The Red Watch Part 22

Every minute or so there would be a burst of rifle fire along the German lines. They were beginning to show "nerves" and signs of exhaustion. They had paid a terrific price so far for the few blood-soaked acres they had won.

As we reached La Bryke we met at the crossroads two British staff officers on horseback who wanted to know the way to Wieltje and General Hull's Headquarters there. One of them was Brigadier-General Riddell, who was killed a few hours later not far from St. Julien at the head of the brave Northumberland Brigade. He was shot through the head while personally conducting an attack to recover St. Julien.

When we reached La Bryke we found that Captain Duguid, our quartermaster, had fortunately brought down double rations for a complete battalion. This enabled us to ration the whole brigade. He had done the same thing on the Friday night previous. The transports of the other battalions had been all shot up, but Captain Duguid had used mules as pack animals. We waited for several hours for orders and the General did not turn up. The Brigade Sergeant-Major, who had brought us his orders, said he would remain at La Bryke and notify the General if he should come while we went back to the transport to spend the few hours of darkness left. It was necessary for us to go through and past the bridges over the ca.n.a.l before daylight, otherwise we would be spotted by aeroplanes and sh.e.l.led.

It was dawn when the tired battalions made their way into the field in which all that was left of the transports of the four battalions was packed. They had hot soup ready and it was a case of bivouac on the green gra.s.s with the heavens as a blanket.

Very soon afterwards General Turner, V.C., and Lt.-Colonel Hughes, his staff officer, arrived. They both warmly congratulated me on sticking it out at the hot corner. General Turner, V.C., told me that the Canadians had been given credit for saving the situation, and that my battalion, though it had been almost wiped out, had not died in vain.

He was completely worn out, so I gave him and his officers a place under a piece of tarpaulin after they had had something to eat. They had not had any rest or sleep since Thursday morning, and in a few minutes everyone was fast asleep except the transport men.

I had not been in the Land of Nod half an hour when I was roused by the trample of a horse and the voice of a horseman enquiring for me. I was up in an instant and found a staff officer looking for General Turner. I refused at first to awaken him unless the matter was urgent, but when I was a.s.sured that it was, I roused him and he opened his message. It was an order to take the brigade back immediately to La Bryke to go into support of the Lah.o.r.e division under General Snow, which was to attack that afternoon together with some French troops.

The men were all dead tired and sound asleep on the ground. They had not had any sleep since the previous Thursday night, and now they were to be roused to go at it again, digging in with General Snow.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MUSTER OF THE 48TH HIGHLANDERS AFTER BATTLE OF ST. JULIEN--212 OUT OF 1,034]

Rations and ammunitions were issued and off we started. We crossed the Yperlee Ca.n.a.l by a foot bridge and climbed the steep slope once more into the deadly salient. As we pa.s.sed down to the bridges in Indian file several of our men were struck by shrapnel bullets. When we crossed over the ca.n.a.l we were led to the west of La Brique and halted in a ditch, where we promptly dug in. The Indian guns were in front of us. About an hour after, just as we were well dug in, we were again moved further east and put in behind some hedges and some more Indian batteries. Again we dug in, making a good job of it. The troops in front of us were apparently attacking and the din of the sh.e.l.l and rifle fire became terrific. We all thought we would be at it again in a few minutes, and the men began tightening up their puttees and looking to their rifles and ammunition. Some began eating their rations, for as one poor fellow said they might as well enjoy them because they might not need any more after a few minutes.

The attack in our front died away and pretty soon another order came and we started down behind hedges and ditches back to Wiltje. The Germans were sh.e.l.ling the village for all they were worth and the church was burning, so we gave it a wide berth and slipped in behind the village and proceeded to dig in again. Every few minutes the Huns would start sh.e.l.ling Wiltje and we would come into their "Zone of influence." The sh.e.l.ls that missed the roofs of the houses from the north would pitch over into our lines and we had to duck and count ten when we heard them coming.

