EIGHT DAYS IN
As the subject of machine guns is one of great interest at this time,
it may not be amiss to devote a little space to explaining some of the
salient features of the most commonly used types.
All automatic arms are divided into classes, as determined by the
following characteristics:
1st. Method of applying the power necessary to operate: (gas or recoil).
2nd. Method of supplying ammunition: (belt, magazine or clip).
3rd. Method of cooling: (water or air).
Another well-defined distinction is made between the true machine gun
and the automatic rifle; the former being so heavy that it must be
mounted on a substantial tripod or other base, while the latter is so
light that it may be carried and operated by a single man. Of the
former class, the Colt, (35 lbs.), the Vickers, (38 lbs.) and the
Maxim, (63 lbs.) may be taken as representative. They are all mounted,
for field work, on tripods weighing fifty pounds or more. In the
latter class, the Lewis, Benet-Mercie, and Hotchkiss, running from 17
to 25 lbs., are fair examples. They are all equipped with light,
skeleton "legs" or tripods, which, by the way, are never used in the
field although they are still considered essential for training
purposes.
In the gas-operated arms, a small hole is drilled in the under side of
the barrel, six to eight inches from the muzzle, so that, when the
bullet has passed this point, and during the time it takes it to
traverse the remaining few inches to the muzzle, a certain portion of
the enclosed gas is forced through this hole, where it is "trapped,"
in a small "gas-chamber" and its force directed against a piston or
lever which, being connected with the necessary working parts of the
gun by cams, links or ratchets, performs the functions of removing and
ejecting the empty cartridge case, withdrawing a new cartridge from
the belt, clip or magazine, and "cocking" the gun: that is, forcing
the "hammer" or striker back and compressing its spring. As the
pressure generated in the barrel by our ammunition is not less than
50,000 lbs. to the square inch, very little gas is required to do all
this. There must also be sufficient force to compress or coil a strong
spring or springs called "main-springs" or retracting springs which,
in their turn, force the mechanism forward to its original position,
seating the new cartridge in the chamber and releasing the striker,
thus firing another shot. This action continues as long as the
"trigger" is kept pressed or until the belt or magazine is emptied.
The Colt, Benet-Mercie, Hotchkiss and Lewis are in this class. They
are all of the air-cooled type.
In the recoil operated guns, the barrel itself is forced to the rear
by the "kick," as we commonly call it, and the force applied directly
to the working parts, thus performing the same operations above
described. The Maxim, Vickers, Vickers-Maxim and Maxim-Nordenfeldt
belong to this class. They are all water-cooled, having a water-jacket
of sheet metal entirely surrounding the barrel.
All the last-mentioned class, and also the Colt, have the ammunition
loaded in belts containing two hundred and fifty rounds each. The
Hotchkiss and Benet-Mercie use clips of from twenty to thirty rounds,
while the Lewis is fed from a round, flat, pan-shaped magazine holding
forty-seven rounds. (For aircraft guns these magazines are made
larger; about double this capacity, I think.)
During the early part of the war, before the advent of the Lewis and
other automatic rifles, the only machine guns in general use were of
the heavy, tripod-mounted type and it was necessary for them to
advance with or even ahead of attacking troops. As the guns and
tripods were very conspicuous objects they naturally became the
especial targets for enemy riflemen and snipers and the casualties
among machine gunners ran far above the average for other troops. It
was this that caused the Emma Gee sections to be named Suicide Clubs.
Now, however, the Lewis gun, being light and inconspicuous, can be
carried by advancing troops and used effectively in the attack without
its operators suffering excessively, and at the same time it has been
demonstrated that the true machine gun, of the heavier type, mounted
on its firm base, can effectively cooperate with the artillery in
maintaining protective or other barrages and in delivering harassing
fire upon the enemy at points behind his front line. As this fire is,
necessarily, over the heads of our own troops, sometimes but a few
feet over them, it must be extremely accurate and dependable and it
has been proved that guns of the lighter, automatic-rifle type, can
not be safely used for this purpose, even when mounted on the heavy
tripods of the other guns. This is probably due to the excessive
vibration of the lighter barrels.
For the benefit of any who are not familiar with the word, I might
say, in passing, that "_barrage_" is a French word meaning a "barrier"
or a "dam" and when used in a military sense it means a veritable
barrier or wall of fire, where the shells or bullets, or both, are
falling so thickly as to make it impossible for any body of troops to
go through without suffering great loss.
I know nothing of the Browning gun, as it is a new invention and has
never been used in the field. We can only hope that it will prove as
good as the Vickers and Lewis which are giving perfect satisfaction on
the battle-fields of Flanders and France. No real machine gunner
expects or requires anything better, but I can not imagine any _one_
type of gun that can replace both of them, any more than a single
class of artillery can combine the functions of both the light field
guns and the heavy howitzers.
The Germans evidently had good spies within our lines as they always
knew when we changed over; that is, when we took over a new line. At
first they would call out: "Hello, Canadians, how are you," sometimes
even naming the battalion. Later on, however, they used much stronger
language but they knew who we were, just the same. Their methods of
communicating information from our lines were many and very ingenious.
