Let me here explain the line of the salient of Ypres held by us. South of Ypres, about four miles away, at St. Eloi, the opposing trenches ran straight south of Armentieres, a city named after Thomas de Armentieres, envoy of Flanders to Philip of Spain of Armada fame. From St. Eloi the German line was bent northeast running to what is called Hill 60, and from there northeast past Chateau Hooge to the village of Zonnebeke. From there the line ran almost north across Gravenstafel ridge to where Stroombeek Creek crossed the road from St. Julien to Poelcappelle, thence the line ran northwest past Langemarck to Bixschoote, on the Yperlee Canal which runs northwesterly. The British held the southern face of the salient as far east as Zonnebeke. The Canadian Division replaced a French division on the extreme toe along Stroombeek brook almost to Langemarck. From there on to Bixschoote two French divisions were garrisoning the northern face until they came in touch with the Belgians.

Roughly speaking the whole British front from north to south on the whole Flemish frontier is only about forty miles. All the Ypres salient is historic ground and every foot is rich in sentiment. Every farmhouse, every field bore the scars of war,—the houses and barns with their broken tiles, the fields with almost every hundred feet, a "crump" hole where a shell had fallen and exploded! Some of these holes were ten feet deep and thirty feet across. Life was cheap in this great salient and the Canadians were given "the post of danger, the post of honour."

There was no strategical reason why this salient should be held so far east of Ypres. If we kept our artillery west of the canal where they could not be enfiladed, the shells would not reach where the Canadian battalions were holding the trenches six miles away. If the guns were brought into the salient they could be bombarded by German artillery from each flank as well as the front. If the infantry line was broken at any point the whole would be compromised. There was the danger also of the canal in the rear with only a few pontoon bridges. The canal would be filled with our guns and dead. Very few of our men could escape. There were no troops but ours and the French on the left between us and Calais. Two weeks after the Battle of St. Julien the salient was flattened to conform with sound strategy.

The weather had been very fine and it was a bright clear day with clouds scudding across the sky, such as we see in Flemish pictures. Everywhere tall lines of elms and stubs of pollard willows filled the landscape. The cattle were grazing in the field and everything looked very peaceful. The larks were soaring and singing on high. Every now and then a muffled roar alone told us that there was war. Somewhere along the horizon to the south I could see the famous Hill 60, and east of it the Zillebeke ridge where, on October 31st, Moussey's Corps, with a division of the French Ninth Corps, made a great stand against the Germans and foiled their attack by calling in the cooks and transport men and dismounting their cavalry. There again in the evening of November 6th our Household Brigade under Kavanagh saved the situation that cost the British Blues and Second Life Guards their commanders. Along the same ridge towards Gheluvelt Cawford's Brigade came out of action reduced to its brigadier, five officers and seven hundred men.

A little to the north, on the afternoon of October 31st, the Worcesters made a famous stand, and on November 10th the Prussian Guard was wiped out by the Black Watch on the same spot. They tell how General French told the Black Watch that they had many famous honors on their colors that told of many glorious days, but that the greatest day in the history of the Black Watch was that on which they met the Jaeger Regiment of the Prussian Guard and the Jaegers ceased to exist as a unit.

Every little farm was dotted with graveyards where the British and French had buried their dead. On the way back to Ypres, Major Marshall and I took a short cut across the fields and ran into a battery of 4.7 British guns, Territorials. When they saw us coming they loosened up for our special benefit, and the first thing we knew the answer came back in the form of a heavy German shell that came within a few hundred yards of the British batteries.

That evening the British blew up Hill 60. Captain Frank Perry had been told off to assist the British engineering officers in this work. The explosion was followed by a most terrific cannonade and rifle fire which continued all night. This was a hot corner. During the night my slumbers were disturbed with the whistling of German high explosive shells in our vicinity.

On Sunday, April 18th, Canon Scott preached a sermon to the men. During the day several shells burst in the town and some of them not far from our billets. The inhabitants had begun to flee.

About eleven o'clock at night Canon Scott wandered into my billets. He had been holding service with the men and had lost his way. I was afraid he would get killed or drowned. He was so zealous, and such a charming character, he made an ideal chaplain. No hour was too late, no road too long for him. His son was wounded with another corps and would lose his eye.

Early in the morning Sergeant Miller of the headquarters staff called me to witness a duel between a German and a British aviator. It was a beautiful bright morning, with not a breath of air stirring and not a cloud in the sky. Away to the north the two aviators were at it, circling about each other like great hawks. The British aviator was the smarter of the two, and he finally got the Hun, whose machine started for the earth nose down at a terrific speed. Both of the German air men were killed we learned later. It was certainly a thrilling sight.

The next day, the 19th, more shells were thrown into the town. One shell fell into the billet where Lieutenant Frank Gibson was quartered. It killed an old man, his wife and daughter, a beautiful girl of seventeen. The back of her head was blown off. Lieutenant Gibson got a splinter of shell in the calf of the leg and had to be sent to the hospital to have it cut out. The Germans continued shelling the town all day. When they get beaten they always start shelling the nearby towns and work their spite off on the inhabitants. The blowing up of Hill 60 seemed to have stirred them to an extraordinary degree. Towards dusk I went down the Menin road to watch the bombardment. Some of our batteries, hidden in the hedges away on my right, were sending shrapnel across the German lines beyond Hill 60. I could watch the flight of the projectile and its bursting in a sheet of flame over the enemy's line. The opposing guns were hard at it, while away in the distance the rapid rattle of rifle fire told of the tragedies that were being enacted near the crater that Captain Perry had blown in Hill 60. Away to the south a momentary flash like sheet lightning on an autumn evening would light the horizon with a baleful gleam, and after a long interval the muffled roar of a "Grandma" would mingle with the twang of the bursting shrapnel. Truly as one British Tommy, who watched the battle, said, "Hell was let loose that night." As I returned to my billets along the ancient moat that at one time defended the city, shells passed over my head and a dozen or so aimed no doubt at the tall chimney of the ancient magazine de gaz fell within a few yards of my quarters.

On the evening of April 20th we were to take up the line of trenches held by the Sixteenth. The Germans still continued to shell Ypres, (which is pronounced Ep-r-r, E as in fee, two syllable r-r, the R sounded the Scotch way with a burr aspirate).

Shortly after luncheon Captain Warren and Lieutenant Macdonald came to the orderly room to ask some questions about the order in which we were to march into the trenches. An officer from each company had gone into these trenches the night before and looked them carefully over. The left section was given to Captain Osborne, the right to Captain McGregor and the centre to Captain MacLaren. The position consisted of seventeen half moon redoubts and they were not at all strong. Captain Alexander's company was to be in reserve with headquarters at St. Julien. As the officers had received orders not to go away from their billeting area, and had to receive permission to do so, both Warren and Macdonald asked me if they could go up to the Cloth Square to buy some comforts to take down into the trenches for the men. I gave my consent, but warned them to be careful and take cover from any shells that came along. About ten minutes later Lieutenant Macdonald arrived back breathless. He asked quite coolly, "Where is Major MacKenzie? Trum's hit with a piece of shell."

I immediately called the major, who was in the next room, and we learned that "Trum," as Captain Warren was affectionately called, had been badly wounded. He and Macdonald were standing in a grocery store at the north side of the square when a "Jack Johnson," as the huge seventeen inch shells fired by the Germans from the Austrian howitzers they have brought up to shell this town are called, fell into a building in the south side just opposite. The shell wrecked the building into which it fell, killing an officer and seventeen men. A piece about an inch square flew fully two hundred yards across the square, passed through a plate glass window, missed Macdonald by an inch, and struck Warren below the right collar bone piercing his lung. "They have got me in the back, Fred," were the last words he said. He was carried on a stretcher to the hospital a few hundred yards away, and the surgeon made an examination of his injury, cutting his clothing away. In a moment we saw there was no hope for him. It was only a matter of a few minutes. Canon Scott heard that he had been injured and hurried to the hospital. He had only time to repeat the prayer for the dying as poor Warren passed away in Major MacKenzie's arms. His death was a great loss to the regiment.



I left the arrangements for the funeral with our Quartermaster, Captain Duguid. He was to be buried the next night at the Place D'Amour.

Truly, this was a war of attrition. One by one we were losing the gallant young officers that came over with us to Flanders. Darling was wounded, Sinclair wounded, Warren killed. Sinclair had had a dixie of boiling water spilled on his leg while in the trenches and had received a very severe burn.

In the evening Captain Perry arrived from blowing up Hill 60. He had escaped as usual without a scratch. Perry bore a charmed life. I suppose it was because he lived so much in the north country in Canada among the miners who always carry a stick of dynamite in their boot legs. At the Rue Pettion billet he escaped the "coal box" that entered the next room in which Captain McGregor slept. The shell made pulp out of McGregor's clothes and belongings, but Perry was not scratched, although not ten feet away from where the shell burst. At Hill 60 he assisted the British engineer to run several mines under the German trenches. He was the last man out of the tunnels when they were loaded with several car loads of dynamite, and his was the grimy hand that touched the button that sent half the Hill and about eight hundred Germans into the air. He had a narrow escape from being buried alive.

