THE EIGHTH OF MAY AND THE LAST STAND OF THE PRINCESS PATS
Morning in the Trenches--The Artillery Preparation for the
Infantry Attack--The P.P's Chosen to Stem the Tide--The Trust of
a Lady--Chaos--Corporal Dover--The Manner in Which Some Men Kill
and Others Die.
It seemed as though I had just stepped off my whack of sentry go for
my group when a kick in the ribs apprised me that it was "Stand-to." I
rubbed my eyes, swore and rose to my feet. Such was the narrowness of
the trench that the movement put me at my post at the parapet, where
in common with my mates, I fell to scanning the top for the first
signs of day and the Germans.
The latter lay on the other side of the ravine from us as they had
since the Fourth, except for such times as they had assaulted our
position. The smoke of Ypres and all the close-packed villages of a
thickly populated countryside rose sullenly on every hand.
Over everything there hung the pallor of the mist-ridden Flemish
morning, deadly quiet, as was usual at that time of the trench day
when the tenseness of the all-night vigil was just merging into the
relieving daylight.
At half past six that stillness was punctuated by a single shell,
which broke barely in our rear. And then the ball commenced--the most
intense bombardment we had yet experienced. Most of the fire came from
the batteries in concealed positions on our right, whence, as on the
fourth, they poured in a very destructive enfilade fire which swept up
and down the length of the trench like the stream of a hose, making it
a shambles. Each burst of high-explosive shells, each terrible
pulsation of the atmosphere, if it missed the body, seemed to rend the
very brain, or else stupefied it.
The general result was beyond any poor words of mine. All spoken
language is totally inadequate to describe the shocks and horrors of
an intense bombardment. It is not that man himself lacks the
imaginative gift of words but that he has not the word tools with
which to work. They do not exist. Each attempt to describe becomes
near effrontery and demands its own separate apology.
In addition, kind Nature draws a veil for him over so much of all the
worst of it that many details are spared his later recollection. He
remembers only the indescribable confusion and the bursting claps of
near-by flame, as foul in color and as ill of smell as an addled egg.
He knows only that the acid of the high-explosive gas eats into the
tissue of his brain and lungs, destroying with other things, most
memories of the shelling.
Overhead an aeroplane buzzed. We could even descry the figures of the
pilot and his observer, the latter signaling. No gun of ours answered.
The dead and dying lay all about and none could attend them: A rifle
was a rifle.
This continued for an hour, at the end of which time we poked our
heads up and saw their infantry coming on in columns of mobs, and some
of them also very prettily in the open order we had ourselves been
taught. Every field and hedge spewed them up. We stood, head and
shoulders exposed above the ragged parapet, giving them "Rapid-fire."
They had no stomach for that and retired to their holes, leaving many
dead and grievously wounded.
It was at this time that we saw the troops on our flanks falling back
in orderly fashion. I called that fact to the attention of Lieutenant
Lane, who was the only officer left in our vicinity. He said that the
last word he had received was to hang on.
This we proceeded to do, and so, we are told, did the others. We
learned later that the battalion roll call that night showed a
strength of one hundred and fifty men out of the six hundred and
thirty-five who had answered "Present" twenty-four hours earlier. And
the official records of the Canadian Eye Witness, Lord Beaverbrook,
then Sir Max Aitken, as given in "Canada in Flanders," state that
"Those who survive and the friends of those who have died may draw
solace from the thought that never in the history of arms have
soldiers more valiantly sustained the gift and trust of a Lady,"
referring to the Color which had been worked for and presented to us
by the Princess Patricia, daughter of His Royal Highness the Duke of
Connaught, then Governor-General of Canada.
We were on the apex of the line and were now unsupported on either
side. It was about this time, I believe, that a small detachment of
the King's Shropshire Light Infantry, a sister regiment in our
brigade, fetched to the companies in our rear twenty boxes of badly
needed ammunition and reenforced the Princess Patricias.
Following the beating off of their infantry attack the Germans gave us
a short breathing spell until their machine guns had been trained on
our parapet and a school of light field guns dragged up into place.
The aeroplane came out again, dropping to within three hundred feet of
our trench, and with tiny jets of vari-colored smoke bombs, directed
the terribly accurate fire of the enemy guns, already so close to, but
so well insured against any harm from us that they attempted no
concealment. And the big guns on the right completed the devastation.
This continued for another half hour, at the end of which time there
remained intact only one small traverse in the trench, which owed its
existence to the fragment of chicken wire that held its sides up. The
remainder was absolutely wiped out. This time there was no rapid fire,
nor even any looking over the top to see if the enemy were coming on.
Instead, the Germans fairly combed the parapet with their machine
guns. Each indication of curiosity from us drew forth from them such a
stream of fire that the top of the parapet spat forth a steady shower
of flying mud, and, which made it impossible for us to defend
ourselves properly, even had there been enough of us left to do so.
The rest was chaos, a bit of pure hell. Men struggling, buried alive
and looking at us for the aid they would not ask for. Soldiers all.
And the Germans now pouring in in waves from all sides, and especially
from our unprotected flanks and rear, hindered only by the desultory
rifle fire of our two weakened companies in the support trenches. We
were receiving rifle fire from four directions and bayonet thrusts
from the Germans on the parapet. Mowed down like sheep. And as they
came on they trampled our dead and bayoneted our wounded.
