Part 10 (1/2)
The German lines were on the hills; every time we took a position it was always uphill, until we got over Pozieres Ridge and then our work was downhill for the time. We arrived at the firing line on the 29th of August, 1916. The accompanying map will convey a general idea of the object intended to be attained by the great drive. The German organization in this district was fed by railroads having terminals at Bapaume and it was clearly evident that with this city in our possession the supply organization of the enemy would be largely demoralized. Hence the plan. Bapaume lay southwest from our trenches a matter of 15 miles; intervening were the towns of Labazell, Pozieres, Courcelette and Martinpuieh,--all on the Albert-Bapaume road.
We arrived just in time to save Pozieres. The Australian boys had driven their way clean through to this place, but had not sufficient reenforcements to hold it, and were being exterminated when we reached the point and saved them with our guns and the wonderful work of our infantry in driving the Boches half-a-mile over the ridge. The opportunity for Canada to a.s.sist her sister dominion was a matter of profound thankfulness to every man of us; to lend a helping hand under such circ.u.mstances was indeed cheery work.
The Imperial troops and Australians, under great difficulties, had blasted their way into Labazell, the crater of the mine blown up being one of the largest I have seen on the Western front. This was the commencement of the Somme offensive and happened on the 1st of July, 1916. When I reached this crater two battalions of Canadian troops were stationed in its depths in holes burrowed all around the sides, and it was used as an a.s.sembling point for reenforcements. This will convey an idea of the extent of the mining operations.
The distance from the mine to our new position was three-quarters of a mile and the ground was billeted with corpses all the way to our battery; in the crater itself it was impossible to step without walking on bits of human bodies, and the dugouts surrounding were filled with German dead; there were thousands of them. It was so manifestly impossible to give them any sort of a burial that the order was issued to fill in the dugouts where they lay and this was done by heaving the ground in on top of them. Never to my dying day can I forget the sight of those German dead! Dead everywhere! In whatever direction the eye turned there were the rigid warriors of the Kaiser cold in death. It was many nights before I could get a straight sleep without seeing mortifying Huns. But I have long since ceased to have any pity for them.
Although they are the victims of a system over which they have no apparent control, yet they are supposed to be human beings with human, red blood in their veins, and the numberless deeds of which they have been guilty have branded them as nothing better than brute beasts in the eyes of all humanity.
With the help of the Pozieres Ridge we could observe Fritz quite clearly now, and every time he attempted any digging-in work our guns would speak to him in terms so convincing that he fain would desist. My battery then moved up to within a thousand yards of the foe, one and a half miles northwest of Labazell, where we had to dig right in the open. At this point the dead were also strewn so thickly that it was practically impossible to walk without stepping on a corpse, or part of one, every other step, among them being many of our own fellows who here paid the supreme price, and each time we came across a laddie in khaki it was a signal for an outburst of swearing. Had we not sworn we would have wept, and, naturally, as men we preferred to do the other thing.
While here our rations ran short; our prisoners numbered over 20,000 and the policy of the British Government being to treat a prisoner as well, if not better, than her own soldiers (their wants are always attended to first), we were practically without food, and were compelled to resort to the heroic method of taking the rations from the bodies of our poor comrades who were lying cold on the ground and who would need them no more.
Three-quarters of a mile north of Labazell we were in our gun pit one night and ”Ammunition up!” was the order. This meant that everybody, including officers and down to cook, the telephonist on duty alone being excepted, had to get out and help unload the life-saving material. I remember thinking of the anomaly at the time,--how strange it was that we should regard the ammunition as life saving, when it was in reality so destructive of life. While working like Turks unloading the sh.e.l.ls, some of the drivers were talking about a strange sight they had seen down the road near Albert (p.r.o.nounced Albare), when loading up at the ammunition dump. They told us that huge contraptions covered with tarpaulin were lying on the side of the road, with six-pounder guns protruding from their sides; in conversation the drivers referred to them as land boats, and some, as land dreadnaughts. Speculation ran rife as to their purpose. We were soon to see. Next morning as dawn was breaking, ”Stand to!” rang out. Waiting in our gun pits for the next command, I heard the sound of an engine put-put-ing along the road, something akin to that of a machine gun, but yet different.