Captain Perry had a terrible experience after the mine was blown up. As soon as the mine blew up the Germans turned all their artillery on the crater to prevent the British from taking possession till they could bring up reserves. The place became a living hell. Perry, after examining the crater with a lantern, found a German counter mine with a candle still burning in it. It had been vacated. He started to make his way out through a communication trench to make his report when he ran into a British brigade coming in and had to lie down in the trench and let the brigade pass over him. He was mud and sand from head to foot.



CHAPTER XXI

THE RED COCK CROWS

On the afternoon of the 19th I was very busy closing out my correspondence. I always made it a point while I was out of the trenches to answer all the letters I had received, and that usually occupied three or four hours every day while we were out of the trench line.

Previous to this our battalion has alternated with the Royal Montreal Regiment in our tour of trench duty. The rule used to be for each battalion to be three days in the trenches, and then three days out. In these trenches we were changed around. The 16th Canadian Scottish were to alternate with the 48th Highlanders. The 16th reported to us that the trenches were very bad, and we were to go into them the next night. This evening Majors Marshall and MacKenzie were out visiting company billets, and my Adjutant, Capt. Dansereau and I went into a small Flemish restaurant to have our dinner. While we were seated at the table an officer of the French Flying Corps and several of his men came in for something to eat, and we engaged in conversation. The French Officer, whose name is well known, and who was afterwards killed, was a small perky chap with black hair and eyes. His cheeks were hollow, as like most of the top-notch aviators he had had his teeth pulled out.

Many of the aviators have all their teeth drawn because when at very high altitudes it is very cold, and the nerves of the teeth become affected and give them most intense pain.

These officers told us that the French Flying Corps was going to leave that night for a district further south where there was going to be some "nibbling" at the German front. He told us further that the Germans were moving a great number of guns into the Ypres section, and that he had an idea that as soon as the Canadians and British took over the salient we would be "jolly well shelled," if not attacked in force. This was very cheerful news, and sure enough the next day they began shelling the city with big Austrian siege mortars, a shell from one of which killed Captain Warren.

In the evening of the 20th I rode out to the company billets to see that everything was in readiness for the battalion to take over the right section of our line from the 16th. The companies were to march into three sections independently, shortly after dark, and the idea was to have the relief over as quickly as possible. I found the men and officers in excellent spirits. Captain McGregor was to take the right section of our line, Captain Alexander the left and Captain McLaren the centre. They started off a little too early in the evening, and I had to send couriers to halt them and wait for the darkness. It was a beautiful spring evening, bright and warm. The larks were still soaring and singing in the sky, and the sun in the west was going down in a sea of gold and amethyst. South of us at about Hill 60 the guns were growling, the only sound at the moment to remind us of the war. But there was something else of ominous portent noticable. Simultaneously, northwest, east and southeast of our line three huge German captive balloons reared their heads for all the world like golden hooded cobras. Away, twenty miles to the south, in the sky could be seen the snaky outline of a zeppelin. The Germans were taking observations. When I reached the headquarters' line of trenches in front of our brigade headquarters, a few hundred yards west of St. Julien, I sent the horses back with Smith, my groom, and stood by the roadside to watch the companies go by. First came Major Osborne, who was to take the left, with his tam-o-shanter bonnet cocked on the side of his head, as jaunty a Highland officer as ever trod the heath in Flanders. His company swung after him, marching like one man. The trenches had certainly not taken anything out of them, for if anything they looked steadier and sturdier than they did the day they left their billets in Hazebrouck to take their first march in France.

Some distance behind came Captain McGregor, his two hundred and forty men tall as pine trees, with Lieutenant Langmuir and Lieutenant Taylor at the head of their platoons, both well over six feet. Next came Captain McLaren, always staid and correct, his company well pulled together, going so fast that a word of caution had to be given to them. Last of all came Captain Alexander, whose turn it was to be in reserve. His company was to occupy and act as part of the garrison at St. Julien, there to cover themselves with glory.

When I reached the village I found that Major Leckie was occupying the reserve headquarters of the 16th, and across the road was Colonel Meighen of the 14th or Montreal Regiment. The south section of the village was ours and the north was for the reserve corps of the battalion holding the left section of the line. The house in which we were quartered had at one time been a small restaurant, but the village had several times been shot up. The walls almost to the ceiling were plastered with blood. There was hardly a house in the village without several shell holes in the roof. Terrible tragedies had been enacted here. The gardens had a full crop of black and white crosses.

Colonel Meighen had a very swell house, the windows looking south towards Hooge and Hill 60. He came over and welcomed me to St. Julien and showed me his trench diary and plans of the trenches. Colonel Meighen was a very thorough and painstaking officer, very much loved by his men. Several companies of his battalion were French Canadians and they fairly worshipped him. He was a model trench commandant, never tired of strengthening the works, and always ready himself to do anything that he asked of his officers or men. He had made an excellent battalion out of his corps, and as we had alternated with them in the trenches until this turn, we knew their worth. His second in command, Colonel Burland, was also a keen and efficient officer. The commandant of the 14th was not a "fusser." He was always cool and collected and his example permeated his whole staff and officers. Captain Holt, his adjutant, was one of the hardest working officers in the division, cheerful, obedient and alert. He was a model staff officer.

Major Leckie turned over the trench diary to my adjutant. He reported that the 16th were hard at work fixing up the trenches which were in a very poor condition. His brother, Colonel Leckie, was down at commandant headquarters in the supporting trenches. Major Marshall went down to take over from Colonel Leckie, and I stayed at report headquarters to report back as quickly as possible that the trenches had been taken over. The 16th Battalion did not take very long to get out, and one by one our Captains reported their companies in place.

The battalions in the trenches reported that the front was quiet, and it was added that there had not been a casualty in our section among the French troops for a month.

My sleeping bag was placed in a corner of the only room with a sound roof in the house, and I slept soundly in spite of the blood-bespattered wall which told of a desperate struggle in this room during the great battles of the previous November.

In spite of the fact that the French had not had a casualty for a month, the map told me we were in the hottest corner in the whole of Flanders. I did not feel at all nervous, as a matter of fact after a person has been under shell and rifle fire for a few days he ceases to be nervous. Nerves are for those who stay at home. At first the heart action quickens a little with the sound of the explosions and the crack of the Mauser bullets, but after a while the nerves fail to respond and the action of the heart becomes slow and the beats below normal. The explosion of a "Jack Johnson" in the next room will not give you a tremor. Why should it? Jock will say, "If you are going to be kilt, you will be kilt ony-way." That is the everyday religion of the trenches. "When your time comes you will get yours, and all the machine guns and shells in Germany can have no potency if your time has not come."



War tends to make us all fatalists, and the officers have to be continually on the alert to keep the men from becoming careless.

In the morning I tried to arrange to go down to Ypres to the funeral of Captain Warren. Major Osborne wanted to go also and take a firing party with him, but much as he would have liked to acquiesce, General Turner had to refuse, for we were in a dangerous corner and no one could be spared. Lieutenant Drummond, his brother-in-law, was permitted to attend. Captain Duguid, the quartermaster, with the assistance of the engineers, had a metallic coffin made for him and they buried him in the Canadian burial plot.

That morning I learned of the death of Captain Darling in London. We had expected that Captain Darling would be convalescent shortly after he went to England, but about a week before news had come that gangrene, the terrible disease that took so many of our wounded, had infected his shoulder, and a number of serious operations had to be performed. Still we had hoped that his splendid physique would pull him through. But it was not to be, and the two comrades that had been the pride of the regiment died within a few hours of each other.

The whole Empire did not possess two kinder or braver men than Captains Darling and Warren. It is only when men go down into the valley of the shadow of death together that they learn to appreciate each other. In the trenches soldiers are true comrades, backbiting, lying and slandering is left to the slackers and "tin soldiers" who stay at home. Both these young men were in the flower of their youth, both left young wives, both were men of means, brought up amidst wealth and refinement. They gave up a good deal to go to the war, and their example and their lives should fix a tradition not only for their fellow officers of "The Red Watch" but also for the whole Canadian Army. They did not hesitate to "take their place in the ranks," and they died like the heroes of Marathon and Salamis.

Early in the morning a German aeroplane, an albatress, came over St. Julien. The German aeroplanes have a large, black maltese or iron cross on each wing. The allies have a red, white and blue rosette. Shortly afterwards the German artillery started to shell the southern section of St. Julien. They threw a few shells at the remains of the church, then they started after a house and large barn south of us, about half way to the village of Fortuin. The barn was a large structure covered with a couple of feet of rye straw thatch beautifully put on. In a moment there was smoke and we saw some Canadian artillerymen running towards the barn which was apparently full of horses. One after another the beautiful artillery teams were chased out of the burning structure which the Germans continued to shell. The horses were turned loose in the field and proceeded to enjoy themselves like colts, and although the Germans fired shrapnel at them they did not hit one. In a moment the "red cock," as the Germans say, "was crowing on the roof." The flames rose to a great height and in a few minutes there was nothing but the charred rafters left.

