S.O.S. Stand to! Part 1

S.O.S. Stand to!

by Reginald Grant.

PREFATORY

The general purpose and scope of the rehearsal of my three years'

personal experience while in the artillery arm of the First Division of Canada's overseas forces is to lay before the reader an outline of the movement of our Division as it may be gathered from the performance of my own specific duties, with especial reference to the battles of Ypres (the 2nd), Givenchy, Sanctuary Woods (Ypres 3rd), the Somme and Vimy Ridge.

Very little attention or s.p.a.ce has been devoted to the detail of initiatory camp life, drill, rations and the like; even had I the s.p.a.ce to do so, those features have been liberally covered by a number of earlier writers; besides, I am of the opinion that the average reader is more concerned with the desire to be imaginably transported as nearly as possible to the heart of the struggle,--to live in his own mind the strain and turmoil of the individual soldier in the desperate conflict which now rages, the decision of which will determine whether democracy or military autocracy shall be the predominating factor in the governments of the peoples of the earth.

INTRODUCTORY

The devastating rush of the gray-clad hordes of Huns into the peace-loving lands of Belgium and France has demonstrated conclusively that to win this or any other war the one thing necessary is superiority in artillery. Without this, an enemy sufficiently strong in numbers and other equipment, can drive ahead, overcoming and crus.h.i.+ng all obstacles.

The average lay reader is too apt to lose sight of the supreme importance of this arm of the service, to which all other movements are subsidiary; the dash of the charge by the infantry over the top, magnificent in its appeal, submerges to a degree the real factor upon which success or failure of the charge depends, i.e., the blazing of the trail by the guns. Little thought is devoted to the man who, with h.e.l.l bursting on and around him, has to get his sh.e.l.l home in a certain number of seconds so that the charge can be made.

Neither is it generally known that the percentage of loss in units is greater in the unit known as the sacrifice battery than in any other branch of the fighting machine.

Therefore, I may be pardoned if I feel a certain human pride in the fact that it was my honorable lot to serve in this unit nearly a score of times during my work over there, and I can account for my failure to be seriously injured (a dislocation or a little ga.s.sing is comparatively trivial) to nothing other than, as my Major emphatically expressed it, "d.a.m.ned horseshoe luck!"

CHAPTER I

CAN'T KILL ME

"h.e.l.lo, Central, give me Queen 4000. Is that you, Burt? You are going, aren't you?"

Burt Young was one of my pals and I had just learned from the morning paper that enlistments for Canada's first overseas contingent were being taken that day and I had called up to inquire if he were going.

"Sure, I am going. Where will I meet you?"

We arranged to meet at the exhibition ground and, taking French leave of the office, I hastened to the camp where the recruiting was going on, picking up Burt on the way.

It was as if a baseball champions.h.i.+p series were on; the crowd good-naturedly swayed and jammed as each man struggled to get to the door and signed up before the quota was full. With only the loss of a hat and some slight disarrangement of my collar and tie, I was one of the lucky ones.

And we were lucky! Although visions of lands to be seen and adventures to be had flitted rapidly through my mind, and although I believe none of us on that day dreamed of what we were getting into, yet, looking back over it all, I would not have missed my place in Canada's First Division for anything I ever hope to have on earth.

In two hours I was in khaki and in another hour I had bade the folks farewell and was standing on the station platform waiting for the train that would take us to Valcartier, the greatest gathering place of soldiers that Canada has ever known.

Some idea of my knowledge of things military may be gleaned from the following:--chatting with Burt, he suddenly espied a large car, with two girls, shooting up the street to the station, and called my attention to it. One of the girls was my sister. I immediately scented trouble. I skipped across to the other side of the depot, intending to board the train from the other side when it came in; I was not going to have my soldiering interfered with if I could help it. Standing in the shelter of a pillar, I did not notice two husky recruits in khaki behind me.

"Is your name Grant?" they asked. "Yes." "The Colonel wants to see you at once," they informed me, and they marched me back.

As I approached, my sister was talking earnestly and energetically to the Colonel and I could plainly see I was the object of the conversation. I waited.

