On the Fringe of the Great Fight Part 8

"I think we had better move, Colonel," said Captain Rankin at last. As he spoke, a bullet split a brick in the road about three feet away from me, and slid across the road leaving a trail of dust.

"I think we had," I said as I walked over, picked up the spent bullet and dropped it in my pocket. Another bullet pinged over head and another spat up the road dust in front of us. "Those are aimed bullets," I said. "The Germans cannot be far away; it's time to move."

It was then about 6.30 and we walked back to Wieltze, near which we met our anxious chauffeur coming out to meet me.

Canadian soldiers with boxes of cartridges on their shoulders ran up the road towards the trenches; others carrying movable barb-wire entanglements followed them. A company of Canadians took to the fields on leaving Wieltze, and began advancing in short rushes in skirmishing order towards the German front, while their officer walked on ahead swinging his bamboo cane in the most approved fashion. Another company was just leaving the village, loading their rifles as they hurried along. I overheard one chap say, as he thrust a cartridge clip into place, "Good Old Ross."

As we approached Wieltze we could see ammunition wagons galloping up the other road which forks at Wieltze and runs to Langemarck. Turning into the fields they would wheel sharply, deposit their loads, and gallop wildly off again for more ammunition, while the crashes and flashes of the guns showed that they were being served with redoubled vigor.

At the edge of the village the peasant, whom we had seen preparing his little garden and sowing seeds earlier in the afternoon, came down to the gate and asked rather apologetically if we thought that the Germans would be there to-night; "in any case did monsieur not think it would be wise for the women and children to leave?"

Behind him, standing about the door steps, were the members of his family, each with a bundle suited to their respective ages. The smallest, a girl about six years of age, had a tiny bundle in a handkerchief; the next, a boy about eight, had a larger one. All were dressed in their best Sunday clothes, and carried umbrellas--a wise precaution in the climate of Flanders. We agreed with him that it was wise to move away, because it would be possible to return, if the Germans were driven back, whereas if they stayed they might be killed.

As we talked to the father, the eldest, a boy of eighteen, came down to the gate with his grandmother, a little old lady perhaps eighty years of age, and weighing about as many pounds. The boy stooped down to pick her up in his arms, but she shook her head in indignant protest. Accordingly he crouched down, she put her arms around his neck, he took her feet under his arms, and set off down the road towards Ypres with the rest of the family trailing behind him. About ten o'clock that night my friend, Captain Eddie Robertson, standing with his regiment on the roadside ten miles nearer Poperinge, waiting for orders to advance, noticed a youth with a little old lady on his back, trudging by in the stream of fleeing refugees.

Wieltze was a picture; the kind of moving picture that the movie man would pay thousands for, but never can obtain. The old adage held that you always see the best shots when you have no gun. Small detachments of Canadian troops moved rapidly through the streets. Around the Canadian Advanced Dressing Station was a crowd of wounded Turcos and Canadians waiting their turn to have their wounds dressed. All the civilians were loading their donkey or dog carts with household goods and setting out towards Ypres, sometimes driving their cows before them.

As we climbed into the car, which had been placed for shelter behind the strongest looking wall in the town, and slowly started for Ypres, a section of the 10th Canadian Battalion came along with our friend, Major Maclaren, whom I had talked to at Brielen earlier in the afternoon, at its head. I waved my hand to him and called "good luck."

He waved his hand in answer with a cheery smile. A couple of hours later he was wounded and was sent back in the little battalion Ford car, with another officer, to the ambulance in Vlamertinge. While pa.s.sing through Ypres a sh.e.l.l blew both officers' heads off.

At the fork of the roads, Lt.-Col. Mitch.e.l.l of Toronto, of the headquarters staff, who was directing traffic, came over and asked us if we had seen certain Canadian battalions pa.s.s by. We told him we had and we shook hands as we wished each other "good luck," not knowing whether we should ever meet again. We picked up a load of wounded Turcos and took them into the ambulance at Ypres. Fresh sh.e.l.l holes pitted the road and dead horses lay at the side of it. One corner in particular near Ypres had been sh.e.l.led very heavily, and broken stone, pave and bricks lay scattered about everywhere.