For instance, at one time it was learned by our intelligence
department that spies were making use of the many windmills to signal
messages across the line. They did this by stopping the sails of the
mills at certain angles and moving them about from time to time. When
this was discovered the orders went out for all windmills to be
stopped in such a position that the arms should always be at an exact
forty-five degree angle whenever the mill was not running, with the
understanding that failure to observe this regulation would result in
our artillery in the immediate vicinity turning their guns on the
offending mill. At one place we discovered a large periscope with a
heliographic attachment by which a seemingly inoffensive Belgian
peasant kept in constant communication with the boche. This periscope
was concealed in the chimney of a partially ruined farm building
within our lines. At other places underground cables were discovered,
with telephones or field telegraph instruments concealed in cellars or
old buildings. Carrier pigeons were also much used and, without a
doubt, many men passed back and forth between the lines, some of
them, as we learned from time to time, regularly enlisted in our
armies. At several places we had men shot down and killed by snipers
masquerading as farmers, behind our lines. Needless to say, such
affairs were promptly attended to, on the spot, "_tout de suite_" as
the French say.
So, although that part of the line had been very quiet for a long
time, they began at once to give us a reception. While the shelling
was as nothing compared to bombardments we went through later, still
it gave us an opportunity to make the acquaintance of the various
kinds of shells from "whizz-bangs" up to something of about eight-inch
caliber.
The first casualty in the battalion was a scout named Boyer who was
killed on his initial trip into No Man's Land the first night in the
trenches. Next day Starkey decided he could not see enough with a
periscope, so took a look over the parapet. Both men are buried in the
garden back of the St. Quentin Cabaret together with many from the
best and most famous British Line Regiments.
The Emma Gees came out pretty lucky, having but one man seriously
wounded. His name was Mangan, a Yankee, who had served in the U. S.
Army in the Philippines. He was badly wounded by shrapnel and was sent
back to England. We used to hear from him occasionally until about a
year later the letters stopped.
After eight days we were relieved by the Twentieth Battalion and went
back to Dranoutre for our first "rest." We went by way of Neuve Eglise
but, as it was night, we could see but little of that much shot-up
city. It commenced to rain before we started out and kept it up until
we went back again, four days later. At that time it was customary to
carry in and out everything, including ammunition, and we soon learned
to dread the days when we had to move. We would have preferred to stay
in the front line for a month at a time rather than carry all that
heavy stuff in and out so often. However, we managed to get a bath and
some clean clothes, which made everybody feel better. We had no
regular billets at Dranoutre but rigged up little shelter tents,
somewhat similar to those used in the U. S. Army, by lacing two or
more rubber sheets together. Our cooking was done by gun crews,
somewhat on the order of a lot of Boy Scouts, in that no two crews had
the same ideas or used the same methods. My squad dug out a nice
little "stove" in a bank, and by covering it with flattened-out
biscuit tins and making a pipe of tin cans of various sorts, managed
to get along very well. Here we received our first pay since arriving
in France; fifteen francs each. It doesn't sound like much but,
believe me, we made those "sous" go a long way and bought lots of
little delicacies we could not otherwise have had.
While at Dranoutre we associated with the inhabitants, in the stores
and estaminets. The Germans had taken of whatever they needed in the
way of live stock and foodstuffs, but the town itself happened to be
one of the many scattered up and down the line, which had miraculously
escaped even an ordinary bombardment.
[Illustration: French Paper War-Money]
There were refugees, hundreds of them; from the towns and cities
farther to the eastward, whence they had fled with little or nothing
besides the clothes on their backs. There were children who had lost
their parents; wives who knew not what had become of their husbands,
and men whose wives and families were somewhere back in the
German-occupied territory. They told of enduring the direst hardships
and suffering; of cold and hunger.
Every town behind the lines that had escaped destruction was crowded
with these poor homeless people. Every habitable house sheltered all
who could find no room to lie on the floor. Those who could, worked on
the roads or in the neighboring fields. Many of the women worked in
the military laundries. They all received some assistance from the
French Government and from the many charitable societies. When talking
with them they would tell their stories in a monotonous sort of way,
seldom making any complaint; seeming to think that all these things
were to be endured as a matter of course.
I have read all the available reports on the subject of atrocities and
have no doubt that they are true, but none ever came under my personal
observation.
In the midst of a battle many men do things which would, at other
times, fill them with horror. The excitement of combat seems to breed
a lust for killing and the sight of blood is like a red flag to a
bull. This, unfortunately, is not confined to Germans. One of our
officers who had had a brother killed a few days before deliberately
shot and killed several unarmed prisoners. He was, himself, killed the
same day. On another occasion, a wounded German, lying in a
shell-hole, stabbed and killed one of our wounded and attacked another
only to be beaten at his own game and killed with his own knife. A
soldier of the Royal Fusiliers, at St. Eloi, was detected by his
sergeant in the act of shooting an unarmed prisoner, whereupon the
sergeant immediately shot and killed the soldier. I saw this, myself.
But the deliberate shooting of wounded men and stretcher-bearers has
been, so far as I know, confined to the Hun. On numerous occasions,
some of which are mentioned elsewhere in this story, German snipers
deliberately and in cold blood shot down our helpless wounded and the
men who were endeavoring to succor them.