The Red Watch Part 14

March 10th was the day set for the beginning of the battle which will go down in history as the battle of Neuve Chapelle. The village of Neuve Chapelle was just like every other Franco-Fleming village on the firing line, a huddle of houses partly unroofed by sh.e.l.l fire, deserted by the populace, and shunned by the soldiers. It had been at one time a smart village of two-storey brick houses with red tiled roofs. It possessed the typical church and graveyard such as are found in these villages. Almost every second house was a wine or beer saloon called an "estament." There were butcher shops, millinery shops and shops where they mended shoes. But the British rush, which in October had driven back the German lines beyond Armentieres, Aubers and Fromelles, had left the Germans in possession of Neuve Chapelle. They had a lot of stout-hearted rogues holding on there who would not let go, so Neuve Chapelle formed the apex of a salient in the British trenches which weakened our line north so much that later on we had to give up good ground south of Lille in order to straighten and consolidate along the line of the River Layes for the hard winter campaign.

Late in December some one in the War Office thought that we had given up too much ground about Fromelles and Armentieres, so an attack was ordered which resulted in nothing beyond the killing of a great many Highlanders, Gordons, Black Watch, Argyles, and virtually destroying a Brigade of Guards. But nothing came of all this, and it is, as I suppose as Rudyard Kipling would say, "another story." Yes, and a "top hole" one at that, but it does not come within my province to tell it.

Now we were going to drive the Germans out of this salient and begin the spring cleaning up. When we speak of towns and villages, please do not get any idea of distance as in Canada or America in your heads.

There is a town or village in Flanders at every cross road. The "town siter" has not been abroad here selling lots for miles about every hamlet, so the result is that a town of three or four thousand people will happen at every cross road, all within a diameter of a quarter of a mile. As for the roads and streets, they follow the game trails haunted by the cave dwellers and trogdolites a thousand centuries ago.

They wind in every direction and are all good. The main roads are covered with heavy square stones, blocks. Once in a hundred years the Flemish farmer does his road work by turning these blocks over. They are called pave roads. All the other roads are covered with macadam made out of black whinstone that is as hard as iron. This will explain why the towns of Armentieres, Fleurbaix, Neuve Chapelle, Aubers, Estaires and Bac St. Maur are all within a radius of five miles of each other. Aubers is a short mile from Neuve Chapelle, while Fromelles is only a mile or so from Aubers. The whole British line from Ypres to La Ba.s.see is not as far as from Toronto to Hamilton, not forty miles.

Our brigade had two battalions in the trenches, the Royal Montreal Regiment under Lieut.-Colonel Meighen and the Canadian Scottish under Lieut.-Colonel Leckie. The Royal Highlanders of Canada were on the left of our brigade and we were on the right, and our two battalions were available as reserves for the British troops on our right that were going into action. There was one British Brigade between us and the section of the line that was to attack. We were not to move till this brigade moved. Reveille was sounded early and the battalion fell in by companies shortly after seven. We were ordered to march down to the Rue De Bois and get out of sight among some farm houses and keep out of sight, which we did. Some of the companies crossed the fields scouting along the ditches and hedges. A company marched by the road Croix Blanche. We found billets at farm houses a few hundred yards east of the corner of the Rue De Bois and the Fromelles road. Across the road from where I was quartered there was a big straw stack which the artillery were using for observation purposes. Behind it Captain Pope of the Third Brigade Staff had established a telephone office in a couple of wheat sheaves of last year's crop. A cup of bad black coffee and a hard boiled egg provided me with breakfast. The men made tea and had plenty of food with them. In an emergency of this kind I saw that they had two day's rations in their haversacks. They also carried a hundred and fifty rounds of ammunition in their pouches and two bandoliers, each of fifty rounds, slung over their shoulders. They would not be short of grub or ammunition if it could be helped. After I had finished the coffee I surveyed the barn and found a spot where a hole through the straw thatch gave a good view of what was going on.

I had a very powerful pair of field binoculars with which I could count the chickens in a barnyard five miles off. The battle was about to begin. A few of our guns were giving the morning "straffing" as usual. The sun was up and it was a bright clear day. I could see the British lines marked by brown sandbags, now hidden by hedges, again showing across the Rue D'Enfer, but hidden by the houses and church at the corner called Fauquissart. Beyond that again to my right rear the line crossed the Rue Du Tilleloy and swept on to Neuve Chapelle. A clump of tall elms here interfered with the view. I could also see the German trenches. They were crowned with rows of white sandbags, interspersed with blue bundles that looked like army blankets or blue bed sticks filled with earth. There was not much stirring for the moment.