While we were being jolly well sh.e.l.led in these trenches an incident occurred which was of extraordinary interest. I remember reading when I was a boy how at the siege of Toulon, while Napoleon was dictating a message to a young soldier named Lannes a British sh.e.l.l struck the parapet and threw sand all over them and also on the written message.

The writer coolly shook the sand off the paper, remarking that they would not need any sand to blot the ink. This soldier showed such bravery that he subsequently became a Marshal of the Empire. That afternoon after we were dug in I was dictating a message to Sergeant Venner of my signalling staff who had his telephone in a "dig in"

alongside of mine. He was half way through when a big "coal box" sh.e.l.l exploded a few feet away emitting a terrible stench, a cross between marsh gas and camphor b.a.l.l.s.

The smell was overpowering. Venner dropped his pencil and clapped his hands to his face saying, "Wait a minute, Colonel, the smell of that sh.e.l.l makes my head ache." I looked at him and saw he had turned very pale. Looking more closely I noticed blood trickling down the side of his face between his fingers. I s.n.a.t.c.hed his Glengarry off his head and sure enough a jagged piece of sh.e.l.l had cut through the Glengarry and ripped a gash in his scalp about two inches long.

I pulled the piece of steel out and said, "No wonder the sh.e.l.l makes your head ache! You are wounded."

In a trice I had my scissors out, and cutting the hair away from the wound I put some iodine into the cut, Corporal Pyke, his a.s.sistant, helped to bind Sergeant Venner's wound with his first aid bandage.

After he was fixed up he pulled out his book to finish the message, but I ordered him to clear out and go back to the dressing station. To my amazement he dissented.

"Not a bit of it, sir," he boldly replied, for the first time in his life disobeying my orders.

"Go on, sir, please, and finish the message." "I am all right."

I was so surprised that I finished the message and he stoutly refused to go to the hospital and worked on the signal wires till the battalion was permanently relieved a week or so later. I recommended him for a decoration, also a few other brave officers and men who did not get them.

CHAPTER XXVII

TWELVE GLORIOUS DAYS

"They've got me in the back, Colonel! My poor wife and children!"

This was the startled exclamation of one of my men who occupied a "digin" about ten feet from mine. He turned pale.

The Germans were sh.e.l.ling us with high explosive sh.e.l.ls from the north rim of the salient. Huge "coal boxes," coming from the direction of Pilken, were falling in the village of Wiltje on our front. With a tw.a.n.g like a giant steel bow a shrapnel sh.e.l.l had burst overhead. They had commenced to spray us in the back with shrapnel from the direction of Hill 60, and one of the bullets that pattered like hail on our clay parapets had struck him.

I had ordered all the men to keep on their overcoats, as the stout woollen cloth of the Canadian great coats will stop the German shrapnel bullets and a lot of high explosive splinters, American experts to the contrary. The thick overcoat and the pack is the next best thing to a coat of mail.

Sergeant Lewis and I jumped out and pulled him out on to the banquette of his trench and in a minute had the overcoat and jacket off him. His s.h.i.+rt followed and there, sunk into the flesh of his back about half an inch from his spine and almost half an inch deep, was the black shrapnel bullet. I picked it out with my pen-knife and handed it to him with a silent prayer of thanksgiving.

"There's the bullet. You're worth a dozen dead men yet," I said.

The look of relief on his face was worth seeing.

"Will you let me have the bullet as a souvenir?" I asked.

"Yes, Colonel."

He was not the only man relieved.

We dressed the wound with iodine and put a pad and a piece of plaster over it. He put on his clothes and I told him to go back to the dressing station, but he refused and kept on fighting.

We held the narrow trenches all afternoon and evening. Fierce fighting was going on all around us and we spent a very disagreeable night dug in in Mother earth.

My men endeavored in every way possible to make me comfortable. Sergt.

Coe requisitioned a long bolster pillow from a ruined estament in Wiltje for me to sleep on. Another man brought in a few fresh eggs that some Flemish hens had laid in a henhouse in the outskirts of the village. The occupants of Wiltje had all disappeared. Some of them were dead in their cellars, which were not proof against the high explosive sh.e.l.ls.

