The Emma Gees Part 7
_The map on the opposite page is known as St. Eloi map. It is particularly interesting as showing, very faintly, a great group of mine craters within the British lines. No. 1 can be seen in the lower left section just above the horizontal fold in the map and to the left of the perpendicular. Here the British line comes in at the lower left corner, where it almost immediately branches, pa.s.sing through figures 44 and 77, joining the main line again at the left and below Sh.e.l.ley Farm. Within this loop are the six enormous mine craters. No. 2 is immediately to the right of figure 96, while 3, 4 and 5 are in a line with it just to the right of the perpendicular fold. The faint dotted line that comes to an apex just below St. Eloi is the British trench known as Queen Victoria Street. This map is made from air photographs dated March 5th, 1916._
[Ill.u.s.tration: St. Eloi Map]
We got all the guns up and in place during the night of the twenty-sixth. In addition, our people brought up a great many trench mortars of different calibers, with enormous quant.i.ties of ammunition.
We then sat down to wait for the "zero" hour, meaning the time for the show to begin. I took my position at our extreme left, as I wanted to be where I could see everything.
Promptly at the appointed time, the mines were fired and then ensued the most appallingly magnificent sight I have ever witnessed. There was little noise but the very earth appeared to writhe and tremble in agony. Then, slowly, it seemed in the dim light, the ground heaved up and up until, finally, bursting all bonds, earth, trees, buildings, trenches and men went skyward. Immediately followed great clouds of flaming gas, expanding and growing like gigantic red roses suddenly bursting into full bloom. It was an earthquake, followed by a volcanic eruption.
Before the flying debris had reached the ground the Fusiliers were over the top, fighting their way through the jungles of wire and sh.e.l.l craters. The occupation of the mine craters themselves was, of course, unopposed as there was no one there to offer opposition. They kept on, however, meeting the German reinforcements coming up from the rear, fighting them to a standstill and establishing themselves beyond the Mound.
Then all h.e.l.l broke loose. From the beginning our artillery, machine guns and trench mortars had been maintaining a continuous fire, but the Germans, taken by surprise, were several minutes getting started.
When they did open up, however, they gave us the greatest demonstration of accurate and unlimited artillery fire which I, or any of us, for that matter, had ever seen. The air seemed to be literally full of sh.e.l.ls bursting like a million fire-flies. Our parapets were blown down in a hundred places and the air was filled with flying sand-bags, iron beams and timbers. A sh.e.l.l struck under the gun by which I was standing and flung gun, tripod, ammunition-box and all, high into the air. Even under such conditions I could not help laughing at the ridiculous sight of that gun as it spun around in the air, with the legs of the tripod sticking stiffly out and the belt of ammunition coiling and uncoiling around it, like a serpent. The lance-corporal in charge of it looked on, spell-bound, and when it finally came down back of a dug-out, he looked at me with a most peculiar expression and said: "Well, what do you think of that?" Then he jumped up and went after the wreckage and, strange to relate, not a thing was broken. After about twenty minutes of stripping and cleaning he had the gun back on the parapet, shooting away as though nothing had happened. He was an Irishman, named Meeks.
I walked down the trench to get a spare barrel for a gun when a sh.e.l.l struck about ten feet in front, killing a man. I started on and another lit exactly where I had been standing. During that little trip of perhaps fifty yards and back I was knocked down and partly buried no less than four times.
Then the prisoners commenced to come back. They appeared to be glad to get out of it and I don't blame them. When they found that they had to go through the Canadian's lines, however, they held back. They had been told that the Canadians killed all prisoners. (We had heard something of the same kind about the Germans, too.) However, when our cooks came out with "dixies" full of steaming tea, with bread and marmalade sandwiches, they soon became reconciled. Our men made no distinction that morning between captor and captive, serving all alike with everything we had to eat or drink. At one time, however, owing to the congestion in the trench, we were compelled to "shoo" a lot of the prisoners back "overland," to the next support trench. As their artillery was raising merry h.e.l.l all over that section, they were a bit backward about starting and it required threats and a display of bayonets to get them out of the trench and on their way. It was a funny sight to see them beat it. There was little in the way of obstacles to impede their progress and I think that several of them came near to establishing new world's records for the distance. When they arrived at the second line they wasted no time in climbing down into it; they went in head-first, like divers going into the water. I don't think any of them was. .h.i.t during this maneuver, at least I did not see any of them fall.
