SATAN'S SHELLS AND SCENTED GAS
Prior to an attack in the morning, we cleaned up the gun and ammunition,
getting everything in shape and retiring at 11:30. "Stand to!" was
called at four o'clock, firing commenced at 4:30, and we worked our guns
for two hours, during which time the boys went over, took three lines of
trenches from Fritz and in a remarkably short time, hundreds of
prisoners were turning into our lines without escort.
That night the prisoners were employed going up and down our lines
carrying out wounded. I shall never forget the contented look on the
faces of these captives as they worked inside our lines; they did
everything required of them with a willingness and cheerfulness that at
first seemed to be amazing. Most of them were young Bavarians and
presented a very shabby appearance.
We then decreased our rate of fire, letting go one round every two
minutes, giving us time to sit around and chat about the big surprise
we had given Fritz and the success of our attack. Before giving the word
to fire I would first warn the men, so they could look out for their
eardrums, besides getting out of the way; we never fire unknowingly to
any of the men as the concussion works a severe hardship on the ears.
One of the boys was sitting on an ammunition box, leaning against the
gun wheel, with his feet on a little fireplace that we had taken a
chance on installing, thinking the fog was so thick Fritz would not
notice the smoke. As usual, our ammunition was stationed in our rear.
One fellow was squatting on the sand bags and leaning against the
shells; I was sitting in seat three, between the gun wheel and the left
side, while another was on seat four, also between the gun wheel and the
gun on the right; another man was standing ready to put a shell in the
muzzle.
"Fellows, are you ready?" I asked.
"All right."
"Fire!"
The next instant I felt my feet giving way from under me. The gun had
blown off at the shield, the muzzle being blown to pieces, gas and fumes
filled the air, the spokes were blown out of the wheels, splinters
striking me on the feet and legs. I started to the front of the gun and
fell on top of Graham.
"What happened?" he asked. "I don't know," I said. There were several
pieces of tube lying about that looked like parts of a German shell.
Graham yelled to know what had happened. "A German shell hit the gun," I
said. He was then seized with shell shock and became uncontrollable.
Park, who was leaning against the ammunition, was blown up, the shell
having driven clean through his spine; the man loading the shell had a
fragment driven clear through his stomach. The man leaning against the
gun wheel was beheaded as cleanly as any king's executioner with his ax
could do it, his head lying in the fireplace! The cartridge had exploded
but the shell did not.
The trouble was caused by what is known as a "defective" shell.
I left the gun pit to help Graham over to the dressing station and I had
a job on my hands; he was suffering from a bad attack of brain
concussion. After attention a couple of Fritzies carried him to the
rear.
Returning to the gun pit I found a state of wild confusion among the
fellows as to what had really happened. On examination I found it was
this defective shell; over to the right of the gun I picked up a chunk
of it over a foot long.
Those who remained of our gun crew went that night to the wagon lines,
spending a few days there while waiting for our gun to be replaced.
When our gun was replaced I started back from the wagon lines, carrying
a piston rod of the buffer, with Downey assisting me. We were on
horseback and getting into Labazell Valley, when a shell passed over our
head so close that we felt the wind of it; it was accompanied by a great
flare over to our right. The shell struck one of our ammunition dumps
containing about 50,000 rounds of shells and other explosives, such as
rifle grenades, Mills bombs, French mortar bombs, aerial torpedoes, high
explosive shells, shrapnel shells, star and gas shells. The disaster
resulting from this one single shell was almost inconceivable. It
started a fire that gathered strength each second, for all the world
like a prairie fire, and the scenic effect was that of a titanic
fireworks exhibition. The moon was brightly shining in a clear sky, but
the star shells shooting in the air and exploding with a constantly
increasing rapidity, the blaze of artificial light quickly obtained
ascendency over the mistress of the night; and the shrapnel shells,
throwing their contents of danger in all directions, together with the
hissing and roaring of all the other exploding missiles of death, formed
a diapason of sound that makes one of those wonder-moments that come so
seldom in a lifetime.
The reflection of the fire from the explosion was quickly observed by
Fritz, and in short order he had his airplanes hovering overhead, and
they too were dropping their bombs wherever human activities were noted.
