THE SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES.
It was a glorious spring day on Saturday, April 17th, 1915, when I
motored to Ypres. The first Canadian Contingent had gone into the
salient several days before, and had now settled down to business in
the trenches. Our laboratory had been given permission to keep a check
on the purity of the water supply of the Canadians; hence this trip
from our laboratory, located twenty miles away in another part of the
line.
The cobble stone or pavé road between Poperinge and Ypres was like a
moving picture to our, as yet, unsatiated eyes. Here a small party of
soldiers marched along quickly; there three blue-coated French
officers, with smartly-trimmed moustaches, cantered by on horseback; a
pair of goggled despatch riders on throbbing motor cycles dashed along
at terrific speed, leaving long trails of dust behind them; a string
of transport waggons with hay and other fodder, crept along leisurely;
a motor ambulance convoy sped past with back curtains up, showing the
boots of the recumbent wounded, or the peering faces of the sitting
cases with heads and arms bound in white linen; some old women arrayed
in their best dresses, and with baskets on arms, were coming from
market gossiping volubly; boys and girls garbed in the universal
one-piece black overdress of the country, played games on the
roadside; an armoured-motor machine gun halted beside the children to
make some adjustment; great three-ton lorries lumbered along;
officers in touring cars, sometimes with red and gold staff hats, flew
by, taking salutes with easy nonchalance, while we, with ears and eyes
wide open, bowled along towards the famous city of Ypres.
It was war,--apparently an easy going, leisurely sort of game.
Everybody seemed to be going about as if they had been at this sort of
thing all their lives; as if, in fact, they couldn't do anything else.
Every vehicle and every person that went into the salient had to
travel on that broad highway, flanked with tall trees, and paved with
cobble stone. Wire entanglements and trenches traversed the roads at
intervals, and shell holes filled with water in the adjacent fields
showed the road to be within range of the German guns.
As we approached Ypres we could see that, like all the towns of
northern France and Belgium, it was sharply separated from the
adjacent fields; there were no extensive suburbs such as are found
around the modern British or American city causing them to merge
gradually into the surrounding country. When we passed the first
houses we were practically in a solid compact town.
According to the custom in Flanders, the houses and stores of Ypres
were built close together, right on the sidewalk, without gardens or
spaces between them. Many were white, and the effect of the white
stucco and red brick gave the city a clean and sanitary appearance. It
was a town with a population of less than 20,000, a mere reminiscence
of that ancient city of Ypres of the 12th century which had had a
population of 200,000 inhabitants and which had been the most powerful
city in Flanders and one of the richest in the world,--a city larger
and more powerful than London. Ypres was famous for its cloth in the
13th century, when it had 4,000 looms in use. Through wars and
religious persecutions the population of Ypres had dwindled at one
time to 5,000 people. Her fortifications had long ago been dismantled,
and with the exception of a few magnificent buildings, her ancient
glory had departed.
As our car slowly passed through the town evidences of shell fire were
abundantly apparent. Here was a house with its roof blown off; another
with the windows blown out, the woodwork splintered and the walls
pitted with shrapnel; while another had been completely gutted. We
turned to the right and came upon the famous church of St. Martin's.
Great piles of stone and debris lay in front of it, the roof was gone
and the windows had disappeared, but the tower was still intact; the
houses in the neighborhood had been blown to atoms.
Our hearts beat faster when we came upon the building adjacent to it,
facing the Grande Place,--the glorious cloth hall of Ypres, beautiful
even in its ruin. Few such wonderfully majestic specimens of
architecture as this ancient monument of the weavers of Ypres have
come down to us through the ages. On the great square in the heart of
the city it stood, nearly 500 feet long and half as wide. The walls
were yet fairly intact, also the main square tower in the centre and
the graceful pointed turrets at each corner. Most of the roof was
gone, but enough remained to show that it had been very high-pitched,
and that the proportions of the building must have been perfect. The
interior was a mass of rubble; here and there direct hits had blown
holes in the wonderfully carved walls, and some of the statues of the
famous men of the ancient city had been tumbled from their niches
between the third tier of windows. None of the woodwork of the famous
painted panels of the interior remained; it had all been destroyed by
fire from the incendiary shells of the apostles of culture.
