing general
battery work. After my narrow escape from the gun wheel, the fall into
the hold of the vessel and the close shave I had had on the dock, I was
commencing to wonder whether I was destined ever to get to France.
Thus musing, I was riding one of the horses bare-back to a small creek
to give it a watering, and the rein, which was a long one, I held in my
right hand. I had to pass the targets where shooting practice was going
on, and the brute, taking fright, gave a sudden leap and threw me off
his back. I fell backwards and on the left side, and as I fell the long
rein wound itself round my right arm, keeping me tied as it were to the
horse; and my head came dangerously close to the animal's front hoofs
which he was kicking up every other second; with each jump he took,
those hoofs, in their upward motion of making a spring, almost struck my
face. I was dragged helpless for about twenty feet when, providentially,
the rein broke and I dropped to the ground, the horse dashing on in his
fright until he was finally captured.
I was picked up for dead and a stretcher was sent for; but, while on the
way, consciousness returned and in a few minutes I was able to navigate
without assistance. I then and there decided that I surely was
preserved for France and was not doomed to die an ignominious or
untimely death behind the front line trenches.
After supper that night I listened to the remarkable story of a man
whose lot was destined to be woven with mine to a degree:--"Aye, laddie,
they came on thick at Mons! There was one time there when there was only
Sandy MacFarlane and mysel' left out o' the whole company, and for two
or three hours we lay behind a wee bank, no higher'n your knee, fighting
them off. Lord how we plugged them! They died like flies! And then puir
Sandy got his, an' there was naething left for me tae do but tae beat an
honorable retreat, an' I grabbed Sandy's rifle an' retired on to the
main body, wi' the bullets buzzin' like bees around me. On my way back I
loaded both rifles as quick as I could and dropped every noo an' again
to let them hae it, and I was carefu' not to waste a damn shot; every
bullet told."
The speaker was Scotty Henderson, late of the Seaforth Highlanders, as
he informed us, and he was relating his experiences during the world
memorable retreat at Mons, when Britain's little regular army,
denominated by His Majesty, Wilhelm II, "The contemptible little English
army," was practically wiped out.
In the cookhouse we listened, open-mouthed, to the wonderful exploits of
this Scotch fighting man. "Were you wounded?" asked Lawrence. "Aye,
laddie, you're damned right I was," and he rolled up his trouser leg and
exhibited a large, broad scar on the inside of his right leg. "There's
where I got it."
"That's a funny looking wound,--looks like a burn," said Lawrence.
"You're damned right it's a burn," said Scotty, "it was the shell that
burned me as it grazed my leg."
The probable reason, I thought, why the shell could graze the inside of
one of his legs without injury to the other was because the fighter was
blessed with a pair of bow-legs that couldn't have stopped the
proverbial pig in the proverbial alley. In addition to this decided
detraction from his manly beauty, he was short, squatty, thick-necked, a
nose of the variety commonly known as a stub, and a couple of little
eyes that had a constant twinkle, half-shrewd and half-humorous, the
whole surmounted with a shock of shaggy red hair. But these detractions
from his beauty did not in the least lessen our admiration for his
personal bravery; he was in our eyes a first-class fighting man; he had
proven it by his work at Mons and had the scar to show for it.
"But how did you come to get into a Canadian unit?" asked another.
"Well, you see, after I was wounded in the leg and got my honorable
discharge, as soon as I was well, I wanted to do my bit again, and
knowing that you laddies get bigger pay than in the British army, I
thought I would kill two birds wi' the one stone,--get more money and
get into the game again. So I ups and goes to the Colonel and says I,
'Colonel, I'd like to get into the game again.' 'Well,' says he, 'I hae
na room for any more men in my command, but I do want a gude cook,' an'
it just happened that I was a cook by trade, and a gude one too, and
told him so, and says he, 'Well, you're just the man I want,' and he
signed me up there and then, and here I am."
He was a good cook and he was proud of it too; we had no reason to
complain of the way our meals were prepared. There was only one thing
about Scotty that caused a shade of dissatisfaction,--he was so
scrupulously careful to see that no man got more than his just share of
the grub that many a fellow grumbled about not getting enough to eat
and, in many cases, that they did not get what was coming to them. But
Scotty would shut them with the authority of an old soldier and,
besides, in his cookhouse he was monarch of all he surveyed. In a
half-humorous, half-scolding voice he would say, "Mon, what do you want
to be a hog for? Do you want to let someone else gang hungry? Tak'
what's given ye and thank God you're alive to eat it, because it won't
be long maybe before you'll be where ye won't need any grub--although
undoubtedly you'll need water."
This was an allusion to our probable future abode. So we had to be
content with what he chose to serve us. But there were speculations by
some as to whether or not Scotty really served us all the grub given him
by the quartermaster's department, and someone was so unjust, I thought,
as to venture the suggestion that he believed "the damned Scotch runt is
selling the grub to men in other units." "How does it happen," said he,
in support of his suspicion, "that he always has a little change when
the rest of us are broke?"
"Oh, nonsense," said I, "a good soldier wouldn't do such a thing, and we
all know he is a good soldier; there is no getting away from that."