I looked in the direction of the sound and presently there hove in sight a colossal something of behemoth proportions;--something the like of which I had never seen or heard of in all my life, and I was stricken dumb with amazement. A monstrous monstrosity climbed its way without let or hindrance, up, over, along and across every obstacle in its path.
Presently it reached the top of Pozieres Ridge; every man who could see had his eyes glued on it. It came down the ridge at about five miles an hour with two small guns peering out of each side. It was the first tank! We all thought at first it was an armored car of some kind. Then it swung off the road, crossing a ditch 8 feet wide and 17 deep and when we saw it perform this stunt our faculties were for the moment spellbound, and then we burst into uncontrollable cheering.
From all quarters of the valley soldiers were running to see the absurdly strange sight; it was as if a general fire alarm had been sounded, with everybody hastening to the scene of the conflagration.
Pa.s.sing close by our battery, it paused for a while, and I had the opportunity of giving it the once-over, and then it waddled on its way again. In a few minutes two companion land boats made their debut amongst us; up they went over the ridge, rolling down the German barbed-wire entanglement as if it were so much thread and forcing huge gaps for the Infantry to pa.s.s through, continuing their way placidly on through the trenches of the Hun, flattening scores of German soldiers under their bulk who were too awe-stricken to move.
Our Infantry then took up the beaten path, charging the enemy trenches, and Fritz was an easy prey that morning.
Inside of half an hour after our tanks reached the lines of Fritz, the prisoners in gray commenced to stream toward our lines; for a distance of seven miles the road was jammed with captured Huns. Some of them pa.s.sing by our battery spoke to me in English, as good as, if not better, than my own, and asked me what in h.e.l.l was the meaning of waging war in such fas.h.i.+on; they referred to the tank as Landfuerchtenichts. I told them that was nothing to what was in store for them. ”Why,” I said, ”I've got reserved seats on one of them for Berlin.”
”You'll never get that far,” he retorted.
The action on the Somme was well under way when one morning at daybreak, making my way to the cookhouse, I was greeted, ”h.e.l.lo, Grant, hoos awa'
wi' ye, laddie? Ma sontes, but you're lookin' fine! An' d.a.m.ned if he isn't a Sergeant!” It was Scotty, reinstated in our unit in his former capacity of cook, and he had brought with him his nerve, his twinkle, his bow legs and all. I must confess I was glad to see him, and when we had a few minutes together he told me, with all the gusto imaginable, of his exploits in London.
With his little eyes twinkling like pin points, he related how England needing every available man, he was reinstated, and having observed strict military discipline while in the camp he was, under the rule, ent.i.tled to back pay, so that he had a year's wages coming. He obtained leave of absence, hastened to London and procured in some manner a British Major's uniform, in which he disported himself in first-cla.s.s hotels, restaurants and the like, receiving the homage that became a returned fighting man, in the shape of dinner engagements, theater invitations and drinks galore. The deception was discovered and he was clinked for thirty days, at the end of which he was packed off to the front lines.
He wound up by telling me that, he expected to get into the game shortly, as he wanted to be in it when the Germans got what was coming to them.
We were occupying at this time some splendid dugouts and trenches that we had taken from Fritz; they were made of chalk as was also the cookhouse. Of our battery of sixteen guns at this point my gun was nearest to the cookhouse, and I was mightily tickled at the prospect of having an opportunity now and again to slip in and have a drink of hot tea, or something of the kind, with my old friend.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Ex-German ”Pill Box” That Is Now a British Dugout]
That night I dropped in on Scotty and casually remarked that our guns would speak shortly and I expected we would bring the German fire upon us, as was the usual result. Scotty's voice quavered I thought, as he asked me when we would begin. ”Oh, in an hour, maybe. Have you got a sup of hot tea, Scotty?” ”No, I hae na tea, Grant; you'll get your tea at the proper time and not before.” ”Well, of all the----.” I couldn't find words, and then I remembered his old-time habit of thriftiness, and I made up my mind to keep a sharp lookout, and if I caught him profiteering in rations he had saved from the men, I mentally resolved I would show him no mercy.
