Chapter II: Part 2

Yet even batmen are born, not made. Lucky is he who strikes on one of the former; only the man is sure to get killed, or wounded, or go sick! There is always a fly in the ointment somewhere. The best kind of batman to have is a kleptomaniac. Treat him well and he will never touch a thing of your own, but he will, equally, never leave a thing belonging to any one else!

“Cozens, where did you get this pair of pants?”

“Found them, sir!”

“Where did you find them?”

“Lying on the floor, sir,” with an air of injured surprise.

“_Where!_”

“I don’t justly remember, sir.”

Voice from right rear: “The Major’s compliments, sir, and have you seen his new pants?”

“Cozens!”

“Yessir.”

“Give me those pants.... Are those the Major’s?”

“Yes, sir, them’s them.”

Cozens watches the pants disappear with a sad, retrospective air of gloom.

“You ain’t got but the _one_ pair now, sir.” This with reproach.

“How many times have I got to tell you to leave other people’s clothes alone? The other day it was pyjamas, now it’s pants. You’ll be taking somebody’s boots next. Confound it. I’ll--I’ll return you to duty if you do it again!... How about all those handkerchiefs? Where did _they_ come from?”

“All yours, sir, back from the wash!” With a sigh, one is forced to give up the unequal contest.

Albeit as valets the batmen of the present day compare feebly with the old type, in certain other ways they are head and shoulders above them. The old “pro” refuses to do a single thing beyond looking after the clothing and accoutrements of his master. The new kind of batman can be impressed to do almost anything. He will turn into a runner, wait at table, or seize a rifle with gusto and help get Fritz’s wind up. Go long journeys to find souvenirs, and make himself generally useful. He will even “bat” for the odd officer, when occasion arises, as well as for his own particular boss.

No man is a hero in the eyes of his own batman. He knows everything about you, even to the times when your banking account is nil. He knows when you last had a bath, and when you last changed your underwear. He knows how much you eat, and also how much you drink; he knows all your friends with whom you correspond, and most of your family affairs as revealed by that correspondence, and nothing can hide from his eagle eye the fact that you are--lousy! Yet he is a pretty good sort, after all; he never tells. We once had a rather agéd sub. in the Company whose teeth were not his own, not a single one of them. One night, after a somewhat heavy soirée and general meeting of friends, he went to bed--or, to be more accurate, was tucked in by his faithful henchman--and lost both the upper and lower sets in the silent watches. The following morning he had a fearfully worried look, and spake not at all, except in whispers to his batman. Finally, the O.C. Company asked him a question, and he _had_ to say something. It sounded like “A out mo,” so we all instantly realised something was lacking. He refused to eat anything at all, but took a little nourishment in the form of tea. His batman was to be observed crawling round the floor, perspiring at every pore, searching with his ears aslant and his mouth wide open for hidden ivory. We all knew it; poor old Gerrard knew we knew it, but the batman was faithful to the last, even when he pounced on the quarry with the light of triumph in his eye. He came to his master after breakfast was over and asked if he could speak to him. Poor Gerrard moved into the other room, and you could have heard a pin drop. “Please, sir,” in a stage whisper from his batman, “please, sir, I’ve got hold of them TEETH, sir! But the front ones is habsent, sir, ’aving bin trod on!”

The biggest nuisance on God’s earth is a batman who spends all his spare moments getting drunk! Usually, however, he is a first-class batman during his sober moments! He will come in “plastered to the eyes” about eleven o’clock, and begin to hone your razors by the pallid rays of a candle, or else clean your revolver and see if the cartridges fit! In his cups he is equal to anything at all. Unless the case is really grave the man wins every time, for no one hates the idea of changing his servant more than an officer who has had the same man for a month or so and found him efficient.

Not infrequently batmen are touchingly faithful. They will do anything on earth for their “boss” at any time of the day or night, and never desert him in the direst extremity. More than one batman has fallen side by side with his officer, whom he had followed into the fray, close on his heels.

Once, after a charge, a conversation ensued between the sergeant of a certain officer’s platoon and that officer’s batman, in this fashion:

“What were _you_ doin’ out there, Tommy?”

“Follerin’.”

“And why was you close up on his heels, so clost I could ’ardly see ’im?”

“Follerin’ ’im up.”

“And why wasn’t you back somewhere _safe_?” (This with a touch of sarcasm.)

“Lord, Sargint, you couldn’t expect me to let _’im_ go out by ’isself! ’E might ha’ got hurt!”

RATIONS

“Bully-beef an’ ’ard-tack,” said Private Boddy disgustedly. “Bully-beef that’s canned dog or ’orse, or may be cats, an’ biscuits that’s _fit_ for dawgs.... This is a ’ell of a war. W’y did I ever leave little old Walkerville, w’ere the whiskey comes from? Me an’ ’Iram we was almost pals, as you may say. I worked a ’ole fortnight in ’is place, at $1.75 per, an’ then I----” Mr. Boddy broke off abruptly, but not soon enough.

“Huh!” broke in a disgusted voice from a remote corner of the dug-out, “then I guess you went bummin’ your way till the bulls got you in Windsor. To hear you talk a chap would think you didn’t know what pan-handlin’ was, or going out on the stem.”

“Look ’ere,” said Boddy with heat, “you comeralong outside, you great long rubberneck, you, an’ I’ll teach you to call me a pan-’andler, I will. You low-life Chicago bum, wot never _did_ ’ave a better meal than you could steal f’m a Chink Chop Suey.”

