THE 26TH "MOPS UP"
AFTER Jim Hammond went away from Beaver Dam he wrote to Mrs. Starkley
from Toronto, saying that he had enlisted in a new infantry battalion
and that all was well with him. That was the last news from him, or of
him, to be received at Beaver Dam for many months.
The war held and crushed and sweated on the western front. Every day
found the Canadians in the grinding and perilous toil of it. In April,
1916, the Second Canadian Division held the ground about St. Eloi
against terrific onslaughts. Then and there were fought those desperate
actions known as the Battles of the Craters. Hiram Sill, D. C. M., now a
sergeant, received a wound that put him out of action for nearly two
months. Dick Starkley was buried twice, once beneath the lip of one of
the craters as it returned to earth after a jump into the air, and again
in his dugout. No bones were broken, but he had to rest for three days.
Other Canadian divisions moved into the Ypres salient in April--back to
their first field of glory of the year before. That salient of terrible
fame, advanced round the battered city of Ypres like a blunt spearhead
driven into the enemy's positions, will live for centuries after its
trenches are leveled. British soldiers have fallen in their tens of
thousands in and beyond and on the flanks of that city of destruction.
From three sides the German guns flailed it through four desperate
years. Masses of German infantry surged up and broke against its torn
edges, German gas drenched it, liquid fire scorched it, and mines
blasted it. Now and again the edge of that salient was bent inward a
little for a day or a week; but in those four years no German set foot
in that city of heroic ruins except as a prisoner.
The 26th Battalion celebrated Dominion Day--July 1st--by raiding a
convenient point of the German front line. The assault was made by a
party of twenty-five "other ranks" commanded by two junior officers. It
was supported by the fire of our heavy field guns and heavy and medium
trench mortars.
Sergts. Frank Sacobie and Hiram Sill were of the party, but Dick
Starkley was not. Dick could not be spared for it from his duties with
his platoon, for he was in acting command during the enforced absence of
Lieut. Smith, who was suffering at a base hospital from a combination of
gas and fever. The men from New Brunswick were observed by the garrison
of the threatened trench while they were still on the wrong side of the
inner line of hostile wire, and a heavy but wild fire was opened on them
with rifles and machine guns. But the raiders did not pause. They passed
through the last entanglement, entered the trench, killed a number of
the enemy and collected considerable material for identification. Their
casualties were few, and no wound was of a serious nature. Hiram Sill
was dizzy and bleeding freely, but cheerful. One small fragment of a
bomb had cut open his right cheek, and another had nicked his left
shoulder. Sacobie carried him home on his back.
It was a little affair, remarkable only as a new way of celebrating
Dominion Day, and differed only in minor details from hundreds of other
little bursts of aggressive activity on that front.
Later in the month a Distinguished Service Order, two Military Crosses,
four Distinguished Conduct Medals and five Military Medals were awarded
to the battalion in recognition of its work about St. Eloi. Dick
Starkley and Frank Sacobie each drew a D. C. M. A few days after that
Lieut. Smith returned from Blighty and took back the command of his
platoon from Dick; and at the same time he informed Dick that he was
earmarked for a commission.
The Canadians began their march from the Ypres salient to the Somme on
September 1, 1916. They marched cheerfully, glad of a change and hoping
for the best. The weather was fine, and the towns and villages through
which they passed seemed to them pleasant places full of friendly
people. They were going to fight on a new front; and, as became
soldiers, it was their firm belief that any change would be for the
better.
On the 8th of September, while on the march, Dick Starkley was gazetted
a lieutenant of Canadian Infantry. Mr. Smith found his third star in the
same gazette, and Dick took the platoon. Henry visited the battalion a
few days later and presented to the new lieutenant an old uniform that
would do very well until the London tailors were given a chance. Dick
was a proud soldier that day; and an opportunity of showing his new
dignity to the enemy soon occurred. That opportunity was the famous
battle of Courcelette.