We hastily dismounted, tying our horses to the barbed-wire iron pickets
in the side of the road, and rushed with a body of men, mostly wagon
drivers whose wagons were stalled on the road in the congestion, over to
do what we could to save the ammunition which is so badly needed at all
times.
In the first rush toward the pile an explosion snuffed out the lives of
thirty or forty of the men, knocking the rest of us off our feet like so
many nine-pins, besides killing several of the horses on the road, and
to add to the already indescribable chaos, several of the horses
stampeded, racing blindly into barbed-wire entanglements and adding to
the general destruction.
What with Fritz dropping bombs from his airplanes, our horses stampeding
and screaming like wild things, and our own explosives bursting in every
conceivable direction with a thousand different roars, the scene can be
better imagined than described. We saved about 10,000 rounds out of that
entire dump. For a distance of twenty miles the reflection of the fire
extended, the rockets themselves being visible for a space of ten miles.
I don't suppose since the world began was there ever a scene of such
awful beauty; it was a bursting Vesuvius with the co-mingled radiant
beauties of a thousand rainbows.
When there was nothing further that we could do, we regained our
frightened mounts and resumed our journey. Such a road of confusion! The
ground being wet, turning the chalky earth into white, the moving,
wriggling vehicles of every kind and description afforded a magnificent
target for the marksmen of the air and casualties here, there and
everywhere along the road was the order of the night.
A short distance along, the sounds of battle in the air reached our
ears, and looking up I saw two shadows passing between our eyes and
moon, then two more. Suddenly our searchlights opened up, and there, in
full view, were four planes, two British and two German, engaged in one
of those struggles which practically forms the only feature in this war
around which is thrown any of the elements of romance that appeals to
all the instinct of a vivid imagination. It was a fair field and no
favor. The battle had been on about three or four minutes when one of
the British birds landed on Fritz, driving him down nose first. He could
not regain control and he dashed headlong into the earth to destruction.
Our fellow then rose and went to the assistance of his pal and they made
short work of the second Taube.
That is the only time I have ever witnessed a scene of that kind under
those circumstances, and it is a rare occurrence indeed that one has the
privilege of seeing such a struggle with such a background.
We were now among the batteries; to the right and left of us the guns
had commenced speaking to the German roads, and the ammunition dumps
there, in retaliation for the destruction of our gun-food; the
anti-aircraft guns were also getting into the chorus, together with the
pom-poms, and the whole swelled into a mighty chorus of sound that
filled every crack and crevice in the air, making one feel as if he were
inhaling sound rather than ozone.
As we neared Pozières a 9.02 howitzer gun on our left fired a shell that
exploded in the gun and blew the gun and crew in all directions. The
shell also started some ammunition going that was lying about and it was
under the greatest difficulty that the men, whose lives were not lost in
the first explosion, managed to get away. The men were trying to
manhandle the remainder of the guns of the battery and we jumped off our
horses, fastened them to an old wagon lying in the ditch, and headed
over to lend a hand. With much tugging and perspiring we saved three of
the guns.
Explosions of these tremendous projectiles were deafening in the
extreme, and here there were two or three of them exploding at once in
our immediate neighborhood.
Again we mounted on our way to Pozières and, when reaching our journey's
end, Fritzie began pumping in his crying shells; these are the kind
that draw copious tears, inflame the eyes and make things generally
disagreeable. We had not brought our goggles and suffered from a
temporary spell of blindness; we had not had any trouble from this
particular kind of visitor for some time and had not bothered to keep
our glasses with us. Groping along, blinking my eyes to get a little
gleam of light, I stumbled across four or five dead horses and was
nearly thrown from my horse.
I warned Downey, who was behind me, and he avoided the trouble, but we
had to keep a tight rein on our thoroughly frightened animals. It was
impossible to get them past the dead horses until some others went by
and then, leading them by the bridle, we got by.
Traffic was now fearfully congested on account of some tanks that were
taking cover in the sunken road for their attack in the morning, and a
shower of shells dropping here and there along the road did not add to
our comfort. We passed through Courcelette Valley and came to a small
bridge crossing a trench; this particular bridge was the subject of hot
shellfire, as it was the only point where traffic could cross for about
a mile to the right or left, and Fritz was well aware of the fact. When
half-way across, a shell exploded, killing my horse, and the animal
rolled over with me on its back, twisting my leg. For a while I thought
my number was up; in a few moments I was able to get up behind Downey.