“Say, fellers,” a quiet voice interposed, “cut it out. This ain’t a Parliament Buildings nor a Montreal cabaret. There’s a war on. If youse guys wants to talk about rations, then go ahead, shoot, but cut out the rough stuff!”

“Dat’s what _I_ say, Corporal,” interrupted a French-Canadian. “I’m a funny sort of a guy, I am. I likes to hear a good spiel, widout any of dis here free cussin’ an’ argumentation. Dat ain’t no good, fer it don’t cut no ice, _no’ d’un ch’en_!”

“Talkin’ of rations,” drawled a Western voice, “when I was up to Calgary in ’08, an’ was done gone busted, save for two bits, I tuk a flop in one of them houses at 15 cents per, an’ bot a cow’s heel with the dime. You kin b’lieve me or you needn’t, but I _tell_ you a can of that bully you’re shootin’ off about would ha’ seemed mighty good to _me_, right then, an’ it aren’t so dusty naow.”

Private Boddy snorted his contempt. “An’ the jam they gives you,” he said, “w’y at ’ome you couldn’t _give_ it away! Plum an’ happle! Or wot they call plain happle! It ain’t never seed a plum, bar the stone, nor a happle, bar the core. It’s just colourin’ mixed up wiv boiled down turnups, that’s what it is.”

“De bread’s all right, anyways,” said Lamontagne, “but dey don’t never git you more’n a slice a man! An dat cheese. Pouff! It stink like a Fritz wot’s laid dead since de British takes Pozières.”

Scottie broke in.

“Aye, but hold yerr maunderin’. Ye canna verra weel have aught to clack aboot when ’tis the Rum ye speak of.”

“Dat’s all right,” Lamontagne responded, “de rum’s all right. But who gets it? What youse gets is one ting. A little mouthful down de brook wot don’t do no more than make you drier as you was before. What does de Sargents get? So much dey all is so rambunctious mad after a feller he dasn’t look dem in de face or dey puts him up for office! Dat’s a fine ways, dat is! An’ dem awficers! De limit, dat’s what dat is. I was up to de cook-house wid a--wid a rifle----”--“a dirty rifle too, on inspection, by Heck,” the Corporal supplemented--“wid a rifle, as I was sayin’,” continued Lamontagne, with a reproachful look in the direction of his section commander, “an’ I sees wot was in de cook-house a cookin’ for de awficers” (his voice sunk to an impressive whisper). “D’ere was eeggs, wid de sunny side up, an’ dere was bif-steaks all floatin’ in gravy, an’ pottitters an’ _beans_, an’ peaches an’ peyers.”

“Quit yer fool gabbin’,” said Chicago. “H’aint you got no sense in that mutt-head o’ yourn? That’s food them ginks BUYS!”

Boddy had been silent so long he could bear it no longer.

“’Ave a ’eart,” he said, “it gives me a pain ter fink of all that food the horficers heats. Pure ’oggery, I calls it. An’ ter fink of th’ little bit o’ bread an’ biscuit an’ bacon--wot’s all fat--wot we fellers gets to eat. _We_ does the work, an’ the horficers sits in easy chairs an’ Heats!! Oh _w’y_ did I join the Harmy?”

At this moment, Private Graham, who had been slumbering peacefully until Lamontagne, in his excitement, put a foot in the midst of his anatomy, added his quota to the discussion. Private Graham wore the King and Queen’s South African medal and also the Somaliland. Before drink reduced him, he had been a company Q.M.S. in a crack regiment. His words were usually respected. “Strike me pink if you Saturday night soldiers don’t give me the guts-ache,” he remarked with some acerbity. “In Afriky you’d ha’ bin dead an’ buried months ago, judgin’ by the way you talks! There it was march, march, march, an’ no fallin’ out. Little water, a ’an’ful o’ flour, an’ a tin of bully wot was fly-blowed two minutes after you opened it, unless you ’ad eat it a’ready. An’ you talks about food! S’elp me if it ain’t a crime. Rations! W’y, never in the ’ole ’istory of the world ’as a Army bin better fed nor we are. You young soldiers sh’d learn a thing or two afore you starts talkin’ abaht yer elders an’ betters. Lord, in th’ old days a hofficers’ mess was somethin’ to dream abaht. Nowadays they can’t ’old a candle to it. Wot d’yer expec’? D’yer think a horficer is goin’ to deny ’is stummick if ’e can buy food ter put in it? ’E ain’t so blame stark starin’ mad as all that. You makes me sick, you do!”

“Dat’s what _I_ say,” commented Lamontagne!

From afar came a voice crying, “Turn out for your rations.”

In thirty seconds the dug-out was empty!

OUR SCOUT OFFICER

We have a certain admiration for our scout officer; not so much for his sleuth-hound propensities, as for his completely _dégagé_ air. He is a Holmes-Watson individual, in whom the Holmes is usually subservient to the Watson.

Without a map--he either has several dozen or none at all--he is purely Watson. With a map he is transformed into a Sherlock, instanter. The effect of a _new_ map on him is like that of a new build of aeroplane on an aviator. He pores over it, he reverses the north and south gear, and gets the magnetic differential on the move; with a sweep of the eye he climbs up hills and goes down into valleys, he encircles a wood with a pencil-marked forefinger--and asks in an almost pained way for nail-scissors. Finally, he sends out his Scout Corporal and two men, armed to the teeth with spy-glasses and compasses (magnetic, mark VIII), to reconnoitre. When they come back (having walked seventeen kilometres to get to a point six miles away) and report, he says, wagging his head sagely: “Ah! I knew it. According to this map, 81×D (parts of), 82 GN, south-west (parts of), 32 B^1, N.W. (parts of), and 19 CF, East (parts of), the only available route is the main road, marked quite clearly on the map, and running due east-north-east by east from Bn. H.Q.”