From one o'clock of the afternoon of September 14 until four o'clock the
next morning our heavy guns and howitzers belabored with high explosive
shells the fortified sugar refinery and its strong trenches and the
village of Courcelette beyond. Then for an hour the big guns were
silent. The battalions of the Fourth and Sixth Brigades waited in their
jumping-off trenches before Pozières. The Fifth Brigade, of which the
26th Battalion was a unit, rested in reserve.
Dawn broke with a clear sky and promise of sunshine and a frosty tingle
in the air. At six o'clock the eighteen-pounder guns of nine brigades of
artillery, smashing into sudden activity, laid a dense barrage on the
nearest rim of the German positions. Four minutes later the barrage
lifted and jumped forward one hundred yards, and the infantry climbed
out of their trenches and followed it into the first German trench. The
fight was on in earnest, and in shell holes, in corners of trenches and
against improvised barricades many great feats of arms were dared and
achieved. A tank led the infantry against the strongly fortified ruins
of the refinery and toppled down everything in its path.
Lieut. Dick Starkley and his friends gave ear all morning to the din of
battle, wished themselves farther forward in the middle of it and
wondered whether the brigades in front would leave anything for them to
do on the morrow. Messages of success came back to them from time to
time. By eight o'clock, after two hours of fighting, the Canadians had
taken the formidable trenches, the sugar refinery, a fortified sunken
road and hundreds of prisoners. The way was open to Courcelette.
"If they don't slow up--if they don't quit altogether this very
minute--they'll be crowding right in to Courcelette and doing us out of
a job!" complained Sergt. Hiram Sill. "That's our job, Courcelette
is--our job for to-morrow. They've done what they set out to do, and if
they go ahead now and try something they haven't planned for, well,
they'll maybe bite off more than they can chew. The psychology of it
will be all wrong; their minds aren't made up to that idea."
"I guess the idee ain't the hull thing," remarked a middle-aged
corporal. "Many a good job has been done kind of unexpectedly in this
war. I reckon this here psychology didn't have much to do with your D.
C. M."
"That's where you're dead wrong, Henry," said Hiram. "I knew I'd get a
D. C. M. all along, from the first minute I ever set foot in a trench.
My mind and my spirit were all made up for it. I knew I'd get a D. C. M.
just as sure as I know now that I'll get a bar to it--if I don't go west
first."
Dick, who had joined the group, laughed and smote Hiram on the shoulder.
"You're dead right!" he exclaimed. "Old Psychology, you're a wonder of
the age! Be careful what you make up your heart and soul and mind to
next or you'll find yourself in command of the division."
"What do you mean, lieutenant?" asked Sill.
"You've been awarded the D. C. M. again, that's all!" cried Dick,
shaking him violently by the hand. "You've got your bar, Old Psychology!
Word of it just came through from the Brigade."
Sergt. Sill blushed and grew pale and blushed again.
"Say, boys, I'm a proud man," he said. "There are some things you can't
get used to--and being decorated for distinguished conduct on the field
of glory is one of them, I guess. If you'll excuse me, boys,--and you,
lieutenant,--I'll just wander along that old trench a piece and think it
over by myself."
The way was open to Courcelette. The battalions that had done the work
in a few hours and that, despite a terrific fire from the enemy, had
established themselves beyond their final objective, were anxious to
continue about this business without pause and clean up the strongly
garrisoned town. They had fought desperately in those few hours,
however, and the enemy's fire had taken toll of them, and so they were
told to sit tight in their new trenches; but the common sense of their
assertion that Courcelette itself should be assaulted without loss of
time, before the beaten and astounded enemy could recover, was admitted.
At half past three o'clock that afternoon the Fifth Brigade received its
orders and instructions and immediately passed them on and elaborated
them to the battalions concerned. By five o'clock the three battalions
that were to make the attack were on their way across the open country,
advancing in waves. German guns battered them but did not break their
alignment. They reached our new trenches and, with the barrage of our
own guns now moving before them, passed through and over the victorious
survivors of the morning's battle.
The French Canadians and the Nova Scotians went first in two waves.
Dick Starkley and his platoon were on the right of the front line of the
26th, which was the third wave of attack. "Mopping up" was the
battalion's particular job on this occasion.
