The Emma Gees Part 9

We went over the position which extends from what was known as the Ravine, to a point exactly opposite Hill 60. At some places the lines were less than forty yards apart and it was possible to throw hand grenades back and forth. It required the entire day to familiarize ourselves with the wonderful maze of communication and support trenches at this place, as we had never seen anything like it before.

We had become so accustomed to doing without communication trenches that they were a distinct novelty. They, together with the many support trenches, made a perfect labyrinth: like a spider's web, only not quite so regular in form.

The next night we moved in. As the battalion was crossing the long open stretch we came under fire from an enemy machine gun and some men were hit. There's no use talking, no other weapon used in the war is as deadly as a machine gun. Where you can walk through an artillery barrage with a few casualties, the well-directed fire of only one machine gun will pile men up as fast as they come along. When one of them catches you in the open the only thing to do is to drop into the nearest hole and stay there until the firing ceases.

We went in on the night of the twelfth and the attack was scheduled for the night of the thirteenth, or rather the morning of the fourteenth, as the preliminary bombardment was to commence at twelve-forty-five and "zero" was one-thirty A.M.

This was the greatest place I have ever seen for rifle grenades and "Minnies." They came over in flocks or shoals and one must be everlastingly on the lookout to dodge them. But we had as many as they and also a lot of Stokes guns which seemed to "put the fear of G.o.d"

into the boche. They sprung a new "Minnie" here, much larger than any we had seen. It hurled a whale of a sh.e.l.l; not less than one hundred and sixty pounds of pure T. N. T., and what it did to our trenches and dug-outs was a sin. And the worst of it was, they had it in a hole in a deep railroad cutting at the bottom of Hill 60, where our artillery could not reach it.

At this time we had both the regular machine guns and also a lot of Lewis automatic rifles. Shortly after, the latter were turned over to the infantry companies, while the former were taken into the newly-organized machine gun corps, an entirely separate branch of the service, which was under the direct command of the Brigade Commander.

The guns were distributed along the line in favorable locations for either defense or offense but, as there were no prepared emplacements, the men had but little protection.

Here our work, as at St. Eloi, was to support the advance; in fact, that is the normal function of machine guns in an attack, although the lighter automatic rifles of the Lewis type are usually with the a.s.saulting troops.

Our "Higher Command" had learned a lesson from the St. Eloi experience and had brought up many new batteries, including a fair sprinkling of the "super-heavies" of twelve and fifteen-inch calibers. It has been said, on good authority, that we had more than one thousand guns concentrated on about a thousand yards of trench, or a gun to every yard, and I am perfectly willing to believe it after hearing them all at work. It was our first experience of that delightful situation where we had "superiority of fire" and it made everybody happy.

Afterward, on the Somme and Ancre, it had become a permanent condition; but to us, who had been "carrying on" under the overwhelming odds of the German guns, it was a welcome change. It did our hearts good to hear those monster thirteen hundred and fifty pound "babies" coming over our heads with a "woosh" and landing in the lines across the way, on Hill 60, where they left marks like mine craters.

We could put up with quite a lot just to see that, and although we were suffering considerably from the rifle grenades and the "Minnies,"

every one appeared to be in a good humor.

With everything ready we waited for the "zero" hour. Exactly at the designated time the artillery opened. It was as though all the hounds of h.e.l.l were let loose. Such a wailing and screeching and hissing as filled the air, from the eighteen-pounders ("whizz-bangs"), which seemed to just shave our own parapet, to the gigantic missiles from the "How-guns," as the Howitzers are affectionately called, each with its own peculiar noise. The explosions became merged into a continual roaring crash, without pause or break. Then our Stokes guns joined in, and, if there ever was an infernal machine, that is it. Vomiting out sh.e.l.ls as fast as they can be fed into its hungry maw; so fast, indeed, that it is possible for seven of them to be in the air at one time, from one gun, at a range of less than four hundred yards, it is the last word in rapid-fire artillery.

Of course the Emma Gees started at the head of the procession and kept up a continuous fire.

