From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade Part 13

The most popular myth or fairy on the Messines front was undoubtedly the "Mad Major." This individual was supposed to be an artillery officer who spotted for his own battery--which incidentally always did the most marvellous shooting--from an aeroplane, in which he performed the most daring feats while dodging the "Archibalds" or anti-aircraft sh.e.l.ls.

Whether there was any truth in this myth we never found out, but we did see an enemy aeroplane forced down behind our lines by Robert Lorraine, the actor aviator, on October 26th, after a very daring fight.

A large enemy aeroplane of the "Albatross" type had been making a reconnaissance somewhere northward in the Ypres salient with unusual boldness when Lorraine sighted the machine and gave chase. Instead of turning directly back to his own lines the German flew along the line of our trench at such a tempting range that machine-guns all along our line started to cough and spit in the air in an effort to wing him.

Meanwhile our own aeroplane was getting within range, and a pretty duel in mid-air commenced, the two machines circling and swooping like a pair of immense white gulls, while the "tut-tut" of their machine-guns was the only sound as both Germans and British watched this unique battle.

Suddenly the German machine showed signs of distress, pitched suddenly forward, and started a long glide for the German trenches, our aeroplane still pursuing and forcing the enemy even lower.

But the German had followed our trench line too far down, for at this point our trenches ran forward nearly a quarter of a mile where a French cavalry brigade in a dismounted action the year before had made a last effort to retake Messines.

And now, when it became apparent their machine could not regain the German lines, their gunners began to sh.e.l.l their own plane, containing as it did two of their own men, in an effort to destroy the machine.

But, though they fired over a hundred sh.e.l.ls into the little wood behind which the aeroplane landed, they were unable to prevent the men of our Royal Montreal Regiment, who occupied the trenches at this point, from capturing the observer and his papers, the pilot having been killed in mid-air at the time the machine made its fatal plunge.

Then occurred one of the strangest of coincidences, vouched for by the official Canadian Eye-witness, when, on examining the wrecked aeroplane, the Royal Montrealers found the machine-gun with which it had been armed to be one formerly the property of this same regiment, but lost during the fighting around St. Julien just six months before while loaned to another battalion.

The "Mad Major" may have been only a myth, but Lorraine certainly was not, and for this exploit both he and his pilot subsequently received the Military Cross.

But there were a lot of tales that had their origin in a desire to suit the "Cook's tourists." These individuals were officers sent over from the Canadian Training Base for short periods of one or two weeks to receive practical instruction in trench warfare. Incidentally they brought with them some wondrous ideas about the proper methods of doing things, gathered from some official publications known as "Notes from the Front," and were greatly surprised to find we were not in touch with this "trade" journal.

Like the "Daily Summary of Events," known to us as "Comic Cuts" or the "Daily Liar," these little handbooks are written by wise men wearing red tabs and living miles away from the front, where the continuity of their thoughts is only interrupted by the tea hour, and not by the "Jack Johnson" sh.e.l.ls. Here they design "wire meat safes," patent refuse burners, mud sc.r.a.pers, and other weird contrivances that can be fashioned from biscuit tins, ruined houses and other _debris_, and issue these sheets for the guidance of the poor, long-suffering infantry. Once in a while they turn their attention to steel helmets, grenades, &c., so that their existence is almost justified.

The "Cook's tourist," however, is not a dangerous creature, taken in small quant.i.ties, and is a very handy man to send out on working parties when the company is supposed to be resting in reserve. So he is not without his uses.

For those who found the ordinary trench routine dull we had, however, several stock entertainments that never failed to satisfy.

The first and mildest was to take the victim through the "Catacombs," as we called the galleries and connecting pa.s.sages of our mine. This had the advantage of rendering his cuffs and decorations less conspicuous and giving him in five minutes all the war-worn appearance of a veteran.

If, however, he still craved excitement, he would be allowed to put out some more wire in front of the parapet--always a delicate operation where the lines are close. Many were satisfied by this means.

The third degree was always administered by Captain H---- himself. It was in the form of a little sortie from the trench to a stumpy willow in "No-Man's-Land," a willow that bore a striking resemblance to some giant cacti and was called by us the "Cactus Treen."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CACTUS TREEN.]

From this point it was possible to bomb the German trench, and a little excursion of this sort generally satiated the visitor's curiosity.

Incidentally, it kept the Hun from coming out and bombing us. He did, however, treat us liberally to rifle grenades, and our casualties from these beastly contrivances were large.

On one morning we were most unfortunate, a grenade killing our bombing sergeant and two men, and we started to retaliate with every variety of grenade we had. At this moment the trench mortar officer came up the trench and volunteered to a.s.sist us. He had a new gun throwing thirty-pound bombs and was keen on displaying his skill; what was more important, he had twenty bombs available, and he started to fire these off with an alacrity that, under the circ.u.mstances, was most pleasing.

But we had reckoned without our host. Before half a dozen rounds had been fired an eight-inch gun back of Messines Hill started searching for the trench mortar man and his gun, and twenty-five high explosive sh.e.l.ls plunged around us and shook our trench out of existence. It was very fascinating to watch these sh.e.l.ls coming. From the point, high in the air, when they started to drop on their target they could be clearly seen, first as a black ball, then gradually lengthening out till they plunged into the ground and flung up dense fountains of earth and fragments.