All the while the roar of guns and the whistle of flying sh.e.l.ls had increased. We reached the ambulance in Ypres between dusk and dark; it was light enough to see that the front of the building, which had been intact earlier in the afternoon, had been already scarred with pieces of flying sh.e.l.ls. The shutters which had been closed were torn and splintered, and the brick work was pitted with shrapnel. We forced our Turcos to descend and enter the ambulance, though from their protests I judged they would have much preferred a continuous pa.s.sage to the country beyond Ypres.

As we entered the door Major Hardy (now Colonel Hardy, D.S.O.) was found operating on one of his own men; the man had been blown off a water cart down the street and his leg and side filled with shrapnel.

It was rather weird to see this surgeon coolly operating as if he was in a hospital in Canada, and to hear the sh.e.l.ls screaming overhead and exploding not far away, any one of which might at any moment blow building, operator and patient to pieces. That is one of the beauties of the army system; each one in the army "carries on" and does his own particular bit under all circ.u.mstances.

A terrific bang in the street outside, followed by the rattling and crash of gla.s.s and falling of bricks, caused Rad to remark "there goes the good old Lozier car." At the same time the piercing shrieks of a woman rang out down the street, shrieks as from a woman who might have had her child killed. We went to the door and looked out; the Lozier was still intact, though later on we found the rounded corner of the metal body of the car bent as though a piece of pave or metal of several pounds weight had struck it, and the floor of the car was covered with bits of broken gla.s.s and brick.

Major Hardy asked us to take his patient on to Vlamertinge as it was doubtful when a motor ambulance would return, and we were glad to do so. After being given the usual dose of anti-tetanic serum, he was wrapped in blankets and made comfortable in the back seat. We shook hands with the Major and started off for Vlamertinge.

It was too risky to go through the centre of the town on account of falling walls, chimneys, and the swiftly descending fragments of houses blown skyward. So we skirted the town and tried to get down a side road to Vlamertinge. It was choked with refugees and transport, and the military traffic policeman strongly advised us to take the main road from Ypres. As there was no alternative we drove back to the water tower in the city. This road was clear, for n.o.body was going into Ypres at that time by that particular intersecting road.

We made all possible speed to get through the town and into the main Ypres-Vlamertinge road. There wagons began to pa.s.s us going the opposite way, the horses whipped into a gallop as they made haste to get through the town to the bridge-head on the far side. Motor transport lorries also drove at full speed to get by this danger point as quickly as possible. As we cleared the town again, the traffic became heavier, and we gradually worked into and formed part of a great human stream with various eddies and back currents.

It was now dark, and but for the feeble light of a young moon, which sometimes broke through the clouds and faintly illuminated the road, nothing could be seen. All headlights were out, and not even the light of a hand lantern or flashlight was permitted. Yet one's eyes became accustomed to the dark, and when the pale moonlight came through we could dimly see over on our right a line of French Turcos moving like ghosts along towards Vlamertinge. Next them were the fleeing refugees with their bundles, wagons and push carts, and their cows being driven before them. If there was a cart, the old man or old lady would invariably be seated on the top of the load, sometimes holding the baby.

In the centre of the road we groped our way along with infinite care.

A shadow would sometimes bear down on the car, and suddenly swerve to one side as a horseman trotted by. A motor lorry would approach within a few feet of us before the driver would see, and stop before we crashed into each other. On the left were troops standing by all along the roadside, and we felt very proud as we realized that they were Canadians, and that they were the only troops at hand to plug the gap made by the German poison gases.

At one time the road became jammed, and we had visions of staying all night in the midst of a road block. Gradually, with the aid of mounted gendarmes and our military police, the ma.s.s, composed of cows, wagons, horses, dogcarts, refugee men, women and children, with hand wagons and baby carriages; motor lorries, horse transport, lumber wagons, motor cycles, touring cars, and mounted hors.e.m.e.n, was dissolved, and slowly began again to flow in both directions. Looking backward we could see the red glow of fires burning in different parts of Ypres and the bright flashes of sh.e.l.ls as they burst over that much German-hated city. All around the salient star sh.e.l.ls flared into the sky and remained suspended for a few minutes as they threw a white glare over the surrounding country, silhouetting the trees against the sky like ghosts before they died away and fell to earth.