But he is a cheerful soul. The other day, when we were romancing around in the Somme, we had to take over a new line; one of those “lines” that genial old beggar Fritz makes for us with 5.9’s. He--the Scout Officer--rose to the occasion. He went to the Commanding Officer, and in his most ingratiating manner, his whole earnest soul in his pale blue eyes, offered to take him up to his battle head-quarters.

This offer was accepted, albeit the then Adjutant had a baleful glitter in _his_ eye.

After he had led us by ways that were strange and peculiar through the gathering darkness, and after the Colonel had fallen over some barbed wire into a very damp shell-hole, he began to look worried. We struck a very famous road--along which even the worms dare not venture--and our Intelligence Officer led us for several hundred yards along it.

An occasional high explosive shrapnel shell burst in front and to rear of us, but, map grasped firmly in the right hand, our Scout Officer led us fearlessly onwards. He did not march, he did not even walk, he sauntered. Then with a dramatic gesture wholly unsuited to the time and circumstances, he turned and said: “Do you mind waiting a minute, sir, while I look at the map?” After a few brief comments the C.O. went to earth in a shell-hole. The Scout Officer sat down in the road, and examined his map by the aid of a flash-light until the Colonel threw a clod of earth at him accompanied by some very uncomplimentary remarks. “I think, sir,” said the Scout Officer, his gaunt frame and placid countenance illumined by shell-bursts, “that if we cross the road and go North by East we may perhaps strike the communication trench leading to the Brewery. _Personally_, I would suggest going overland, but----” His last words were drowned by the explosion of four 8.1’s 50 yards rear right. “Get out of this, sir! Get out of this DAMN quick,” roared the C.O. The Scout Officer stood to attention slowly, and saluted with a deprecating air.

He led.

We followed.

He took us straight into one of the heaviest barrages it had ever been our misfortune to encounter, and when we had got there he said he was lost. So for twenty minutes the C.O., the Adjutant, nine runners, and, last but not least, the Scout Officer, sat under a barrage in various shell-holes, and prayed inwardly--with the exception of the Scout Officer--that _he_ (the S.O.) would be hit plump in the centre of his maps by a 17-inch shell.

It were well to draw a veil over what followed. Even Holmes-Watson does not like to hear it mentioned. Suffice to say that the C.O. (with party) left at 5.30 P.M. and arrived at battle head-quarters at 11.35 P.M. The Scout Officer was then engaged in discovering a route between Battle H.Q. and the front line. He reported back at noon the following day, and slept in a shell-hole for thirteen hours. No one could live near the C.O. for a week, and he threatened the S.O. with a short-stick MILLS.

If there is one thing which the Scout Officer does not like, it is riding a horse. He almost admits that he cannot ride! The other day he met a friend. The friend had one quart bottle of Hennessey, three star. The Scout Officer made a thorough reconnaissance of the said bottle, and reported on same.

A spirited report.

Unhappily the C.O. ordered a road reconnaissance an hour later, and our Scout Officer had to ride a horse. The entire H.Q. sub-staff assisted him to mount, and the last we saw of Holmes-Watson, he was galloping down the road, sitting well on the horse’s neck, hands grasping the saddle tightly, rear and aft. Adown the cold November wind we heard his dulcet voice carolling:

“I put my money on a bob-tailed nag!...
Doo-dah ... Doo-dah!
_I_ put my money on a bob-tailed nag;
... Doo-dah! ... Doo-dah!! ... _DEY!!!_”

MARTHA OF DRANVOORDE

Martha Beduys, in Belgium, was considered pretty, even handsome. Of that sturdy Flemish build so characteristic of Belgian women, in whom the soil seems to induce embonpoint, she was plump to stoutness. She was no mere girl; twenty-seven years had passed over her head when the war broke out, and she saw for the first time English soldiers in the little village that had always been her home. There was a great deal of excitement. As the oldest of seven sisters, Martha was the least excited, but the most calculating.

The little baker’s shop behind the dull old church had always been a source of income, but never a means to the attainment of wealth. Martha had the soul of a shop-keeper, a thing which, in her father’s eyes, made her the pride of his household.

Old Hans Beduys was a man of some strength of mind. His features were sharp and keen, his small, blue eyes had a glitter in them which seemed to accentuate their closeness to each other, and his hands--lean, knotted, claw-like--betokened his chief desire in life. Born of a German mother and a Belgian father, he had no particular love for the English.

When the first British Tommy entered his shop and asked for bread, old Beduys looked him over as a butcher eyes a lamb led to the slaughter. He was calculating the weight in sous and francs.

That night Beduys laid down the law to his family.

“The girls will all buy new clothes,” he said, “for which I shall pay. They will make themselves agreeable to the English mercenaries, but”--with a snap of his blue eyes--“nothing more. The good God has sent us a harvest to reap; I say we shall reap it.”

During the six months that followed the little shop behind the church teemed with life. The Beduys girls were glad enough to find men to talk to for the linguistic difficulty was soon overcome--to flirt with mildly, and in front of whom to show off their newly-acquired finery. From morn till dewy eve the shop was crowded, and occasionally an officer or two would dine in the back parlour, kiss Martha if they felt like it, and not worry much over a few sous change.