Now, it has come to be an axiom that "any one can take a trench but few can hold one." It is another way of expressing the idea that "it isn't the original cost--it's the upkeep."
It was no trick at all, with the a.s.sistance of the mines, to advance our lines to what had been the German third line, but, right there, some one had made a miscalculation. It's a cinch our "higher-ups" did not know how much artillery the Germans had that they could turn on that salient. Our own artillery had been greatly increased and they evidently thought we were at least equal to the enemy in this respect, but, say: the stuff he turned loose on us made our artillery look like pikers. For every "whizz-bang" we sent over he returned about a dozen 5.9's. By that night, nearly all the original attackers were gone and Fritz was back in at least two of the craters.
During the day a good many of us, including all our stretcher-bearers, made many trips through the devastated German trenches, getting out wounded and collecting arms and other plunder. I went up where the Fusiliers were trying to consolidate their position, intending to bring up a few guns if it appeared to be practicable, but abandoned the idea as, in my opinion, they were due to be sh.e.l.led out within a short time, which proved to be correct. We did dig out and mount a German gun which was used for a while, but I then had it taken, with several others, back to our line. We could do so much more good from our original position by maintaining a continuous barrage to hamper the enemy in getting up supports. From prisoners taken later we learned that our machine-gun barrage was much more effective than that of our artillery. However, as we were obliged to fire from temporary positions, on the parapet and without cover of any kind, it was impossible to prevent the loss of some guns by direct hits from sh.e.l.ls. During that night and the next day a Highland brigade came up to relieve the Fusiliers. They included battalions of the Royal Scots and the Gordons.
By this time the Germans had brought up more guns and were keeping up such a terrific fire on our position that it did not seem humanly possible to hold it, but that night a bombing attack by the Fourth Canadian Brigade bombers, reinforced by about two hundred volunteers, retook the craters and reestablished our line in a more advanced position than that occupied by the original attackers. This line was thereafter called the Canadian trench to distinguish it from the other, which was called the British trench.
Early next morning we had a chance to see some of the "Kilties"
in action with the bayonet, during a counter-attack, which they repulsed. As I remember it, they did very little shooting but jumped out of their trench to meet the attackers with the cold steel. I never saw any lot of soldiers who seemed so utterly determined to wipe out all opposition. They were like wild men; savage and blood-thirsty in the onslaught and, although the Germans must have outnumbered them at least three to one, they never had a chance against those brawny Scots. But few of the boches got back to their own line and no prisoners were taken. We then appreciated the nickname given by the Germans (first applied to Canadian Highlanders at Langemarck, but afterward used to designate all "Kilties"), "The Ladies from h.e.l.l."
From that time the Canadians were alone in the fight. The Fusiliers, having started it, faded away, and the Scots, after a few brief days, likewise vanished and for two months or more St. Eloi was a continuous struggle between the Second Canadian Division and at least four German Divisions, including some of the infamous Prussian Guards.
During the next twelve days the righting was almost uninterrupted.
Troops came in and troops went out, but the Emma Gees held on, forever, as it seemed to us. But few remained of the original gun crews who started the engagement. Not all had been killed or wounded, but it had been necessary to relieve some who were utterly exhausted.
How I kept going is a mystery to me as it was to others at the time.
One thing which probably helped was the fact that I never, for one minute, permitted myself to think of anything except the matter of keeping those guns going. Sentiment I absolutely cast out. I was nothing but a cold-blooded machine. Good friends were killed but I gave them no thought other than to get the bodies out of the trench so that we need not step on them. To tie up and a.s.sist wounded was a mere matter of routine. In no other way could I have withstood the awful strain. I was. .h.i.t, slightly, on several occasions but never severely enough to necessitate my going out. A dug-out in which I had a table where I wrote reports and figured firing data was. .h.i.t no less than three times while I was in it, finally becoming a total wreck. The fact that I was not killed a hundred times was due to just that many miracles--nothing less. My leather jacket and my tunic were cut to shreds by bits of sh.e.l.l, a bullet went through my cap and another grazed my head so close as to raise a red welt, but that same old "luck" which had become proverbial in the battalion, still held and I was not seriously injured.