At last we reached Vlamertinge and turned into the yard occupied by No. 3 Field Ambulance. Our car was known, and several officers came forward to see if we had any authentic news. Our patient, whom they recognized as belonging at one time to themselves, was carried into shelter, and we also entered the building. Lying on the floors were scores of soldiers with faces blue or ghastly green in colour choking, vomiting and gasping for air, in their struggles with death, while a faint odour of chlorine hung about the place.

These were some of our own Canadians who had been ga.s.sed, and I felt, as I stood and watched them, that the nation who had planned in cold blood, the use of such a foul method of warfare, should not be allowed to exist as a nation but should be taken and choked until it, too, cried for mercy.

We could not help smiling as we shook hands with Captain Boyd, who had been shot in the calf of the leg and was now getting the wound dressed, particularly when he heard that Captain Scrimger had already been ordered to replace him. (Captain Scrimger won the V.C. the following day).

We offered our car to the Colonel of the ambulance for the night, but he had to stay at his work, and the car was not very suitable for evacuating wounded. As we could not be of use, we reluctantly pa.s.sed on out of the fighting zone toward home, and the refugees being not so numerous we could travel faster.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GERMAN BARRAGE FIRE AT NIGHT.]

Near the entrance to Poperinge a British Major came over to our car as we were showing our pa.s.ses to a military policeman. "Are you Canadian officers?" he said.

"We are," I answered.

"Then would you mind telling your Canadian transport drivers to stop going up and down this road; they insist on doing it, and I can't stop them."

"There is a big battle up in the salient," I said. "Sh.e.l.ls and many other things are needed; our men have been sent for them and know what they want; I wouldn't interfere with them if I were you."

He looked at us as though we were hopeless idiots, and we drove on.

The motor ambulance convoy, which we had been asked to have sent forward, had already gone, and our last errand was done. Putting on our headlights and opening the throttle, we tore homeward, reaching Merville at eleven o'clock.

When we arrived at the Mess, Captain Ellis, who had been anxiously waiting, said that we looked grey, drawn and ghastly, partly perhaps from the effects of the poisonous gas. We had an intensely interested listener as we recounted our experiences and drew plans of the line as we thought it probably existed at the moment. Whether the Germans could get through or not was the dominant question. Nothing lay between them and Calais but the Canadian Division, and whether the Canadians could hang on long enough in face of this new terror of poison gas until new troops arrived, no one could even venture to guess. We felt that they would do all that men could do under the circ.u.mstances, but without means of combating the poison it was doubtful what any troops could do. Supposing the Germans just kept on discharging gas? Nothing under heaven apparently could stop them from walking over the dead bodies of our soldiers, choked to death like drowned men. We could not decide the question that time alone could answer, and we went to bed to spend a long sleepless night longing for the day, when we would get news of the battle.

The next afternoon I was sent for by General Sir Henry Rawlinson, commanding the corps in our area. He had heard that I had seen the gas discharged the day before and wanted to know what the gas was, what the effect had been, how it could be combated and, in fact, all about it. When I had finished my narrative he placed a large map in front of me and asked me to sketch out the part of the line where the gas had been discharged, and how I thought the line should be at the present moment. I did my best, tyro as I was. It was one of the satisfactory moments of my life when the General drew the map to one side and showed me a map of the line as it really was, given him by General Foch that very morning. The maps were identical, and the General smiled a smile of appreciation as he thanked me for the a.s.sistance that our laboratory had given in helping to diagnose and combat this new mode of warfare, and I left his office feeling that we had been of some real use in the war even if we never did anything else.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE AFTERMATH OF THE GAS.

The day after the gas attack I reported to headquarters, that in my opinion the gas used was chlorine with possibly an admixture of bromine, and that a mask with a solution of "Hypo" to cover the nose and mouth would probably absorb the gas and destroy its effectiveness.

I also suggested that the battle area be searched for masks which the Germans were sure to have had prepared as a protection for their own men. (Most of the morning I had spent in bed with an attack of bronchitis suffering from the effects of the gas.)

Later I learned that German prisoners had given the information that the gas was contained in cylinders but would not admit that they knew what kind of gas it was. They also said that the men who operated the tanks wore protective masks and gloves.