In the meantime old Hans waxed financially fat, bought a new Sunday suit, worked the life out of his girls, and prayed nightly that the Canadians would arrive in the vicinity of his particular “Somewhere in Belgium.”

In a little while they came.

Blossoming forth like a vine well fertilised at the roots, the little shop became more and more pretentious as the weekly turnover increased. Any day that the receipts fell below a certain level old Beduys raised such a storm that his bevy of daughters redoubled their efforts.

Martha had become an enthusiastic business woman. Her fair head with its golden curls was bent for many hours in the day over a crude kind of ledger, and she thought in terms of pickles, canned fruits, chocolate, and cigarettes. The spirit of commerce had bitten deep into Martha’s soul.

More and more officers held impromptu dinners in the back parlour. Martha knew most of them, but only one interested her. Had he not shown her the system of double entry, and how to balance her accounts? He was a commercial asset.

As for Jefferson, it was a relief to him, after a tour in the trenches, to have an occasional chat with a moderately pretty girl.

One rain-sodden, murky January night, very weary, wet, and muddy, Jefferson dropped in to see, as he would have put it, “the baker’s daughter.”

Martha happened to be alone, and welcomed “Monsieur Jeff” beamingly.

Perhaps the dim light of the one small lamp, perhaps his utter war weariness, induced Jefferson to overlook the coarseness of the girl’s skin, her ugly hands, and large feet. Perhaps Martha was looking unusually pretty.

At all events he suddenly decided that she was desirable. Putting his arm around her waist as she brought him his coffee, he drew her, unresisting, on to his knee. Then he kissed her.

Heaven knows what possessed Martha that evening. She not only allowed his kisses, but returned them, stroking his curly hair with a tenderness that surprised herself as much as it surprised him.

Thereafter Martha had two souls. A soul for business and a soul for Jefferson.

The bleak winter rolled on and spring came.

About the beginning of April old Beduys received, secretly, a letter from a relative in Frankfurt. The contents of the letter were such that the small pupils of the old man’s eyes dilated with fear. He hid the document away, and his temper for that day was execrable. That night he slept but little. Beduys lay in bed and pictured the sails of a windmill--HIS windmill--and he thought also of ten thousand francs and his own safety. He thought of the distance to the mill--a full two kilometres--and of the martial law which dictated, among other things, that he be in his home after a certain hour at night, and that his mill’s sails be set at a certain angle when at rest. Then he thought of Martha. Martha of the commercial mind. Martha the obedient. Yes! That was it, obedient! Hans Beduys rose from his bed softly, without disturbing his heavily-sleeping wife, and read and re-read his brother’s letter. One page he kept, and the rest he tore to shreds, and burned, bit by bit, in the candle flame.

High up on the hill stood the windmill--the Beduys windmill. Far over in the German lines an Intelligence Officer peered at it in the gathering dusk through a night-glass. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the sails of the mill turned, and stopped for a full minute. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, they turned again, and stopped again. This happened perhaps twenty times. The German made some notes and went to the nearest signalling station.

Five minutes later a salvo of great shells trundled, with a noise like distant express trains, over to the left of the mill.

There were heavy casualties in a newly-arrived battalion bivouacked not half a mile from the baker’s shop. The inhabitants of the village awoke and trembled. “Hurrumph-umph!” Again the big shells trundled over the village, and again. There was confusion, and death and wounding.

In his bed lay Hans Beduys, sweating from head to foot, while his brain hammered out with ever-increasing force: “Ten thousand francs--Ten Thousand Francs.”

In the small hours a shadow disengaged itself from the old mill, cautiously. Then it began to run, and resolved itself into a woman. By little paths, by ditches, by side-tracks, Martha reached home. She panted heavily, her face was white and haggard. When she reached her room she flung herself on her bed, and lay there wide-eyed, dumb, horror-stricken, until the dawn broke.

Jefferson’s Battalion finished a tour in the trenches on the following night. Jefferson marched back to billet with a resolve in his mind. He had happened to notice the windmill moving the night before, as he stood outside Company head-quarters in the trenches. He had heard the shells go over--away back--and had seen the sails move again. The two things connected themselves instantly in his mind. Perhaps he should have reported the matter at once, but Jefferson did not do so. He meant to investigate for himself.

Two days later Jefferson got leave to spend the day in the nearest town. He returned early in the afternoon, put his revolver in the pocket of his British warm coat, and set out for the windmill. He did not know to whom the mill belonged, nor did that trouble him.

An Artillery Brigade had parked near the village that morning. Jefferson got inside the mill without difficulty. It was a creaky, rat-haunted old place, and no one lived within half a mile of it. Poking about, he discovered nothing until his eyes happened to fall on a little medallion stuck between two boards on the floor.

Picking it up, Jefferson recognised it as one of those little “miraculous medals” which he had seen strung on a light chain around Martha’s neck. He frowned thoughtfully, and put it in his pocket.

He hid himself in a corner and waited. He waited so long that he fell asleep. The opening of the little wooden door of the mill roused him with a start. There was a long pause, and then the sound of footsteps coming up the wooden stairway which led to where Jefferson lay. The window in the mill-face reflected the dying glow of a perfect sunset, and the light in the mill was faint. He could hear the hum of a biplane’s engines as it hurried homeward, the day’s work done.

A peaked cap rose above the level of the floor, followed by a stout, rubicund face. A Belgian gendarme.

Jefferson fingered his revolver, and waited. The gendarme looked around, grunted, and disappeared down the steps again, closing the door that led into the mill with a bang. Jefferson sat up and rubbed his head.