Suddenly the guns woke up behind our line. The Canadian eighteens and five inchers took up the chorus. Back came half a dozen German forty pounder sh.e.l.ls bursting in the field on my right. They were miles away from our guns. One by one the British batteries joined in the chorus until in less than five minutes over three hundred cannon of every description were pouring death and destruction on the German trenches.

At first I could see our sh.e.l.ls bursting with volumes of green and yellow smoke and blowing up the German parapets. I could see sandbags flying fifty feet in the air and what looked like men as well. Debris flew in every direction, and in a few minutes I could see neither sandbags nor parapets. Nothing but the yellow smoke of lyddite and behind this in the air a ring of fire where the shrapnel were bursting and showering their leaden curtain to keep the enemy's supports from coming up. I could see that there was much excitement along the British parapets. Men cl.u.s.tered together like bees, and in some places I could see soldiers climbing up on top of the parapet, waving their rifles and caps in the air. They were telling the Huns what they were going to do to them. They were too far away for me to hear what their language was, but they were evidently enjoying the punis.h.i.+ng the Germans were getting. At 8.30 o'clock the roar of the guns died away suddenly, only to be followed by the most intense musketry fire. It was something like the distant sound of Niagara Falls. I never heard anything really like it. This continued for about ten minutes, then died away.

A light yellow cloud had settled down over the place where the German parapets once were. I could not see through the smoke, as the more powerful a gla.s.s is the more it exaggerates the fog or smoke. I could hear the loud, sharp detonations of grenades, and I fancied cheers, more detonations and cheers and cries. All this was occurring within less than a mile of where I was standing. From the detonations I judged we were bombing their trenches. The noise died away and our artillery woke up again and began sh.e.l.ling leisurely in the rear of the first line of German entrenchments. Evidently we had won easily. I hurried down and over to where Captain Pope and several of my officers were grouped about the telephone. "They have carried the first line of trenches easily" was the answer he gave to my query as to what had happened. "They are going after the second line of trenches right away." I returned to my observation post and once more the guns were hard at it. It was now a little after nine o'clock and the haze that hung around the German positions made observation difficult. The guns redoubled their efforts, and at about ten o'clock they stopped and again the rifle fire followed, if anything, more intense than before. The detonation of bombs, the rifle fire and cries of the combatants came to my ears distinctly now that our own guns on both sides and behind us were silent. Again I travelled over to the telephone station wondering if they had forgotten us, or if we were going to have a hand in the game. "The second line is taken" came over the wire at 10.30 o'clock. "They are going to attack the third line."

So they were going to force through and make a one-day job of it after all. That would surely bring us into the fight by the afternoon or the next day. So my young men would be pleased.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIRST AID IN THE TRENCHES]

I had had a lot of pacifying to do among my officers over the question of "When are we going to get into this thing?" Major Osborne always had an idea that everybody from General French down was trying to keep the Canadians from starting a grand parade to Berlin. Lieut. "Fred"

Macdonald's question to me would always be, "How long are they going to keep us at this rotten trench business?" "It's about time we got into a mix-up. Look at the Princess Pats what they have done! They must be afraid to use us," etc., etc. I would gently chide him and say that we were on the lap of the G.o.ds, in other words sitting on our General's knees, and Mac would look as if I were a partner in a deep laid conspiracy to keep the regiment from being covered with glory.

When we last went into the trenches Captains Alexander and Cory had to take the line nearest the Germans. They were only eighty yards away and the parapets were as thin as bargain day wall paper. Lots had been cast, and McGregor had won the reserved position and Alexander the hot corner. I ventured to remark to Alexander that I was sorry that his luck had put him in a dangerous place, and that he should have his turn next in reserve. I did not get far with this speech when he snapped back quietly and firmly, "The post of danger is the post of honour." As for Cory and Jones, I had to threaten them with a court-martial if they did not stop hopping on the parapets in full view of the Germans both day and night.

They were all feeling happy to-day, even grim Captain MacLaren was wearing a broad smile. As for McKessock, well his ancestors followed Bruce from Kilmarnock to Ireland. There is no need for further comment. He had the machine guns well cleaned and the cartridges in the belts polished like front door k.n.o.bs so they wouldn't jam.