I stood and gazed, quite carried away by the beauty of even the
fragments of the magnificent bit of Gothic architecture, and with
indignation at its destruction. The warm spring sun of midday played
about its columns, making heavy shadows under the windows and ruined
arches; soldiers crossed the square and stood about as if they were a
thousand miles from the German lines. Several officers could be seen
wandering about studying the ruins; two of them I knew and they came
over to shake hands. I asked where I could get some dinner, and was
directed to the only decent restaurant left in the town, located just
beyond the Cloth Hall on the square.
As we stopped at the door of the estaminet Lt.-Col. (Canon) Frederick
Scott, one of our Canadian poets, came by and stopped for a chat. I
had not seen him since the memorable days of Salisbury Plain, and he
was full of his experiences as a regimental chaplain. He drew from his
pocket the manuscript of a newly-written poem and, oblivious of his
surroundings, stood by the car and recited it to me.
The little restaurant was well filled with officers even at this late
lunching hour of two o'clock. It had been a millinery store, but
latterly there had been little sale for millinery and there had been a
great demand for food; the three pretty Flemish sisters who owned the
shop had therefore accommodated themselves to the situation and now
served most excellent food daintily on clean tables, though not with
great despatch. At any rate, my omelette, cheese, toast and coffee
tasted very good to me that day, while I chatted to two engineers who
had countermined and blown up a German mine at St. Eloi a few days
before.
After lunch we hunted out No. 3 Field Ambulance, whose personnel came
largely from Toronto. Colonel McPherson of Toronto, the officer
commanding, seemed glad to see me, as he always did, and showed me
over the ambulance and billets where the officers were quartered. I
took water samples for examination of their drinking water supply,
which was not above suspicion. The garden at the rear of their
temporary home was vibrant with sunshine; the pears, trained against
the walls in the rectangular manner so much in vogue in France, and
the peach trees, were already bursting into clusters of pink and white
blossoms. I picked some beautiful blue pansies to press in my pocket
book and send home as souvenirs of my first visit to Ypres.
Upon leaving the ambulance we passed over the river by the bridge,
where soldiers were filling water carts by means of hand pumps;
passed the ancient ramparts on the river's edge and through the hamlet
of St. Jean to Wieltze, where the advanced dressing station of the
ambulance was located. Here I saw my friend Captain Brown and
collected water samples for examination. Returning to Ypres we went
out to Brielen to see the A.D.M.S. of the Canadian Division and there
found some letters from home waiting me.
While in the office a sudden commotion among a group of soldiers
outside and the raising of glasses skyward drew us forth to watch an
aerial battle in progress. With the aid of borrowed glasses I could
see six machines in the sky manoeuvring for position. Two in
particular seemed to be closely engaged when the German suddenly
turned tail and fled. A white puff of smoke beside him indicated that
the Archibalds had been watching the combat closely. A second, third
and fourth followed in rapid succession until suddenly at the
fifteenth burst the Taube began to drop and flutter down, like a leaf
falling from a forest tree on a quiet October day. Five minutes later,
far out in the salient, we saw a second driven down in a straight nose
dive, making the third for that day in the vicinity of Ypres. One
might watch for months, as I afterwards did, without seeing another
aeroplane brought down.
When we were on our way back from Ypres on our return, a horse ridden
by an officer suddenly curvetted across the road in front of us. Rad
pulled up the car to a full stop, and the officer pulled in his horse
at the same time. The horse reared, his front feet caught in the
fender, he pawed the air wildly for a moment and, losing his balance,
he fell over backward rolling on the officer. Soldiers quickly caught
the horse and pulled him to one side, and greatly to our relief the
officer was able to get up and walk. It was characteristic of the
British officer that he had no feeling towards us on account of his
accident; on the contrary, bruised and aching as he must have been
though he would not admit it, he came over to the car and apologized
for having caused us inconvenience. It is the British way of doing
things.
As we traversed Ypres on our homeward route, a little girl held up
bouquets of spring flowers and we stopped while I bought a large bunch
of daffodils for the equivalent of two pennies. Crossing the railway
tracks by the shell-shattered station we struck into the
Dickiebush--Bailleul Road, and drove slowly homeward over the rough
pavé.
Near Dickiebush the fields were pitted with numerous shell holes, and
the rails of a light railway at one place pointed heavenward where a
shell had exploded between them.
A pup, evidently unused to motor traffic on this bad bit of road, took
a chance and tried to dash across in front of the car but
miscalculated his distance and was bowled into the ditch.