We had reached the end of our journey, got to the gun, delivered the
piston rod and reported to the Captain. He instructed us to stay there
for the night and told Downey to tie up his horse in one of the German
gun pits; then Downey was ordered to go on S.O.S. sentry duty. He had
our sincere sympathy, for the rest of us were just breaking into the
little old game for the balance of the night (morning).
In the middle of the game Downey came running in. "Say, fellows, there's
a hell of a smell out here,--something sweet, never smelt it before,
don't know what it is." "It's gas," I yelled, "the new kind! Get on your
masks!"
We adjusted our protectors and made for the entrance. Downey began to be
overcome by the fumes and I took over sentry; the warning gas horns were
booming up and down the line like a deep-throated buzzing,--a most
unearthly and weird sound.
The gas shells were now dropping plenteously round about and one of my
pals, Dory, was instructed to assist me in relighting our lamps, as they
were growing dim; these are our feed lamps that are lit every night with
candles and placed, one for each gun, about 50 feet in front, and on
these lights the sights are trained, so that it is vital to keep them
burning all night long.
We rapidly commenced replacing the burnt-out candles, and just then we
heard the warning roar of a coming shell, but before it burst I heard a
splash; it was Dory taking a header into a shell hole full of water; I
threw myself flat. In adjusting our lamps we had to remove our gas
helmets, and after waiting some time for the expected explosion and
hearing none, I looked up; white fumes were rising from the ground at
about the spot the shell had entered; there had been no explosion of
splinters.
This particular shell is very thin, is fired with great velocity, and
when meeting resistance it breaks and cracks and the white gas fumes
like steam come floating out. "What do you think of that, Grant!" from
Dory in the shell hole; "I thought the blankety-blank was a Jack
Johnson." His thought had cost him a soaking and the reflex action of
his thought was strongly in evidence during the balance of our watch.
The remainder of our lonely duty was not enhanced in pleasure by the
contemplation of scores of stretcher bearers carrying out men who had
been caught unprepared by the gas and who were choking and suffocating
from its effects.
So earnestly pernicious is the gas device as a fighting weapon that it
is a matter of common talk among the boys that Fritz, when he invented
his contrivance, must have been in direct communication with his Satanic
Majesty.
Working tooth and nail to smother the Hun, and he in turn working might
and main to smother us, was the order of the day continuously throughout
the campaign on the Somme, and a few nights following the happening
above, Dory and myself were on S.O.S. sentry.
About 3:00 o'clock A.M. the messages from Germany started coming and our
replies were mailed back as fast as the postal authorities at the guns
could handle the matter; in fact, throughout our campaign on the Somme
we mailed our replies and our additional messages so rapidly and so
effectively, that nine times out of ten Fritzie's working force was
swamped.
On this A.M. his shells were gas which glazed the feed lamps and the
sight of the lenses, as well as accumulating in the inside of the gun
muzzle, making it necessary to swab out the muzzle of the gun before
using, as otherwise it would rust badly, which would result in putting
the gun out of commission in short order. The fire developed into a
first-class artillery duel, our battery and nine others answering ten
German batteries. The net result of the duel was two of Fritzie's guns
put out of business.
Before long our lamps on the sandbags, by which we got our light to see
to work the guns, were knocked off by an explosion and we were in
darkness; following that, the springs in the buffer of my gun were
broken, making it necessary to put it back in place by hand. Each time
the gun is fired it recoils and is brought back to place by the
hydraulic buffer containing the spring; but we had to perform this work
in the darkness by hand. The coals of Hades were now coming in heavier
each moment, because heavier caliber pieces had opened up on us, and we
were getting the worst of it; our weightier sisters must take a hand at
the game, and we kept up our end of the argument until this could be
done.