After hearing that the third line was to be attacked I hurried back to my post. The artillery had stopped firing for a while to let the haze and smoke clear away so they could observe, but it still hung heavy over the German lines.

Shortly after eleven o'clock the artillery started in again. Most of the Canadian guns seemed to be firing at Aubers, and if there were any Germans in that town they must have suffered. For nearly an hour the bombardment of the third line continued. Then followed a longer interval of rifle fire and then the bombs; shouting and rifle fire died away shortly after one o'clock. At about half past one I could see khaki figures in kilts in the outskirts of Aubers. They seemed to be strolling around looking for something to do. When I went to the telephone I learned that the third and last line of the German trenches had been taken and the battle had been won. What a place to win a victory over the same Germans that for two thousand years have been crossing the Rhine and invading Flanders, only to be defeated and driven back again as the Germans of to-day will be driven back.

History will surely repeat itself. What is the use of these invasions, these fierce raids by the Germans? Nothing but the loss of thousands upon thousands of lives. Every acre of the ground we were fighting on has been watered with the blood of German and Fleming long ago. We were only repeating the centuries' old feud.

All afternoon we waited patiently, expecting that in the pursuit that would follow our battalions would be echeloned through the gap made, but not a word came. We returned at night to our billets and were warned again to be on the _Qui vive_.

Thursday, March 11th, was slightly hazy and we were kept in readiness all day, but no new developments followed. Something must have happened, lack of ammunition, or something of that kind. My officers were worrying me all day wondering if the grand advance had gone on and we were left behind. I could give no explanation. It is a soldier's duty to wait and do as he is told. The impression prevailed for the moment that the terrible tales they told about us in England had followed us to Flanders and that General French was afraid to trust the First Canadian Division. In the evening we were notified that hot baths would be ready for the men and a change of clothing at Sailly next day. That meant that we would not take part in any advance, at least for the moment.

On March 12th, in the morning, accompanied by Dr. MacKenzie and Lieutenant Dansereau, I set out for Estaires. We were told before we left that the Canadian troops would not be required that day. The battle orders given to me confidentially by Colonel Hughes burnt holes in my pocket, but we would not need them yet. On the way we found a lot of cannonading going on, and as we came to Estaires we met long lines of ambulances coming in from the front with the wounded. There were Guardsmen, Indian troops and Highlanders. At first we thought they were the wounded picked up on the battle field on the 10th of March. In Estaires from some of the slightly wounded we learned the vastly important information that another big attack was on and that the British troops were making very little headway, and were having terrible losses. The artillery were not doing much, and the infantry were getting the worst of it. The German corps army had been brought up.

From a wounded Highland sergeant we learned that on the 10th the three lines of German trenches had been carried as stated. The British troops were in the environs of Aubers and along the Rue D'Enfer. The Germans were apparently in full retreat and our losses were only about five per cent, of the men engaged. The troops in the first line, victorious, were eager to go on, but they were halted on the western outskirts of Aubers all afternoon and then told to dig themselves in.

Next day they were for some reason ordered back to the third line of German trenches and told to prepare these trenches, strengthening and consolidating the lines and to prepare for a German attack which did not come. To-day being the third day they were ordered to carry Aubers, the Rue D'Enfer and the ground extending to the Wood of Biez.

In these places a terrible resistance had been encountered. The Germans Corps Reserves, several divisions of them, had arrived. They had fortified Aubers by using the lower or bas.e.m.e.nt storeys of houses for machine gun emplacements, and a large redoubt with wire had been constructed in the woods.

The commanding officers of both the battalions of the Gordons had been killed, also Colonel Fisher-Rowe of the Guards, who had turned the trenches at Fromelles over to us, was killed leading his battalion in a charge. The Gordons had lost sixteen officers from each battalion, killed and wounded, and about half their men. The Guards Brigade had lost about the same. Again and again the unconquerable British infantry this day charged across the open to carry ground that was virtually theirs two days before, but the Bois de Biez and the Rue D'Enfer bristled with machine guns that mowed them down in hundreds.

Guards, Ghurkas, Highlanders, Pathans charged again and again till at last towards evening the attack was called off. The German counter attack had taken the form of a pure defensive and we had sacrificed ten or twelve thousand troops trying to retrieve what we lost through lack of support two days before. There was no truth in the stories subsequently circulated that our guns fired in mistake on the British troops. A few Indian guns that had been worn out with constant firing since the Battle of Mons fired stray sh.e.l.ls but that is likely to happen at any time. An error of a line or two on the indicating ring of the fuse when set will cause the sh.e.l.l to burst short.

