Three Times and Out Part 1

Three Times and Out.

by Nellie L. McClung.

PREFACE

When a young man whom I had not seen until that day came to see me in Edmonton, and told me he had a story which he thought was worth writing, and which he wanted me to write for him, I told him I could not undertake to do it for I was writing a story of my own, but that I could no doubt find some one who would do it for him.

Then he mentioned that he was a returned soldier, and had been for sixteen months a prisoner in Germany, and had made his escape--

That changed everything!

I asked him to come right in and tell me all about it--for like every one else I have friends in the prison-camps of Germany, boys whom I remember as little chaps in knickers playing with my children, boys I taught in country schools in Manitoba, boys whose parents are my friends. There are many of these whom we know to be prisoners, and there are some who have been listed as "missing," who we are still hoping against long odds may be prisoners!

I asked him many questions. How were they treated? Did they get enough to eat? Did they get their parcels? Were they very lonely?

Did he by any chance know a boy from Vancouver called Wallen Gordon, who had been "Missing" since the 2d of June, 1916? Or Reg Black from Manitou? or Garnet Stewart from Winnipeg?

Unfortunately, he did not.

Then he began his story. Before he had gone far, I had determined to do all I could to get his story into print, for it seemed to me to be a story that should be written. It gives at least a partial answer to the anxious questionings that are in so many hearts. It tells us something of the fate of the brave fellows who have, temporarily, lost their freedom--to make our freedom secure!

Private Simmons is a close and accurate observer who sees clearly and talks well. He tells a straightforward, unadorned tale, every sentence of which is true, and convincing. I venture to hope that the reader may have as much pleasure in the reading of it as I had in the writing.

NELLIE L. McCLUNG

Edmonton, October 24, 1918

THREE TIMES AND OUT

CHAPTER I

HOW IT STARTED

"England has declared war on Germany!"

We were working on a pumphouse, on the Columbia River, at Trail, British Columbia, when these words were shouted at us from the door by the boss carpenter, who had come down from the smelter to tell us that the news had just come over the wire.

Every one stopped work, and for a full minute not a word was spoken.

Then Hill, a British reservist who was my work-mate, laid down his hammer and put on his coat. There was neither haste nor excitement in his movements, but a settled conviction that gave me a queer feeling.

I began to argue just where we had left off, for the prospect of war had been threshed out for the last two days with great thoroughness.

"It will be settled," I said. "Nations cannot go to war now. It would be suicide, with all the modern methods of destruction. It will be settled by a war council--and all forgotten in a month."

Hill, who had argued so well a few minutes ago and told us all the reasons he had for expecting war with Germany, would not waste a word on me now. England was at war--and he was part of England's war machine.

"I am quitting, George," he said to the boss carpenter, as he pulled his cap down on his head and started up the bank.

That night he began to drill us in the skating-rink.

I worked on for about a week, but from the first I determined to go if any one went from Canada. I don't suppose it was all patriotism.

Part of it was the love of adventure, and a desire to see the world; for though I was a steady-going carpenter chap, I had many dreams as I worked with hammer and saw, and one of them was that I would travel far and see how people lived in other countries. The thought of war had always been repellent to me, and many an argument I had had with the German baker in whose house I roomed, on the subject of compulsory military training for boys. He often pointed out a stoop-shouldered, hollow-chested boy who lived on the same street, and told me that if this boy had lived in Germany he would have walked straighter and developed a chest, instead of slouching through life the way he was doing. He and his wife and the grown-up daughter were devoted to their country, and often told us of how well the working-people were housed in Germany and the affairs of the country conducted.

But I think the war was as great a surprise to them as to us, and although the two women told us we were foolish to go to fight--it was no business of ours if England wanted to get into a row--it made no difference in our friendly relations, and the day we left Clara came to the station with a box of candy. I suppose if we had known as much then as we do now about German diplomacy, we shouldn't have eaten it, but we only knew then that Clara's candy was the best going, and so we ate it, and often wished for more.

I have since heard, however, of other Germans in Canada who knew more of their country's plans, and openly spoke of them. One of these, employed by the Government, told the people in the office where he worked that when Germany got hold of Canada, she would straighten out the crooked streets in our towns and not allow shacks to be built on the good streets, and would see to it that houses were not crowded together; and the strangest part of it is that the people to whom he spoke attached no importance whatever to his words until the war came and the German mysteriously disappeared.

I never really enlisted, for we had no recruiting meetings in Trail before I left. We went to the skating-rink the first night, about fifteen of us, and began to drill. Mr. Schofield, Member of the Provincial Parliament, and Hill were in charge, and tested our marksmans.h.i.+p as well. They graded us according to physical tests, marksmans.h.i.+p, and ability to pick up the drill, and I was quite pleased to find I was Number "One" on the list.

There was a young Italian boy named Adolph Milachi, whom we called "Joe," who came to drill the first night, and although he could not speak much English, he was determined to be a soldier. I do not know what grudge little Joe had against the Germans, whether it was just the love of adventure which urged him on, but he overruled all objections to his going and left with the others of us, on the last day of August.