The trenches reported everything quiet for the rest of the day.

That afternoon along with one of my signallers, Sergeant Calder, I made my way to commandant headquarters at the northern extremity of Gravenstafel ridge, northeast of St. Julien. I met Colonel Meighen, who showed me a line of trenches east of the church which his battalion was putting in order. When I got down to commandant headquarters General Turner came along with his Brigade-Major, Colonel Hughes. They were looking over the position with a view to having some dugouts and rifle pits established about five hundred yards south of my headquarters to support our right in case of trouble, the intention being to put a company in reserve there. I found commandant headquarters located in a dugout in the rear of a ruined windmill. The charred timbers of the mill lay scattered about, and all that remained of the dwelling house was a heap of bricks and some tiles still sticking to the roof. A line of short irregular trenches ran across the front of the slope. Behind headquarters the hill sloped back to Haenebeek brook, northwest and southeast. Five hundred yards behind the Gravenstafel ridge ran the road from Zonnebeke to Langemarck. On this road immediately in our rear there was a ruined blacksmith shop and several old farm engines. Some of the implements bore the name of Massey-Harris, which brought back visions of Canada, and was another evidence of our coming world-wide trade, the possibilities of which first struck me when I saw the name of another Canadian manufacturer, Gurney & Co., on a heater alongside the tomb of William Longsword in Salisbury Cathedral.

A few yards south of the blacksmith shop a dressing station had been fitted up in the ruins of another farm house at a cross-road which subsequently came to be known as "enfiladed cross-road." In front of the blacksmith shop a clear spring of water ran out of a pipe and the water was cool and good. I quenched my thirst from the steel cup taken from a French Hussar's helmet. The man who wore the helmet was no doubt sleeping peacefully beneath one of the crosses that were strewn thickly over the little cemetery of St. Julien. These little graveyards were to be found in all the fields and gardens. It was wonderful how the French soldiers cared for them. Wherever a soldier of France lay there you would find a cross, with his name and the legend that he fell on the field of honor. The graves were usually decorated with tile and flowers, some real, some artificial. France thus silently worships the memory of her gallant dead.



CHAPTER XXII

GERMAN GAS AND TURCOS

"Be careful there," said Capt. McGregor. "The French were short of sandbags here and they have built several dead Germans into the parapets." I was examining our new trenches in the twilight and my nose had been assailed by that peculiar odor which emanates from the dead.

"Get plenty of quicklime down here to-morrow," I suggested. "Build some traverses where they are laid."

"You're pretty heavy, don't step too hard. Dead Germans there." Lieutenant Langmuir was then piloting me along his section.

"Out in front, there on the left, there is a dead French officer caught in the German wire. He has been hanging there since last November. The Germans have left him there. There is nothing now but a blue coat and red trousers."

This certainly was the worst corner in the way of trenches I had seen since we came to Flanders. Behind the ditch rows of crosses, black and white, stood up a few feet away, ghastly reminders in the half darkness of the toll that had been paid to take and hold the trenches. The defenders here were buried where thy fell.

Earlier in the day I went down to the front line and had leisure to examine the commandant's headquarters, which had been held by our gallant French Allies since November, 1914. It was a dugout in the rear of a ruined windmill, and contained several pigmy rooms. There was a room for the signallers, another for the adjutant and one for the commandant. The French officers had left behind them excellent maps of the German position showing their trenches, also panoramic sketches showing the roads, villages and houses opposite, with compass points. These sketches were the work of their gunners. No wonder the 75's were so deadly. Their efficacy is in their recoil and the "graze" fuze they use. Their high explosive shells strike the ground, bound in the air and burst about thirty feet forward from where they strike. In this way they form a curtain of fire filled with splinters of steel, over the German trenches.

I turned a copy of the panoramic sketch over to Major MacDougall of the Toronto Battery, when he went into the loft of a ruined house some distance away to check up his guns as they fired on the Poelcapelle road in front of us.

I slipped quietly into a fire trench on the forward slope of the ridge to observe the guns at work also. I had sent word down to Major Osborne in the forward trenches to clear the men out of the redoubts on either side of the road so that if a shell fell short it would not hurt anyone. The Canadian "observing officers" were always very careful in "registering," as they called it. They began by sending their shots well over the German parapets, and gradually coming closer, instead of firing a shell short, another long and dividing.

While we were observing the Germans replied to our guns, and very nearly got Major MacDougall. Poor chap, he was subsequently assassinated by a German spy or sniper behind in billets. His clothing was stolen and worn by the assassin who was caught and suffered the death penalty.

Major Marshall came along to see what was going on and stood for a minute at the head of my trench. The Germans spotted his Glengarry and began shelling my trench with "Jack Johnsons," and Major Marshall had to clear out. I stayed until they got tired of shelling and then had a good look at their lines through my field glasses. The ground sloped gently down from where I stood in the sap-head for about three hundred yards to our forward line of redoubts. Away to the northwest the double line of parapets disappeared in the trees and hedges around Langemarck. Just short of the village the Third Brigade (ours) took up the defence. The trenches here for about five hundred yards were held by the Royal Highlanders of Montreal. Major Osborne held several half moons on the far side of the Poelcapelle Road. Then our battalion lines continued southerly, running for about eight hundred yards till there came a gap which occurred between us and the Winnipeg Rifles. Immediately behind our line ran Strombeek River, (we would call it a creek). It marked the bottom of the slope and crossed the line of trenches held by the "Little Black Devils," as the men of the Winnipeg Battalion were called.



The line of the Second Canadian Brigade trenches then ascended the Gravenstafel ridge. On the east side of the ridge the land sloped up towards Poelcapelle and Roulers. This slope was not very steep, but sufficiently so to dominate the little valley in which were our forward line of trenches. All along the enemy's lines were various clumps of trees, each one of which no doubt concealed several batteries of artillery, referred to in the conversation of my friend of the flying corps. High above the trees and the distant red tiled roofs of Roulers I could see the spire of the Gothic Church of St. Michael. Beneath these walls on June 13th, 1794, a fierce struggle took place between the Austrians under Clerfait and the French troops under Marshal Macdonald, in which the French Republican troops of the latter were victorious. Beyond Roulers lay Ghent, Antwerp and Brussels. The high ground in front was strongly held by the enemy, for this was the key to the advance on Brussels and Waterloo.

My examination of our position ended. I began to retrace my steps to St. Julien, but the Germans spotted me in some way and followed me across the fields with salvos of high explosive shells. I could hear the shells coming as the field was dotted here and there with "crump" holes or craters where shells had fallen. I promptly ducked into a hole till the "whistling Willies" fell and sent showers of mud and flying steel over my head. I observed that sometimes these "crump" holes were very small, and found that after all in this war a small man had some advantage over me. I made my way back to the village, carefully reconnoitering all the trenches on the way, for I had a premonition that we might want to use them some time soon.

After dusk I returned again to commandant headquarters and went into the front line of trenches along with the ration party. There was lots of work to be done to strengthen our position if we were to hold our trenches as we had been ordered to do.

We started down the old disused mill road in the twilight of a lovely spring evening. Behind us the moon hung a silver bow almost on the horizon. It was going to be one of those nights, clear, but with objects not distinguishable at any great distance. Major Osborne met me at his dugout, which was on the east bank of the creek, and together we went on to the left of our line where his men were busy digging fire trenches in the rear of the half moons. Here I saw for the first time a line of French trenches. The French lines were held entirely different to ours. We usually built solid parapets of clay and sandbags high enough and strong to protect a man standing up, but the French usually do not allow this to be done. They had adopted their favorite method of entrenchment here, namely, a series of low parapets built in the form of half moons. My battalion held seventeen of these half moons and our brigade, I understood from our Brigade Major Lieut. Col. Hughes, held far more of the line than it was intended we should hold. About three hundred yards of our right line, some seven half moons, were to be turned over to the Second Brigade on the next relief.

I went over his section carefully with Major Osborne. All the young officers were hard at work bracing up the parapets, joining them together and rapidly erecting formidable defences. I consulted with them all as I passed along the line from left to right, Macdonald, Fessenden, Daniels, Taylor, Bath and Smith, and all were of one opinion, viz., that the half moons should be turned into small redoubts, and a line of parapets built as quickly as possible connecting them.

The French parapets were not built to be held, as we were ordered to hold our line. They build low parapets so the men will have to crouch behind them, and they will want to go forward and take the other fellow's line in order to get better quarters in the German trenches.

This corner had been the scene of some hot fighting at some period during the war, for in my tour of the trenches that night I encountered a dozen little graveyards a few yards in rear of the parapets.