The Battle of Neuve Chapelle was a great victory for the British, but we did not gather much of the fruits of victory. Everybody felt that something had gone wrong, but what it was only history will disclose.

Our younger officers were beginning to think that the old Wellington tradition of "support promptly" had been forgotten in the army of Flanders.

Over eight hundred German prisoners fell into our hands. They were mostly Bavarians and Saxons. They were in the bombed trenches and had had a very hard time from our sh.e.l.l fire. Their clothing, hands and faces were stained yellow from the lyddite fumes. I saw these men at a factory at Estaires where they were held. A number of them spoke English. I also saw them on the street as they were being conducted by a French reserve officer and guarded by French reserve troops. They were a mixture of young boys and middle-aged men, well fed and well clothed, and it did not appear as if it was costing the German Government much effort to look after them. Like all Germans they had let their beards grow which made them look like "Weary w.i.l.l.i.e.s." From an intellectual standpoint they did not seem to be overburdened with brains. "Blond beasts" they would be nicknamed in the London music halls. We used to wonder why the German helmets would not fit us, they were so small. After seeing these men we knew. A number six to six and one-half hat would fit any of these chaps.

CHAPTER XVIII

BILLETS AND BIVOUACS

A terrible disaster happened the regiment on March 23rd. Our adjutant, Captain R. Clifford Darling, was wounded. This is how it happened: An artillery lieutenant was with us constantly in the trenches as observing officer. Sometimes it was Lieutenant Lancaster, son of an old colleague of mine, E.A. Lancaster, Member of Parliament for Welland, Canada. Sometimes it was Lieutenant Ryerson, son of Surgeon-General Ryerson, another friend of many years standing. This morning a young English artillery officer came along and said he wanted to be shown the German trenches and anything else that could be seen from our section. It was about noon, and Captain Darling insisted upon going down to the trenches with him. As I wanted to go over the trenches myself and see how some work was progressing on our right sector, I asked the adjutant to stay at headquarters till I returned.

We got as far as the corner of the Rue Pettion and the Fromelles Road when we proceeded to climb up on the roof of a ruined house to have a look at the trenches. I had with me a panoramic sketch of the trenches which had been made by an English officer at Christmas during the time the British and Germans fraternized, for this was one of the places where there had been a truce for a few hours and Briton and Hun forgot their grudges. The various villages and farms were pointed out. Aubers and Fromelles, with their ruined towers, the Bois du Biez, Aubers Ridge and other objects on the landscape. In front of us there was a partially erected factory of some kind. We suspected that its blinking, unglazed windows harboured machine guns, and I fervently urged him to try out his guns on this building as soon as he got them in position.

After we had feasted our eyes on the German lines we climbed down, and no sooner had we reached the ground than we were met by Captain Darling, who said he had a message for Captain Perry, who was in a small redoubt on our extreme left, and whose telephone wire had been cut some time before by a German bullet. We all walked down a zigzag communication trench which led to the centre of our trenches. As we walked along I warned Darling to be very careful and not to take the short cut back to our quarters, but to join me at the communication trench and we would come out together. We turned to the right and I showed the visitor over our right section. While I was doing so a message came to me over the wires from brigade headquarters, asking me to go there for a consultation with General Turner. I turned back and started for brigade headquarters, which were about a mile back of the line. When I got there Colonel Garnet Hughes informed me he had heard by 'phone that Captain Darling had been wounded while he was on his way out from the trenches.

After receiving my orders from headquarters I hurried to my own quarters to see what had happened to our adjutant. I met Major MacKenzie, our medical officer, as soon as I entered the house, and he was very much cut up over Darling. The three of us, with Captain Dansereau, had messed together under sh.e.l.l and rifle fire so long that we had become very much attached. Darling was an ideal adjutant, a fearless rider and a splendid comrade. He coupled with a graduate's course at the Royal Military College, a thorough training as an accountant and business manager. The "Red Watch" was sad that day, for he was universally admired by everybody. He had been returning after delivering a message to Captain Perry that he was to get ready to go to Ypres to a.s.sist the British forces there in some mining operations at Hill 60. On his way back he met several officers who insisted on taking the short cut. They had to run across a short s.p.a.ce of about fifty feet to get into a ditch which saved a walk through the trenches of several hundred yards.