Our troubles were not all caused by artillery fire by any means. Fritz had a large and varied a.s.sortment of "Minenwerfer" with which to entertain us at all hours, day and night. A good many people, even among the soldiers themselves, think that Minenwerfer or "Minnie" for short, is the name of the projectile or torpedo, while, as a matter of fact, it is the instrument which throws it; a literal translation being "mine-thrower." In the same way they often speak of the sh.e.l.ls thrown by trench mortars as "trench mortars" themselves. Now the family of "Minnies" is a large one and includes every device, from the ancient types used by the Greeks and Romans, with springs of wood, to the latest and most modern contraption in which the propelling power may be steel springs, compressed air or a small charge of powder. In its smallest form it is simply a "rifle grenade," somewhat similar to a hand grenade or ordinary "bomb," to which is attached a rod of bra.s.s or iron which slips down into the bore of the regular service rifle and is fired with a blank cartridge. Other and newer types are without this rod but have vanes or rudders affixed to the rear end which serve to guide the projectile in its flight. These usually have a hole through the center through which the bullet pa.s.ses and can thus be used with the regular service ammunition. This whole cla.s.s, embracing everything from the small "pineapples," fired from the rifle, to the monstrous "aerial torpedoes," are commonly spoken of as "fish-tails."
The sh.e.l.ls from the trench mortars proper, and most of the "fish-tail" family, are somewhat similar to ordinary artillery sh.e.l.ls in that they are made of steel or iron and designed to burst into small fragments, each of which const.i.tutes a deadly missile. On the other hand, the "mines" thrown by the Minenwerfer, are merely light sheet-metal containers for heavy charges of high explosives (T. N. T.
or tri-nitro-toluol as a rule), and depend for their effectiveness on the shock and blasting effect of the detonation. They have been increasing in size continually. At first we called them "sausages,"
then "rum-jars" (they resembled the ordinary one-gallon rum jar in size and shape), then they became "flying pigs" and by this time, I have no doubt, new and still more expressive names have been applied to them.
The havoc created in a trench by one of the large ones pa.s.ses belief.
The strongest dug-out is wiped out in a twinkle; whole sections of parapet are obliterated, and where was a strong, well-built wall eight feet or more in height there remains a hole or "crater" fifteen or twenty feet in diameter and several feet deep. Any man who happens to be within this area is, of course, blown to atoms, while frequently men in the near vicinity, but not exposed to the direct blast, are killed instantaneously by the shock. Medical men say that the effect is identical to that known as "caisson sickness," and is caused by the formation of bubbles of carbonic acid gas in the blood vessels. Not being a "medico" I can not vouch for this, but you can take it for what it is worth.
In daylight it is not difficult to dodge these devilish things and even at night, if they come one at a time, it is possible to escape the most of them, but when they come over in flocks, as they sometimes do, it is more a matter of luck than anything else.
CHAPTER XIV
FOURTEEN DAYS' FIGHTING
[Ill.u.s.tration: Lewis Gun in Action in Front-Line Trench.]
By this time there was no doubt of the enemy's superiority in artillery, and to make matters worse, the craters were changing hands daily or even hourly. We never knew, for sure, whether our troops or those of the enemy held any certain crater, except the ones on each end, numbers one and six (we held them throughout the entire two months of fighting), but numbers two, three, four and five were debatable ground for several weeks. On two occasions I made the complete circuit of all the craters at night, going through the Canadian trench and coming back via what had been our original front line. On one of these trips I was accompanied by Captain Congreve, afterward Major Congreve, V. C., (now dead) who was the only staff officer I saw in that sector during all the time we were in the line.
Sometimes we met individual German sentries and quick, quiet and accurate work was necessary to avoid detection and probable capture. I found that a French bayonet, the rapier shape, was a very satisfactory weapon at such times. Trench knives have been invented since and may be an improvement. After leaving me that night Captain Congreve came upon a party of eighty-two Germans, commanded by an officer, who had been cut off in one of the craters for several days, without food or ammunition, and captured them all, single-handed. For this feat he received the Distinguished Service Order and promotion to Major.
Later, on the Somme, he continued his brilliant work and won the award of the Victoria Cross, but was killed at Mametz Wood before receiving the decoration, which was given to his widow. He was only twenty-five at the time of his death but had proved himself one of the most enterprising officers in the British army.
What had been left of the village of St. Eloi when the fight commenced was rapidly disappearing under the hail of sh.e.l.ls. Where our original front line had been there remained but few detached fragments of parapet. For perhaps six hundred yards we were holding on with scattered and isolated groups. At one place, on our immediate left, was a hole in the line at least two hundred yards wide. Time after time the Canadians attacked and retook the craters, only to be literally blown out of them by the ensuing hurricane of sh.e.l.ls.