Back and forward I went, and the entire line was canvassed and discussed. Lieutenant Fessenden, one of the most brilliant graduates of the Royal Military College, had a particularly hard spot to deal with, and was handling it in a manner worthy of any of the great Belgian engineers. Fessenden had a brother in the British army. No lieutenant in the whole allied army was a better student of the art of war, or a more fearless man, than this rosy-cheeked boy of twenty-two.

"Sandbags, and more sandbags!" was the reply of Lieutenant Macdonald, when I questioned him as to the requirements of his section. He was on the extreme left, and if anything happened on that side he was sure to be enfiladed. He was quite cool about it, however, a worthy namesake of the great Marshal who had fought so valiantly beneath the walls of Roulers a few miles away.

Lieutenant Smith, always cool and dour, a thorough Scot, was a man to be trusted in a tight place. Captain McKessock had a long talk with me about the machine gun positions. He had reconnoitred his ground very carefully, and had found several places back of the lines where he could mount a gun and rake the German lines if they advanced to the attack. Captain McKessock was one of the men who had sacrificed a great deal to do his share in this war. He was a captain in the 95th Battalion when the war broke out, and he brought a large quota of men to Valcartier. He joined the 48th and insisted upon having command of the machine gun section. It was pointed out to him that it was a subaltern's position, but he wished to have it, and his wishes were gratified. He left the position of crown attorney of a large district, with an income of ten thousand dollars a year, to go to the front, leaving behind him a wife and family. Such devotion to duty is exemplary. He understood his guns thoroughly, and is one of the few men I have met who had studied the tactical employment of the gun as well as its technical operation.

When I came to Captain Daniel's section he was waiting for me. Daniels was a very handsome man, an engineer of note, a graduate of the Technical Department of Mines in Queen's University. He, too, gave up a splendid position, as manager of a large mine in Cobalt, to go to the war. He was a very competent engineer and knew his work thoroughly. As we passed along his parapets we could hear the Germans talking, and a party of them out in front of their parapets were driving in stakes for their barbed wire. There was not much firing going on, and as we had several parties out in front engaged on the same task, we decided to leave our Saxon friends alone for the time being until ours got back under cover. We could see their ghost-like forms close by from our listening post. If we opened fire on them they would likely get some of our patrols.

Lieutenants Taylor and Langmuir were both busy at their sections. Langmuir was one of the "finds" of the 48th. He joined us at Long Branch by coaxing me very hard to give him a commission. I hesitated on account of his youth, but finally consented because I recognized a gleam in his hazel eyes that told me that if the occasion arose he would be a man of high courage. He was tall and slim with a bright color on his cheeks, and several of my older officers said it was a shame to take him along, he was so young that the hardships would kill him. I took him nevertheless, and though he knew very little about drill or military matters, he studied night and day so hard that it soon became known he was one of the best instructors in the battalion. He developed into a strong well built man, over six feet tall with broad shoulders and a commanding presence. He had a splendid grip on his men, who worshipped him and would follow him any place. Captain McGregor never tired of singing his praises. He was admired and loved by everyone, an ideal officer and a gentleman worthy to lead a Highland platoon or regiment anywhere. Taylor, who was with McGregor, looked up his captain for me when I came to his section. Lieutenant Taylor was a student at Oxford University when the war broke out. He threw up lectures and joined our battalion as a supernumerary. Our officers had almost all known him before. Standing over six feet tall, with the shoulders and chest of a young giant, Taylor was a man to be noted anywhere. He was famed both at home, in Canada, and abroad as a student and an athlete. He pulled a good oar, played a splendid game of football, hockey and lacrosse. He was an all round star, "a born leader of men," as Lieutenant Alex. Sinclair, himself a well known athlete, said to me when he was pleading Taylor's cause for a commission. Both Taylor and Langmuir were very fearless men. They were constantly out in front of their lines at night reconnoitreing the German lines and boldly trying to get a look into the German trenches. I had to check them several times and warn them against taking any unnecessary risks.

Daniels had a very hard section of trenches at Neuve Chapelle. He had gone out on the "devil strip" at night, reconnoitred his whole front and mapped it for an advance.

I arranged with Lieutenants Mavor and Fessenden to have a sketch of the line made showing the work proposed to be done. On our right there was a wide space between ourselves and the Winnipeg Battalion. This open space was protected by wire entanglements, but McGregor and Mavor both contended that it was a dangerous spot. I told them that it was the intention to give several of the redoubts on our right to a Company of the 8th Battalion, and that the order was expected to come through the following evening. Lieutenant Mavor accompanied me out to commandant headquarters. On the way out we met a working party of the Canadian engineers going in with Major Wright at their head. I could not help remarking about the commanding figure of Major Wright, who looked like a giant in the uncertain light, a paladin out of the pages of ancient or mediaeval history. I made my way back to St. Julien that night, not by any means satisfied with our military position. The Germans could certainly shell us jolly well if they liked, for so far only five of our own batteries had been put in position behind our lines. But the French had some ten batteries of 75's on our left rear and that was assuring. The way in which our fire trenches were sighted at the bottom of the Gravenstafel slope did not commend itself to me. It is very difficult to get a good position for trenches. If you go on top of a ridge, the enemy's guns will pound you to death, and if you lift your head they will get you with rifle fire on the sky line. If you dig in on the forward slope they will look into your trenches with their guns. If you go to the bottom of the slope, the enemy on the high ground on the other side can command your trenches. In rear of the crest, the old Wellington position is the best. Our supporting line held this position, but I felt that on the forward slope towards the enemy a few rifle pits would give us a chance to get at them behind their lines. This was to be attended to as soon as the work on the forward trenches was completed. This Ypres salient had only one thing of military value to commend it. It afforded a position in which troops could be massed to break through and advance on Ghent and Antwerp. I suspected that when the proper time came that was what would happen here. "Sentiment should have no place in business" is a hackneyed expression. War is a business, therefore sentiment should have no place in war. In war there is usually too much sentiment. We cling to impossible positions because we have won them and held them. We attack villages and redoubts that we should go around, and out of which the enemy would run the minute they found us on their line of retreat. We fail to support because we think it is a corps duty to hold their own line, which they may be able to do, but out of which if they had been supported they might launch a counter attack at the worn and shaken enemy which might bring us a notable victory. The principles of war which guided Wellington and his staff apply to this war. I often wished I had brought my "Napier's History" of Wellington's campaigns with me.

When we got back to St. Julien the staff told me that the Germans had registered pretty nearly all over the place during the evening, and that it was a case of shells from north, south, east and west. During the night I called up the various sections of our line and they all reported that the Germans were very quiet.

While I was doing the rounds of the forward trenches I could not help noting the roar of waggons and limbers along the whole German line in front of us. The night was very calm, and whilst it was quite usual to hear a lot of waggons about rationing time, still on this occasion the whole German line seemed to be in motion. I had never heard anything like it before. Something extraordinary was certainly happening. Either the Germans were changing the army in front of us, or else I thought they had got tired of holding the line in our immediate front, and anticipating a strong offensive of which rumors were abroad, they were preparing to retreat to the Rhine. I reported the occurrence to headquarters that night.

In the morning of the 22nd of April Lieutenant Drummond of the Royal Highlanders came to see me and told me he had attended the funeral of Captain Warren.

The Germans were shelling our billets and dugouts in St. Julien pretty heavily, and I was asked to look up some places outside of the town into which I could put some of the men and build new dugouts. I selected several places along the banks of Hennebeke brook where the ground was soft, and the shells would bury themselves and not explode, and started the men digging the dugouts. The particular spot which the Germans had chosen to shell that day was the "Cross Roads" and church of St. Julien. All of the church was gone but a piece of the spire. The graveyard in the rear of the church was torn all to pieces with "coal-boxes," and the coffins and remains of dead civilians and soldiers had been unearthed. These graves had already been carefully repaired by our men under Pioneer Sergeant Lewis under heavy shell fire. Some distance east of the church a line of fire trenches had been cut. These were to be occupied in case of an attack. The shelling continued all day. In the afternoon about four o'clock my adjutant and I visited the supporting trenches and dugouts at the forward lines. We had a chat with Major Marshall and some of the officers over the telephone, and repeated the orders given to me, that if we were attacked we were to hold the trenches till support came, for if we gave any portion of them up we would have to take them back ourselves with the bayonet.

Lieutenant Dansereau was returning with me about five o'clock to St. Julien to see what progress had been made on our new dugouts, when a very heavy cannonade and rifle fire broke out along the northeastern face of the salient along the section held by the French troops. The rifle fire seemed to grow heavier every minute and a strange yellow haze grew over the distant line of the French trenches. I remarked about the haze to the adjutant, and we both concluded that either the French or Germans were using some new form of gunpowder that caused the greenish haze.

For weeks we had become accustomed to heavy bursts of infantry fire, but these bursts had usually died away. This seemed to continue longer than usual. As we neared St. Julien I met Captain Alexander, and ordered him to tell his men to get their rifles and ammunition and "stand to." The Germans immediately began shelling our dugouts near the church with "coal-boxes," and in a minute they had put a shell into one of them and four men were killed. As I passed up the main street I warned the men and told them to be in readiness to take their places in the trenches in front of and at the northeast corner of the village.