In a moment of weakness, having learned that I had been called from the trenches and would not be waiting for him at the communication trench, he gave in and took the short cut. The Germans, who were always on the alert at this point, and only about one hundred yards away, let drive a volley, and a bullet caught him in the back under the right shoulder blade. As he was stooping it penetrated his body and came out above the right collar bone. The wound was a clean one and bled very little. The bullet had not pierced his lung. He was resting quietly when I saw him. He had very little pain, was quite cheerful and told me he would be back to duty in a few weeks. He had left a youthful bride behind him in London and was anxious to join her, so I gave orders that he was to be sent as quickly as possible to England. General Turner seconded me in this, but he was kept in France a week after he was wounded, the reason given being that they wanted to make sure that the bullet had not penetrated the lung cavity.

I immediately offered the vacant adjutancy to Captain Warren, but he declined it, saying that he now had the cares of a company on his shoulders and was taking a great deal of enjoyment out of it. I sympathized with him, for I knew his men would miss him very much for he was an ideal company officer. Captain Dansereau, who had been my scoutmaster and signalling officer, and who had learned all the topography of that part of France on his hands and knees at night, laying wires and hunting broken ones, consented to take over the job.

We took on Lieutenant Hamilton Shoenberger as signalling officer.

"Shon," as he was affectionately called by his comrades, and Dansereau were graduates of the Royal Military College. Captain McLaren raised a storm when I asked for Shoenberger, but when I pointed out that Darling expected to be back in a month or so he consented.

The men took all the fun there was in life out of things when they were back in billets. They fed, slept and played football, and had a good time generally while they were resting. Beyond furnis.h.i.+ng fatigues for the engineers, a few hours' physical drill or a march, they had very little work to do.

The motto of the Canadian Engineers is, "We never sleep." They were very keen and ardent and were constantly working to strengthen the trenches. Major Wright of Hull, who was at the head of our section, was a very big man, about six feet four in his stockings, with a width of chest and shoulder that is found nowhere in the world so plentifully as in the valley of the Ottawa River and in Canada's Glengarry County. His towering form would loom up everywhere in the trenches at night, and along with him generally came young Pepler, another intrepid youngster, who was never quite at home unless he was in the most dangerous spot in the trenches, or out in front examining the German wire at close range. Wright was a born leader of men, and another of his staff whose light burned brightly was Captain Thomas Irving of Toronto. The exact opposite of Wright, they reminded me always of the two great warriors in Sienkiewicz's "With Fire and Sword." All the engineers were men of technical training and much experience. They were right at home in Flanders, and deserved the tributes that we heard tendered them by the British General Staff.

Their confidence in the practical experience of the Canadians was demonstrated by their sending to us for a practical mining man to direct the big mining operations south of Ypres.

One of the happiest features of billet life was the receiving and writing of letters to friends at home. Pen and ink were plentiful, so was paper, and most of the spare time of the men was spent in writing letters to friends. All these letters had to be censored, and the censor was not Lord Kitchener, as some people seem to think, nor Sir John French, as the London papers would have it, but the colonel of each regiment. He is the heartless man who has to wade through reams of love letters, and he never even drops a tear when he finds one of his young men corresponding with two or more young ladies at home, and a.s.suring each of them in the most fervent and fond language that he loves but her and her alone. Sometimes the commanding officer is so busy that the labor of censoring the letters is turned over to a junior subaltern who may happen to be handy. The letters are brought in to headquarters and left unsealed. They are supposed to be read by the colonel, closed and his name written across the front page vouching for the contents. On one occasion one of my platoon commanders brought into the orderly room a very large bundle of letters. His men had been very busy with their pens that morning, and he made some remark to that effect to me. At the moment I was very busy writing letters to irate mothers who would write to me whenever their sons neglected to provide a weekly batch of correspondence, so I told the young officer to take my stamp and censor the letters himself. When he had gone about half way through the correspondence, he gave an exclamation, jumping half way out of his chair. "What's the matter?" I asked in alarm, wondering if he had caught one of his men in treasonable correspondence with the enemy.

"The matter," he said in a tone of rage, "Why, one of the men in my platoon is writing love letters to my best girl in Toronto."

I advised him to let the letter go through and leave the settlement of the matter until after the war. Such a situation would in ordinary times have provided a theme for a three-volume love story.