The task of getting out the wounded was heart-breaking. Our own stretcher-bearers worked night and day, but they had suffered many casualties and were unequal to the task. The Border Regiment and the Durham Light Infantry, who occupied our old trenches and were not under heavy fire, sent volunteer carrying parties to a.s.sist in the work, so that all were taken out with a minimum of delay. It was impossible to remove the dead and they were buried in sh.e.l.l-holes, where they fell. During the succeeding days many were disinterred by other sh.e.l.ls.
Then, the matter of maintaining communication with our supports and the headquarters in the rear was of the utmost importance and our signalers waged a continuous fight, against heavy odds, to keep the wires connected up. It would not be fair to others to specify any particular branch as being better. All who serve in the front line at a time like this are equally ent.i.tled to credit. At times, when it is necessary to go out and search for breaks and repair them, the work of the signalers is "extra hazardous," just as is that of the stretcher-bearers when obliged to expose themselves to succor the wounded, or the machine gunner when it is necessary to mount his gun on top of the parapet, within plain sight of the enemy, or the riflemen, bombers and scouts in advancing to the attack. There can be no fair distinction--they all, taken as a unit, are in a cla.s.s separated by a wide gulf from those back in supporting or reserve or artillery positions, who, in turn, are separated from the transport and ambulance drivers, who, while occasionally under sh.e.l.l fire, are in the zone of comparative safety, where "people" still live and farm and run stores and estaminets. I would not have you think that I am minimizing the value of the services of these men. Their work is of vital importance to the success of the fighting forces and _must_ be done; and I can truly say that in all my experience I have never known them to fail in the performance of their duties.
In this war, as in most others, it is the infantryman who stands the brunt of the fighting. True, he is disguised under many other names, such as rifleman, bomber, automatic rifleman, rifle-grenadier, scout, signaler, sniper, runner or machine gunner but, when you get right down to the bottom of the whole business, he is the fellow who travels on his two feet and actually "goes over and gets 'em." Trenches can be battered to pieces by artillery but they can not be actually "taken"
and held by any one but the plodding, patient, long-suffering "doughboy" or "web-foot" as he is called by the men of the other branches.
At one time, during this period, Sergeant H. Norton-Taylor and four men from our section, held one of the craters for five days, against numerous attacks, and even captured prisoners. They had no food, water or ammunition other than that which they could get from the bodies of dead soldiers in the immediate vicinity. We sent many detachments to relieve them but were unable to locate their position and it was only by accident that they were discovered and relieved by a scouting party of the Nineteenth Battalion which was over on our left. But for this, they might be there now, as they were not the quitting kind.
Norton-Taylor was commissioned and commanded the section at Courcellette, where he was killed, September 15, 1916. He came of a long line of distinguished British officers, his father having been a Colonel in the Royal Field Artillery. A brother and a brother-in-law were in the service, one of them losing both feet by a sh.e.l.l. A sister was working in the hospitals in France and another in England. He was a true friend and a gallant officer--every inch a gentleman.
On the night of April tenth we were relieved by the Twentieth Battalion and went out for a rest. I had not laid down to sleep for fourteen days, s.n.a.t.c.hing what rest I could, for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time, leaning against a parapet or propped up in the corner of a traverse. We were only able to get as far as Voormezeele, where we stopped in the ruins of the convent school, and dropping on the stone floor slept like the dead for twenty-four hours. The place was being sh.e.l.led all this time but none knew or cared. The next night we made our way to where the battalion was in billets, near Renninghelst, where I immediately "flopped" for a straight forty-eight hours' continuous sleep. After that a bath, a shave and general clean-up, supplemented by a good hot "feed," made me as good as new.
During that two weeks up in front we had had no warm food, nothing but "bully and biscuits" and, occasionally, a can of "Maconochie," a ration of prepared meat and vegetables, which is excellent when served hot but not very palatable when eaten cold.
We now had the longest rest we had enjoyed since coming over, as we did not go back to the front line until April twentieth. Our Sixth and Fifth Brigades had been in during the time we were out and both had suffered severely in the many counter-attacks, but held on, like true British bull-dogs, to what had been our original front line. The craters were lost as it was impossible for any troops to hold them under the devastating fire of the German guns. Nearly every battalion of the Second Canadian Division had retaken one or more of them but, as it only resulted in additional loss of life, it was decided by the higher command to give it up and endeavor to reestablish our front along its original line.