He did not quite understand.

Perhaps ten minutes had passed when for the third time that night the door below was opened softly, closed as softly, and some one hurried up the steps.

It was Martha. She had a shawl over her head and shoulders, and she was breathing quickly, with parted lips.

Jefferson noiselessly dropped his revolver into his pocket again.

With swift, sure movements, the girl began to set the machinery of the mill in motion. By glancing over to the window, Jefferson could see the sails move slowly--very, very slowly. Martha fumbled for a paper in her bosom, and, drawing it forth, scrutinised it tensely. Then she set the machinery in motion again. She had her back to him. Jefferson rose stealthily and took a step towards her. A board creaked and, starting nervously, the girl looked round.

For a moment the two gazed at each other in dead silence.

“Martha,” said Jefferson, “Martha!”

There was a mixture of rage and reproach in his voice. Even as he spoke they heard the whine of shells overhead, and then four dull explosions.

“Your work,” cried Jefferson thickly, taking a stride forward and seizing the speechless woman by the arm.

Martha looked at him with a kind of dull terror in her eyes, with utter hopelessness, and the man paused a second. He had not known he cared for her so much. Then, in a flash, he pictured the horrors for which this woman, a mere common spy, was responsible.

He made to grasp her more firmly, but she twisted herself from his hold. Darting to the device which freed the mill-sails, she wrenched at it madly. The sails caught in the breeze, and began to circle round, swiftly and more swiftly, until the old wooden building shook with the vibration.

* * * * *

From his observation post a German officer took in the new situation at a glance. A few guttural sounds he muttered, and then turning angrily to an orderly he gave him a curt message. “They shall not use it if we cannot,” he said to himself, shaking his fist in the direction of the whirring sails.

* * * * *

In the little village part of the church and the baker’s shop lay in ruins. Martha had sent but a part of her signal, and it had been acted upon with characteristic German promptitude.

In the windmill on the hill, which shook crazily as the sails tore their way through the air, a man and a woman struggled desperately, the woman with almost superhuman strength.

Suddenly the earth shook, a great explosion rent the air, and the mill on the hill was rent timber from timber and the great sails doubled up like tin-foil.

“Good shooting,” said the German Forward Observation Officer, as he tucked his glass under his arm and went “home” to dinner.

COURCELETTE

“It was one of the nastiest jobs any battalion could be called on to perform; to my mind far more difficult than a big, sweeping advance. The First Battalion has been in the trenches eighteen days, on the march four days, and at rest one day, until now. No men could be asked to do more, and no men could do more than you have done. I congratulate you, most heartily.”

In the above words, addressed to the men and officers of the First Canadian Infantry Battalion, Western Ontario Regiment, Major-General Currie made it plain to all that among the Honours of the First Battalion few will take higher place than that which will be inscribed “COURCELETTE.”

On the night of September 20th, 1916, the First Battalion moved up from support to the firing-line, beyond the ruins of the above-mentioned little hamlet. For the past few days it had rained incessantly, and all ranks had been working night and day, in mud and slush, carrying material of all kinds to the front line. The men were soaked to the skin, caked with mud, and very weary, but they went “up-along” with an amazing cheeriness, for rumour had whispered that the regiment was to attack, and the men were in that frame of mind when the prospect of “getting their own back” appealed to them hugely. Although the enemy opened up an intense barrage during the relief, casualties were comparatively few, and by morning the First Battalion was, Micawber-like, “waiting for something to turn up.”

Three companies, “A,” “B,” and “D,” held the front line, with “C” Company in close support. The positions were to the east of Courcelette, opposite a maze of German trenches which constituted a thorn in the side of the Corps and Army Commanders, and which had for several days checked the advance and were therefore a serious menace to future plans. Just how great was the necessity to capture this highly organised and strongly manned defensive system may be gauged by the letter received by the Commanding Officer from the Divisional Commander on the eve of the attack. In it the G.O.C. expressed his confidence in the ability of “The Good Old First” to capture the position, and to hold it, and he added that it _must_ be taken at all costs--“if the first attack fails, you must make a second.” On the capture of this strong point hung the fate of other operations on the grand scale.

It was the key position, and it fell to the First Canadian Battalion to be honoured with the task of taking it.

Until two and a half hours previous to the attack (when the Operation Order had been issued, and final instructions given), the latest _maps_ of the German defences had been all the C.O. and his staff could work upon. Then, truly at the eleventh hour, an aerial _photograph_, taken but twenty-four hours before, was sent to Bn. Head-quarters with the least possible delay. This showed such increase in the enemy defences, and trenches in so much better shape to withstand attack, that the whole tactical situation was changed, and it became necessary not only to alter the operation order completely, but also to draw a map, showing the most recent German lines of defence. This was done.

It is difficult to single out for praise any special portion of a regiment, or any member of it, especially when _all_ the units have been subjected to intense and violent bombardment prior to attack, not to mention the activities of numerous snipers. One Company alone lost half their effectives through the fire of a “whizz-bang” battery which completely enfiladed their position. The Battalion and Company runners cannot be too highly praised--they were the sole means of communication--and risked their lives hourly, passing through and over heavily-pounded trenches, and in and out of the village of Courcelette, which was subjected to “strafing” at all hours of the day and night, without cessation. Tribute is also due to the carrying parties, who took from beyond the Sugar Refinery, and through the village, bombs, ammunition, water, and rations, leaving at every trip their toll of dead and wounded.