It was curious to see one field ploughed with shells and full of
holes, and the next field with prominently placed new signs bearing
the inscription, "It is forbidden to walk over the growing grain." As
we passed through the rolling land of Belgium under the brow of "The
Scherpenberg," with Mount Kemmel over to the right honeycombed with
dugouts, it was difficult to believe that, locked in a death grapple,
not three miles away, were thousands of soldiers living underground
like moles, and that at any moment the air might be filled with shells
carrying death and destruction.
At the end of a peaceful day we reached our little French home town,
glad to have seen our friends in their new area by the famous old city
of the Flemish weavers.
Springtime had come in truth; the hedges of Northern France were
beginning to bloom white, and the wild flowers were quite thick in the
forest of Nieppe near Merville. It was the time in Canada when the
spring feeling suddenly got into the blood, when one threw work to the
winds and took to the woods in search of the first violets.
On the twenty-second day of April the very essence of spring was in
the air; I felt as if I had to go out into the open and watch the
birds and bees, loll in the sun, and do nothing. We struggled along
until noon with our routine work, and having completed it Captain
Rankin and I left for Ypres. A soldier had been transferred to us, and
as we did not need him we decided to register a formal protest and see
if he could not be kept with his present unit. Our road lay through
Dickiebush and we made good time, again reaching Ypres about two
o'clock.
It was quite evident to me as I retraversed the streets of Ypres that
it had been heavily shelled since I had been there a few days before.
Many more houses had been smashed, and unmended shell holes were seen
in the roads. As we crossed the Grande Place there was scarcely a
soldier visible. The Cloth Hall, which the Captain had not seen
before, showed further evidences of shell fire. After viewing the
ruins we drove to the little restaurant kept by the pretty milliners,
only to find that the place had completely disappeared--literally
blown to atoms. Later on we found that a fifteen-inch shell had landed
in the building next door and both houses had simultaneously vanished.
A well known officer, Captain Trumbull Warren of the 48th Highlanders,
Toronto, coming out of a store on the opposite side of the square had
been killed by a flying fragment of the same shell.
We wondered whether the milliners had escaped, and somewhat depressed,
drove along in search of another restaurant. A sign "Chocolat" on a
door in a side street made us inquire, and, curiously enough, we found
this also to be a little restaurant kept by two other milliners. They
informed us that the first three milliners had escaped when the
bombardment began, and before their restaurant had been blown up.
One's interest in a place or in a battle is often in direct proportion
to the number of one's friends or acquaintances there.
After lunch we drove to Brielen, but found that the A.D.M.S., whom we
were in search of, and his deputy were both out. We were shown maps of
the salient, and had the area pointed out to us where the French
joined up with the second and third brigades of Canadians, and where
the British troops joined up with the Canadians. When about to leave,
a friend, Major Maclaren of the 10th Infantry battalion, riding a
mettlesome horse, rode up and I got out of the car and held the bridle
while we had a long talk about the experiences of the Canadians since
we had left Salisbury Plain.
We then drove back to the Ypres water pool, which was the largest
supply of drinking water in the area. There were at least thirty-five
water carts in line waiting their turn to fill up at this presumably
good supply. We were told that it was safe because twice a week a
couple of pounds of chloride of lime were chucked into the middle of
the pool. We took samples of the water and passed on to Wieltze,
intending to walk into the salient to see what "No man's Land" was
like. Men had told us that, unlike the rest of the front near the
trenches, there were no growing crops, and no birds sang in that
desolate, dreary, shell-shattered area, and we wanted to see it for
ourselves.
We were surprised and delighted to find Captain Scrimger, whom we had
left convalescing at Bulford, England, in charge of the Advanced
Dressing Station. He had just arrived that afternoon, and was in hopes
of getting his old battalion again, explaining that on account of his
illness in England he had been temporarily replaced as regimental
medical officer by Captain Boyd. We talked with him in the little
estaminet in which the dressing station was located, while the old
woman who kept the place and two peasants chatted quietly together in
a corner and drank beer. I wondered at the time whether they were
spies. Captain Scrimger walked with us up to the edge of the village
and then returned to his charge.
At the outskirts of the village we noticed a peasant planting seeds in
the little garden in front of his house. The earth had all been dug
and raked smooth by a boy and a couple of children. To our "Bon jour"
he replied, and added "Il fait bon temps n'est ce pas?" looking up at
the sun with evident satisfaction.
No motor transport was allowed to pass Wieltze because the road beyond
was exceedingly rough, and it would only have been inviting disaster
from breakdowns and German shells to have proceeded farther.