We went in via Voormezeele, a town of several thousand inhabitants before the war, now a pile of ruins. From here a _pave_ road ran directly to St. Eloi and there had been two good communication trenches leading up to the front line. We soon discovered however that several things had happened during our absence. On the road to St.
Eloi and about five hundred yards behind our front line, had been a Belgian farm called Bus House. (A London omnibus was lying, smashed, in front of it.) This place was now but a pile of brick and timbers.
To the left, another group of farm buildings, called Sh.e.l.ley Farm, was in about the same condition, and where St. Eloi had been was nothing but a barren waste. Not a sign of a house or any part of a house was visible; not a brick remained and even the roads, the fine stone-paved roads, had been obliterated. Where had been hedges or trees there was nothing but a desolate expanse of mud which, from a distance, appeared to be a smooth level plain. For a good six hundred yards back of our front line there was not a shrub or bush or tree nor any landmark of any kind. Every inch of this ground had been churned over and over again by sh.e.l.ls. Literally, it was not possible to set foot on a spot which had not been upturned. The whole area was simply a continuation of sh.e.l.l craters, joined and interlocked without a break. Where our communication and support trenches had been it was just the same. No man could have gone over that ground and said: "Here was a house," or "There was a field," or "That was once a road," because house, turnip field and road looked exactly alike. The great granite blocks of the road had been pulverized to dust, and the bricks of the houses had shared a like fate. Even the contour of the ground was changed--ditches, depressions and ridges having been hammered to a uniform elevation.
And every hole was full of water. To traverse this desert one must wade and flounder through liquid mud waist deep and sometimes deeper.
Yet it had to be done. We had nine positions up there at each of which a handful of men must be relieved daily; or rather nightly, as it was, obviously, impossible to move about over that open expanse in daylight. Every yard of it was under scrutiny from the German lines and, even at night, owing to the lavish use of star-sh.e.l.ls by the enemy, it was a long and slow journey as it was necessary to stop and remain absolutely quiet when a light came near.
The hardest thing about the whole business was to find the men who were to be relieved. There was no path nor road nor landmark of any kind. During the time we were in, it rained continuously and at no time was a star visible. The positions where they were stationed were exactly like the rest of the surrounding country--merely enlarged sh.e.l.l-holes with, perhaps, a fragment of a sand-bag parapet. No lights could be shown, they did not even dare use "Very lights," as our "star-lights" are known. They were not in any regular formation but at irregular intervals along what had been a very crooked line.
Fortunately, we had a "natural born" guide on our first trip in and we found them all. After that we managed to "carry on" but not without many slips. It was nothing unusual for a relief party suddenly to find themselves in the German lines and have to work their way out as best they could. If caught out after dawn one had to lie low in a sh.e.l.l-hole all day, probably under heavy artillery fire, until darkness came and made it possible to return unseen. This trouble was not confined to our side and it was by no means an uncommon occurrence for parties of the enemy to get lost in the same way. Sometimes these adventures resulted in rather sharp bombing engagements. One night a whole platoon of about forty Germans went through a gap in our line and b.u.mped into a strong supporting party of ours at Sh.e.l.ley Farm where they were all captured. They had been looking for one of the craters whose garrison they were to relieve. Individual prisoners were taken nearly every night.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Canadian Machine Gunners Digging Themselves Into Sh.e.l.l-Holes]
Under the prevailing conditions, it was impossible to take machine guns up, so we depended entirely upon Lewis guns. Fortunately no determined attack was made on us during this time as it is extremely doubtful if we could have held them there. We would, of course, have stopped them a few hundred yards back, at our support line, and I must confess that I had at times a sneaking desire to see them come over and get into that mud so we could move back to comparatively comfortable quarters.
As we no longer had any trenches, we abandoned the old letter method of designation and simply numbered the various positions. On the first morning in, the gun and crew at No. 14 were blown up by a sh.e.l.l.
This was an unlucky position as the same thing had happened there to a crew from the Twentieth Battalion. We then moved that position some fifty yards to one side and had no further trouble.
We alternated with other battalions of the division, going in and out, holding that line and gradually improving it, until, on the twenty-second day of May, while we were back in billets, I was "warned for leave" (a week in England), and little Bouchard, my particular protege and warmest friend, was to go along.