Exactly at 2 o'clock that morning we started sending our messages to Fritzie, and inside of a minute--Kr-kr-kr-p! Kr-kr-kr-p! Kr-kr-kr-p!
Kr-kr-kr-p! And his sh.e.l.ls were flying all around us. The cookhouse was only about 20 yards off and I wondered if Scotty would now loosen up a bit, and I stepped over leaving Lawrence in charge of the gun. The cook had crawled under his bunk, which was merely a slight wire mattress raised a couple of feet off the floor. There was a dixie of hot tea standing near and I started to help myself to a drink. He saw what I was doing and with chattering teeth told me he would report me in the morning. He had scarcely spoken when a sh.e.l.l tore through the cookhouse, going clean through the wall over his bed, and as the roar of it pa.s.sed by, I heard Scotty again offering up supplications in a manner that would arouse the admiration of the most earnest camp-meeting devotee.
The sh.e.l.ls were commencing to pop all around and I knew instantly that Fritz had located the cookhouse instead of the battery, and I roared to Scotty to come out, but he wouldn't budge. I reached under and grabbed him by the leg, dragging him to the door and leading him by the hand, for he was shaking like a leaf, made my way to the battery. By that time Fritz had got a better line on the guns and it was getting so hot that we got orders to retire to our dugouts. I pushed the cook ahead of me and when we got to the path leading to our quarters, about 200 yards off, no sprinter ever lived that could equal the pace of the bow-legged chef. I doubt if a moving picture machine could have caught the flash of his legs.
The following day we got the welcome order of billets. When there the O.C. made an announcement that he would give a prize of 20 francs to the driver of the best pair of mules on inspection day, which was two weeks hence. This was done for the purpose of encouraging the well-being of the animals,--a most important factor in our own well-being. Scotty's eye to thrift ever open, he entered into an engagement with one of the drivers that he would feed his mules potato peelings if he would split fifty-fifty with him on the prize. The driver agreed and a few days later he and his helper appeared at the door of the cookhouse with one of the mules to get his feed. In order to prevent spilling the peelings at the entrance to the cookhouse, he backed the mule up against the door. In France, as is well known, every farmhouse has a cesspool in which all manner of refuse is distilled by means of a pump and straw, and used to fertilize the soil. These pools are all the way from 8 to 10 feet deep. Immediately in front of the cookhouse and the mule was one of these cesspools, our billets here being on a farm. It happened that when Scotty was peeling his potatoes that day, he had thrown them so close to the fire that they got thoroughly heated. He hastily gathered them up and threw them in a pan which he handed to Tompkins, the man who had charge of the mules and who had entered into the agreement with him; the driver was still on the animal's back. When the mule stuck his nose into the hot peelings he jerked backwards into the door of the cookhouse, the driver's back struck the wall over the entrance and he was shot clean off the mule's back head-foremost into the cesspool 10 feet away. When I say that the bone-grinding department of a stockyard's plant is pleasant compared to the odor of the mixture contained in the cesspool, some idea will be had of the driver's condition when he was pulled out by Tompkins. In the meantime, Scotty was standing in the cookhouse, laughing his sides out at the driver's plight, and he had forgotten to notice that the mule was backing further and further into the room. Just then Mr. Mule got his foot tangled up in one of the dixies that were lying on the floor, and in attempting to kick it off, his foot missed Scotty's head by about six inches. Scotty backed up and so did the mule, still kicking, each kick bringing his hoof nearer Scotty's mug.