Fritz soon began to do the best he could but, what with the noise of our own guns and the bursting sh.e.l.ls, we were unable to hear his unless they struck very close. He did give us trouble, though, with that devilish Minenwerfer which sent over a wheel-barrow load of high explosive at each shot. He blew the left end of our line "off the map"

for a distance of a hundred yards or more and made it untenable--for any one but a machine gunner. The infantry was ordered to evacuate that part and did so, but not the Emma Gees; they stuck until one of the big "terrors," striking alongside, killed and wounded all the crew but one and then he still stuck it, loading and firing until I was able to get a reserve crew up to relieve him. He was a Scot, one of the kind that doesn't know what it means to quit. Here's to you, "Wullie" Shepherd, wherever you are!

The attack was carried off with absolute precision. At one-thirty the barrage lifted and over the boys went, sweeping everything before them, back to the original position and then a little farther for good measure. By daylight they had the new line so well consolidated that Fritz was never able to make a dent in it and the Canadian prestige was once more established.

At the left end of our line, where the Minenwerfer had done so much damage, was a mine shaft; one of many in that vicinity which our engineers were driving under Hill 60 (they afterward blew it up), and it seemed as though the boche knew of it and was endeavoring to cave it in with the "Minnies." In fact, they did succeed in partly destroying it, but the sheltering roof at the month of the shaft remained in fair condition, and as it was the only protective covering in that neighborhood, Bouchard and I were sitting inside, with our feet hanging down the shaft, holding down that end of the line. We had relieved the other crew, or rather I had sent them back about two hundred yards along the trench as a precautionary measure and then, feeling that some one _must_ remain to keep lookout, decided to take care of the job myself. The boy, of course, insisted upon staying with me. The big fellows were coming over with regularity (I nearly said monotonous, but those things never get monotonous), and were bursting too close for comfort. Bou had just made a proposition that we sneak over after dark and try to locate the devil-machine and blow it up, when we heard something moving below us in the mine-shaft, and a moment later a mud-encrusted face came up into the light. With an unusually fluent flow of "language," which sounded strangely familiar to me, two men came up the ladder, and as the first one emerged into the daylight he took a look at me and said: "h.e.l.lo, Mac; it's a long way to Ft. George, isn't it?" When he had removed some of the dirt from his face I recognized a miner, named McLeod, who had once helped rescue me from the Giscome Rapids and afterward worked for me up in British Columbia. He and his partner had been caught in the shaft and had been a day digging themselves out. After a rest of a few minutes they went their way, down the trench, and I never saw or heard of them again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Lewis Machine Gun Squad Observing with Periscope at Hill 60]

During the next hour or two I managed to work around through the wreckage of this part of our line, searching for wounded and making a list of the dead. I found none of the former, all having been removed by their companions when they were ordered to evacuate, but I did find a number of bodies which I examined for identification disks or other marks and made a complete record which I afterward turned in to our Headquarters. This is a custom that is always followed, if possible, so that, in the event that your own troops do not return to that spot, a record will be preserved and relatives notified. If this were not done, many would be reported as "missing" which is, to relatives, far more terrible than the knowledge that death has been swift and sure.

This is work in which many chaplains have especially distinguished themselves, often working close behind the advancing lines during a battle; writing last messages for the dying and compiling lists of the dead who may or may not be buried at a later date.

In burying dead on the field, every effort is made so to mark the grave that it may afterward be identified and a proper record obtained for the archives of the Graves Registration Commission. The best way is to write all the data, name, regiment and number together with the date, on a piece of paper, place it in a bottle and stick the bottle, neck down, in the top of the grave. If no bottle is available, the next best way is to write the record on a smooth piece of wood with an ordinary lead pencil which will withstand the action of water far better than ink or indelible pencil.

Here I had my last talk with Bouchard. He was very anxious to go to college and take an engineering course. I suggested Purdue, but he thought he would find it necessary to spend a year or two at some preparatory school. He had heard me speak of Culver and was very much interested in that place, and when I left it was definitely decided that, should he survive the war, he would spend at least four years at any educational inst.i.tution I might recommend.