"Mopping up," like most military terms, means considerably more than it
suggests to the ear. The mops are rifles, bombs and bayonets; the things
to be mopped are machine-gun posts still in active operation, bays and
sections of trenches still occupied by aggressive Germans, mined cellars
and garrisoned dugouts. Everything of a menacing nature that the
assaulting waves have passed over or outflanked without demolishing must
be dealt with by the "moppers-up."
The two lines of the 26th advanced at an easy walk; there was about five
yards between man and man. Each man carried water and rations for
forty-eight hours and five empty sandbags, over and above his arms and
kit. The men kept their alignment all the way up to the edge of the
village. Now and again they closed on the center or extended to right or
left to fill a gap. Wounded men crawled into shell holes or were picked
up and carried forward. Dead men lay sprawled beneath their equipment,
with their rifles and bayonets out thrust toward Courcelette even in
death. The "walking wounded" continued to go forward, some unconscious
or unmindful of their injuries and others trying to bandage themselves
as they walked.
Col. MacKenzie led them, and beside him walked a company commander. The
two shouted to each other above the din of battle, and sometimes they
turned and shouted back to their men. Other officers walked a few paces
in front of their men.
A bursting shell threw Dick backward into a small crater that had been
made earlier in the day and knocked the breath out of him for a few
seconds. Frank Sacobie picked him up. The colonel gave the signal to
double, and the right flank of the 26th broke from a walk into a slow
and heavy jog. Sacobie jogged beside Dick.
"Just a year since we came into the line!" shouted Dick.
"We were pa'tridge shootin' two years ago to-day!" bawled Sacobie.
The colonel turned with his back to Courcelette and his face to his men
and yelled at them to come on. "Speed up on the right!" he shouted. "The
left is ahead. The 25th is in already. Shake a leg, boys. If they don't
move quick enough in front, blow right through 'em."
At the near edge of the village a number of New Brunswickers, including
their colonel, overtook and mingled with the second line of the 22d. Our
barrage was lifted clear of Courcelette by this time and set like a
spouting wall of fire and earth along the far side of it; but the shells
of the enemy continued to pitch into it, heaving bricks and rafters and
the soil of little gardens into the vibrating twilight. Machine guns
streamed their fire upon the invaders from attics and cellars and
sand-bagged windows. The bombs and rifles of the 22d smashed and cracked
just ahead; and on the left, still farther ahead, crashes and bangs and
shouts told all who could hear the whereabouts of Hilliam and his lads
from Nova Scotia.
Dick Starkley saw a darting flicker of fire from the butt of a broken
chimney beyond a cellar full of bricks and splintered timber. He shouted
to his men, let his pistol swing from its lanyard and threw a bomb.
Then, stooping low, he dashed at the jumble of ruins in the cellar. He
saw his bomb burst beside the stump of chimney. The machine gun
flickered again, and _spat-spat-spat_ came quicker than thought. Other
bombs smashed in front of him, to right and left of the chimney. He got
his right foot entangled in what had once been a baby's crib.
There he was, staggering on the very summit of that low mound of
rubbish, fairly in line with the aim of the machine gun. Something
seized him by some part of his equipment and jerked him backward. He lit
on his back and slid a yard, then beheld the face of Hiram Sill staring
down at him.
"Hit?" asked Hiram.
"Don't think so. No."
"It's a wonder."
Five men from Dick's platoon joined them in the ruins. Together they
threw seven grenades. The hidden gun ceased fire. Dick scrambled up and
over the rubbish and around what was left of the shattered chimney that
masked the machine-gun post. In the dim light he saw sprawled shapes and
crouching shapes, and one stooped over the machine gun, working swiftly
to clear it again for action. Dick pistoled the gunner. The three
survivors of that crew put up their hands. Sergt. Sill disarmed them and
told them to "beat it" back to the Canadian lines. Fifty yards on they
found Sacobie and two privates counting prisoners at the mouth of a
dugout.
"Twenty-nine without a scratch," said Sacobie.
"Find stretchers for them and send them back with our wounded, under
escort," said Dick. "Put a corporal in charge. Is there a corporal
here?"