It was Dory's duty to reload the gun and push it forward in place for
position, each time yelling "Ready!" One time the gun was shoved into
place and the man on the right,--Dory was on the left--gave the "Ready!"
and I fired. The darkness was still thick and I could not see that Dory
was pushing up on the gun with all his might, to bring it into place
when I fired, and the recoil drove him back into the corner against a
pile of ammunition, smashing his arm. We assisted him, and one of the
fellows volunteered to go with him to the dressing station, but Dory was
game to the core; he was one of the most happy-go-lucky boys I ever met.
"Hell! I will make it myself. Stay here while the fun is on. I wish to
God I could stay too!"
We renewed our duel, but the heavier caliber shells were commencing to
tell; number 3 gun was struck and part of the crew wiped out. Our
telephonist 'phoned headquarters for the weightier women to get busy,
telling them of our plight, and inside six minutes the ladies of larger
girth, the 9.02 howitzers, started debating the question with Fritzie so
vigorously that inside of thirty minutes not a single reply was to be
had from their guns.
"Stand down!"--and cleaning our guns, gun pits and carrying ammunition,
busied us. In the midst of our work a dizziness seized my head,
accompanied with a choking in the throat and lungs, and before I could
cry out or warn my pals, I dropped. I had unconsciously imbibed the
potion when I removed my mask to relight the feed lamps, and it is one
of the peculiar effects of this dose that it is some time after its
inhalation that the harmfulness becomes apparent;--so it was with me. I
was lifted onto a stretcher and carried to the dressing station near
what is known as the Sunken Road. The ground around the station was
dotted with men suffering from attacks of a similar nature; there were
56 of us in all.
The doctor's examination was brief,--"Gas," and I was laid alongside my
brothers in misery. We were ordered to keep absolutely quiet and on no
account to leave our stretchers; but while lying there the unwelcome
messages from the German guns began coming in our neighborhood; and the
ever terrifying sound of their explosions brought the nerves of the men,
already on edge, over the border line of reason, and a number of them
struggled up from their cots and started running away, forgetting or
ignoring the doctor's orders. The poor fellows paid dearly for it; some
of them dropped in their tracks, dying, where they dropped; some died
after they were brought back to the station, and some gave up the ghost
when in England they lost the last remaining tissue of their lungs, due
to the effect of their running. "I mustn't budge!" I kept repeating to
myself, for my own nerves were at the jumping-off point and I thought
the veins in my head would burst if I had to endure those
explosion-roars another minute. Happily they ceased as suddenly as they
began.
There is no kind of suffering endured in the battle front that has such
a horror for the men as the gas; it is that fighting for breath that
takes the life out of a fellow, and, God! how it chokes. Out of that
bunch of 56 gassed men, only six came out whole.
The following week we were ordered to leave the Somme. Although I felt
in the mood for sticking it as long as I had the strength to keep
going, yet I must confess the order filled my soul with a gratitude that
was unspeakable. I had been in the Somme campaign three months, and when
our guns swept into position at Martinsaart, my weight was 171; when I
left, I tipped the scales at 145. The men who had been with the guns
there and who know what it is to work 24 hours in the day for many days
in the week, rarely during the three months experiencing the refreshing
rest of a consecutive two hours' sleep, and working like veritable
demons during every waking moment, either at the guns or cleaning the
ammunition, or carrying the ammunition into place,--they will understand
what it means to lose 25 pounds in weight on the Somme.
My uniform was in rags and saturated so thickly with grease and dirt
that for many days it was one of my pet recreations to take a knife and
scoop it by the bladeful out of the khaki cloth. And my skin! What a
hide! The combination of cleaning and repairing guns, working them
constantly, driving horses, observation work, together with the gas, my
body was saturated with a mixture that took weeks to extract.
The cut-up-ground, pock-marked with shell holes as closely as the cells
in a honeycomb, was of course carefully noted by Fritzie's aerial
observers, and they were naturally led to believe that it would be
physically impossible for our batteries to be relieved,--that is, to
retire and another battery take our place. But we camouflaged. Under
cover of a fog we worked like beavers for a day and a night, filling in
shell holes, and made fairly decent roads under the conditions, and one
fine morning, still under the friendly shelter of the fog, leaving our
ammunition behind, we pulled out the gun; the entire Canadian Division
retired and were relieved by the English Tommies.
As we were going out we passed their batteries coming in and it was
heartening indeed to hear the compliments and praises that were showered
upon us by the lads of England, although we had not done a single thing
that they could not have done and done just as well as we, and maybe
better.