As soon as darkness came our infantry returned, and by working hard all night managed to restore the damaged part of the parapet. I went back to my dug-out for a little sleep and had just made myself comfortable when a six-inch sh.e.l.l struck the place and drove me out, together with a companion, George Paudash, a Chippeway Indian and corporal of our section. We had several Indians, there being two pairs of brothers, all from the same reservation and all of them splendid soldiers.

We had several men hit that night by rifle grenades. I particularly remember two: Flanagan and McFarland. The former was. .h.i.t in numerous places, some of them really serious, but was most concerned over a little scratch on his face which he was afraid would injure his good-looks. McFarland, just a boy, about eighteen, had his left hand terribly mangled and nearly twenty pieces of metal in other parts of his body, but he laughed and called out: "I've got my Blighty; I've got my Blighty." His brother had been shot through both eyes and totally blinded a short time before. By the merest chance I saw McFarland a few days later, as he was being taken aboard a hospital ship at Boulogne and he then gave me his wrist watch, which had been shattered and driven into the flesh, asking that I send it to his father in Canada: I sent it by registered post, from London, but never heard from it.

The artillery fighting continued for several days and on the night of the eighteenth we were relieved and moved back to Bedford House, in reserve.

Next morning I was summoned to Battalion Headquarters and informed that I had been commissioned and was ordered back to England to act as an instructor in one of the training divisions. Our Colonel at this time also received his promotion to Brigadier-General and he promised, as soon as he was a.s.signed to a brigade, that he would request I be transferred to his command as brigade machine gun officer. He did, afterward, make an effort to have this done, but it was too late. I had finally got my "long Blighty," and was out.

It was hard to part from that old crowd. I did not know when I would get back, but we all knew, without question, that there would be other faces gone from the ranks before we met again. When I did return, during the Somme campaign, I was attached to another battalion and did not often see the Twenty-first and when I did, I recognized but few of them. They had taken part in the great advance of September fifteenth, which captured Courcellette and numerous other towns--the greatest gain ever made in one day on the Western Front until the recent one at Cambrai--and had helped to add another glorious page to Canada's brilliant record. But the cost was great. Many, oh, so many of the bravest and the best fell that day and among them was "my little boy," Bouchard, killed at the age of eighteen, after two years of service.

Yes; a boy in years, but he worked like a man, fought like a man and, thank G.o.d he died like a man--out in front, fighting.

CHAPTER XVII

DOWN AN OUT--FOR A WHILE

While the following has no direct connection with the machine guns, and is, really, a part of "another story," I think it fitting that I take this opportunity to render my humble tribute of grat.i.tude and admiration for the splendid work of the British Red Cross Society; and that the reader may fully understand, it is necessary to relate the occurrences which led up to my first hospital experience.

Upon returning to England, I was a.s.signed to a Training Battalion at our old camp--Sandling--but found the work so tedious and monotonous that I requested a transfer to other and more active duties, and soon after was engaged first, in conducting troops to France; then, as a messenger to and from the various headquarters; later, on court-martial work at Rouen and Le Havre; and finally rea.s.signed to the Fourth Canadian Brigade and ordered to the front, during the latter part of the Somme Battle. I was with a party of officers of the Gloucestershire and the "Ox and Bucks" (Oxford and Buckinghamshire) Regiments and through an error on the part of the R. T. O. (railway transportation officer) my transportation order was made out the same as theirs, and the first thing I knew I was away over on the right of our line, opposite Combles, where we joined the French. As there was a fight on, I went in with the "Glosters," and after the fall of Combles made my way up the line until I located my own command, near Courcellette.

Here I heard of the great advance of September fifteenth and also of the death of many of my old friends. Among them, it seemed, Bouchard and his crew had been wiped out by a big sh.e.l.l, but no one had been able to get back to look for them or bury them. I was very busy, but getting all available information as to the spot where they were seen to fall, I managed, at night, to make several trips over the ground, but without result. The spot was near the famous "Sugar Refinery,"

just outside the village, and as this had been one of the hottest places in the fight, there were many bodies lying around but none that I could recognize.