As we tramped along towards St. Julien our attention was attracted to
a greenish yellow smoke ascending from the part of the line occupied
by the French. We wondered what the smoke was coming from. Half a mile
up the road we seated ourselves on a disused trench and lit
cigarettes, while I began to read a home letter which I had found at
Brielen.
An aeroplane flying low overhead dropped some fire-balls. Immediately
a violent artillery cannonade began. Looking towards the French line
we saw this yellowish green cloud rising on a front of at least three
miles and drifting at a height of perhaps a hundred feet towards us.
"That must be the poison gas that we have heard vague rumours about,"
I remarked to the Captain. The gas rose in great clouds as if it had
been poured from nozzles, expanding as it ascended; here and there
brown clouds seemed to be mixed with the general yellowish green
ones. "It looks like chlorine," I said, "and I bet it is." The Captain
agreed that it probably was.
The cannonade increased in intensity. About five minutes after it
began a hoarse whistle, increasing to a roar like that of a railroad
train, passed overhead. "For Ypres," we ejaculated, and looking back
we saw a cloud as big as a church rise up from that ill-fated city,
followed by the sound of the explosion of a fifteen-inch shell.
Thereafter these great shells succeeded one another at regular
intervals, each one followed by the great black cloud in Ypres.
The bombardment grew in intensity. Over in a field not two hundred
yards away numerous coal boxes exploded, throwing up columns of mud
and water like so many geysers. General Alderson and General Burstall
of the Canadian Division came hurrying up the road and paused for a
moment to shake hands, and to remark that the Germans appeared to be
making a heavy attack upon the French. We wondered whether they would
get back to their headquarters or not.
Shells of various calibres, whistling and screaming, flew over our
heads from German batteries as well as from our own batteries replying
to them. The air seemed to be full of shells flying in all directions.
The gas cloud gradually grew less dense, but the bombardment redoubled
in violence as battery after battery joined in the angry chorus.
Across the fields we could see guns drawn by galloping horses taking
up new positions. One such gun had taken a position not three hundred
yards away from us when a German shell lit apparently not twenty feet
away from it; that gun was moved with despatch into another position.
Occasionally we imagined that we could hear heavy rifle and machine
gun fire, but the din was too great to distinguish much detail. The
common expression used on the front, "Hell let loose," was the only
term at all descriptive of the scene.
Streaking across the fields towards us came a dog. On closer view he
appeared to be a nondescript sort of dog of no particular family or
breeding. But he was bent on one purpose, and that seemed to be to put
as great a distance as possible between himself and the Germans. He
had been gassed, and had evidently been the first to get out of the
trenches. Loping along at a gait that he could, if necessary, maintain
for hours, he fled by with tail between his legs, tongue hanging out
and ears well back. And as he passed he gave us a look which plainly
said, "Silly fools to stand there when you could get out; just wait
there and you will get yours." And on he went, doubtless galloping
into the German lines on the opposite side of the salient.
By this time our eyes had begun to run water, and became bloodshot.
The fumes of the gas which had reached us irritated our throats and
lungs, and made us cough. We decided that this gas was chiefly
chlorine, with perhaps an admixture of bromine, but that there was
probably something else present responsible for the irritation of our
eyes.
A lull in the cannonading made it possible to distinguish the heavy
rattle of rifle and machine gun fire, and it seemed to me to be
decidedly closer.
The Canadian artillery evidently received a message to support, and
down to our right the crash of our field guns, and their rhythmical
red flashes squirting from the hedgerows, focussed our attention and
added to the din.
Up the road from St. Julien came a small party of Zouaves with their
baggy trousers and red Fez caps. We stepped out to speak to them, and
found that they belonged to the French Red Cross. They had been driven
out of their dressing station by the poisonous gas, and complained
bitterly of the effect of it on their lungs.
Shortly afterwards the first wounded Canadian appeared--a
Highlander,--sitting on a little cart drawn by a donkey which was led
by a peasant. His face and head were swathed in white bandages, and he
looked as proud as a peacock.
Soon after, another Canadian Highlander came trudging up the road,
with rifle on shoulder and face black with powder. He stated that his
platoon had been gassed, and that the Germans had got in behind them
about a mile away, in such a manner that they had been forced to fight
them on front and rear. Finally the order had been passed, "Every man
for himself," and he had managed to get out; he was now on his way
back to report to headquarters.