I went to the battalion headquarters and ordered out the orderlies, and in a few minutes the French troops began streaming back without arms or accoutrements. To my horror I found that they were Turcos and not the regular French troops which we had thought were holding that part of the line. Lieutenant Dansereau spoke French to them, but many pretended they did not understand.

Almost immediately the bombardment of St. Julien became fiercer and the number of Turcos coming back greater. We hurriedly gathered as many as were armed of them together and sent them up to assist our companies in the St. Julien trenches. By this time the rifle fire was very intense and the gas so thick that it choked us, so I ordered every man to go to the trenches. I sent messengers to General Turner, V.C., to inform him of conditions and where we were.



CHAPTER XXIII

THE BATTLE OF ST. JULIEN

It did not take us very long to realize that a great disaster had befallen our gallant Allies who held the northern face of the salient. The Turcos in broken French explained that the Germans had sent asphyxiating gas from their trenches, and that the gas had killed one quarter of their men. For weeks we had been warned that the Germans were going to use asphyxiating gasses against us, but no one had ever dreamed that they would be so inhuman as to use gas that would kill, but they had done so, for the Turcos told us that many of their men had fallen dead where they stood.

The gas used was chlorine gas which is one of the by-products of the process whereby common salt is turned into soda, salt being a combination of soda and chlorine. When the salt is heated along with an acid the chlorine gas is liberated, the soda remaining. This soda is used in manufacturing soap. The chlorine is generally combined with lime to make chloride of lime or bleaching powder. In the chemical works of Germany the amalgamation of chlorine and lime was omitted, the chlorine being liquified under pressure in tanks. This liquid chlorine was a cheap preparation used largely for bleaching linens and cloth of various kinds manufactured in the districts in which we were fighting. The bleacheries were silent and there was no longer any use in the cloth industry for the German chlorine gas, so the Germans having plenty of it on hand no doubt decided to use it against the Allies.

We had staid a trifle too long in the village of St. Julien while the streets were filled with this deadly gas. Some of our orderlies could hardly escape and several of the headquarters staff had to be sent to the hospital. I had taken on a pretty stiff cargo of it myself. When it is first breathed it is not unpleasant, smelling not unlike chloroform, but very soon it stings the mucous membrane of the mouth, the eyes, and the nose. The lungs feel as if they were filled with rheumatism. The tissues of the lungs are scalded and broken down, and it takes a man a long time to recover, if he ever does fully recover after having some of the "upholstering" of his lungs destroyed. We did not then quite realize the horror of this new form of cowardly and inhuman warfare, but we should have known that the Germans consider war a game without an umpire or a referee.



Messages came promptly from General Turner, V.C., of the Third Brigade to hang on, that the Canadians were going to try and hold the Germans back until help came. We all knew we could depend on General Turner, V.C., and his Brigade-Major, Lt.-Colonel Garnet Hughes. We knew that we were fighting a rear guard action and that this was no time to think of running away. We hardly realized, however, that the Battle of St. Julien which had just commenced was to be one of the greatest battles in the history of the world, that the Canadian casualties were to be as great as the casualties of the British at Waterloo, that the total casualties of the combatants before the fight was ended were to number close to seventy thousand men, and that the Canadians, by brave fighting and losing sixty per cent. of their men for three days, were to hold in check five German army corps, or a total of close to a quarter of a million men.

The brunt of the fighting fell to the lot of the Third Canadian (Highland Brigade). Through their lines ran the frightened and disorganized Turcos, groaning and shrieking in agony and fright. The French artillery men, finding their lines broken and confronted with the deadly wall of chlorine gas which rolled slowly over the ground turning the budding leaves of the trees, the spring flowers and the grass a sickly white, destroying every living creature in its path, blasting and shrivelling everything over which it swept, cut their horses loose and fled, in many cases two of them clinging to one horse. Ten batteries, it is said, were lost in this way, a gap of nearly six miles was made in the French line through which the Germans poured firing rifles, machine guns and cannon at the fugitives. A Turco Division, and part of a French Division had fled. A remnant of French troops belonging to the "Iron Divisions" held on next the canal.

To meet this situation, the most alarming which had confronted a British General for centuries, there was for the moment only the reserve troops of one Canadian Division. These consisted of the 7th Battalion of British Columbia under Colonel Hart McHarg, which was in billets between Fortuin and Ypres, the 10th Battalion Calgary and Brandon under Colonel Boyle in billets in Ypres, and the 16th Canadian Scottish under Lt.-Col. Leckie billeted in Ypres and the farm cottages towards La Bryke to the north.

General Turner, V.C., of the Third Canadian Brigade, took prompt measures to ensure the safety of the line and the fighting part of the action was in sure hands. Not a moment was lost. Orders were sent down to the commanders in the trenches to hang on, and the 16th Battalion, Canadian Scottish, was ordered to "stand to" its arms on the outskirts of Ypres. Aid was asked from the 2nd Brigade, and the 7th and 8th Battalions were placed at the disposal of the Third Brigade Commander.

As there was only a very gentle breeze the gas did not clear out of the way very quickly, so that the victorious march of the Germans on Ypres was considerably checked. The Huns had a wholesome dread of the Canadian rifles and they advanced cautiously, firing "flares" in the air to mark their advance to their artillery. The flares flamed white in the dying sunlight.

The situation, as far as the Canadians were concerned, was that upon us there devolved the necessity of fighting a rear guard action. The word was passed from officer to officer. We knew we had to fight to the last. In a rear guard action every man has to be sacrificed. Behind us holding the other sector of the salient was the 27th and 28th British Divisions. If we gave way they would be slaughtered almost to a man, and the German road to Calais, forty odd miles away, only two short marches, would be open.

The Germans were spending millions of rounds of ammunition. The streets of St. Julien were covered with a curtain of shell fire, whilst the air was filled with the weird sound of the rifle bullets as they rattled a deadly tatoo on the few tiles that remained clinging to the charred and battered roofs. The air was thick with spent particles of steel and lead that rattled on the pavement and tiles as my Adjutant, Sergeant Miller and I made our way out of the burning shattered buildings through dense clouds of asphyxiating gasses that blinded us to the trenches at the east side of the village where Captains Alexander and Cory held their ground.

So far, so good. The fleeing Turcos had not spread panic in the ranks of the Canadians. Every man was prepared to die rather than give up the trenches. As we made our way to Captain Alexander in the gathering dusk we passed through a company of the 7th Battalion going into reserve behind St. Julien. As we reached the trenches we learned that the 7th Battalion had received orders, and were going to fill the gap between the defenders of St. Julien and the trenches held by the Royal Highlanders of Montreal and the 48th Highlanders of Toronto at the toe of the salient.

One of the first men to greet me when we got to the trenches was Captain Alexander, cool and imperturbable. He always had a pleasant word for everybody and a kind heart for his men. During the small hours of the morning the 7th Battalion slipped quietly past us, also a company of the Buffs. They quickly lined the St. Julien, Poelcapelle road and began to dig themselves in.

All through this trying time I was accompanied by my adjutant, Lieut. Dansereau, and Sergeant Miller. We all realized that the situation was very serious, but they were both very cheerful and Miller was in the best of spirits, cracking jokes with the men.

When the shelling of the village began, my men showed me a bomb proof cellar which they suggested that I should occupy. I examined it, but something compelled me not to stay in it. Inside of ten minutes it was destroyed by a couple of "coal boxes."

One of our signallers, Bell, tried to hang on to the telephone at our centre in St. Julien village, although two shells burst in the building and he narrowly escaped death. The signalling section under Sergeant Calder soon had the line connected up with our trenches, and Bell was ordered to leave St. Julien, which he did reluctantly although he had suffered a lot from the gas and had been slightly deafened by the explosions.

The chirpiest soldier in the whole outfit was Signalling Sergeant Calder, who was one of the shortest men in the regiment. The breadth of his shoulders and the burr on his tongue got him enlisted in the first instance. As he was stringing the wires to the trench he had to duck several times. "Here is where I shine by being a 'sawed-off,'" he informed me. We were soon in touch with commandant headquarters, and from Major Marshall I learned that our forward trenches were still untouched. As the night closed in the Germans redoubled their shelling of St. Julien. The charred church spire was lit up with the high explosive shells, and several fires broke out in the village and made the night hideous. Shrapnel broke constantly overhead spraying our trenches and several men were wounded. Several poor wounded Turcos had taken refuge in our trench. One of them, an under officer, informed Lieutenant Dansereau that the Turcos would stick with the British till the last. He added as an aside that he wished Algiers was as prosperous as Egypt. So much for this son of the desert who in this terrible hour envied the Fellah of Egypt who was permitted to follow his ordinary avocation as farmer, in the midst of all these warlike times, undisturbed by conscription or his British rulers.