Zero hour was at 8.31 P.M., preceded for one minute by hurricane artillery fire. Previous to this the heavy guns had carried out a systematic bombardment of the German defences, yet, as was subsequently discovered, failing to do them great damage, and not touching the main fire trench at all.

At 8.28½ P.M. the Germans suddenly opened with a murderous artillery and machine-gun fire along our front. They had by some means or other discovered that an attack was about to take place. At this time the assaulting waves were in position, “A” Coy. on the left flank, “D” Coy. in the centre, and “B” Coy. on the right flank, while a Battalion Reserve of eighteen men--five of whom became casualties three minutes later--waited for orders a little in rear. These men belonged to “C” Company, the major portion of which had already been sent to reinforce the front line. All our guns then opened up with an electric spontaneity. To such an extent that one charging company was forced to halt a full minute in No Man’s Land until the barrage lifted a few hundred yards in rear of the German lines, to catch their reserves coming up.

Among the _Fragments from France_ there is a Bairnsfather picture entitled “We shall attack at Dawn” and “We do!” The situation much resembled it.

One could hear nothing but the vicious “splack” of high explosive shrapnel, the deep “Krrumph” of 6-inch and 8.2’s, “coal-boxes” and “woolly bears”; great herds of shells whined and droned overhead, and now and then emerged from the tumult the coughing, venomous spit of machine-guns. One could see myriads of angrily-bursting yellow and orange-coloured flames, and all along the front dozens of green Verey lights, and red, as the Germans called frantically on their artillery, and at the same time showed that some of their own batteries were firing short (a thing which always gives great joy to all ranks). Now and then a deeper series of booms announced a bombing battle, and the air was heavy with the odour of picric fumes and thick with smoke.

On the left flank “A” Coy. met with stubborn opposition. Four machine-guns opened on their first wave, cutting it to pieces, as it was enfiladed from the flanks. The Company reformed at once, and charged again. This time they were met by a heavy counter-attack in force. In the cold words of official phraseology, “This opposition was overcome.” It was here that two very gallant officers were lost--Lieut. B. T. Nevitt and Major F. E. Aytoun--while leading their men. The last seen of Lieut. Nevitt, he was lying half in and half out of a shell-hole, firing his revolver at the enemy who were almost on top of him, and calling to his men to come on. Major Aytoun’s last words were, “Carry on, men!”

“B” Coy., on the left flank, met with little opposition, attained the whole of their objective, and established communication by patrol with the troops on their right flank, a difficult operation. Here Lieut. Unwin, a splendid young officer, laid down his life, and Lieut. MacCuddy, who had carried on in the most exemplary manner, was mortally wounded. This Company captured a German Adjutant from whom much valuable information was obtained. Thoroughly demoralised, his first words were: “Take me out of this, and I will tell you anything, but anything.” On this German’s reaching head-quarters he amused every one by saying: “I come me to the West front September 22nd, 1914, as a German officer. I go me from the West front September 22nd, 1916, Heaven be thanked, as a German prisoner. For me the war is over, hurrah!”

In the centre “D” Coy. also attained their objective and captured a trophy, in the shape of a Vickers gun (which had been converted to German usage). This gun was taken by Lieut. J. L. Youngs, M.C., who bombed the crew, which thereon beat a hasty retreat, leaving half their number killed and wounded. This was one of the best pieces of work done individually in this action. Major W. N. Ashplant was wounded here, at the head of his men, and is now missing, and believed killed.

Bombing posts were thrown out at once, and manned by Battalion and Company bombers, who, time and again, repulsed German bombing attacks. “A” Coy. linked up with “D” and “D” Coy. with “B,” while the Lewis gun sections worked admirably, but one gun being lost, despite the heavy artillery fire. The whole line was at once consolidated. Hundreds of German bombs, Verey lights and pistols, many rifles, and quantities of ammunition were captured, and also forty prisoners, the great majority of whom were unwounded.

“C” Coy.’s reserve was almost immediately used up, a company of the 4th Bn. coming up in support, at the request of the Commanding Officer of the First Battalion.

“Your attack was so vicious,” declared a prisoner, “that no troops could withstand it.”

“Too good troops”--this from a tall, fair member of the Prussian Guard--“better than we are!”

The Germans opposed to the First Battalion were picked troops, among whom the iron-cross had been freely distributed.

On capturing this network of enemy lines to the east of Courcelette, the First Battalion discovered that what was at first deemed a small stronghold, was in reality a formidable position, held by the enemy in large numbers. Not only was there a deep, fire-stepped main trench, in which they had dug many “funk-holes,” but also a series of support and communication trenches, and numerous bombing posts.

During the thirty hours following the capture of this ground, numerous counter-attacks took place, all of which were repulsed with heavy enemy losses. Bombing actions were frequent along the whole line, and at least two attacks were made in force.

A small post, held by two men, on the right flank of “D” Coy., to communicate with “B,” accounted for six Germans in the following manner: Early in the morning six of the enemy advanced with their hands up. Our men watched them closely, albeit they called out “Kamerad” and were apparently unarmed. The foremost suddenly dropped his hands and threw a bomb. Our men thereupon “went to it” and killed three of the Germans, wounding the remainder with rifle fire as they ran back to their own lines.

At dusk on the 23rd the Germans tried another ruse before attempting an attack in force. Two of them were sent out, calling “Mercy, mercy, Kamerad,” and as usual with their hands up, and no equipment. But the officer in charge saw a number of Germans advancing behind them, and at once ordered heavy rifle and machine-gun fire to be opened on them. This, and bombs, resulted in the attack being broken up completely. “B” Coy. dispersed several bombing attacks, and “A” Coy. broke up a heavy attack, as well as bombing attacks. Fog at times rendered the position favourable for the enemy, but not one inch of ground was lost.