The machine-gun crew had gone under to a man, doing their best to the
last. I think Sergeant Whitehead went with them, too; at least he was
near there a short time before, and I never saw him or any of the gun
crew again. The only living soul near that spot was Royston, dragging
himself out from under a pile of debris and covered with mud and
blood, his face horribly swollen to twice its normal size, blinded for
the moment.
To quote "Canada in Flanders" again:
"At this time the bombardment recommenced with great intensity. The
German bombardment had been so heavy since May 4th that a wood which
the Regiment had used in part for cover was completely demolished. The
range of our machine-guns was taken with extreme precision. All,
without exception, were buried. Those who served them behaved with the
most admirable coolness and gallantry. Two were dug out, mounted and
used again. One was actually disinterred three times and kept in
action till a shell annihilated the whole section. Corporal Dover
stuck to his gun throughout and, although wounded, continued to
discharge his duties with as much coolness as if on parade. In the
explosion that ended his ill-fated gun, he lost a leg and an arm, and
was completely buried in the debris. Conscious or unconscious, he lay
there in that condition until dusk, when he crawled out of all that
was left of the obliterated trench and moaned for help. Two of his
comrades sprang from the support trench--by this time the fire
trench--and succeeded in carrying in his mangled and bleeding body.
But as all that remained of this brave soldier was being lowered into
the trench a bullet put an end to his sufferings. No bullet could put
an end to his glory."
George Easton was firing with me at the gray mass of the oncoming
horde. "My rifle's jammed!" he cried.
"Take mine." And I stooped to get one from a casualty underfoot. But a
moment later, as I fired from the parapet, my bayonet was broken off
by a German bullet. I shouted wildly to Cosh to toss me one from near
by.
Just then the main body of the Germans swarmed into the end of the
trench.
Of this Lord Beaverbrook says: "At this moment the Germans made their
third and last attack. It was arrested by rifle fire, although some
individuals penetrated into the fire trench on the right. At this
point all the Princess Patricias had been killed, so that this part of
the trench was actually tenantless. Those who established a footing
were few in number, and they were gradually dislodged; and so the
third and last attack was routed as successfully as those which had
preceded it."
His conclusion that we had all been killed was justifiable even
though, fortunately for me, it was an erroneous one. So I am glad for
other motives than those of mere courtesy to be able here to set him
right.
Bugler Lee shouted to me: "I'm shot through the leg." A couple of us
seized him, planning to go down to where the communication trench had
once been. But he stopped us, saying: "It's no good, boys. It's a dead
end! They're killing us."
Cosh swore. "Don't give up, kid! We'll beat the ---- yet!" A German
standing a few yards away raised his rifle and blew his head off.
Young Brown broke down at this--they had just done in his wounded pal:
"Oh, look! Look what they've done to Davie," and fell to weeping. And
with that another put the muzzle of his rifle against the boy's head
and pulled the trigger.
Young Cox from Winnipeg put his hands above his head at the order. His
captor placed the muzzle of his rifle squarely against the palm and
blew it off. There remained only a bloody and broken mass dangling
from the wrist.
[Illustration: GERMAN PRISONERS AFTER A SUCCESSFUL CANADIAN
ATTACK, BRINGING WOUNDED MEN DOWN A COMMUNICATION TRENCH.]
I saw a man who had come up in the draft with me on the 4th, rolling
around in the death agony, tossing his head loosely about in the wild
pain of it, his pallid face a white mark in the muck underfoot. A
burly German reached the spot and without hesitation plunged his
saw-edged bayonet through the throat.
Close by another wounded man was struggling feebly under a pile of
earth, his legs projecting so that only the convulsive heaving of the
loose earth indicated that a man was dying underneath. Another German
observed that too, and shoved his bayonet through the mud and held it
savagely there until all was quiet.
This I did not see, but another did and told me of it afterward.
Sergeant Phillpots had been shot through the jaw so that he went to
his knees as a bullock does at the slaughtering. He supported himself
waveringly by his hands. The blood poured from him so that he was all
but fainting with the loss of it.
A big German stood over him.
Phillpots looked up: "Play the game! Play the game!" he muttered
weakly.
The German coolly put a round through his head.
I was still without a bayonet, and seeing these things, said to
Easton: "We'd better beat it."
He swore again. "Yes, they're murdering us. No use stopping here. Come
on!"
And just then he, too, dropped. I thought him dead. There was no use
in my stopping to share his fate or worse. It was now every man for
himself. At a later date we met in England.
The other half of the regiment lay in support two hundred yards away
in Belle-waarde Wood and in front of the chateau and lake of that
name, where my draft had lain on the fourth. I made a dash for it.
What with the mud and the many shell holes, the going was bad. I was
indistinctly aware of a great deal of promiscuous shooting at me, but
most distinctly of one German who shot at me about ten times in as
many yards and from quite close range. I saw I could not make it. I
flung myself into a Johnson hole, and as soon as I had caught my
breath, scrambled out again and raced for the trench I had just left.
I was by this time unarmed, having flung my rifle away to further my
flight, notwithstanding which another German shot at me as I went
toward him.
As I landed in the trench an angry voice shouted something I could not
understand. And I scrambled to my feet in time to see a German
sullenly lower his rifle from the level of my body at the command of a
big black-bearded officer.