"How is this, Grant, this lady says you are not of age. Is that so?"

asked the Colonel.

"I am of age and--"

"Stand to attention!" snapped the Colonel. I straightened up and folded my arms respectfully across my chest.

"Stand to attention, d.a.m.n you! Don't you know how to stand to attention?" I s.h.i.+fted my feet a little uneasily, wondering how he wanted me to stand.

"Put those heels together," he snorted. I did so. "Keep your toes apart," he half hissed and half shouted. I spread my toes apart. I still had my arms folded. Almost purple in the face with his violence, he roared, "Put those d.a.m.ned hands of yours down!" and he grabbed my wrists and flopped them down. "Young lady, you'll have to take this matter up at Valcartier; there is no time to do anything now. You can go," this to me. I turned on my heel.

"Here," he roared. "Don't you know enough to salute your superior officer? Salute!" I gingerly raised my hand to my forehead and held it there, much after the fas.h.i.+on, I think, of a man shading his eyes from the sun, or a nautical chap gazing intently seaward.

"You idiot!" he bellowed, as he grabbed my hand and fiercely flung it down. "Don't you know how to salute? Here, do this"--and he saluted. I followed as well as I was able, but the utter disgust that was plastered all over his visage as he turned on his heel would not have left much hope for soldierly qualifications in one any less hopeful and enthusiastic than I was.

My sister, in spite of her tears, could not keep back the smile as I again kissed her good-by.

It was about noon next day when I reached Valcartier and after a month of solid work, the like of which I had never before experienced, I was as hard as a nail, and as tough, as indeed was every man in that honor division of Canada's expeditionary forces.

We received orders to leave for England on the 14th day of September, 1914. I was detailed on a gun limber of my subsection of the First Battery, the artillery being the arm of the service to which I was a.s.signed. Starting about 4:30 in the afternoon, in torrents of rain, we headed for the city of Quebec. Along the way the people had thoughtfully built large bonfires on either side of the road, serving the double purpose of lighting our way during the night and enabling us to jump off and warm ourselves, as we were thoroughly chilled.

The road was in a horribly bad condition and the rain did not improve it any, and while the limber was lurching from side to side, like a s.h.i.+p staggering in a storm, it was the better part of wisdom for me to keep my eyes open to save myself from being thrown off and having my precious neck broken.

To prevent in some measure the rain trickling down my neck, I took a rubber sheet, used to cover the horses, tied the two corners together, making a sort of cape of it, and put it round my neck.

Then I settled myself down to hold on to the limber and think at the same time of the great game of which I had become an infinitesimal part. I was sitting on the right hand side of the limber close to the wheel and, before long, the effort to think and hold on at the same time was too much for me, and I fell into a fairly sound sleep, Sergeant Johnson, my companion, doing likewise.

While dozing, the string from the end of the cape engaged itself with the axle, wound itself round and round and started pulling me down. When I awoke it had a grip on me and every moment I was being drawn closer to the wheel. I yelled to the driver to stop the horse, but the rattling and rumble of the limber and the gun carriage drowned my call; neither he nor the Sergeant heard me. Numb with cold, absolutely helpless, my head almost down to the wheel, I gave one more yell for dear life. The Sergeant suddenly and providentially woke up; he thought he had a nightmare. I was almost choked and could hardly breathe, but managed to make him understand, and he whipped out his knife, cut the string and released me from what in a couple of seconds more would have been instant death, as I would have been pulled from my seat and crushed to a jelly between the wheels. This was my first close shave from death. I had no horseshoe or four-leaf clover with me, and I can account for my escape in no other way than that it was my lucky star that has accompanied me throughout the long months of times that try men's souls and that has never deserted me.