Then came a sight that we could scarcely credit. Across the fields
coming towards us, we saw men running, dropping flat on their faces,
getting up and running again, dodging into disused trenches, and
keeping every possible bit of shelter between themselves and the enemy
while they ran. As they came closer we could see that they were
French Moroccan troops, and evidently badly scared. Near us some of
them lay down in a trench and lit cigarettes for a moment or two, only
to start up in terror and run on again. Some of them even threw away
their equipment after they had passed, and they all looked at us with
the same expression that the dog had, evidently considering us to be
madmen to stay where we were. It was quite apparent that the Moroccan
troops had given way under the gas attack, and that a break, doubtless
a large one, had been made in the French front line.
Then our hearts swelled with a pride that comes but seldom in a man's
life--the pride of race. Up the road from Ypres came a platoon of
soldiers marching rapidly; they were Canadians, and we knew that our
reserve brigade was even now on the way to make the attempt to block
the German road to Calais.
Bullets began to come near. Neither of us said a word for a while as
we saw spurt after spurt of dust kicked up a few yards in front of us.
"I think we had better move, Colonel," said Captain Rankin at last. As
he spoke, a bullet split a brick in the road about three feet away
from me, and slid across the road leaving a trail of dust.
"I think we had," I said as I walked over, picked up the spent bullet
and dropped it in my pocket. Another bullet pinged over head and
another spat up the road dust in front of us. "Those are aimed
bullets," I said. "The Germans cannot be far away; it's time to move."
It was then about 6.30 and we walked back to Wieltze, near which we
met our anxious chauffeur coming out to meet me.
Canadian soldiers with boxes of cartridges on their shoulders ran up
the road towards the trenches; others carrying movable barb-wire
entanglements followed them. A company of Canadians took to the fields
on leaving Wieltze, and began advancing in short rushes in skirmishing
order towards the German front, while their officer walked on ahead
swinging his bamboo cane in the most approved fashion. Another company
was just leaving the village, loading their rifles as they hurried
along. I overheard one chap say, as he thrust a cartridge clip into
place, "Good Old Ross."
As we approached Wieltze we could see ammunition wagons galloping up
the other road which forks at Wieltze and runs to Langemarck. Turning
into the fields they would wheel sharply, deposit their loads, and
gallop wildly off again for more ammunition, while the crashes and
flashes of the guns showed that they were being served with redoubled
vigor.
At the edge of the village the peasant, whom we had seen preparing his
little garden and sowing seeds earlier in the afternoon, came down to
the gate and asked rather apologetically if we thought that the
Germans would be there to-night; "in any case did monsieur not think
it would be wise for the women and children to leave?"
Behind him, standing about the door steps, were the members of his
family, each with a bundle suited to their respective ages. The
smallest, a girl about six years of age, had a tiny bundle in a
handkerchief; the next, a boy about eight, had a larger one. All were
dressed in their best Sunday clothes, and carried umbrellas--a wise
precaution in the climate of Flanders. We agreed with him that it was
wise to move away, because it would be possible to return, if the
Germans were driven back, whereas if they stayed they might be killed.
As we talked to the father, the eldest, a boy of eighteen, came down
to the gate with his grandmother, a little old lady perhaps eighty
years of age, and weighing about as many pounds. The boy stooped down
to pick her up in his arms, but she shook her head in indignant
protest. Accordingly he crouched down, she put her arms around his
neck, he took her feet under his arms, and set off down the road
towards Ypres with the rest of the family trailing behind him. About
ten o'clock that night my friend, Captain Eddie Robertson, standing
with his regiment on the roadside ten miles nearer Poperinge, waiting
for orders to advance, noticed a youth with a little old lady on his
back, trudging by in the stream of fleeing refugees.
Wieltze was a picture; the kind of moving picture that the movie man
would pay thousands for, but never can obtain. The old adage held that
you always see the best shots when you have no gun. Small detachments
of Canadian troops moved rapidly through the streets. Around the
Canadian Advanced Dressing Station was a crowd of wounded Turcos and
Canadians waiting their turn to have their wounds dressed. All the
civilians were loading their donkey or dog carts with household goods
and setting out towards Ypres, sometimes driving their cows before
them.
As we climbed into the car, which had been placed for shelter behind
the strongest looking wall in the town, and slowly started for Ypres,
a section of the 10th Canadian Battalion came along with our friend,
Major Maclaren, whom I had talked to at Brielen earlier in the
afternoon, at its head. I waved my hand to him and called "good luck."