Every man of the fighting forces of the First Battalion was engaged in this action, and much valuable assistance during consolidation and counter-attack was rendered by the Company of the Fourth Battalion sent up to support. For over thirty hours after the assault the regiment held on, heavy fog rendering relief in the early hours of the 24th a difficult undertaking, all the more so in view of the intense and long-continued barrage opened by the enemy during the hours of relief. In fact, during the whole tour of the First Canadian Battalion in the Courcelette sector, the regiment was subjected to intense and incessant fire.

When the remainder of the First Battalion marched out to rest, with Hun helmets and other souvenirs hanging to their kits, they marched with the pride of men who knew they had done their bit.

The Corps Commander rode over to congratulate the Commanding Officer and the regiment, and such terms were used from the Highest Command downwards that the “Old First” knows and is proud of the fact, that another laurel has been added to the wreaths of the battalion, the brigade, the division, and the Canadian Army.

We have but one sorrow, one deep regret, and that is for Our Heroic Dead.

CARNAGE

There is a little valley somewhere among the rolling hills of the Somme district wherein the sun never shines. It is a tiny little valley, once part of a not unattractive landscape, now a place of horror.

Half a dozen skeletons of trees, rotting and torn, fringe the southern bank, and the remnants of a sunken road curve beneath the swelling hill that shields the valley from the sun. Flowers may have grown there once, children may have played under the then pleasant green of the trees; one can even picture some dark-eyed, black-haired maid of Picardy, sallying forth from the little hamlet not far off with her milking-stool and pail, to milk the family cow in the cool shade of the trees and the steep above.

But that was long ago--at least, it seems as though it _must_ have been long ago--for to-day the place is a shambles, a valley of Death. Those who speak of the glory of war, of the wonderful dashing charges, the inspiring mighty roar of cannon--let them come to this spot and look on this one small corner of a great battle-field. Within plain view are villages that will have a place in history--piles of broken brick and crushed mortar that bear silent, eloquent testimony to the Kultur of the twentieth century. Round about the land is just a series of tiny craters, fitted more closely together than the scars on the face of a man who has survived a severe attack of small-pox; and here and there, scattered, still lie the dead. No blade of grass dare raise its sheath above ground, for the land is sown with steel and iron and lead, and the wreckage and wrack and ruin of the most bitter strife.

Even those who have seen such things for many months past pause involuntarily when they reach this valley of the shadow. It is a revelation of desolation--the inner temple of death. In that little space, perhaps three hundred feet long and a bare forty wide, lie the bodies of nearly a hundred men, friend and foe, whose souls have gone on to the happy hunting ground amid circumstances of which no tongue could give a fitting account, no pen a fitting description.

Once a German stronghold, this place passed into our hands but a short while since. Two guns were tucked away in under the hill, and the infantry, suddenly ejected from their forward position, fell back on them, and taking advantage of a pause strengthened their position, and brought up reinforcements. Thereupon our guns concentrated on them with fearful results, although when the infantry swept forward, there were still enough men in the deep, half-filled in trench to put up a desperate resistance.

It is not difficult to read the story of that early morning struggle. The land is churned in all directions, two of the bigger trees have fallen, and now spread out gnarled branches above the remnants of some artillery dugouts. Pools of water, thick glutinous mud--both are tinged in many spots a dark red-brown--and portions of what were once men, lie scattered around in dreadful evidence.

But for his pallor, one might think that man yonder is still living. He is sitting in an easy attitude, leaning forward, one hand idle in his lap, his rifle against his knee, and with the other hand raised to his cheek as though he were brushing off a fly. But his glassy eyes stare, and his face is bloodless and grey, while a large hole in his chest shows where the enemy shrapnel smote him.

Corpses of dead Germans are piled, in places, one over the other, some showing terrible gaping wounds, some headless, some stripped of all or part of their clothing, by the terrific explosion of a great shell which rent their garments from them. In more than one place old graves have been blown sky-high, and huddled skeletons, still clad in the rags of a uniform, lie stark under the open sky.

Papers, kits, water-bottles, rifles, helmets, bayonets, smoke goggles, rations, and ammunition are scattered everywhere in confusion. Some of the _débris_ is battered to bits, some in perfect condition. Shell-cases, shell-noses, and shrapnel pellets lie everywhere, and there arises from the ground that peculiar, terrible odour of blood, bandages, and death, an odour always dreaded and never to be forgotten. In one German dug-out three men were killed as they lay, and sat, sleeping. Some one has put a sock over their faces; it were best to let it remain there. Yonder, a Canadian and a German lie one on top of the other, both clutching their rifles with the bayonets affixed to them, one with a bayonet thrust through his stomach, the other with a bullet through his eye.

At night the very lights shine reluctant over the scene, but the moon beams impassive on the dead. Burial parties work almost silently, speaking in whispers, and, shocking anomaly, one now and then hears some trophy hunter declare, “Say, this is some souvenir, look at this ‘Gott mit Uns’ buckle!”