No further mishaps befell until I was safely aboard s.h.i.+p. I was in charge of a fatigue party, bringing hay from the bulkheads of the s.h.i.+p up on to the different decks for the horses; there was a pulley leading to the bottom of the boat by means of which the hay was hoisted up, and in going down each man gripped it and was slowly lowered. On the trip down the men would cling to the rope, two or three at a time, with about ten to twenty feet of s.p.a.ce between them. In making a downward trip I was second; the man ahead of me going down was over twenty feet from me; and the rope suddenly slipping off the pulley and out of the hands of the men running it, I dropped fifty feet. The man below on the rope broke his leg and on top of him I fell. Although my drop was twenty or thirty feet longer than his, on account of the s.p.a.ce between us being that much greater, I was none the worse except for a bad shaking-up.

Like all the men in Canada's First Division, my pal was in excellent physical shape, and it was not long before his leg mended and he was himself again. Nothing of further moment happened until we heard the welcome call of land!

The different batteries were ordered to remove their guns, limbers and horses from the boat, and I had charge of one party unloading guns and limbers. A derrick and cable was used to lift our pets from the vessel's hold, swing them up across the side of the boat and over on to the dock.

In my duty I was stationed on the dock, catching hold of the guns and wagons as they were swung out and over by the derrick, and pulling them across on to the dock. While pulling over a gun, the cable skidded and the gun, coming on top of me, caught me partly under it, knocking me unconscious. Luckily the weight of the gun did not fall on me in its entirety; if it had, I would not be telling this story; it caught me on the hip, dislocating the hip bone. I was removed to the s.h.i.+p's hospital and was under the doctor's care till morning, and from there I went to a hospital in Plymouth City for six weeks. From there I was removed to the field general hospital in Salisbury Plain, where I tarried an additional ten days. While here I had a two-fold adventure.

The hospital was in a tent where I reclined with forty other patients, and directly opposite our tent was another in which were confined under guard a number of patients who were subject to fits, some of a very serious nature. Lying in bed, my leg encased in its plaster-of-paris cast, about ten o'clock one night, when just dozing off, I was frightened into wakefulness by a scream. A man, who turned out to be an escaped epileptic, was standing in the doorway screaming, his eyes bulging out of his head. He had escaped by striking the sentry over the head with the fire brazier, used to keep the sentry warm. Staring wildly about the room for a couple of seconds, he made a leap for the nearest man and bit him in the arm; he then jumped at the next patient, biting him; I was the following recipient of his devotions, getting a bite on the wrist. Utterly unable to help or defend myself, as I was bound down in my plaster-of-paris cast, I had to content myself with landing a couple of punches on his mad mug, but he didn't seem to mind them in the least,--rather enjoyed them, I fancy.

By way of diversion he then took hold of the beds and started upsetting them, rolling the patients out on to the floor, causing a tremendous amount of excitement, as well as pain and suffering to the men upset who, some of them, like myself, had casts on their limbs. In the midst of his mad capers the guard and orderlies rushed in, but before he was subdued he managed to fasten his molars in the arm of a guard.

A bite from a man in his condition is no laughing matter and the doctors took no chances; every man who was bitten had the wound immediately and thoroughly cauterized and was inoculated.

My other adventure was the honor and pleasure of receiving a handshake from their Majesties, the King and Queen of England, who were on a visit of inspection to the camp. The visit of their Majesties was concluded by a splendid little speech from Queen Alexandra in which she complimented us and thanked us for our loyalty.

After my release from the hospital due to the effects of the accident at Plymouth, I set to work looking after our horses and performing general battery work. After my narrow escape from the gun wheel, the fall into the hold of the vessel and the close shave I had had on the dock, I was commencing to wonder whether I was destined ever to get to France.

Thus musing, I was riding one of the horses bare-back to a small creek to give it a watering, and the rein, which was a long one, I held in my right hand. I had to pa.s.s the targets where shooting practice was going on, and the brute, taking fright, gave a sudden leap and threw me off his back. I fell backwards and on the left side, and as I fell the long rein wound itself round my right arm, keeping me tied as it were to the horse; and my head came dangerously close to the animal's front hoofs which he was kicking up every other second; with each jump he took, those hoofs, in their upward motion of making a spring, almost struck my face. I was dragged helpless for about twenty feet when, providentially, the rein broke and I dropped to the ground, the horse das.h.i.+ng on in his fright until he was finally captured.