Towards dawn in spite of the lurid glare of bursting sh.e.l.ls and the roaring of the flames in the burning houses, the Flemish roosters crowed l.u.s.tily, typifying the Belgian as well as the French nation.

Dawn came at last but it brought no cessation of the terrible artillery fire. The fighting along the line to the north still continued. The British troops were holding their own and dealing l.u.s.ty blows at the enemy.

This was the situation as outlined by Corporal Pyke, one of my signalling staff who had gone away to the right to see what was going on in the old "hot corner." A British Division had taken up the supporting trenches of the 2nd Canadian Brigade along the crest of the Gravenstafel Ridge. They had our supporting trenches east of Hennebeke Creek along the Kerrselaer Zonnebeke highway to the ruined houses at Enfiladed crossroads where I had met Captain Victor Currie and the officers of the 7th and 8th Battalions.

The 2nd Brigade, all that was left of them, had been kept hard at it in this section and were still in reserve behind the 28th Division.

The line of the 28th Division ran thus from Gravenstafel to Fortuyn, which was still held by us, and along west to where the headquarters trenches crossed the St. Julien-Ypres Road at Vanenberghem, from thence almost due west to a part of the Yperlee Ca.n.a.l near Zwaante.

The east bank of the ca.n.a.l was held by the French and Belgians. The Germans had crossed the ca.n.a.l the night of the 22nd at Lizerne and had been driven back at the point of the bayonet by our allies.

Strung along from Gravenstafel Ridge in the following order were the following British Battalions: The Hants, the Rifle Brigade, the 12th London, the Suffolks, the Northumberland Fusiliers, five battalions, the 5th Durhams, the Somersets, the E. Yorks, the Yorks.h.i.+re, two battalions, two battalions of Yorks and Durhams, the 5th S.

Lancasters, the 1st R. Lancasters, the Lancaster Fusiliers, the Ess.e.x, the 1st Irish, the Monmouths, the 2nd West Riding, the London, the Royal Kents.

General Hull commanded the 1st R. Warwicks, the 2nd Seaforth Highlanders, the 1st and 2nd Fusiliers, the 2nd Dublin Fusiliers, the 7th Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders.

Colonel Geddes' detachment held the line from our old general headquarters to where they linked up with the French troops who were coming up in some strength. The 1st Canadian Brigade was back west of the ca.n.a.l, protecting Brielen, while our brigade was again south of Wieltje.

All the Canadian troops had fought with great valor and had lost over half the effectives of each battalion. It was my misfortune that I could not chronicle the many deeds of individual bravery performed by my countrymen. I could only describe what was taking place in my own vicinity and in my own corps.

The sh.e.l.ling continued all day of the 27th. There was a chilly wind blowing but the sun shone very brightly. I had a fairly comfortable section of trench and tried to s.n.a.t.c.h a wink of sleep in the bottom of it during the afternoon. I had not been sleeping long when General Turner, V.C., our brigadier, came up and I made room for him alongside of me. His dugout a couple of hundred yards in the rear of us had been hit several times by German sh.e.l.ls and he had a very narrow escape. When he jumped in alongside of me he picked up several spent splinters of sh.e.l.l that had fallen on my greatcoat as I slept.

He laughingly remarked that everybody said I bore a charmed life and the sh.e.l.ls never bothered me, so as his dugout had become untenable he had come up where he could find a quiet "restful" place.

He informed me that since the battle began on the 22nd he had seen and sustained more rifle and sh.e.l.l fire than had been his lot during the whole South African campaign. He and his hardworking chief, Lt.-Colonel Hughes, had not had any rest since the previous Thursday.

Sergt. Coe made the General comfortable in the bottom of the trench beside me, and in a few minutes he was sound asleep with the sh.e.l.ls still beating their infernal tatoo in the heavens over us.