“A” COMPANY RUSTLES

When we got into the bally place it was raining in torrents, and the air was also pure purple because the Colonel found some one in his old billet, and the Town-Major, a cantankerous old dug-out who seemed to exist chiefly for the purpose of annoying men who did go into the front line, was about as helpful as the fifth wheel to a wagon. Finally, the Colonel shot out of his office like an eighteen-pounder from a whizz-bang battery, and later on the tattered remnants of our once proud and haughty Adjutant announced to us, in the tones of a dove who has lost his mate, that there were no billets for us at all, and that officers and men would have to bivouac by the river.

Under all circumstances the Major is cheerful--and he has a very clear idea of when it is permissible to go around an order. Also the Town-Major invariably has the same effect on him as such an unwelcome visitor as a skunk at a garden-party would have on the garden-party. Having consigned the aforesaid T.-M. to perdition in Canadian, English, French, and Doukhobor, he said: “We are going to have billets for the men, and we are going to have billets for ourselves.” That quite settled the matter, as far as we Company officers were concerned. In the course of the next half-hour we had swiped an empty street and a half for the men, and put them into it, and then we gathered together, seven strong, and proceeded to hunt for our own quarters.

There is a very strongly developed scouting instinct among the Canadian forces in the Field. Moreover, we are not overawed by outward appearances. In the centre of the town we found a château; and an hour later we were lunching there comfortably ensconed in three-legged arm-chairs, with a real bowl of real flowers on the table, and certain oddments of cut-glass (found gleefully by the batmen) reflecting the bubbling vintage of the house of Moët et Chandon. Our dining-hall was about sixty feet by twenty, and we each had a bedroom of proportionate size, with a bed of sorts in it. Moreover, the place was most wonderfully clean--it might almost have been prepared for us--and McFinnigan, our cook, was in the seventh heaven of delight because he had found a real stove with an oven.

“I cannot understand,” said the Major, “how it is no one is in this place. It’s good enough for a Divisional Commander.”

There was actually a bath in the place with water running in the taps. Jones, always something of a pessimist, shook his head when he saw the bath.

“Look here, all you boys,” he said, “this is no place for us. There is an unwritten law in this outfit that no man, unless he wears red and gold things plastered all over his person, shall have more than one bath in one month. Now _I_ had one three weeks ago, and I am still---- but why dwell on it?”

Needless to say he was ruled out of order.

Just to show our darned independence, we decided to invite most of the other officers of the battalion to dinner that evening, “plenty much swank” and all that kind of thing. Would that we had thought better of it. Of course we eventually decided to make a real banquet of it, appointed a regular mess committee, went and saw the Paymaster, and sent orderlies dashing madly forth to buy up all the liqueurs, Scotch, soda, and other potations that make glad the heart of man. We arranged for a four-course dinner, paraded the batmen and distributed back-sheesh and forcible addresses on the subjects of table-laying and how to balance the soup and unplop the bubbly.

Nobody came near us at all. As far as the Town-Major was concerned we might have been in Kamtchatka. The Major had gone to the C.O. (_after_ lunch) and told him we had “found a little place to shelter in,” and as the latter had written a particularly biting, satirical, not to say hectic note to the Brigadier on the subject of the Town-Major’s villainy, and was therefore feeling better, he just told the Major to carry on, and did not worry about us in the least.

Nineteen of us--Majors, Captains, and “Loots”--sat down to dinner. It was a good dinner, the batmen performed prodigies of waitership; the wine bubbled and frothed, frothed and bubbled, and we all bubbled too. It was a red-letter night. After about the seventeenth speech, in which the Doc. got a little mixed concerning the relationship of Bacchus and a small statue of the Venus de Milo which adorned one corner of the room, some one called for a song. It was then about 11 “pip emma.”

We were in the midst of what the P.M. called a little “Close Harmony”--singing as Caruso and McCormack NEVER sang--when we heard the sound of feet in the passage, feet that clanked and clunk--feet with spurs on.

A hush fell over us, an expectant hush. The door opened, without the ceremony of a knock, and in walked not any of your common or garden Brigadiers, not even a Major-General, but a fully-fledged Lieutenant-General, followed by his staff, and the Town-Major.

In our regiment we have always prided ourselves on the fact that we can carry on anywhere and under any circumstances. But this fell night our untarnished record came very near to disaster. It was as though Zeus had appeared at a Roman banquet being held in his most sacred grove.

The General advanced three paces and halted. Those of us who were able to do so got up. Those who could not rise remained seated. The silence was not only painful, it was oppressive. A steel-grey, generalistic eye slowly travelled through each one of us, up and down the table, unadorned with the remnants of many bottles, the half-finished glasses of many drinks. Just then the Town-Major took a step forward; he was a palish green, with an under-tinge of yellow.

“WHAT is the meaning of----” said the General, in a voice tinged with the iciest breath of the far distant Pole, but he got no further.

There was a sudden rending, ear-splitting roar, the lights went out, the walls of the château seemed to sway, and the plaster fell in great lumps from the frescoed ceiling.

That (as we afterwards discovered) no one was hurt was a marvel. It is the one and only time when we of this regiment have thanked Fritz for shelling us. In the pale light of early dawn the last member of the party slunk into the bivouac ground. The General, where was he? We knew not, neither did we care.

But it was the first and last time that “A” Company rustled a Corps Commander’s Château!

“MINNIE AND ‘FAMILY’”

When first I met her it was a lush, lovely day in June; the birds were singing, the grass was green, the earth teemed with life, vegetable and animal, and the froglets hopped around in the communication trenches. Some cheery optimist was whistling “Down by the Old Mill Stream,” and another equally cheery individual was potting German sniping plates with an accuracy worthy of a better cause. It was, in sooth, “A quiet day on the Western Front.”