He waved his hand in answer with a cheery smile. A couple of hours
later he was wounded and was sent back in the little battalion Ford
car, with another officer, to the ambulance in Vlamertinge. While
passing through Ypres a shell blew both officers' heads off.
At the fork of the roads, Lt.-Col. Mitchell of Toronto, of the
headquarters staff, who was directing traffic, came over and asked us
if we had seen certain Canadian battalions pass by. We told him we had
and we shook hands as we wished each other "good luck," not knowing
whether we should ever meet again. We picked up a load of wounded
Turcos and took them into the ambulance at Ypres. Fresh shell holes
pitted the road and dead horses lay at the side of it. One corner in
particular near Ypres had been shelled very heavily, and broken stone,
pavé and bricks lay scattered about everywhere.
All the while the roar of guns and the whistle of flying shells had
increased. We reached the ambulance in Ypres between dusk and dark; it
was light enough to see that the front of the building, which had been
intact earlier in the afternoon, had been already scarred with pieces
of flying shells. The shutters which had been closed were torn and
splintered, and the brick work was pitted with shrapnel. We forced our
Turcos to descend and enter the ambulance, though from their protests
I judged they would have much preferred a continuous passage to the
country beyond Ypres.
As we entered the door Major Hardy (now Colonel Hardy, D.S.O.) was
found operating on one of his own men; the man had been blown off a
water cart down the street and his leg and side filled with shrapnel.
It was rather weird to see this surgeon coolly operating as if he was
in a hospital in Canada, and to hear the shells screaming overhead and
exploding not far away, any one of which might at any moment blow
building, operator and patient to pieces. That is one of the beauties
of the army system; each one in the army "carries on" and does his own
particular bit under all circumstances.
A terrific bang in the street outside, followed by the rattling and
crash of glass and falling of bricks, caused Rad to remark "there goes
the good old Lozier car." At the same time the piercing shrieks of a
woman rang out down the street, shrieks as from a woman who might have
had her child killed. We went to the door and looked out; the Lozier
was still intact, though later on we found the rounded corner of the
metal body of the car bent as though a piece of pavé or metal of
several pounds weight had struck it, and the floor of the car was
covered with bits of broken glass and brick.
Major Hardy asked us to take his patient on to Vlamertinge as it was
doubtful when a motor ambulance would return, and we were glad to do
so. After being given the usual dose of anti-tetanic serum, he was
wrapped in blankets and made comfortable in the back seat. We shook
hands with the Major and started off for Vlamertinge.
It was too risky to go through the centre of the town on account of
falling walls, chimneys, and the swiftly descending fragments of
houses blown skyward. So we skirted the town and tried to get down a
side road to Vlamertinge. It was choked with refugees and transport,
and the military traffic policeman strongly advised us to take the
main road from Ypres. As there was no alternative we drove back to the
water tower in the city. This road was clear, for nobody was going
into Ypres at that time by that particular intersecting road.
We made all possible speed to get through the town and into the main
Ypres-Vlamertinge road. There wagons began to pass us going the
opposite way, the horses whipped into a gallop as they made haste to
get through the town to the bridge-head on the far side. Motor
transport lorries also drove at full speed to get by this danger point
as quickly as possible. As we cleared the town again, the traffic
became heavier, and we gradually worked into and formed part of a
great human stream with various eddies and back currents.
It was now dark, and but for the feeble light of a young moon, which
sometimes broke through the clouds and faintly illuminated the road,
nothing could be seen. All headlights were out, and not even the light
of a hand lantern or flashlight was permitted. Yet one's eyes became
accustomed to the dark, and when the pale moonlight came through we
could dimly see over on our right a line of French Turcos moving like
ghosts along towards Vlamertinge. Next them were the fleeing refugees
with their bundles, wagons and push carts, and their cows being driven
before them. If there was a cart, the old man or old lady would
invariably be seated on the top of the load, sometimes holding the
baby.
In the centre of the road we groped our way along with infinite care.
A shadow would sometimes bear down on the car, and suddenly swerve to
one side as a horseman trotted by. A motor lorry would approach within
a few feet of us before the driver would see, and stop before we
crashed into each other. On the left were troops standing by all along
the roadside, and we felt very proud as we realized that they were
Canadians, and that they were the only troops at hand to plug the gap
made by the German poison gases.
