Chapter XVII: Northward Again

After Givenchy the Canadian Division rested for another week around the outskirts of Bethune before starting its long tramp back to the northern end of the line again.

But it was far from being a week of idleness, and hard drilling was the order of the day. Great stress was laid on bomb-throwing, and, in spite of the heavy casualties the bombing sections had suffered, there was no dearth of volunteers for the "Suicide Club," as the bombers termed themselves. The men, as well as the officers, recognised the value of this weapon, old as the use of gunpowder itself, but now reinstated to greater importance than ever before.

So we started northward, a very uneventful and tiring march, our first stop being at Neuf Berquin, where we rested a day.

The march had been very fatiguing; it was the latter end of June, and "sunny France" had been living up to her reputation, and even the nights, in which we marched for the sake of coolness and concealment, were most oppressive. And it was in weather like that that the famous "First Seven Divisions" fought and marched twenty-five or thirty miles, dug in and fought again, only to have again to retire!

And we were only averaging fifteen miles a march!

Our next halt was at Noote-Broome, a mere hamlet, where we held church service and then marched straight into the trenches.

This was a new area for us. We had grown so accustomed to shifting from one part of the line to another that we had already nicknamed ourselves the "Canadian Foot Cavalry."

However, we were fated to rest in that vicinity for several months, though our brigade shifted from one position to another along that line all summer.

We first relieved a battalion of the Middlesex on June 28th opposite a poisonous little spot known as "la Petite Douve." Here a small stream, dignified by the name of the Douve River, wandered lazily across the flat at the foot of the Messines Ridge and coiled like a natural moat in front of the Petite Douve Farm.

This, like all farms in Flanders, was a square of strongly-built brick buildings. In it the enemy had established concrete machine-gun positions and converted the place into a veritable fort. It projected in a salient from their average line and enfiladed the main road running from our position to Messines.

The Middlesex, on our relieving them, had told us a weird tale of the number of rounds of rifle ammunition they expended in a single night. We discounted this by the usual 50 per cent., but our major had an extra supply brought up in case of emergencies.

An evening or two later we found the reason for the Middlesex's heavy expenditure of cartridges, for the enemy, on a three-mile front, suddenly opened up rapid fire, keeping up this fusillade for nearly half an hour.

This occurred at odd intervals for some time while we occupied that front, and was known as "the Germans (or the Fritzes) getting their wind up." The Middlesex had been trying to beat down this fire with their own rifle fire; we contented ourselves with sitting tight and, by careful patrolling, watching for the first signs of an attack. On such a night as this poor F---- was out on patrol when the rapid fire opened up, and we nearly struck him off the company strength. Much to our surprise he and his patrol came in later, quite unhurt, having discovered, and taken shelter in, an advanced German trench near some willows.

Later it became quite the thing to take a few men out with you and bomb this trench.

We only did two "tours" in this particular piece of trench, as the next time we came in that company frontage had been allotted to the battalion on our left and we moved just around the corner, the Petite Douve Farm being almost hidden from our view by trees but continuing to annoy us with its machine-guns.

It was here that we celebrated "Dominion Day" (July 1st), a Canadian ensign that had arrived a few days before in a parcel from "home" waving gaily behind our lines.

It was here, too, that Captain Frank Tidy, of the Toronto Battalion, astonished the brigade by making a sortie from the trench in daytime and bringing in two prisoners whom he had observed moving in the tall wheat that here and there shut off our view of the German line.

Much courage is required to make a sortie of this sort, and one is not surprised that a third German had to be shot before the other two surrendered to Captain Tidy and his two comrades.

No information of importance was gained from these prisoners except that the enemy had sent them out to ascertain who the new troops occupying our line were.

Summer was now well advanced, and it was doubtful if a further "push" would be attempted that season, and we gradually settled down to the routine of trench warfare.

During the middle of July we did one tour in the trenches in front of Wulverghem, relieving a battalion of Northumberland Fusiliers. We only stayed there a few days, but were greatly bothered with rifle-grenades, so, finding that our grenades fell short of the German line, the major and a small party took the grenade-gun out in the long grass until they were able to reach the enemy and thus secured a temporary peace.

The East Yorks then relieved us, and when next we entered the trenches it was a little to the right of our old position and in front of the celebrated Ploegsteert Wood.

Here the right battalions of the brigade had rather a strenuous time, as some mines had been exploded and there was still a struggle going on around the craters.

But on the left, abutting our old position near the Douve Farm, we had rather an easy time of it, there being little shelling and the trenches nearly two hundred yards apart.

In fact our greatest activity was at night and at dawn, conditions at the latter time being well expressed in an anonymous sonnet we found pinned up in a dug-out entitled "Stand To":--

"Early every morning,
As the stars begin to tire,
Without the slightest warning,
Our maxim opens fire;
A German gunner answers back,
And one by one the rifles crack,
All down the line you can hear the rattle,
And then begins our morning battle;
And as the dawn creeps in the sky
A couple of shells go whistling by.
The bullets are flying in every direction
Just as the larks begin to carol,
And all because the machine-gun section
Wanted to warm their hands on the barrel."