As dawn came the German fire increased and my adjutant pulled a note book out of his pocket and began writing in it with a big blue pencil. I asked him if he was going to try and send a message through to headquarters. "No, sir," he said. "I am afraid I will not come out of this alive, so I am writing a message to my friends, I have reconciled myself to death."

I told him I felt sure that we were going to come out all right, that I had a "hunch" that we were, and that some time we would read that memo together under happier circumstances, and it would bring back memories of the Valley of the Shadow of Death through which we were passing together.

He shook his head doubtfully, and when I laughingly showed him a German horseshoe which I had picked up on the field when we first saw the gas and which I still carried in my overcoat pocket, he smiled but was not reassured.

However, the fact that he felt that we were both going to be wiped out did not dampen his courage. Strange to say my prophecy about his last message came true, for we read it together and laughed over it in Montreal, Canada, months later as I had predicted.

Before dawn several of my runners or signallers returned from brigade headquarters with the story of the fight around the farm house where General Turner, V.C., and Major Wright of the engineers had rallied the cooks and orderlies to the defence of the place. They told us how the 16th Battalion, the Canadian Scottish under Lieut.-Colonel Leckie and the gallant 10th Battalion under Lieut.-Colonel Boyle, had hurried from Ypres to the aid of their comrades. These two battalions reached the reserve trenches in front of Wieltje about eight o'clock, when they were ordered on to 3rd Brigade Headquarters and preparations made for them to counter attack the advancing Germans who had seized the wood northwest of St. Julien.

The counter attack was launched at midnight, the 10th on the right in two lines, and the 16th on the left. Major Lightfoot led the front line of his battalion, the 10th.

"Come on, boys," he said, "remember you are Canadians." The line advanced with great spirit, less than two thousand Canadians against a hundred thousand Germans. It was the biggest bluff in history but it won. On and on went the Canadians, 10th and Highlanders, one moment with the bayonet the next moment firing. The Germans, who were busy digging in south of the wood, saw the Canadians coming in the twilight, and only waited to fire a few shots and then they started to run. Lightfoot was down, but the line went on. Major McLaren fell, but the lines never wavered. They drove the Germans into the wood and clear through it on the other side. If there had only been plenty of supporting troops the German victory would not only have been stayed but the charging Canadians would have gone through the German army that night.

The British howitzer battery which had been lost was retaken, the French guns were recaptured and a great victory was in sight.

When the Germans were caught they began to throw down their arms and cry for mercy. The gallant Canadians gave it, but in the hot rush of the charge they did not wait to disarm their foe. The second lines merged into the first and the fight in the dim forest became Homeric. Then the cowardly Germans whose lives had been spared, plucked up their courage. They picked up their rifles and began like the Arabs in the desert to shoot the men in the back who had spared their lives. Colonel Boyle went down, killed almost immediately. He had led his troops on through the forest by voice and example, armed only with a riding crop. The Germans were driven beyond the northern edge of the forest. The charge by this time had spent a good deal of its force, and as the flanks of the charging lines were not protected, and men were falling on every side, it was deemed advisable to withdraw to the southern edge of the wood and occupy the line of shelter trenches which the Germans had begun to dig. This was one of the most gallant charges in the annals of the Empire. The fame of the gallant charges of the Canadians in St. Julien Wood will live forever in history, engraved in letters of gold.

Considering that the brave Canadians met a foe that outnumbered them over twenty to one, that they drove the enemy ahead of them, foot by foot, exacting fearful toll, their success was phenomenal and had a tremendous effect upon the conquering Huns, who had fancied Ypres was within their grasp. The German Emperor, it was said, had come especially to the western front so as to be able to make a triumphal entry into the last city left to the King of Belgium, Ypres, and to be on hand when his guards and marines from the Kiel Canal, who were present in large numbers, did the goose-step down the Rue Royale to Calais. The courage of the Canadians proved his undoing.

The struggle in the Wood at St. Julien will go down to history side by side with the fight at Albuera and the hand-to-hand struggle at Inkerman. It was a soldier's battle, and many brave men fell. When roll call was held in the morning only five officers and 188 men of the 10th responded, whilst the 16th Canadian Scottish could only muster five officers and 260 men unhurt. The command of the 10th, owing to the death of Colonel Boyle, devolved upon Major Ormond, who gallantly held the position gained during the next day and until Saturday morning, when he was relieved and sent as support to the 8th on Gravenstafel Ridge where I met him and his remnant at Enfiladed crossroads, the hottest part of the line.

The brigade bomb throwing unit assisted in the charge on the St. Julien Wood, and few of them lived to tell the tale. One of them belonging to the Red Watch returned, Pte. Adkins, a boy of nineteen, and from him I learned many of the facts I have recounted.

In the meantime what steps were being taken to succor the hard pressed 3rd Brigade? A portion of the 45th French Division was still hanging on to the extreme left of the French line. They had fallen back to try and conform with the general retirement on their right, but they pluckily determined to try and extend their ground by a counter charge near Pilken and regained some ground.

West of the Yperlee Canal at Vlamertinghe the 1st Canadian Brigade was in billets. Two of the battalions, the 2nd and 3rd, were sent to aid the stricken front. The 1st and 4th were kept in divisional reserve west of the canal. The 2nd and 3rd marched through Ypres and up the St. Julien road. It was there they got their first real baptism of fire. They advanced in open order and the German guns gave them "the curtain of fire." The 1st and 4th were later sent, first to the banks of the Yperlee Canal and subsequently to take part in the counter attack along with the rest of the Canadian Division. By three o'clock in the morning all the Canadian troops that were in reserve were up and at it, "hammer and tongs," driving back the Germans and trying hard to reconstitute the broken line from St. Julien to Pilken.

In the counter attack some very brave deeds were performed by the Toronto Regiment. As they marched down the stone road to St. Julien they came under the intense shell fire, "the curtain of fire," which the Germans were directing against all the approaches to our position along which reinforcements might come. Here and there a shell would fall in the ranks, but the regiment would only pull itself together and keep on. East of Wiltje a big shell fell and when the smoke cleared away Macdonald of the machine gun section, Ross Binkley, Broughall and Bickerstaff, four of the most popular young men in the battalion, great athletes and football players, had paid the price. As they neared the 3rd Brigade Headquarters they were put into the headquarters trenches. Later on two companies were sent to fill in the vacant space between the right flank of the 10th and the corps that held the village of St. Julien. The companies that advanced were the Body Guards, the Mississauga Horse and the Royal Grenadiers, and they behaved splendidly.

As morning dawned the situation as far as we could learn was as follows: The British section of the salient had not been attacked beyond some desultory shelling. The section held by the Second Canadian Brigade had remained untouched also. This section ran from Gravenstafel northerly. First, the 5th Battalion on the right, the 8th battalion on the left. Then the 15th Battalion (the Red Watch) less one company, held the line along Strombeek creek as far as the Poelcapelle road. The 13th Battalion (Royal Highlanders of Canada) carried on till their line almost reached Langemarck. Their left was very much in the air. The line then bent back towards the Poelcapelle-St. Julien road, and in the gap there was a company of Buffs sent to try and fill in the opening. They stood almost back to back with the 13th. Then came three companies of the 7th Battalion. A company each of the 14th, "The Red Watch," and the 13th with some Turcos were holding the trenches in front of the village of St. Julien. The Third battalion had succeeded in getting into touch at St. Julien and continued the line to the 10th south of St. Julien Wood. The 16th Canadian Scottish continued the line with some supporting companies of the 14th on their left. Here a gap occurred, defended by a few groups from the 2nd, and further along astride the Ypres Pilken road the 1st and 4th Canadians were fighting like heroes. The Canadians during the night had reconstituted the line, but at great cost. The troops in this front line all came under the command of General Turner, V.C., of the 3rd Canadian Brigade, as senior officer present. His experienced eye recognized the weak places, and his staff, headed by Lt. Colonel Hughes, was there ready to lead the units to their proper places. Each Canadian unit as it came opposite its place had been ordered to attack, and after advancing some distance they were ordered to dig in, which they did.

The irresistible bayonet charges of the Canadians had misled the Germans, for their advance was paralysed and they had for the moment lost the initiative.

Here is where a great military mistake was made but not by the Canadians. The German staff came to the conclusion that there must be thousands of supporting troops behind the charging Canadians and made the biggest mistake of the war. But the Canadians had not accomplished this bluff without much loss of life.

One of the first officers of my acquaintance to fall on the evening of the 22nd was Lieutenant Drummond of the 13th Battalion. I had spoken to him in the morning. When the Turcos had come streaming across the field, tearing through his company of Montreal Highlanders, he, together with Major Norsworthy, gallantly tried to rally these men, along with my adjutant. Drummond fell, together with his comrade, each a victim to a German bullet. No braver lad, no more ardent Highlander ever donned the tartan of the Black Watch than Lieutenant Guy Drummond. When he fell Canada lost a valuable and useful citizen. His training, education and charm of manner, coupled with his intense patriotism, marked him for a great career. Major Norsworthy, his friend and comrade, fell by his side.

