A Rifleman Went to War

down into Picardy, but the Flemings never showed a trace of the real friendliness with which the French greeted us.

One night I was with a crowd in an estaminet, in the village of LaClytte. A sergeant in our party bought a round of drinks and, as he pulled out a handful of silver coins to make payment, noticed one particularly bright new coin. It was a Belgian franc and, as he passed the change over the bar to the proprietor, he called attention to the new coin, which bore the likeness of King Albert. The man took the coin, looked at it and then deliberately spat on it, at the same time almost shouting, “Bah, he make the war, the ––.”

Well, there were four of us in our party, all standing close together and if ever there was unanimous and synchronized action, it was right there. The man who had passed the money, being a little closer, hit him first but all hands got at least one good crack before the bar went down. Several other natives joined in and a good time was had by all until the military police came in and took charge. The whole place was a wreck and I suspect that many a Canadian soldier went back to billets that night with a bottle or two which he managed to grab during the fracas. The M.P.’s on being informed as to the circumstances decided that the fellow had only got what was coming to him and took no action whatever.

That is just an instance, to illustrate the temper of these people. The whole region was a nest of spies, some of whom were detected from time to time, but probably the majority of them went all through the war without being discovered. It was pretty generally believed that the Germans had been for many years, “planting” spies in that neighborhood, in fact I think there is no doubt at all that they did the same thing all over France, too.

No one knows how many schemes these people had for getting information across the lines. For a while, they made use of the windmills — spelling out messages, in code, by manipulation of the sails. After this was discovered, all the mills were required to keep the sails at exactly a certain angle when not running. That they made use of pigeons was well known but, for a long time, it was a puzzle as to how they brought the birds over from “Germany.” When one of our men happened to see a small parachute coming down out of the sky, well in back of the lines, just after dusk one evening, that puzzle was solved, for in a cage attached to the parachute were four pigeons. These were turned in to our Intelligence Department, and if they did not make good use of them they were not as intelligent as I give them credit for being. A chance like that, to send over misleading information, would hardly be overlooked.

At another place, near Wulvergheim, we found, in the old shell of a wrecked farm building, a giant periscope which extended from the ground floor up through the chimney, which was still standing. With such a device, it was a simple matter to send over a message by simply using a flash-light at the bottom mirror.

Doubtless there were certain men who made it their regular business to go to and fro between the lines. Not nearly so difficult as it might seem, at that. Disguised as one of our men, they could walk right up into the front line and wander along until they found a likely looking spot and simply crawl over. We had a few who did the same thing — going the other way, but not so many, I believe, as the enemy, as these fellows were right at home and knew every inch of the ground.

One morning, just after “stand-to,” I captured a German who deliberately climbed over our parapet. He said he was a Canadian officer but, as he was dressed in full German uniform, I did not take his word for it but sent him back under guard. He swore that he would have some awful things done to me but they never materialized.

Soldiers at the front seldom have any opportunity to hear of the underground work of the Intelligence System, as most of their work is done away behind the lines. As a matter of fact, it is a waste of time for any spy to search for information from the men in the front line. They don’t know a damn thing beyond the fact that they are there — and wish they were somewhere else. The contour of the lines themselves and the building of any new defensive works can almost invariably be detected from the airplane pictures which both sides are constantly making. No, the spy gets in his work back around the Headquarters. Of course he may pick up some minor information as to when such and such an outfit is going back into the lines, from any more or less befuddled soldier in some estaminet, but seldom is this of much value for, like as not, the soldier did not know anything about it and was just talking for another drink.

That we had some spies in our own ranks is undeniable. One such, whom I knew, was a sergeant in charge of a line of trucks which brought supplies up from the base at St. Omer. I say he was a spy. Well, he was in the pay of the enemy, anyway, but his principal job was to carry messages from the real spies back at Headquarters and transmit them to other operatives at the end of his route, which was, at that time, the village of LaClytte, where our Battalion had billets when not in the lines. He was a fine looking, upstanding chap and very popular with all ranks. I will not mention his name, as he was detected, long after, down in France and I suppose they did the usual thing to him although I never heard anything definite about the matter after he was arrested and taken away. The worst of it was that he was really a native born Canadian, which makes it all the harder to understand how he happened to “get that way.” Thank God, he was not a member of our Battalion.

We had good, first-hand evidence that the enemy was well informed as to our movements, as they greeted us, by the number of our battalions, the very first time we went into the line — and quite frequently afterward. I doubt if our side ever did equal them in this respect. It was almost a hopeless case, where most of the population was against us and for the other fellow. Perhaps that is one reason why they did not attempt the trench raids — for prisoners — as we did. That was the only way we could find out what troops were opposing us. They (the Germans) did take up the trench raiding business in earnest down in France and it may be that it was because they did not have such a good native espionage system down there.

However, back to our story about the doings at Captain’s Post. One morning, soon after we took over the position there, I was up in the hay loft with Bouchard, looking over the country, when we heard a shot, evidently fired from nearby, and then heard an outcry from a trench a short distance to our right (it was a communication trench called Poppy Lane) and saw several men carrying another out into the roadway. Bou grabbed me by the arm and said, “There he is, Mac, that’s the fellow that shot him, get the son of a –– something or other.” I looked where he was pointing and, sure enough, a slinking figure was coming down along a hedge which concealed him from the men over at Poppy Lane but exposed him to plain view from our position. I took my glasses and could see that he was not in uniform, but he had a rifle and certainly was trying to escape notice. He kept looking over to where the group was gathered around the trench entrance, and, while I was watching him, stuck the rifle under a bunch of litter and bushes which grew alongside the hedge and then started to crawl away toward the woods — Maple Copse, I think it was called. I did not have time to do much thinking but simply acted on impulse. Taking deliberate aim, I shot him through the middle and he dropped.

Then I commenced to feel a little bit shaky. Down in my heart, I knew that I was right but the whole thing came up so quickly and was so queer all round that, for a few moments, I was at loss as to what to do. The result was that I swore Bouchard to secrecy and we went down and joined the rest of the bunch at breakfast. Later in the day, Norton-Taylor came around. He was a sergeant at that time, but he was a good soldier and my personal friend, so I told him all about it and, as soon as it began to get dark, we went out to have a look. We found the fellow dead, of course. He was dressed in the usual costume of the farmers thereabouts and had not a single thing on his person but his clothing. I soon found the rifle which he had cached and it was a regulation French Lebel. He had never even ejected the empty cartridge case, and the magazine contained three other cartridges. Hughie, that is, Norton-Taylor, agreed with me that the less said about the matter the better, so we just rolled the body over under the hedge and left it there, together with the rifle. From that day to this I have never mentioned that affair to anyone. During the succeeding days there were numerous instances of such murderous sniping behind our lines, and several of the culprits were caught and executed, toute de suite.

On the fifteenth of October, the entire Battalion moved on up into the front line (I remember that date, because it was my birthday), and next day I was delegated to pick out a good strafing position from whence we could harass the enemy with machine-gun fire. This phase of machine-gun work was new then, having been developed by the Canadians within the last few months. It soon became the regular procedure and every machine- gun section maintained one or two strafing guns wherever they happened to be located, if within range of the enemy.

I had located a good sniping nest in the ruins of an old farm building which was known as Sniper’s Barn. I suppose the name was given it because when we first went there we found the body of a French soldier lying with the muzzle of his rifle poked through a small hole in the brick wall and eight dead Germans lying out in front. They finally got him but he certainly had a good balance to his credit before they did it. This place, like all the farm buildings in that part of the country, was a substantially built brick house or, rather, group of buildings, consisting of