CANAL DU NORD
On the night of September 26th we moved up to the trenches just before
the Canal du Nord. It was a rainy night and quite dark. We marched a
long time, for our guides had lost their way. Finally, as we approached
the trenches, Verey lights hissed a trail of light through the sky and
as they broke to descend we stood very still. Every little while orders
came for us to fall on our faces, and we lay motionless on the ground
listening to that strange, sweeping sound of machine-gun bullets as
they tore their way through the air just above us.
Before we entered the trenches we had supposed all the Germans to be
on the opposite bank of Canal du Nord. But we were not in the trenches
very long till we learned that there were machine-gun outposts on
our own side. Indeed, not forty-eight yards from where we stood was
a machine-gun nest. Every time a flash-light would show, or some one
would speak above a whisper, there would be a rat-tat-tat from almost
beside us, and then a pattering of machine-gun bullets. I listened to
the grim preparations that were being made to surround the nest just as
soon as our barrage would open up.
At 5:20 a. m. two thundering crashes from an eighteen-pound gun broke
the stillness, then the whole barrage opened up, the like of which had
never before been heard on the Western Front. I quote below from “The
Canadians in France.”
“Never had the world known anything to compare with the strength and
majesty of that terrible artillery fire. It was as if the pillars of
the earth had fallen and God had struck the Germans in his anger. The
gloom behind the advancing troops was blazing with fire, and the
gloom in front. The night overhead shrieked and moaned and howled with
the passing of the shells, hurrying--hurrying--hurrying to keep their
appointment with death. The German machine-gunners in the Canal and
immediately behind it were blown to pieces and the German guns were
throttled with their answers to their lips.”
We stood in the trenches listening to the terrible roaring and crashing
of the guns. When we spoke we were obliged to yell in order to make
ourselves heard. It was still quite dark, yet all about us were sharp
yellow flashes of light from our guns. In a little while the men were
ready to start over the Canal. The officer in command looked at me.
“Coming, Padre?” he asked. I smiled. I was not free to go then. I must
stay with the doctor, to attend the wounded that would be brought in by
the stretcher-bearers. Later I was to go with the field ambulance.
Shortly after daylight I was moving along the Canal looking for the
Second Field Ambulance, with which I was to follow, when I saw coming
up through a shower of shell explosions the young officer who had come
to see me at Monchy Breton. He was looking for the Sixteenth Battalion.
He was no longer downhearted. The light of battle was in his clear
blue eye. He shook hands with me and smiled a bright, fearless smile
as the shells dropped about us. He told me he had been sent up to the
battalion, which was sadly in need of officers. As he spoke, all about
us were dead men and horses.
I found the field ambulance at a cross-roads near Inchy and I worked
with them till noon. It was terrible work, performed under great
difficulties, as all morning long a constant rain of enemy shells
poured over the roads. A great number of wounded passed through. As the
morning advanced, the day became very warm. I took off my trench coat
and began to carry it on my arm. I remember laying it down on the side
of the road as I went to minister to a wounded lad. When I had finished
my work and had wiped the blood from my hands on the thick grass
alongside of the road, I turned to pick up my trench coat. It was no
longer where I had put it. I looked everywhere but I could not find it.
It was a very serviceable coat, lined with oiled silk and rubber and
impervious to rain and wind. Now I had no coat whatsoever. My overcoat
and cloak had been burned, and now my trench coat was gone! I often
smile when I recall that morning. I worried more at the time over the
loss of what was in the pockets than I did over the loss of the coat
itself. In one pocket was the tin of sardines that I had bought a few
days before. I had not yet broken my fast and I did not know when I
might do so. In the other pocket was a “Baby Ben” alarm clock: it was
very useful sometimes when I wanted to sleep between attacks. I never
found the coat. I think some stretcher-bearers must have placed it on
a wounded man thinking it had been left by some officer who had been
wounded or killed.
It was now the 27th of September and I was not fitted out very well to
stand the rigors of a fall campaign. Just before I left the Sixteenth
I had been given an old wagon cover, which George and I had converted
into a bed-roll, and I had been able to procure two army blankets; but
now I had no overcoat.
During a little lull in the afternoon I made my way to headquarters of
the Fourteenth, which was in a dugout that the Germans had left them.
There I had some food, after which I made my way back to the field
ambulance.
That night I slept on the opposite side of the Canal du Nord. We had
gained another great victory and had captured one of the strongest
positions that the enemy still held. Nearly five thousand prisoners
had been taken and about one hundred field-guns, together with a great
number of machine-guns and large quantities of stores.
For several days one battle followed another; at almost every hour of
the day some brigade of the Canadian corps was attacking. I followed
with the field ambulance and I was kept very busy.