Further along the line held by the Toronto Regiment, Captain George Ryerson fell at the head of his company. "Happy" George, his comrades all called him, for he was worshipped by his men as he always wore a smile. No man ever saw a frown on the captain's face. Lieut.-Colonel Boyle had made the supreme sacrifice at the head of the 10th. Major Maclaren of the same battalion had been wounded in the charge at St. Julien Wood and was killed outright by a shell in the ambulance on the way to Poperinghe.

Word drifted through to me that our transport billets at Ypres had been shelled and that Sergeant-Major Grant, "Soldier Bill," as he was called by our men, had been dangerously wounded on the way down to the trenches with ammunition. Macdonald, a gallant corporal of the quartermaster's department, had also been badly wounded and much regimental property destroyed and lost.

We passed a very disagreeable night. The trenches were wet and unpleasant and the incessant shelling made it impossible to move. Several wounded Turcos in the trenches kept moaning like fretful children. Every time a shell burst there was a hideous chorus of groans and wails from them. Finally an exasperated Highlander shoved a rifle butt threateningly in front of the groaning figures and the noise was stopped. It is a strange thing, but I have never heard a Canadian groan when wounded.

As the east reddened the sentries called out to the troops to "stand to," and I watched the men as each one stood up in the trench and watched the sun rise. Many of them saw it that morning for the last time. Shortly after the order came to "stand down."

The quartermaster succeeded in getting some rations through to us. Captain Duguid and Capt. Jago never failed. During the remainder of the fight they fed the whole brigade.

My forward line reported "all well," and we were cheered by the knowledge that the advance of the Hun had been checked, and regardless of numbers we felt we could hold them.

As the men were ordered to "stand down" I watched them one by one start cleaning their rifles, getting ready for the stern business ahead the coming day. Their conduct so far had been splendid, and as I thought of them in this critical hour standing in the gap for the Empire, I realized that a new figure had risen in the lurid battle-swept horizon of Europe, that of the Canadian soldier, young, athletic, tense, alert and indomitable, a figure that will now live as long as history and song is written. Unconsciously there rose that morning in my mind the majestic words of the great Milton:

"Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissent nation rousing herself like a strong man after his sleep and shaking her invincible locks."

Those soldiers of ours that had barred the Hun were well worthy of the Homeric age fit to follow old Cromwell and his Ironsides. That night had witnessed thousands of gallant deeds that pen may never tell and to which neither crosses or medals could begin to do honor.



CHAPTER XXIV

HANGING ON

"Stretcher for Captain Cory."

A cry went along the line of the trenches, and two stretcher bearers jumped up on the parapet and ran towards the Poelcapelle Road, along which Captain Cory's platoon held the trench.

A groan went up from the whole line. We all thought Cory had been hit. He was a universal favorite.

Only a few minutes before as dawn broke my officers in the front trenches came to me to report and have a cheery word. Captain "Bob" Cory, Captain Alexander, Lieutenant Barwick and Lieutenant Jones all reported and stopped for a moment's chat.

While we were at Cassel, Captain Cory had obtained leave of the general officer commanding, the blessing of his own commanding officer and the good wishes of his brother officers, and had gone to London for two short weeks and there married Miss Telfer of Collingwood, Canada. She reached England with her sister, Mrs. (Major) Porter, too late to become a bride before the regiment started for France. Captain Cory would not transfer and stay in England, so the first opportunity that came he was granted leave. Marriage had quieted him down a lot and I kept cautioning him, for the sake of the wife he had left behind, to be careful.

Barwick and Jones wanted leave to take their platoons down to the forward trenches to assist Major Osborne. Cory said that with the Turcos, and the other two platoons of the company, he could hold the trenches at the northeast angle of the village, so I consented to their leaving. It was a very brave offer, and it showed excellent spirit on their part to wish to go and participate in the defence of the peak of the salient which was considered the most dangerous part of the whole line.

As Captain Cory was on his way back to his position one of his men was hit with a machine gun bullet and they called for a stretcher. I started to go down the line to where he was, but was told he was all right, that it was one of his men that had been wounded.

My signallers reported to me that all night long the fighting had continued in front of St. Julien, the Germans trying to force an entrance at the northwesterly side between the village and the wood. The village had been shelled continually. During the night several limbers of artillery came clattering down the road, dodging shell holes, dead horses and men, followed by the wakeful German guns, as the gunners knew that these limbers held ammunition for the Canadian artillery in the first line. The Germans seemed to have a weird sense of what was going on on our roads. The 10th Battery under Major King was at the cross roads at Kersselaere. During the night Major King gallantly ran one gun by hand well forward on the left of the Royal Highlanders to try and stop the advance of the victorious Huns. It was Major King's ammunition that came rattling down the ruined streets of St. Julien during the night, and when the "coal boxes" fell at the concrete bridge over the Hannebeek creek where it crossed the road not far from the ruined St. Julien church, the horses and several of the riders fell to rise no more. Nothing daunted, the non-commissioned officer in charge returned for help to man-handle his precious load down to the guns at the trenches. Captain D.S. Gardner of the 7th took a squad of about thirty men and they manned the limbers, and amidst a perfect hail of shells and bullets drew the ammunition down to Major King, who lost no time in firing it point blank into the Germans that were advancing on Kersselaere cross roads. They were mowed down in heaps by the shrapnel. The German advance was stopped at this point and the gun was later taken out safely.

Throughout the battle no Canadian guns were lost.

As usual with the morning sun, there came from the east two large German aeroplanes with the ominous black crosses on their stiff outspread wings. They flew low and seemed particularly interested in our breakfast bill of fare. The warning whistle was blown as they approached and everyone lay down in the trenches as still as death. The Germans seemed to satisfy themselves that there was nothing in our trenches, for after they returned to their own lines they stopped shelling the church and graveyard close by which up till then had been their favorite target. When they stopped shelling the church and graveyard the scene was dreadful. The walls of the church and rafters were torn to pieces. But it was the cemetery that presented the most grewsome sight. Graves, ancient and modern, were torn open and coffins and corpses were strewn in all directions. Our dead had been disinterred a second time. I set a party to work under Sergt. Lewis to repair this damage.

We learned in the morning that some British troops had been sent to the assistance of our severely pressed left flank. This detachment was under the command of Colonel Geddes and consisted of the remnants of seven mixed battalions from the 27th and 28th divisions that had held the southern face of the salient. They were detachments of the 3rd Middlesex, the 2nd East Kents, the 1st South Lancasters, the 2nd East Yorks, the 9th Royal Scots, the 5th R. Lancasters, the 2nd D. of C. Light Infantry. The 5th Lancasters and Royal Scots were Territorials, the rest of the detachment were regulars. This brigade went to the assistance of the French remnant left at Pilken, and they helped to reconstitute the line after a gallant charge in which the French and Canadians joined, closing up a gap at this point.

Along towards noon, Colonel Loomis, who had his headquarters west of the village of St. Julien, sent for Captain Alexander. I told Alexander to take a couple of men with him in case anything happened to him as the shelling in the village was very heavy. He did so, and was gone about an hour. He returned alone looking very grave, and I asked him what was the matter. He told me that on the way out his men had fallen at his side, killed by a shell.

About eleven o'clock we noticed very heavy shelling and gas fumes rising in the direction of our front trenches east of Kersselaere. There was a pretty stiff breeze blowing, and shortly after we saw the gas our guns began firing and there was a terrific burst of rifle fire. We recognized the "chop" of the Ross rifle and knew that our men were in action at the extreme angle of the salient. Major Marshall telephoned me from his headquarters that the Germans were gassing and that they were following up the gas with an attack.

I was very anxious but soon learned that the German attack had been beaten off, for their artillery as usual began working off their spite on the farm houses in our rear. I also learned that although the shelling was very heavy we had escaped so far with very few casualties. About noon I began to realize that I had not eaten anything since breakfast the previous morning, when my meal had been disturbed by the German shells and the tragic death of the sentry at our headquarters. Some one handed me a tin of "bully beef," and I ripped the top off with the trusty hunting knife which had been my faithful companion on every expedition I had made into the unknown wilds of Canada for the past twenty years, and I finished that tin of beef with apologies to "Fray Bentos."

In the afternoon I started down for the front line of trenches to see how they were getting along there. Capt. Dansereau accompanied me. At first he insisted that I should not go down into the "devil's corner," as they called it, and said he would go down and look it over and come back and report to me. However, when he saw I was determined to go he got his revolver and insisted on coming along. I bade good-bye to Capt. Alexander and the brave lads that were holding the St. Julien village trenches. Many of them would "return to Lochaber no more."