I had a cross made, bearing the names of all the crew and decided that, at the first opportunity, I would plant it at that spot; and when our whole division was ordered out, on October tenth, I took the cross and made my way up the Bapaume road and across the sh.e.l.l-torn field to the place. The enemy was sh.e.l.ling the road, dropping several heavies near me, so I hastily gathered into a sh.e.l.l-hole the remains of all the dead in the immediate vicinity and covered them up as best I could, then placed the cross firmly in the ground and turned to leave. I had not gone far when a "crump" struck so close as to stun and partly bury me. When I regained my senses I found that I could not see. My eyes, especially the left, had been giving me a great deal of trouble ever since I had been hit on the side of the face by a piece of sh.e.l.l at the time of the Bluff fight, but now they appeared to be entirely out of commission, and were very painful.

I lay there for some time, trying to figure some way out of it, all the time hearing the sh.e.l.ls coming over. This gave me an idea. Knowing the direction from which the sh.e.l.ls came with relation to the location of the road, I started out to make my way there. Troops were continually pa.s.sing at night and I would be sure to find a.s.sistance.

From that time on my remembrance of things is not clear. I have hazy recollections of falling into a trench, crawling out and getting tangled up in some wire and then, I think I fell into another hole. I do remember, distinctly, talking aloud to myself, as though to another person, and telling him to "get down on your knees and crawl, you d.a.m.n fool: first thing you know you'll fall into one of those deep holes and break your neck."

Whatever I did after that must have been done instinctively. (Was afterward told that I was found, lying stretched out across the Bapaume road.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Removing the German Wounded from Mont St. Eloi]

The next thing I knew I suddenly discovered that I was trying to _think_ of something. I believe I was conscious. I felt as though I _could_ move if I wanted to, but didn't want to. I could see nothing, but that also was of no importance. It was something else that was wrong and it worried me in a vague, half-interested sort of way. One thing was sure--I was dead, all right, and it wasn't half bad. Even if I couldn't see or move or think, I was not suffering any pain or inconvenience, which was a great relief from "soldiering." Nothing seemed to matter, anyway, and I guess I went to sleep.

I felt, or rather sensed, the presence of others moving about from time to time, but took no interest in the matter until, suddenly, back came the old feeling that something was not right--that there had been a big change in all the affairs of the world--and then, after what seemed hours of struggling with the problem, it came to me like a flash--it was the "quiet" that was bothering me. That was it; there was no noise; and then, my brain becoming clearer all the time, I began to wonder whether I was deaf or whether the war was over. It occurred to me that I might clap my hands or make some movement to find out whether or not I could hear, but the idea was dismissed as involving too much exertion; just as it was too much work to open my eyes to try to see.

Then I _heard_ some one come close to me, heard voices, faint and far away they seemed, so I shouted to them (I thought I shouted but it was only a mumbling whisper), and then a voice, low and close at hand, asked me: "Are you awake?"

"Course; what's matter?"

"Nothing is the matter; you're all right now. Don't you think you could eat something?"

I pondered that for some time, but as I was quite comfortable and could not see the sense of dead folks eating, anyhow, I declined and fell asleep again. It was too much trouble to talk, especially to answer questions.

When next I awoke it was different. I actually opened my eyes, or at least one of them, the other being bandaged, and I could see a face looking down at me--a face and a white expanse of something with a brilliant red cross in the center, and when the face asked me how I felt now and did I think I could eat a little, I grunted something which was intended to a.s.sure her that I was feeling all right and was hungry. At any rate, she understood, and disappearing, soon returned with a tray, loaded with things. She first helped me hold up my head while she gave me a tumblerful of hot milk with brandy in it, but that was no good--it would not stay down; so, after a little trouble on that account, she vanished again and came back with a pint bottle of champagne which she opened and fed to me; first a spoonful at a time and then a full gla.s.s. That paved the way all right and I was able to eat something, I don't remember just what, but it was good.

By this time I had discovered that I still had all my hands and feet and could move them about. Satisfied on that point, I asked where I was.

"Hospital; but you mustn't talk."

"What hospital; why can't I talk?"

"Number Twelve; but I think you should keep quiet and rest."

"Had plenty rest; where's Number Twelve?"