even eat and everyone just dropped into the straw and slept. We got just one day’s rest here and were as good as new for it — astonishing how quickly healthy, active men can recuperate.
Next morning, everybody got busy and cleaned up or dried out his kit, in anticipation of that promised week’s rest. But about four o’clock that afternoon we formed up and were marched some two or three miles distant for a review and talk by General Alderson, the Commander-in-Chief of the Canadians. We arrived at the reviewing ground a bit ahead of time and while lying about waiting we had our first sight of real war. It was high up in the air and well away from us, but it was a thrilling sight just the same. A couple of German planes were being shelled by some of our own anti-aircraft guns, and we held our breath expecting to see them come tumbling down at any minute, as the shells were apparently bursting right alongside the Germans. But none was hit and they went on their way. We soon learned that it was a rare thing indeed for a plane to be brought down by a gun on the ground. Later on I saw thousands of shots fired at them and never saw one hit by an “Archie” and only one hit by machine-gun fire from the ground. Most of the planes which are shot down are hit by machine-gun fire from another plane while in combat.
Generals are always late in keeping their appointments, but this one finally came. He looked us over and then gave the usual bit of hooey about what a splendid lot of men we were, glorious spirit, and all that, and then went on to say that as a reward for our magnificent appearance and maneuvering he was going to let us go right on up into the front line, instead of putting the battalion through the usual procedure in reserve and support. We got all swelled up about this, but later on learned the truth — that the British Army was about to start the big offensive known as the Battle of Loos and that at that time they did not have enough troops in France to be able to keep any reserve. However, that day we merely swung back to billets and spent a busy night getting our belongings together and packed, as we were to march at daybreak.
We moved out at dawn and had another stiff march of it, the weather having turned very hot again. Through Hazebrouck and many small villages we went, stopping at Bailleul for an hour’s rest. The Machine Gun Section halted right in the market square, so we had a splendid chance to see the main points of interest in this ancient town: the Hotel de Ville with its twelfth century trimmings and the Hotel Faucon, which latter I particularly remember owing to the excellence of its cold beer.
After our rest we continued on our way and as we advanced towards the east, we commenced to observe an increasing number of the scars of war. The first German push, in August, 1914, had carried them well into France but their repulse at the Marne had been so sudden and unexpected that they had no time to do much in the way of pillaging. Live stock was killed or driven off and the inhabitants had to stand for many indignities but, so far as we heard, there were no atrocities such as were reported from Belgium.
One of the boys pointed out a house which had a hole through it big enough for a cow to jump through, and we all realized, without a word being spoken, that it had been made by a shell. That was the first one, as we went along these signs increased and multiplied. Soldiers of the Pioneer Corps were busily engaged in repairing the roads, and in this work they were assisted by detachments of German prisoners, each wearing on his back the conspicuous PG (Prisonnier de Guerre). We had seen some of these prisoners before, at work on the docks at Havre.
Naturally, all these things helped to keep us going — even after we should have been utterly exhausted. At one place, I remember, we halted for a few minutes just opposite where an old timer of the Pioneers was shovelling the accumulated mud and debris out of the ditch alongside the road. As he dug up each shovelful, he deposited it on a little mound alongside the ditch and patted it down, accompanying the action with a flow of words such as: “There ye are, me laddie buck: rest aisy”: and a lot of other things which I dare not write.
Curiosity impelled one of us to ask him what in hell he was doing: whereupon he turned about and took the two or three steps necessary to bring him to our position. He reached in his tunic pocket and pulled out a lot of buttons and a belt buckle which bore the inscription: “Gott Mit Uns” and told us: “ ’E was a Oolan, ’e was. I dug the blighter up in the ditch an’ ’e was fair ripe, ’e was. ’ow about a bob for the buckle an’ a tanner apiece for the buttons — oo wants ’em?”
Some of our bunch bought the whole lot. That was the start of the souvenir-hunting craze. From trifles picked up in this manner, to various objects found in the ruins of the houses and the many types of fuses or, as we called them, “nosecaps,” we gathered and hoarded everything. When we finally commenced to get live prisoners we had perceptibly slowed down on this game. We had found that, although we might gather and accumulate the most wonderful collection of these trophies, whenever we made a move, it was necessary to ditch the whole lot.
Personally, I buried several cart loads of junk in various parts of West Flanders, in the hope that I might, sometime, get back to dig it up.
As we continued, the signs of war increased. More houses and outbuildings wrecked by shell fire, more graves alongside the road, each surmounted by a cross. Airplanes were continually in sight — both ours and those of the enemy. When we first watched the bursts of the “Archie” shells around an enemy plane, we were sure that it had been hit. A dozen — yes, a hundred shells might be exploded around it, but, so far as we knew, never a plane was brought down in this manner. To the observer on the ground it might appear that all the shell-bursts were very close to the plane, while, as a matter of fact, they might have been — and usually were — hundreds of feet away.
Dranoutre, which was our last stopping place before going into the line, was a small village of possibly five hundred inhabitants before the war. Now it had more than twice that population, due to the refugees who had come in from the East in advance of the German occupation. For some reason or other, this town had escaped any shelling, although every town, city and hamlet in the vicinity had been literally
We bivouacked in a field adjacent to the village and were allowed to ramble about and visit in the town itself. Very few of us had money enough to do much in the way of celebrating, however, so it was a very tame proceeding. About the only real excitement I saw there was when some of the boys, taking a bath in the town fish pond, stumbled on to a pike about two feet long. After a mad scramble, in which at least a hundred engaged, the fish was caught — and I suppose someone ate it.
We only spent one day and night at Dranoutre: that is, the Machine Gun Section. Next day, September 19,1915, the “Number ones” of each gun crew went in to locate the positions of the guns of the Surreys and the East Kents (The Buffs), whom we were relieving. The remainder of the gun crews came in that night and the infantry next day.
As we made our way, that Sunday morning, by a roundabout route through Locre and way stations, the signs of war became more and more evident until, at last, we came to the village of Wulvergheim. I say “village.” It had been that and probably a prosperous one; but now it was nothing but a ruin. No person lived there, every building having been utterly destroyed by German shells. Even the church had been destroyed, only one side of the clock tower remaining. The hands of the clock on this side were hanging limply in the position of about six-thirty. As though angered that even this small remnant should survive, the enemy persisted in shelling the ruined edifice every day while we were there. Thousands of shells were wasted on that little place. We never had a man in it, and when we left, the clock was still there.
Now, our little crowd was just an average bit of the long fringe of British soldiers who were at that time holding back the flower of the German Army. No better, no worse than the rest of them, and what I have to tell of them is going to be the
Why; damn you and God bless you; there was nothing of the kind in evidence. We probably had our inner feelings — I know I was particularly interested in a strange bird which I could not identify — but, so far as all this business of showing your emotions by facial contortions is concerned; well, there was no such thing. All that “blah” was invented in the movie studios of Hollywood and thereabouts. I recently spent a very uncomfortable hour and more, watching and listening to what was advertised as the Best War Picture. As it is so well known, I can see no reason for not naming it — “All Quiet on the Western Front.” The parts which dealt with actual battle were excellent. The properties — uniforms, and all that — were accurately portrayed and the depiction of shell-bursts the best I have ever seen. It was only in the portrayal of the individual
