PULLING THE LEG OF A GERMAN GENERAL
Polygon Wood and Picadilly Again--German Headquarters--Surprising
Kitchener--"Your Infantry's No Good"--The Germans Give Us News of
the Regiment.
We were then escorted under heavy guard out over the fields in the
rear, past the nearby farmhouse, which was simply filled with snipers.
The latter, however, did not shoot at us, presumably because they
might have hit some of our numerous guards. We seemed to be working
right through the heart of the German Army. Everywhere the troops were
massed. Along the road they lay in solid formation on both sides. If
we had had artillery to play on them now they would have suffered
tremendous losses. The whole countryside presented a living target.
All the way they shouted "Schwein" and taunted us in both languages.
Every shell-hole, farmhouse, hut, dugout and old trench on the
three-mile stretch between the Front and Polygon Wood contributed its
quota.
The regiment had evacuated Polygon Wood on the night of the third.
Across the old trail our fatigue parties had tramped new ones in the
mud, up past Regent Street, Leicester Square and Picadilly. We passed
them all.
We were marched over to the little settlement of pine-bough huts which
the regiment had previously taken over from the French. The men with
me greeted them like old friends. Here was the Sniper's Hut, there the
Commanding Officer's. This was the hut in which the brave Joe Waldron
had "gone West," that on the site of one where fourteen of "ours" had
stopped a shell while they slept. Memories submerged us and made us
weak. Even the guiding rope that our men had used to hold themselves
to the trail of nights still held its place for groping German hands.
Beside it lay the fragments of the French signboards, jocular
advertisements of mud baths for trench fever, the _hotel_ this and the
_maison_ that. One of my companions pointed to a larger hut which he
said our fellows had called the Hotel Cecil. The board was missing
now. And no German signboard took its place. Their wit did not run in
so richly innocent a channel.
The huts lay just off the race track in front of the ruined chateau,
buried deep in the remnants of what had once been the beautiful park
of a large country estate. These huts were now the German
headquarters.
There was as much English as German talked there that day. Everywhere
there was cooking going on, mostly in portable camp kitchens.
As we came to a halt one big fellow smoking a pipe observed
nonchalantly: "You fellows are lucky. Our orders were to take no
Canadian prisoners."
The man was so casual, so utterly matter-of-fact and there was about
his remark so simple an air of directness and of finality that there
was no escaping his sincerity, unduly interested though we were.
Another officer said "Englaender?"
The big fellow said "Kanadien." The other raised his brows and
shoulders: "Uhh!"
A younger officer came up: "Never mind, boys: Your turn to-day. Might
be mine to-morrow." Turning to the others, he too said:
"Englaender?"
[Illustration: WOUNDED CANADIANS RECEIVING FIRST AID IN A
SUPPORT TRENCH AFTER AN ATTACK.]
"No! Canadian."
"Oh!" And he appeared to be pleasantly surprised. He asked me for a
souvenir and pointed to the brass Canada shoulder straps and the red
cloth "P. P. C. L. I.'s" on the shoulders of the others. But I had
already shoved my few trinkets down my puttees while lying back of the
trench that afternoon. Scarfe, however, gave up his "Canada" straps.
The young officer gave him in return a carved nut with silver filigree
work and gave another man a silver crucifix for the bronze maple
leaves from the collar of his tunic. And, more important still, he
gave us all a cigarette, while he had a sergeant give us coffee.
That, the cigarette, was I think much the best of anything we received
then or for some time to come. Since the bombardment and our wounding,
our nerves had fairly ached for the sedative which, good, bad or
indifferent, would steady the quivering harp strings of our nerves.
And a cigarette did that.
The headquarters staff appeared on the scene. They wanted information,
just as ours would have done under similar circumstances, but these
took a different method to acquire it. As before, in the trench, they
selected me for the spokesman. The senior officer, a general
apparently, addressed me: "How many troops are there in front of our
attack?"
I lied: "I don't know."
He shook a threatening finger at me. "I'll tell you this, my man: We
have a pretty good idea of how many troops lay behind you and if in
any particular you endeavour to lead us astray it will go very hard
with all of you. Now answer my question!" His English was good.
I cogitated. It would not do to tell him the terrible truth. That was
certain. So I took a chance. "Three divisions." He appeared to be
satisfied. The fact was, there were none behind us. We were utterly
without supporting troops.
"And Kitchener's Army? How many of them are there here?"
"Why, they haven't even come over yet, sir."
"Don't tell me that: I know better. They've been out here for months."
"But they haven't," I persisted. I told the truth this time.
"Yes," he shouted angrily.
"No," I flung back.
"Well, how many of them are there?"
The division yarn had gone down well. And perhaps I was slightly
heated. My spirit ran ahead of my judgment. "Five and a half to seven
million," I said.
He exploded. And called me everything but a soldier. I could not help
but reflect that I had overdone it a bit. And I certainly thought that
I was "for it" then and there.
To make matters worse he asked the others and they, profiting by my
mistake and following the lead of the first man questioned, put
Kitchener's army at four and a half million; which was only a trifle
of four million out. So I determined to be reasonable. When he came to
me again I confirmed the latter figure, explaining my earlier
statement by my lack of exact knowledge. And so that particular storm
blew over.
The general came back to me again. "You Canadians thought this was
going to be a picnic, didn't you?" He was very sarcastic.
"No, we didn't, sir."
"Well, you thought it was going to be a walk through to Berlin, didn't
you?"
"Why, no. We thought it was the other way about, sir," I ventured.
He shifted: "Well, what do you think of us anyhow?"
"Your artillery was all right but your infantry was no good." I began
to feel shaky again. However, he took that calmly enough.
"Oh! So our infantry was no good."
"We could have held them all right, sir."
He ruminated on that a moment, rumbled in his throat and abruptly
changed the subject, in an unpleasant fashion, however.
"You're the fellows we want to get hold of. You cut the throats of our
wounded."
I denied it and we argued back and forth over that for several
minutes, and very heatedly. He referred to St. Julien and said that
this thing had occurred there. I said and quite truthfully that we had
not been at St. Julien, that we were in the Imperial and not the
Canadian Army and had been spectators in near-by trenches of the St.
Julien affair. I even went into some detail to explain that we were a
special corps of old soldiers who, not being able to rejoin their old
regiments, had at the outbreak of war formed one of their own and had
been accepted as such and sent to France months ahead of the Canadian
contingent. I added that I myself had just rejoined the regiment,
having got my "Blighty" in March at St. Eloi and as proof of my other
statements I further volunteered that I was one of the 2nd Gordons and
after the South African War had gone to Canada where I had finished my
reserve several years since.
He listened but was plainly unconvinced. Another officer broke in: "I
can explain it, sir. These men were in the 80th Brigade and the 27th
Division. Colonel Farquhar was their Commanding Officer and Captain
Buller took command when Colonel Farquhar was killed." We stared at
one another in amazement, for it was all quite true.
This finished that examination. We did not tell them that Colonel
Buller had been blinded a few days before and had been succeeded by
that Major Hamilton Gault who had been so largely instrumental in
raising us.
None of our wounds had received the slightest attention. Cox in
particular suffered cruelly but refused to whimper. Royston's head was
swollen to the size of a water bucket and he was in great pain. We
left them here and never saw them again. Cox died two weeks later of a
blood poisoning which was the combined result of our rough surgery and
the wanton neglect of our captors. I do not think he was ever able to
write his mother as he wished. At least she wrote me later for
information. There was no need of his dying even though it might have
been necessary to have amputated his arm higher up. Royston was
exchanged to Switzerland and recovered from his wounds except for the
loss of an eye.