After the battle of Neuve Chapelle, the Seventh Division, comprising the Gordon and Guards Brigade, moved to our right. They were badly battered but still in the ring. The first night they were in the trenches on our right they would occasionally open up with their Maxims, and the scare they would give the Germans was a sight worth seeing. The German flares would go up, and the Huns "stood to" and blazed away like mad. Out of some 800 men in the second battalion of the Gordons only about 350 came out uninjured from Neuve Chapelle.

Only about thirty of the original battalion that fought on the retreat from Mons remained in the ranks. In the afternoon the day after they came alongside of us, my adjutant, Dansereau, and I paid them a visit.

There were only six officers left in their mess, but they were cheerful nevertheless.

After another turn in the trenches we were moved back to Estaires and placed in billets. We were given to understand that we would soon be given a chance at the Rue D'Enfer, and so we began to train for it.

Dummy trenches were fitted up and our bombing parties practised daily.

The men were turned loose with their entrenching tools and practised "digging in" every day.

While here another serious casualty occurred. On the evening of Sat.u.r.day, March 27th, Sergeant Rose and Piper Miller were returning with several comrades from Estaires. They were pa.s.sing one of our billets when a sentry challenged them. Miller was playing the pipes, and there was a high wind blowing at the time and they did not hear the challenge. The night was dark and the sentry who misunderstood his orders fired and brought down both men with one shot. Rose was shot through the hips and Miller across the back. They were both very severely wounded and the sentry was at once imprisoned. Rose was a very fine young man, having risen rapidly from the ranks to be quartermaster sergeant. He was an ideal soldier. Miller was a splendid piper, a Lowland Scotchman with a Glasgow accent that convulsed everyone who heard him. He took great delight in using the dialect of Bobby Burns in its purest form, and could get his tongue around "Its a braw bricht moonlit nicht the nicht" like Harry Lauder. Dr. MacKenzie was quickly brought and did what he could to alleviate the sufferings of the two men. Rose received a wound large enough to insert your two fingers into it but did not bleed very badly. Miller had his ribs smashed at the back and bled internally. He had to lie on his face and groaned a good deal. Rose, like all the Canadians that I have seen wounded, never uttered a sound.

On March 31st General Turner took Colonel Loomis and me along with him to Laventie to reconnoitre the ground about the Rue D'Enfer. I was again told in confidence that the Canadian Division was expected to frame up an attack on this justly named road. We rode to Laventie and walked down to what was left of the village of Fauquissart. Laventie was deserted except for the troops, but the village with the euphonious name, which stood at one time at the corner of the Rue D'Enfer and the Rue de Bois, was nothing but a heap of bricks. When we approached, the Germans were busy throwing coal boxes at the church tower, or what was left of it. They generally like to leave a bit of a church tower or gable standing, for as nearly as I could follow their gunnery they used these points to "clock on," that is to say, a ruined steeple will be the centre of the clock. The observer will then direct the guns something like this, "Aubers Church, one o'clock, five hundred yards." The above directions would mean to fire from the church tower as the centre, five hundred yards towards one o'clock from the tower. Our gunners use a different system.

We got into the village without any casualties, and I climbed into a ruined house and had a look through the tiles of the roof at the German lines and made a panoramic sketch. Then we went down into the trenches and met the "Yorks." They told us that we were to do the attacking and they were to do the looking on and cheering. They appeared to be pleased that it was not the other way on.

On the way out General Turner, V.C., had a narrow escape. He missed a communicating trench and started with Colonel Loomis across an open spot about two hundred yards from the German lines. He was spotted and several volleys sent after him. The General is a very brave man, and I was always afraid he would be hit. We went back and arranged for working parties to make more supporting trenches to hold troops for the a.s.sault.

I made Lieutenant Dansereau my acting adjutant. He was my scout master and signalling officer, and when I went into the trenches either he or one of the other young rascals would step up smartly and start a conversation when I was pa.s.sing a dangerous spot. I noticed that these escorts always got between me and the German lines so that if a bullet came they would get it first. This touched me very deeply but I made them stop it. No commanding officer was ever served more devotedly by his officers than I have been. My acting adjutant was Scotch on his distaff side, a descendant of Colonel Mackay, who climbed the Heights of Abraham with the immortal Wolfe. His father was one of the ablest men in the public life of the Province of Quebec. Young Dansereau knew no fear and would as soon go out in daylight and cut the Germans'

wires as eat his breakfast. He was a graduate of the Royal Military College and a splendid soldier and engineer. I had offered the position to Captain Trumbull Warren, but he declined it, as he was second in command with Major Osborne and he said he wanted "company"