The nearest burst was within ten feet of the trench mortar position, and the officer withdrew his party, a sadder and a wiser man.

From the rifle grenades, too, we lost both of our mining officers, one, Lieutenant Alfred Evans, dying of wounds, the other being very severely wounded. So two merry souls who had shared the vicissitudes of our messing pa.s.sed from our ken, and we could only wait our own fate and say, like the French, "C'est la guerre!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: APPROXIMATE GERMAN LINE IN FRONT OF MESSINES DURING WINTER OF 1915-1916.

(Successive positions held by 1st Brigade shown 1, 2, 3.)]

CHAPTER XXII

THE WINTER MONTHS

November brought with it a week of steady rain, and we knew the winter months were at hand. In less than two weeks our trenches, once the pride of the division, were a series of collapsed heaps where the sandbag walls had been undermined by the seepage of water.

But we suffered nothing like the discomforts endured by the British troops during the previous winter. Rubber boots reaching to the thigh were issued, sparingly at first, but gradually until every man had a pair, and whale oil and spare socks were available in large quant.i.ties to aid in the fight against trench-foot. Nothing, however, could prevent the mud, which lay a foot deep along the gangways of the trench. Pumps were issued, but the mud was too thick to pump; our only hope lay in drainage, and by the time proper drains were constructed the mud was too thick to run, even though we were on a hill top.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AFTER A FEW Sh.e.l.lS AND A WEEK'S RAIN.]

So we pumped and drained and built new sandbag walls all winter, and as fast as one portion of our line was renewed another portion would collapse, or, more disheartening still, be sh.e.l.led to bits by the big "minenwerfer."

This was a German gun brought up to this front to counteract our trench mortar. Throwing a sh.e.l.l about six inches in diameter of high explosive, it could in three bursts do more damage than a whole company could repair in a night. And regularly twice a week three sh.e.l.ls were dropped along Delta Road, a communication trench forming the third side of the little salient.

The effect of the "minenwerfer" was very local, however, owing to the thinness of the sh.e.l.l wall, but such men as it killed were not a pretty sight. Fortunately, too, the sh.e.l.ls could be seen both by day and night, and rose to such a height before dropping that men could scamper for shelter from the threatened spot. But no dug-out could withstand its explosion, and a series of craters, eight or ten feet in depth and twelve feet in diameter, marked the "minenwerfer's" work.

Every battery that covered our area had, by the time winter was over, reported they had silenced "Minnie," but when we left that area months later she was still doing business at the old stand.

To relieve the monotony of this sort of thing the Canadian Corps organised a series of night raids on the German trenches.

The first, and most brilliant, of these was conducted by the 5th and 7th Battalions of the 2nd Brigade on a barricade or forward trench that had been constructed by the enemy near our old position opposite the Pet.i.te Douve Farm.

This raid was made on a villainous night blacker than Egypt during the plagues and raining as only Flanders can.

With faces blackened with charcoal, the raiding parties crept out to the enemy wire and cut it strand by strand, a process lasting several hours.

During this time the cooks of one of the battalions carried out pannikins of hot tea to the men who were lying in the mud hacking at the wire.

Finally the path was reported clear except at one point where a deep ditch full of water could not be crossed, and at the appointed moment the raiding parties swooped in on the enemy trench.

Secure, as they thought, on such a vile night, the enemy were completely surprised, but put up a stubborn resistance. An officer and about thirty men were secured as prisoners, and where resistance was more determined the enemy was driven from his trench with bombs. Then on a given signal the raiders returned to their own trenches, bringing helmets, saw-tooth bayonets, and Mauser rifles as souvenirs of their midnight call.

By this time the alarm had spread through the German lines, and his artillery, in response to red signals shot up by men very lately deceased, began to pound their own trench, thus catching their own bombing parties, who, now the trench was only occupied by dead and wounded, had regained the barricade.

But we had another surprise awaiting them. A field-gun had been man-handled up to our front line and at point-blank range proceeded to blow the barricade to bits. This was done and the gun successfully withdrawn by a car from a motor-machine-gun battery, in spite of the fact that the first car sent for this purpose had to be hauled from the ditch into which it had skidded.

So thorough had been the preparations, and so well organised the raid, that an account of it was published in the orders of the French Army as an example of efficient preparation.

The prisoners taken in the Pet.i.te Douve affair had boasted of the preparations they were making for a gas attack on a scale hitherto unknown, and on the Sunday before Christmas the enemy made another attempt to gain the Ypres salient by this means.

Early in the morning of the 20th the smell of gas was evident even down as far as our position a few miles south of the salient, and our guns began a desultory bombardment of the enemy lines. Thinking we were as deficient in artillery as in the previous April, the enemy infantry advanced in ma.s.s formation about 9 o'clock. Then our artillery did open fire. About noon another attack was made, and also failed without a yard of our line being lost.

There were no further attempts!

On Christmas Eve we were relieved by the Toronto Battalion and marched out to rest billets in divisional reserve.