We made our way down to commandant headquarters. On our way we passed in the rear of the 7th Battalion and noted that the British Columbians knew how to use their shovels and grubbers. They were busy in spite of sniping and shell fire fortifying the line of the Poelcapelle Road for some distance east of the St. Julien and in rear of Kersselaere village. Colonel Hart McHarg was there directing the men. When we got to headquarters we found Major Marshall quite cheerful. Lieutenant Shoenberger wore his customary grim smile as he told me how our men had driven back the attacking Germans a few hours before. The Germans had "gassed" them twice, but the wind was too high and it blew the deadly fumes over the parapets. The men waited till the Germans emerged from their trenches three or four deep to charge. Then our whistles blew, and hundreds of them were cut down and piled on top of each other before they broke and ran back to their trenches. One machine gun got about 200 of them.

They told me that Major Kirkcaldy of the 8th Winnipeg Rifles had come over from their headquarters on the Gravenstafel Ridge to reconnoitre. Orders had come through that after dark the 13th Battalion, whose left flank was much exposed to enfilade fire from some machine guns, were to retire, pivoting on our left flank at the Poelcapelle Road and linking up with the 7th and Buffs. They were to dig in, trenching the line in rear of Kersselaere. Part of the 7th Battalion, which was virtually in support of them, were to hook up with our supporting trenches, thus forming two lines. The orders were that the 48th Highlanders were to hold their original trenches and protect, and the 7th were to conform. We were all warned to hold our trenches at all costs.

The order to conform and to consolidate, which reached the 7th, sent Lieutenant-Colonel McHarg out to reconnoitre his front about five o'clock in the afternoon to find out the most favorable place to build the parapets. Lieutenant Matheson of the engineers had arrived and Lt.-Colonel McHarg, Lieutenant Matheson and Major Odlum proceeded down the slope from their lines towards some ruined houses in their front, which they entered, and from the back windows of which they immediately saw the enemy lining the hedges not one hundred yards away. When they started back uphill the Germans opened fire on them and Colonel McHarg was instantly shot through the stomach. Major Odlum made his way out and sent Captain Gibson, the battalion surgeon, down to attend to the wounds of their commanding officer. Gibson stalked fearlessly down to where his colonel lay, picked him up, got him under better cover and dressed his wounds, and that night after dark they got him out. There was much gloom and sorrow among the British Columbians that night for they all loved their colonel and they knew that there was very little hope for him. He died the following day at Poperinghe. Thus died one of the bravest of the Canadians, a splendid soldier, the champion sharpshooter of America, for that matter of the world. He had always displayed great coolness and daring, and British Columbia will always cherish and revere his name.



The command devolved for the time being upon a worthy successor, Major Odlum.

At dusk I checked up the casualties over the telephone and I learned that we had only a total of forty-seven for the strenuous twenty-four hours, and that most of these were in the trenches of St. Julien. Lieutenant Vernon Jones and Lieutenant Barwick came along with their men, and they helped to take double rations and ammunition to the left flank company commanded by Major Osborne. They were ordered to close the rear of the redoubts with sandbags so as to save their men from enfilade fire which they were sure to get in the morning, as soon as the enemy had discovered that the 13th had retired to take up a new line. During the attack at noon the 13th had their line pierced at one point and a machine gun belonging to the Germans was brought through and put into position in a farm house surrounded by a moat in the rear of their lines. From this farmhouse the Germans were giving them all kinds of trouble, and it was to relieve this pressure chiefly that they were ordered to retire. The suggestion to bomb the Germans out was not practicable. Our guns were too few to cope with the powerful German artillery, although well served.

Company Sergeant-Major De Harte came up from the trenches along with the ration party at eight o'clock and told me the story of the gassing and bombing in the morning. When the Germans sent their gas over the wind was too high and it blew over the top of the trenches. The 48th waited until it passed over, then as soon as the gas and shelling ceased they manned the parapets knowing that an attack was coming. The whistle blew and the Ross rifle rang out a deadly hail that tumbled the Germans in heaps and sent them scurrying like rabbits for shelter.

The Huns gave us no more trouble during the afternoon and the men were confident of their ability to cope with any force that might come against them. Word came through to be sure and hold our trenches at all costs as help was coming. This message was sent direct to the trench line. Major Osborne asked me what would happen if the ammunition ran out. I told him the standing orders of the trenches were that we must use our side arms. Our standing orders read as follows:

"All ranks must realize the exact nature of the duty they are called upon to perform for the moment and must not exceed this duty. This duty is to hold the trenches at present handed over to their care at all costs against all comers, and on no account to give up the line. If attacked the men must continue firing and remain at their posts. If the enemy endeavors to rush the parapets the men will use their bayonets. Any of the enemy who make their way into the trenches must be bayonetted. The regiment is provided with ample supports in the rear. Any of the enemy who gets beyond our trenches will be taken care of by the supports. Each man must fire low and steadily."

As the night closed down the heavens were lit with the German flares and the lurid flashes from their guns. I took a long look over the battle line and I confess I thought our chances of ever getting out were very slim. The German flares crossed each other in the heavens behind us. In our left rear, and all around to the right rear, I could see the angry red flashes of the thousands of guns they were directing against our devoted defenders. I began counting the batteries, but after I had reached a hundred I concluded they had enough. Almost every calibre of gun was being used against us, from the great seventeen inch Austrian siege mortars they were firing at Ypres and Poperinghe behind us, to the nine, seven, six, five, four and three-inch high explosive shells that were filling the air with their fiendish notes.

Bayonets, brawn and bull-dog courage were all we had to match against all the resources of chemistry and mechanics of our enemies. They might poison us, destroy us or take a bit of the line here and there, but take the city of Ypres—not that summer, not so long as a Canadian arm was left to defend the stricken salient.

At twelve o'clock that night I checked up my sketch of our position after having a bowl of soup in Major Marshall's dugout. The second brigade line was untouched. So was the 48th. The 13th were withdrawn from their trenches and were digging in along the slope on our left flank. One company of the Buffs, one of the 5th and two companies of the 14th were mixed up in the line here, along with the three companies of the 7th that were consolidating their trenches along the Poelcapelle Road towards St. Julien where they linked up with the 48th, 13th and 14th Companies of the garrison. From the left flank of St. Julien, the 3rd Toronto Regiment, two companies, joined up with the 10th and 16th at St. Julien Wood. Then came Geddes' British Brigade, and on their left the 13th British Brigade under Brigadier-General R. Wanless O'Gowan. This brigade arrived in the afternoon from Hill 60. It was made up of what was left of the tired 1st West Kents, 2nd King's Own Borderers, 2nd York Light Infantry, 2nd West Riding, 9th London, all from the 5th Division that had lost half their officers at the crater blown up by Captain Perry. Next came the 1st and 4th Canadians, and then the French troops held as far as the canal.

There had been little or no change during the day. The honor of holding the dangerous angle of the great salient at Ypres had fallen to the lot of the Canadians. The Red Watch held the danger point, the toe. It was our duty to hang on and die to the last man until help came and the French line was reconstituted as it was when the French Turcos broke before the deadly gas. Like typical Highlanders we were the "Forlorn Hopes" of the Empire.

It was away after two o'clock in the morning when the shelling died down a bit in our front. I threw myself down in the dugout and fell asleep. I slept with revolver ready and boots on and got in a few winks. I was awakened at about a quarter to four by loud talking and the roar of guns. I jumped up and turned out to get a glimpse of what was going on in the trenches in front. I met Capt. Dansereau, who told me the Germans were again trying to gas the 48th. True enough, in the grey dawn a heavy yellow pall hung over our trenches and there was a sweet pungent smell of chlorine in the air. The two platoons that were in dugouts were at once sent to their stations in the supporting trenches. Major Marshall and Capt. Dansereau went into the trenches with them, while Lieutenant Shoenberger and I remained at the dugout trench at the telephone. There was a slight lull in the cannonading for a few minutes, then the German guns began to speak in louder and more insistent tones. I looked around the salient, shaped like a man's right foot, of which we were the toe, and hundreds of batteries seemed to be turned on our trenches, both front and supporting. Again and again salvos of "coal boxes" fell in succession along the parapet. Talk about Neuve Chapelle, we were getting our own back with interest. All the German batteries were concentrated on our parapets and the trenches held by our regiment. Pandemonium reigned along the front line of trenches. The Germans followed up their gasses again with intense rifle and machine gun fire. Up and down along the parapets of the redoubts the shells kept dropping, throwing up huge pyramids of black smoke fifty feet in the air. These blasts resembled rows of black trees or fountains. How anything could live in that seething vortex, created by the bursting high explosive shells, is a mystery. Many a brave Highlander would see the lone shielings and the misty mountains of Canada no more. All this time the Germans were industriously shelling the dugouts and supporting trenches where our supports were located and along the Gravenstafel Ridge. Huge shells fell like hail. Those that failed to burst in the air exploded the minute they struck the hard untilled clay of the fallow fields and fragments flew in every direction. One fell on the roadway about twenty feet away from me. Two men who were standing under cover of the broken wall of the windmill crumpled up like green leaves in a forest fire. They were done for. They were giving us a double "curtain of fire" as well as the death dealing gasses.