"I'm here, sir."
"You, Judd? Take them back with as many of our wounded as they can
carry. Two men with you should be escort enough. Hand over the wounded
and fetch up any grenades and ammunition you can get hold of."
Capt. Smith staggered up to Dick.
"We are through and out the other side!" he gasped. "Get as many of our
fellows as you can collect quick to stiffen this flank. Dig in beyond
the houses--in line with the 25th. The colonel is up there somewhere."
He swayed and stumbled against the platoon commander. Dick supported him
with an arm.
"Hit?" asked Dick.
"Just what you'd notice," said the captain, straightening himself and
reeling away.
"Go after him and do what you can for him," said Dick to one of his men.
"Bandage him and then go look for an M. O."
Dick hurried on toward the forward edge of the village, strengthening
his following as he went. The shelling was still heavy and the noise
deafening, but the hand-to-hand fighting among the houses had lessened.
Dick led his men through one wall of a house that had been hit by a
heavy shell and through the other wall into a little garden. There were
bricks and tiles and iron shards in that garden; and in the middle of
it, untouched, a little arbor of grapevines. Dick passed through the
arbor on his way to the broken wall at the foot of the garden. There
were two benches in it and a small round table.
Dick went through the arbor in a second, and then he sprang to the
broken crest of the wall. He had scarcely mounted upon it before
something red burst close in front of his eyes.
* * * * *
Dick was not astonished to find himself in the old garden at Beaver Dam.
The lilacs were in flower and full of bees and butterflies. He still
wore his shrapnel helmet. It felt very uncomfortable, and he tried to
take it off--but it stuck fast to his head. Even that did not astonish
him. He saw an arbor of grapevines and entered it and sat down on a
bench with his elbows on a small round table. He recognized it as the
arbor he had seen that evening in Courcelette--the evening of September
15.
"I must have brought it home with me," he reflected. "The war must be
over."
Flora entered the arbor then and asked him why he was wearing an
officer's jacket. He thought it queer that she had not heard about his
commission.
"I was promoted on the Somme--no, it was before that," he began, and
then everything became dark. "I can't see," he said.
"Don't worry about that," replied a voice that was not Flora's. "Your
eyes are bandaged for the time being. They'll be as well as ever in a
few days."
"I must have been dreaming. Where am I--and what is wrong with me?"
"You are in No. 2 Canadian General Hospital and have been dreaming for
almost a week. But you are doing very well."
"What hit me? And have I all my legs and arms?"
"It must have been a whiz-bang," replied the unknown voice. "You are
suffering from head wounds that are not so serious as we feared and from
broken ribs and a few cuts and gashes. You must drink this and stop
talking."
Dick obediently drank it, whatever it was.
"I wish you could give me some news of the battalion, and then I'd keep
quiet for a long time," he said.
"Do you want me to open and read this letter that your brother left for
you two days ago?" asked the Sister.
She read as follows:
"Dear Dick. As your temperature is up and you refuse to know me I am
leaving this note for you with the charming Sister who seems to be your
C. O. just now. She tells me that you will be as fit as a fiddle in a
month or so. Accept my congratulations on your escape and on the battle
of Courcelette. I have written to Beaver Dam about it and cabled that
you will live to fight again. Frank Sacobie and that psychological
sergeant with a D. C. M. and bar are booked for Blighty, to polish up
for their commissions. I called on them after the fight. They are
well--but I can't say that they escaped without a scratch, for they both
looked as if they had been mixing it up with a bunch of wildcats.
Sacobie has a black eye and doesn't know who or what hit him.
"Do you remember Jim Hammond? He came over to a battalion of this
division with a draft from England about four months ago. He looked me
up one day last week and told me a mighty queer story about himself. I
won't try to repeat it, for I am sure he'll tell it to you himself at
the first opportunity. He is making good, as far as I can see and hear.
Pat Hammond has a job in London now. He was badly gassed about a month
ago. I will get another day's special leave as soon as possible and pay
you another visit.
"Your affectionate brother, Henry Starkley."