Part 1

CANADA IN WAR-PAINT

_All rights reserved_

CANADA IN WAR-PAINT

BY CAPT. RALPH W. BELL

LONDON AND TORONTO J. M. DENT & SONS LTD. PARIS: J. M. DENT ET FILS NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.

_First Published in 1917_

PREFACE

There is no attempt made in the little sketches which this book contains to deal historically with events of the war. It is but a small _Souvenir de la guerre_--a series of vignettes of things as they struck me at the time, and later. I have written of types, not of individuals, and less of action than of rest. The horror of war at its worst is fit subject for a master hand alone.

I have to thank the proprietors of _The Globe_ for their courtesy in allowing the reproduction of “Canvas and Mud” and “Tent Music,” and of the _Canadian Magazine_ for the reproduction of “Martha of Dranvoorde.”

Finally, I feel that I can have no greater honour than humbly to dedicate this book to the officers, N.C.O.’s and men of the First Canadian Infantry Battalion, Ontario Regiment, with whom I have spent some of the happiest, as well as some of the hardest, days of my life.

RALPH W. BELL.

_December 11th, 1916._

CONTENTS

PAGE

CANVAS AND MUD! 9

TENT MUSIC 15

RATTLE-SNAKE PETE 21

MULES 26

“OFFICE” 31

OUR FARM 37

AEROPLANES AND “ARCHIE” 41

STIRRING TIMES 47

SICK PARADE 53

BATMEN 60

RATIONS 67

OUR SCOUT OFFICER 73

MARTHA OF DRANVOORDE 78

COURCELETTE 89

CARNAGE 101

“A” COMPANY RUSTLES 106

“MINNIE AND ‘FAMILY’” 113

AN OFFICER AND GENTLEMAN 118

“S.R.D.” 123

BEDS 128

MARCHING 134

THE NATIVES 140

“OTHER INHABITANTS” 147

BOMBS 153

SOFT JOBS 158

“GROUSE” 163

PANSIES 169

GOING BACK 174

THREE RED ROSES 181

ADJUTANTS 187

HOME 193

ACTION 198

CANADA IN WAR-PAINT

CANVAS AND MUD!

To those men who, in days of peace, have trained on the swelling, lightly-wooded plains round about Salisbury, no doubt this portion of Old England may seem a very pleasant land. But they have not been there in November under canvas. When the old soldiers of the Canadian contingent heard that we were to go to “the Plains,” some of them said, “S’elp me!” and some a great deal more! It was an ideal day when we arrived. The trees were russet brown and beautiful under the October sun, the grass still green, and the winding road through picturesque little Amesbury white and hard, conveying no hint of that mud for which we have come to feel a positive awe.

At first we all liked our camp; it was high and dry, the tents had floor-boards, that traitorous grass was green and firm withal, and a balmy breeze, follower of the Indian summer, blew pleasantly over the wide-rolling land. We liked it after the somewhat arid climate of Valcartier, the sand and dust. Then it began to rain. It rained one day, two days, three days. During that time the camp named after the fabulous bird became a very quagmire. The sullen black mud was three inches deep between the tent lines, on the parade ground, on the road, where it was pounded and ridged and rolling-pinned by transports, troops, and general traffic; it introduced itself into the tents in slimy blodges, ruined the flawless shine of every “New Guard’s” boots, spattered men from head to foot stickily and persistently. The mud entered into our minds, our thoughts were turbid. Some enterprising passer-by called us mud-larks, and mud-larks we have remained.

Canadians think Salisbury Plains a hideous spot. Those who have been there before know better, but it were suicide to say so, for we have reached the rubber-boot stage. When the rain “lets up” we go forth with picks and spades and clean the highways and byways. Canadians do it with a settled gloom. If the Kaiser tries to land forces in England they hope he will come to Salisbury with his hordes. There they will stick fast. In the fine intervals we train squelchily and yearn for the trenches. What matters the mire when one is at the front, but to slide gracefully into a pool of turgid water, in heavy marching order, for practice only, is hardly good enough. Most Canadians think the concentration camp might preferably have been at the North Pole, if Amundsen would lend it, and we could occupy it without committing a breach of neutrality.

