Subjected to a withering fire, the Scots were driven back from Messines
three times. They finally rallied and took the position with the
bayonet.]
“Captain Guthrie returned at once to the theater, joined his wife, and
witnessed the rest of the performance. The curtain came down, and with
his wife, Captain Guthrie again headed to the telegraph-office. This
time the operator was not thinking about sleep. He had just received
a reply to Captain Guthrie’s telegram and was anxiously awaiting his
return. The answer read: ‘Offer accepted. Proceed to recruit volunteers
forthwith.’”
Guthrie raised his company and went to the front. He soon rose in rank,
and at last was given command of a regiment of Scots.
Guthrie is said to possess almost a boyish exuberance of spirit, but
of some things he will not jest. He will not even talk about them.
Evidently the horror he has met with at the front has left a permanent
impression. The following incident is told by a close friend of the
Colonel’s, Charles K. Howard, representative of the Canadian Government
Railway:
“On a night in the battle of Festubert the Tenth Canadians went over
the trenches. The flares from the machine guns made the line as light
as day. A piece of the German trenches was taken. The only injury
that the Colonel at this portion of the scrap received were some
tears in the legs from barbed wire entanglements, although he lost in
three-quarters of an hour two-thirds of his battalion. The piece that
was taken must be held until reinforcements came. These were a little
slow in arriving. A captain held one end of the line while the Colonel,
leading his men down the trenches, with his bombers cleared out another
section. The German line began to give slowly. Step by step, they slid
back around the traverses toward Givenchy. The Canadians gathered their
strength and started to press forward. A brave Westphalian officer
tried to hold his men and stem the tide. He stood up to his knees in
mud, fighting until his last bomb was gone. The Colonel, at the head of
his men, rushed upon the officer, who, weighing perhaps forty pounds
less than the Colonel, was not daunted. He grasped the Colonel by both
arms, holding him for a moment, and then, with the strength borne of
despair, lifted him bodily into the air, holding him rigid so that he
could not move.”