At one time the road became jammed, and we had visions of staying all
night in the midst of a road block. Gradually, with the aid of mounted
gendarmes and our military police, the mass, composed of cows, wagons,
horses, dogcarts, refugee men, women and children, with hand wagons
and baby carriages; motor lorries, horse transport, lumber wagons,
motor cycles, touring cars, and mounted horsemen, was dissolved, and
slowly began again to flow in both directions. Looking backward we
could see the red glow of fires burning in different parts of Ypres
and the bright flashes of shells as they burst over that much
German-hated city. All around the salient star shells flared into the
sky and remained suspended for a few minutes as they threw a white
glare over the surrounding country, silhouetting the trees against the
sky like ghosts before they died away and fell to earth.
At last we reached Vlamertinge and turned into the yard occupied by
No. 3 Field Ambulance. Our car was known, and several officers came
forward to see if we had any authentic news. Our patient, whom they
recognized as belonging at one time to themselves, was carried into
shelter, and we also entered the building. Lying on the floors were
scores of soldiers with faces blue or ghastly green in colour choking,
vomiting and gasping for air, in their struggles with death, while a
faint odour of chlorine hung about the place.
These were some of our own Canadians who had been gassed, and I felt,
as I stood and watched them, that the nation who had planned in cold
blood, the use of such a foul method of warfare, should not be allowed
to exist as a nation but should be taken and choked until it, too,
cried for mercy.
We could not help smiling as we shook hands with Captain Boyd, who had
been shot in the calf of the leg and was now getting the wound
dressed, particularly when he heard that Captain Scrimger had already
been ordered to replace him. (Captain Scrimger won the V.C. the
following day).
We offered our car to the Colonel of the ambulance for the night, but
he had to stay at his work, and the car was not very suitable for
evacuating wounded. As we could not be of use, we reluctantly passed
on out of the fighting zone toward home, and the refugees being not
so numerous we could travel faster.
[Illustration: GERMAN BARRAGE FIRE AT NIGHT.]
Near the entrance to Poperinge a British Major came over to our car as
we were showing our passes to a military policeman. "Are you Canadian
officers?" he said.
"We are," I answered.
"Then would you mind telling your Canadian transport drivers to stop
going up and down this road; they insist on doing it, and I can't stop
them."
"There is a big battle up in the salient," I said. "Shells and many
other things are needed; our men have been sent for them and know what
they want; I wouldn't interfere with them if I were you."
He looked at us as though we were hopeless idiots, and we drove on.
The motor ambulance convoy, which we had been asked to have sent
forward, had already gone, and our last errand was done. Putting on
our headlights and opening the throttle, we tore homeward, reaching
Merville at eleven o'clock.
When we arrived at the Mess, Captain Ellis, who had been anxiously
waiting, said that we looked grey, drawn and ghastly, partly perhaps
from the effects of the poisonous gas. We had an intensely interested
listener as we recounted our experiences and drew plans of the line as
we thought it probably existed at the moment. Whether the Germans
could get through or not was the dominant question. Nothing lay
between them and Calais but the Canadian Division, and whether the
Canadians could hang on long enough in face of this new terror of
poison gas until new troops arrived, no one could even venture to
guess. We felt that they would do all that men could do under the
circumstances, but without means of combating the poison it was
doubtful what any troops could do. Supposing the Germans just kept on
discharging gas? Nothing under heaven apparently could stop them from
walking over the dead bodies of our soldiers, choked to death like
drowned men. We could not decide the question that time alone could
answer, and we went to bed to spend a long sleepless night longing for
the day, when we would get news of the battle.
The next afternoon I was sent for by General Sir Henry Rawlinson,
commanding the corps in our area. He had heard that I had seen the gas
discharged the day before and wanted to know what the gas was, what
the effect had been, how it could be combated and, in fact, all about
it. When I had finished my narrative he placed a large map in front of
me and asked me to sketch out the part of the line where the gas had
been discharged, and how I thought the line should be at the present
moment. I did my best, tyro as I was. It was one of the satisfactory
moments of my life when the General drew the map to one side and
showed me a map of the line as it really was, given him by General
Foch that very morning. The maps were identical, and the General
smiled a smile of appreciation as he thanked me for the assistance
that our laboratory had given in helping to diagnose and combat this
new mode of warfare, and I left his office feeling that we had been of
some real use in the war even if we never did anything else.