Part 7 (1/2)
France, May 12th, 1915.
I am glad you had your mind at rest by the rumour that we were in reserve. What newspaper work! The poor old artillery never gets any mention, and the whole show is the infantry. It may interest you to note on your map a spot on the west bank of the ca.n.a.l, a mile and a half north of Ypres, as the scene of our labours. There can be no harm in saying so, now that we are out of it. The unit was the most advanced of all the Allies' guns by a good deal except one French battery which stayed in a position yet more advanced for two days, and then had to be taken out. I think it may be said that we saw the show from the soup to the coffee.
France, May 17th, 1915.
The farther we get away from Ypres the more we learn of the enormous power the Germans put in to push us over. Lord only knows how many men they had, and how many they lost. I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days. All the gunners down this way pa.s.sed us all sorts of 'kudos' over it. Our guns--those behind us, from which we had to dodge occasional prematures--have a peculiar bang-sound added to the sharp crack of discharge. The French 75 has a sharp wood-block-chop sound, and the sh.e.l.l goes over with a peculiar whine--not unlike a cat, but beginning with n--thus,--n-eouw. The big fellows, 3000 yards or more behind, sounded exactly like our own, but the flash came three or four seconds before the sound. Of the German sh.e.l.ls--the field guns come with a great velocity--no warning--just whizz-bang; white smoke, nearly always air bursts. The next size, probably 5 inch howitzers, have a perceptible time of approach, an increasing whine, and a great burst on the percussion--dirt in all directions. And even if a sh.e.l.l hit on the front of the ca.n.a.l bank, and one were on the back of the bank, five, eight, or ten seconds later one would hear a belated WHIRR, and curved pieces of sh.e.l.l would light--probably parabolic curves or boomerangs. These sh.e.l.ls have a great back kick; from the field gun shrapnel we got nothing BEHIND the sh.e.l.l--all the pieces go forward. From the howitzers, the danger is almost as great behind as in front if they burst on percussion. Then the large shrapnel--air-burst--have a double explosion, as if a giant shook a wet sail for two flaps; first a dark green burst of smoke; then a lighter yellow burst goes out from the centre, forwards. I do not understand the why of it.
Then the 10-inch sh.e.l.ls: a deliberate whirring course--a deafening explosion--black smoke, and earth 70 or 80 feet in the air. These always burst on percussion. The constant noise of our own guns is really worse on the nerves than the sh.e.l.l; there is the deafening noise, and the constant whirr of sh.e.l.ls going overhead. The earth shakes with every nearby gun and every close sh.e.l.l. I think I may safely enclose a cross section of our position. The left is the front: a slope down of 20 feet in 100 yards to the ca.n.a.l, a high row of trees on each bank, then a short 40 yards slope up to the summit of the trench, where the brain of the outfit was; then a telephone wired slope, and on the sharp slope, the dugouts, including my own. The nondescript affair on the low slope is the gun position, behind it the men's shelter pits. Behind my dugout was a rapid small stream, on its far bank a row of pollard willows, then 30 yards of field, then a road with two parallel rows of high trees.
Behind this again, several hundred yards of fields to cross before the main gun positions are reached.
More often fire came from three quarters left, and because our ridge died away there was a low spot over which they could come pretty dangerously. The road thirty yards behind us was a nightmare to me.
I saw all the tragedies of war enacted there. A wagon, or a bunch of horses, or a stray man, or a couple of men, would get there just in time for a sh.e.l.l. One would see the absolute knock-out, and the obviously lightly wounded crawling off on hands and knees; or worse yet, at night, one would hear the tragedy--”that horse scream”--or the man's moan. All our own wagons had to come there (one every half hour in smart action), be emptied, and the ammunition carried over by hand. Do you wonder that the road got on our nerves? On this road, too, was the house where we took our meals. It was. .h.i.t several times, windows all blown in by nearby sh.e.l.ls, but one end remained for us.
Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not be done. On the fifteenth day we got orders to go out, but that was countermanded in two hours. To the last we could scarcely believe we were actually to get out. The real audacity of the position was its safety; the Germans knew to a foot where we were. I think I told you of some of the ”you must stick it out” messages we got from our [French] General,--they put it up to us. It is a wonder to me that we slept when, and how, we did. If we had not slept and eaten as well as possible we could not have lasted. And while we were doing this, the London office of a Canadian newspaper cabled home ”Canadian Artillery in reserve.” Such is fame!
Thursday, May 27th, 1915.
Day cloudy and chilly. We wore our greatcoats most of the afternoon, and looked for bits of sunlight to get warm. About two o'clock the heavy guns gave us a regular ”black-smithing”. Every time we fired we drew a perfect hornet's nest about our heads. While attending to a casualty, a sh.e.l.l broke through both sides of the trench, front and back, about twelve feet away. The zigzag of the trench was between it and us, and we escaped. From my bunk the moon looks down at me, and the wind whistles along the trench like a corridor. As the trenches run in all directions they catch the wind however it blows, so one is always sure of a good draught. We have not had our clothes off since last Sat.u.r.day, and there is no near prospect of getting them off.
Friday, May 28th, 1915.
Warmer this morning and sunny, a quiet morning, as far as we were concerned. One battery fired twenty rounds and the rest ”sat tight”.
Newspapers which arrive show that up to May 7th, the Canadian public has made no guess at the extent of the battle of Ypres. The Canadian papers seem to have lost interest in it after the first four days; this regardless of the fact that the artillery, numerically a quarter of the division, was in all the time. One correspondent writes from the Canadian rest camp, and never mentions Ypres. Others say they hear heavy bombarding which appears to come from Armentieres.
A few strokes will complete the picture:
Wednesday, April 29th*, 1915.
This morning is the sixth day of this fight; it has been constant, except that we got good chance to sleep for the last two nights. Our men have fought beyond praise. Canadian soldiers have set a standard for themselves which will keep posterity busy to surpa.s.s. And the War Office published that the 4.1 guns captured were Canadian. They were not: the division has not lost a gun so far by capture. We will make a good job of it--if we can.
* [sic] This should read April 28th.--A. L., 1995.
May 1st, 1915.