In some places where our guns were stationed the ground conditions made
it absolutely impossible to remove them for the time; in such cases the
Imperial batteries left their guns at the horse lines and took over the
Canadian guns, the Canadian gunners taking their pets instead. This
occasioned a real and heartfelt loss to both Canadian gunners and
Imperial boys who had to change over their pets, because every gunner
learns to acquire a real affection for his mistress, as he terms the
gun, and with many of the men it was like losing a good horse or a dog
to whom they had become sincerely and warmly attached, the attachment
being born of weeks and months of the most arduous trial and test.
We reached the wagon lines with our guns still intact and we felt as
safe as if we were back in our beloved Dominion. We were going back of
the lines, and the scene of breaking camp in our preparations for
returning to the rear was picturesque in the extreme. Bonfires made of
refuse and waste material for which we had no further use were burning
everywhere; men were hurrying hither and thither; and through it all you
could hear the steady digging, shoveling and pounding of the German
prisoners who were repairing the roads their own guns mangled. I felt a
large measure of satisfaction at seeing them working as hard as they
could go, restoring at least that much of their destructiveness; they
will never, they can never replace the wantonness, the frightfulness,
of which they have been the inspired tool in this the struggle of their
lords and masters for the earth's control.
Night and day for three days we traveled on our batteries, arriving at a
place called Camblain-Châtillon, a small town in a mining valley. Here
we were billeted in barns, but the inhabitants hearing that we were
Canadians who had been operating on the Somme, came out _en masse_ to
greet us and give us of their best. We were invited to their homes, and
their larders were placed at our disposal; a large bath made of
granite--a splendid outfit used by the miners of the town, was thrown
open to us, and it is needless to say we reveled in the luxury of a
plunge as quickly as we could tumble in. How we needed it! I had not
known a bath during all the time I was on the Somme and lousiness was
part and parcel of my make-up. I was so accustomed to it, however, that
it had long ceased to cause me more than a passing thought; there were
too many other things to think about during that session. But once
relieved from the tension of the daily struggle to save life, as well as
take it, the desire to become normal, decent, cleanly human beings took
possession of every man of us, and we wallowed in the bath until we
could once more look other respectable citizens in the face.
In this haven of rest and retirement we luxuriated for two weeks, then
moved into action on the Lens-Arras road. We placed our guns on the side
of the road, digging our trails in the edge of the cobble stone pavement
as a trail block, to hold the guns steady when firing. Chicken wire on
top, covered with grass and brushwood, completed the scenic protection.
Our work was the well-known ruse of a night raid in preparation for the
attack on Vimy Ridge, and carried out for the purpose of keeping the
Germans guessing as to where the next drive would be driven.
Leaving four men and the telephonist with the guns that night, we went
to Anges, half a mile from the gun position, to our billets; this was an
old French château, and comfortable beyond expression. As the foes of
our anatomies had again attacked in mass formation, this time we were
annoyed to a degree. Procuring creolin, we rubbed it on our bodies pure;
it should have been adulterated. During the night the natural
perspiration of our bodies caused the vermin grease to work through
the pores, and excessive stinging and smarting was the outcome. One
fellow awoke with a grunt of impatience and then a snort of anger, as a
sense of the stinging brought him to a realization of his discomfort;
then another, and another, until the entire bunch was in a fine frenzy,
fanning our bodies and running into the night air for relief. My carcass
was on fire and I wished to heaven I had left the lice alone; they could
not at least have prevented my sleeping. I determined for the future, as
against this cure, I would keep the curse. I felt as if I were suffering
from a severe sunburn over every inch of my body.
[Illustration: A First Line Hospital]
In the midst of our misery "Stand to!" was sounded, necessitating the
dropping of all our skin troubles and skedaddling to get to the guns. We
ran across an open field that had been converted into a graveyard after
the French drove the Germans over on to Vimy Ridge, but there was no
thought of sacrilege in our minds as we raced pell-mell over the
grave-filled land; there never is but one thought in our minds; we are,
every man of us, souls with but a single thought when "Stand to!"
sounds. We reached the guns practically in the nude, and fastening the
sights and scratching my hide at the same time kept me fairly busy.