I remember that trip through the mountains in that soft, hazy, beautiful August weather; the mountain-tops, white with snow, were wrapped about with purple mist which twisted and s.h.i.+fted as if never satisfied with their draping. The sheer rocks in the mountain-sides, washed by a recent rain, were streaked with dull reds and blues and yellows, like the old-fas.h.i.+oned rag carpet. The rivers whose banks we followed ran blue and green, and icy cold, darting sometimes so sharply under the track that it jerked one's neck to follow them; and then the stately evergreens marched always with us, like endless companies of soldiers or pilgrims wending their way to a favorite shrine.

When we awakened the second morning, and found ourselves on the wide prairie of Alberta, with its many harvest scenes and herds of cattle, and the gardens all in bloom, one of the boys said, waving his hand at a particularly handsome house set in a field of ripe wheat, "No wonder the Germans want it!"

My story really begins April 24, 1915. Up to that time it had been the usual one--the training in England, with all the excitement of week-end leave; the great kindness of English families whose friends in Canada had written to them about us, and who had forthwith sent us their invitations to visit them, which we did with the greatest pleasure, enjoying every minute spent in their beautiful houses; and then the greatest thrill of all--when we were ordered to France.

The 24th of April was a beautiful spring day of quivering suns.h.i.+ne, which made the soggy ground in the part of Belgium where I was fairly steam. The gra.s.s was green as plush, and along the front of the trenches, where it had not been trodden down, there were yellow b.u.t.tercups and other little spring flowers whose names I did not know.

We had dug the trenches the day before, and the ground was so marshy and wet that water began to ooze in before we had dug more than three feet. Then we had gone on the other side and thrown up more dirt, to make a better parapet, and had carried sand-bags from an old artillery dug-out. Four strands of barbed wire were also put up in front of our trenches, as a sort of suggestion of barbed-wire entanglements, but we knew we had very little protection.

Early in the morning of the 24th, a German aeroplane flew low over our trench, so low that I could see the man quite plainly, and could easily have shot him, but we had orders not to fire--the object of these orders being that we must not give away our position.

The airman saw us, of course, for he looked right down at us, and dropped down white pencils of smoke to show the gunners where we were. That big gray beetle sailing serenely over us, boring us with his sharp eyes, and spying out our pitiful attempts at protection, is one of the most unpleasant feelings I have ever had. It gives me the s.h.i.+vers yet! And to think we had orders not to fire!

Being a sniper, I had a rifle fixed up with a telescopic sight, which gave me a fine view of what was going on, and in order not to lose the benefit of it, I cleaned out a place in a hedge, which was just in front of the part of the trench I was in, and in this way I could see what was happening, at least in my immediate vicinity.

We knew that the Algerians who were holding a trench to our left had given way and stampeded, as a result of a German gas attack on the night of April 22d. Not only had the front line broken, but, the panic spreading, all of them ran, in many cases leaving their rifles behind them. Three companies of our battalion had been hastily sent in to the gap caused by the flight of the Algerians. Afterwards I heard that our artillery had been hurriedly withdrawn so that it might not fall into the hands of the enemy; but we did not know that at the time, though we wondered, as the day went on, why we got no artillery support.

Before us, and about fifty yards away, were deserted farm buildings, through whose windows I had instructions to send shots at intervals, to discourage the enemy from putting in machine guns. To our right there were other farm buildings where the Colonel and Adjutant were stationed, and in the early morning I was sent there with a message from Captain Scudamore, to see why our ammunition had not come up.

I found there Colonel Hart McHarg, Major Odlum (now Brigadier-General Odlum), and the Adjutant in consultation, and thought they looked worried and anxious. However, they gave me a cheerful message for Captain Scudamore. It was very soon after that that Colonel Hart McHarg was killed.

The bombardment began at about nine o'clock in the morning, almost immediately after the airman's visit, and I could see the heavy sh.e.l.ls bursting in the village at the cross-roads behind us. They were throwing the big sh.e.l.ls there to prevent reinforcements from coming up. They evidently did not know, any more than we did, that there were none to come, the artillery having been withdrawn the night before.

Some of the big sh.e.l.ls threw the dirt as high as the highest trees.

When the sh.e.l.ls began to fall in our part of the trench, I crouched as low as I could in the soggy earth, to escape the shrapnel bullets.

Soon I got to know the sound of the battery that was dropping the sh.e.l.ls on us, and so knew when to take cover. One of our boys to my left was. .h.i.t by a pebble on the cheek, and, thinking he was wounded, he fell on the ground and called for a stretcher-bearer. When the stretcher-bearer came, he could find nothing but a scratch on his cheek, and all of us who were not too scared had a laugh, including the boy himself.

I think it was about one o'clock in the afternoon that the Germans broke through the trench on our right, where Major Bing-Hall was in command; and some of the survivors from that trench came over to ours. One of them ran right to where I was, and pushed through the hole I had made in the hedge, to get a shot at the enemy. I called to him to be careful, but some sniper evidently saw him, for in less than half a minute he was shot dead, and fell at my side.

An order to "retreat if necessary" had been received before this, but for some reason, which I have never been able to understand, was not put into effect until quite a while after being received. When the order came, we began to move down the trench as fast as we could, but as the trench was narrow and there were wounded and dead men in it, our progress was slow.