All that day the Indians of the Lah.o.r.e division from our area were pa.s.sing through our town on the way to Ypres.

On Sunday afternoon Captain Ellis and I left for Vlamertinge to find out just what had happened. The suspense had become terrible and we felt like quitters because we were not in the salient fighting with our fellows. At Poperinge we saw a cart on the road beside a house which had been recently blown down by a sh.e.l.l. As we drove slowly by, a wounded old woman was carried out and laid beside the bodies of two other white-haired women who had just been dug out of the ruins.

Though fatally injured, they were still living, and I shall never forget the pitiful looks on those ashy gray faces as they looked up into my face with eyes like those of sheep about to be slaughtered.

At No. 3 Canadian Field Ambulance we found that 2,600 Canadian casualties had already pa.s.sed through during the three days since the gas attack. We heard there that Major Mothersill, Medical officer of the Eighth Battalion, had been lying out in front of the lines for two days, unable to move and apparently paralyzed. It was one of those personal experiences which brings the war home to us with startling reality, for I had made a tour of his area with him just a few days before. You hear of the loss of a thousand men and it affects you very little, but if you know personally a single one of the thousand, the news of his death may give you the blues for days. The loss of a million unknown Russians does not really mean as much to one as the loss of a single friend.

On our return trip we pa.s.sed a large number of London busses loaded with wounded; they were all sitting-up cases and were a very happy looking lot. It was an odd sight to see bus after bus tearing down that long, straight road, with the tall trees on either hand, each bus with rows of soldiers seated on the upper deck, with heads and arms bandaged, looking about at everything with the greatest interest,--like tourists rather than men who had just come from the very gates of h.e.l.l. They waved hearty greetings to the French artillery which was then pouring up the side roads.

As the French 75's b.u.mped along the roads, drawn by rat-tailed, wiry horses, they looked like pale blue, painted wooden guns, instead of what they were--the deadliest weapon that the war had till then produced. An officer who watched them the following day gallop onto the field, unlimber and start firing, told me that the way their fire covered that front was an absolutely uncanny sight. With mathematical precision the sh.e.l.ls would begin to drop at one end of a field and cut out a belt across it from side to side, the belt growing as each explosion threw up a splash of dust from the showers of shrapnel; having completed the belt they would begin another a few yards farther back until the whole field had been covered and not a soldier hiding anywhere in it left alive.

On the day of the first gas attack there were soldiers everywhere back of the line; that day as we drove home there was not a single one to be seen. They had all gone forward toward the front where they could be of the greatest use.

When the French people of the little villages through which we pa.s.sed saw the name "Canadian" on our car they nudged each other and repeated the word "Canadien." It was the name in everybody's mouth those days, for it was now general knowledge that the Canadian division had thrown itself into the gap and stemmed the German rush to Calais. The whole world was ringing with the story of how the colonial troops had barred the road to the channel to a force many times its size in men and guns, and armed with poison gas, the most terrible device of warfare that had yet been invented.

And well may it be said that the 22nd of April, 1915, was, to the allies, one of the two most vital days since the beginning of the war.

The Germans had planned to break through and seize the French coast along the narrowest portion of the channel. Once established there they would have attempted to cover the channel with their long range naval guns, while they would have established for their submarines harbours which could be protected by the same guns. Under such circ.u.mstances, cross channel traffic and the maintenance of our lines of communication would have proved to be a very difficult matter indeed, for the subs would then, at any time, have easy access to our channel path.

The importance of the Canadian fight during that first twenty-four hours was out of all ratio to the size of our forces. The whole success of the battle hinged on the attack by two battalions on the morning of the 23rd of April. These two battalions were sent up into the centre of the gap left in the line by the retreat of the French colonials. Supported by four field guns, they advanced steadily under a terrific fire from the enemy. As General Mercer said to me afterwards, it was, according to the book, probably as crazy a bit of military tactics as could possibly have been tried, but the very daring of the attempt proved its success. The Germans, believing that such a counter attack must be backed up by much stronger forces, hesitated to come on and the day was saved, for while they hesitated and made sure of their ground, troops were hurried up from other parts of the line and the Huns had missed their chance. That first night if the Germans had simply walked ahead they would have found nothing to stop them, but they were too much dazed with their own success to realize the situation and take advantage of it.