We worked the guns for an hour; then "Ammunition up!" was the order for
the rest of the night. We were not allowed to return to our billets as
another attack was expected. At 5:30 the first snowstorm of the winter
swept over the land. The ground was fairly firm from the preceding
frost, and in a short time the country was resting underneath a mantle
of beautiful purity. With the enthusiastic ardor of a lot of school
boys, we grabbed up the beautiful element in our hands and an old time
snowball fight took place. Then the "Stand to!" of the morning was
given.
Our objective this time was to cut channels through the wire about 15 to
20 feet wide, to permit the infantry to pass. This work is effected by
means of shrapnel shells that cut the wire into little strands, then
high explosives are used to root out the remaining posts. When we had
accomplished our purpose and made everything ready for the charge,
"Stand down!" was sounded. The infantry took up the program and dashed
over and through the gaps we had made. They cleaned up the first line,
then on to the second, smashing their guns, trench mortars and
trenches, bombed the dugouts, destroyed their rations and sent back over
1800 prisoners. What I call a fair morning's work!
Now, as I have heretofore said, the objects most easily seen by an
airplane are white and black and the surface of the earth being covered
with a mantle of snow, naturally the things that the keen-sighted
airbirds would first look for would be dark-colored.
The snow around our battery by this time had been thoroughly melted by
the heat from our guns--as a matter of fact, the guns were steaming--and
one of our Sergeants, knowing how easily discernible our pieces would be
to the enemy airbirds, began gathering snow and spreading it all over
the places where it had melted. He was working hard throwing the snow
immediately in front of my gun when another "Stand to!" came. Let me
repeat, if I have not already made it entirely clear, that when this
most imperative order is sounded, there is only one thought in the mind
of every man of the battery, to get our message off as quickly as human
power can send it; and throughout every stage of the world's work that
we are doing over there, there is no time when the bodies of men are
entirely free of bruises received in collision with one another in the
absorbing endeavor of every man to respond. This will account for the
lamentable accident that occurred at this time.
The Sergeant, unthinkingly, after "Stand to!" was sounded, went on in
his earnest endeavor to camouflage the battery with the snow. Now it so
happened that at the identical time that the Sergeant was so engaged, a
kiltie battalion was making its way to the trenches on a foot path,
running diagonally across the front of the guns. In obedience to the
command to fire, the crew speeded to their respective guns, jammed back
the levers and the missiles started on their journey of destruction. The
shell from our gun in front of which the Sergeant was working killed him
before he knew what had happened and, as luck or the devil would have
it, the shell was a premature; it exploded at the point of the muzzle
and its 365 shrapnel pellets, each traveling at the rate of 2200 feet
per second muzzle velocity, and which when exploded assume the shape of
a gigantic fan, shot death and destruction into the kiltie battalion in
front. Sixty of the kilties paid with their lives the price of this
premature shell, including the Sergeant. For a hundred yards in every
direction the heads, arms and legs of the Scotch fighting men were
strewn all over the ground. It was one of those terrible things that is
a matter for the deepest concern and regret, and yet cannot be helped.
We were next ordered back to the wagon lines at Camblain-Châtillon,
arriving there on the evening of the 23rd of December, and preparations
for Christmas dinner were uppermost in the mind of every man. We were
delighted by a visit from the town authorities who asked us if we would
like to use the schoolhouse for our celebration and that we were most
heartily welcome to it, which offer we were most heartily glad to
accept, and the authorities proceeded at once to decorate the
schoolhouse in true holiday fashion, evergreens and lanterns filling
every nook and corner of the large room. The tables, of course, we
supplied ourselves.
For turkey we had a French pig purchased from a farmer for 300 francs,
each man chipping in three francs; new carrots, Irish potatoes, boiled
onions, cranberry sauce, the latter supplied by a large-hearted French
lady in the town, made up the accompaniment of the "Turkey." For dessert
we had a speech from Major Wright, congratulating us on our work in the
Somme. In a few well-chosen words he told us how we had lost over 60 per
cent of our men, counting the reinforcements, and that it was a matter
of sincere gratitude to every man of us that we were there to enjoy the
bounteous Christmas cheer.