“At last came the night when we were to go ‘over the top,’ across No
Man’s Land, and have a frolic with Fritz in his own bailiwick. I am
endeavoring to be as accurate and truthful as possible in these stories
of my soldiering, and I am therefore compelled to say that there
wasn’t a man in the sixty who didn’t show the strain in his pallor
and nervousness. Under orders, we discarded our trench-helmets and
substituted knitted skull-caps or mess tin covers. Then we blackened
our hands and faces with ashes from a camp-fire. After this they loaded
us into motor-trucks and took us up to ‘Shrapnel Corner,’ from which
point we went in on foot. Just before we left, a staff officer came
along and gave us a little talk.
[Illustration:
_Photo, by Western Newspaper Union._
Lieutenant Benjamin E. Turner (Right) and His Brother, Private Robert
I. Turner
A man in American uniform appeared among the United States troops
in the Vesle sector, shouted that resistance was useless, and that
American officers had advised everybody to surrender; but Lieut.
Turner ordered his men to stand fast. The alarmist was later
identified as a German spy.]
“‘This is the first time you men have been tested,’ he said. ‘You’re
Canadians. I needn’t say anything more to you. They’re going to be
popping them off at a great rate while you’re on your way across.
Remember that you’d better not stand up straight, because our shells
will be going over just six and a half feet from the ground—where
it’s level. If you stand up straight you’re likely to be hit in the
head, but don’t let that worry you, because if you do get hit in the
head you won’t know it. So why in hell worry about it?’ That was his
farewell. He jumped on his horse and rode off.
“The point we were to attack had been selected long before by our
scouts. It was not, as you might suppose, the weakest point in
the German line. It was, on the contrary, the strongest. It was
considered that the moral effect of cleaning up a weak point would be
comparatively small, whereas to break in at the strongest point would
be something really worth while. And, if we were to take chances, it
really wouldn’t pay to hesitate about degrees. The section we were to
raid had a frontage of 150 yards and a depth of 200 yards. It had been
explained to us that we were to be supported by a ‘box barrage,’ or
curtain fire from our artillery, to last exactly twenty-six minutes.
That is, for twenty-six minutes from the time when we started ‘over
the top,’ our artillery, several miles back, would drop a ‘curtain’ of
shells all around the edges of that 150-yard by 200-yard section. We
were to have fifteen minutes in which to do our work. Any man not out
at the end of the fifteen minutes would necessarily be caught in our
own fire, as our artillery would then change from a ‘box’ to pour a
straight curtain fire, covering all of the spot of our operations.