MEMORIES OF THE FIGHTING FRONT
During my early days at St. Dunstan's, I was inclined to brood a bit,
and the past was constantly before my mind's eye; but gradually under
occupation the past became shadowy, and the future was for me the only
reality. Even the scenes through which I had passed in the months I was
at the front took on the semblance of a dream--sometimes a nightmare;
but it seemed to me that it was not I--the St. Dunstan's student--who
had endured cold and wet and forced marches, who had felt the shock of
high-explosive shells, the stinging threat of machine-gun and rifle
bullets, who had taken part in wild charges over the top, but some other
being. However, in the stillness of the night, one incident I had
experienced, one scene I had witnessed, kept constantly recurring to my
mind with a vividness that kept the World War and my humble part in it a
stern reality for me. The affair in question occurred on April 19th,
1917.
Ten days before, on Easter Monday--a red-letter day for the Canadians,
but a day black as night for the Germans--the troops from the Dominion
had in one swift forward movement swept the enemy from positions which
he had thought impregnable along Vimy Ridge. For days after that, we
wallowed around in the mud, gaining a village here, a trench there, and
driving him from hills and wood fastnesses. All the time we were
expecting that he would come back in force to make a mighty effort to
regain the territory he had held for over two years against the British
and the French. He had apparently proved his right to it, and since
September 15th, 1916, had been resting at his ease in his underground
dug-outs and capacious caverns.
On the night of the 19th, the battalion to which I belonged had just
ended a tour of duty in the front line. We were to be relieved by
another battalion of the 3rd Division of the Canadian Corps. There was
but one road out, a road which at that time was considered a
masterpiece of road-building. Three days had been allotted for its
construction. The Imperial engineers contended that the task was an
impossible one, but G.H.Q. said it would have to be done, and the
Canadian engineers were assigned the work. To their credit, it was
completed in the stipulated time.
To retire from the side of the ridge facing the German position, it was
necessary to take this road, and, as the crest of it was under almost
continuous shell-fire, for safety we were sent over in sections of ten
men at a time. This territory had all been in Fritzie's hands, and he
knew every inch of it. The road was a vital spot, and more shells were
dropped on it than upon any other place of the same area on the Western
front. On the top, about two hundred yards away, lay the ruined village
of Thelus; once in it we should be comparatively safe.
I was in the last section of my platoon, and at the top I paused to look
about me at the scene that presented itself. It was horrible; it was
glorious; it was magnificent--it was War. The centre of the road was
fairly clear, but at the edges all was chaos. The night was a wonderful
one; the moon was shining in all her glory, and pale stars twinkled in
the sky. In the bright moonlight I could see all about me dead and
wounded men, wounded men who would surely "go West," for, once down, the
chance of escape from that hell-hole was slight. Here and there were
great W.D. waggons, G.S. waggons, ammunition mules bearing 6-inch
howitzer and the smaller 18-pounder equipment--in fact, everything that
was in any way connected with the grim business that was being carried
on. Here and there, too, through this chaos of war, ration parties
wended their way to and from the front line trenches.
Just as we reached the crest of the ridge, that spur of France that had
taken such heavy toll from Hun and Ally, we heard a warning shout: "Keep
to the edge of the road!" We wondered at the caution. The middle of the
road was comparatively clean, while towards the edges it was ankle-deep
in sticky mud, and we had been floundering around in a quagmire for the
last eleven days. But we soon knew the reason; for while we hesitated
up came a battery of guns at full gallop--big howitzers at that. Drivers
shouted; horses plunged and tugged at their traces; the guns bounded and
rattled in and out of the shell-holes that pitted the road, sometimes
seeming to be balanced on only one wheel. It was a thrilling sight, such
as comes to the eyes of a man only once in a lifetime. It gripped us
all. Poor Sergeant Harry Best, our platoon sergeant, who was near me,
relieved the tension by exclaiming: "Get that, Jim! You will never see
such a sight again, even if you stayed out here for fifty years. If a
painter were to put that sight on canvas he would be laughed at as a
dreamer."
I said, poor Sergeant Best! He had seen the sight of his lifetime, but
he was not long to enjoy it, for the next trip in, when he was all ready
to go to London to take his commission, he was "sent West" by a bomb
from a trench mortar. Harry was a little strict, but he was dead fair,
and, best of all, a thorough soldier. How is it that nearly all the good
ones get, or seem to get, the worst of the deal; they certainly play
for the most part in hard luck. But then they take risks that the
"safety-first" soldier never takes.