That brings us to the cold weather, of which we have had a foretaste. It was freezing a few days ago. The ground, the wash-taps, and we ourselves, all were frozen. A cheerful Wiltshireman passed along the highway. There was a bitter damp north wind; despite the frost everything seemed to be clammy. “Nice weather for you Canadians,” he shouted happily. Luckily we had no bayonets. It is quite natural that in this country it should be thought that Canadians love cold weather and welcome it. But there is cold and cold. The Salisbury Plains type is of the “and cold” variety! It steals in through the tent flaps with a “chilth” that damply clings. It rusts rifles, blues noses, hoarsens the voice, wheezes into the lungs. It catches on to the woollen filaments of blankets and runs into them, it seeks out the hidden gaps in canvas walls and steals within, it crawls beneath four blankets--when one has been able to steal an extra one--through overcoats, sweaters, up the legs of trousers, into under-garments, and at last finds gelid rest against the quivering flesh, eating its way into the marrow-bones. Like the enemy, it advances in massed formation, and though stoves may dissipate platoon after platoon it never ceases to send up reinforcements until a whining gale has seized on the tent-ropes, squeaks at the poles, draws in vain at the pegs, tears open loose flaps, and veering round brings back sodden rain and the perpetual, the everlasting mud. We know the hard, cold bite of “20 below,” the crisp snow, the echoing land, the crackling of splitting trees, even frost-bite. But it is a dry cold, and it comes: “Whish!” This cold of England’s creeps into the very heart. It takes mean advantages. “Give me the Yukon any old time,” says the hard-bitten shivering stalwart of the north-west. “This, this, it ain’t kinder playin’ the game.”

It must not be thought that Canadians are complaining, for they are not. But England’s climate is to them something unknown and unspeakably vile! One must have been brought up in it to appreciate and to anticipate its vagaries. Canadians feel they have been misled. They expected English cold weather to be a “cinch.” But it’s the weather puts the “cinch” on, not they! There will come a time when we shall be in huts, and the leaky old canvas tents that are now our habitat will have been folded and--we hope for the benefit of others--stolen away! Those tents have seen so much service that they know just as well how to leak as an old charger how to drill. They become animated--even gay--when the wind-beaten rain darkens their grimy flanks, and with fiendish ingenuity they drip, drip, drip down the nape of the neck, well into the eye, even plumb down the throat of the open-mouthed, snoring son of the maple-land.

No matter, we shall be old campaigners when the winter is over; old mud-larkers, as impervious to wet earth as a worm. Even the mud is good training for the time we shall have in the trenches!

TENT MUSIC

It is not often that Thomas Atkins of any nationality wears his heart upon his sleeve, and it is quite certain that the British Tommy but rarely does so, or his confrere of the Canadian Contingent. Perhaps he best shows his thoughts and relieves his feelings in song.

Salisbury Plains must have seen and heard many things, yet few stranger sounds can have been heard there than the chants which rise from dimly-lighted canvas walls, when night has shrouded the earth, and the stars gleam palely through the mist. It is the habit of the Canadian Mr. Atkins, ere he prepares himself for rest, to set his throat a-throbbing to many a tune both new and old. The result is not invariably musical--sometimes far from it, but it is a species of sound the male creature produces either to show his “gladness or his sadness,” and by means of which he relieves a heavy heart, or indicates that in his humble opinion “all’s well with the world.” On every side, from almost every tent, there is harmony, melody, trio, quartette, chorus, or--noise! It is a strange mixture of thoughts and things, a peculiar vocal photograph of the men of the Maple, now admirable, now discordant, here ribald, there rather tinged with the pathetic.

No programme-maker in his wildest moments, in the throes of the most conflicting emotions, could begin to evolve such a varied, such a startling programme as may be heard in the space of a short half-hour under canvas--in a rain-sodden, comfortless tent--anywhere on Salisbury Plains. It does not matter who begins it; some one is “feeling good,” and he lifts up his voice to declaim that “You made me love you; I didn’t want to do it!” The rest join in, here a tenor, there a bass or a baritone, and the impromptu concert has begun.

Never have the writers of songs, the composers of music, grave and gay, come more into their own than among the incorrigibly cheerful warriors of the Plains. The relative merits of composers are not discussed. They are all good enough for Jock Canuck as long as there is that nameless something in the song or the music which appeals to him. It is curious that we who hope to slay, and expect to be slain--many of us--should sing with preference of Killarney’s lakes and fells, “Sunnybrook Farm,” “Silver Threads Among the Gold,” rather than some War Chant or Patriotic Ode, something visionary of battle-fields, guns, the crash of shells. Is not this alone sufficient to show that beneath his tunic, and in spite of his martial spirit, Tommy “has a heart,” and a very warm one?

Picture to yourself a tent with grimy, sodden sides, lighted by three or four guttering candle-ends, stuck wherever space or ingenuity permits. An atmosphere tobacco laden, but not stuffy, rifles piled round the tent-pole, haversacks, “dunnage” bags, blankets, and oil-sheets spread about, and their owners, some of them lying on the floor wrapped in blankets, some seated, one or two perhaps reading or writing in cramped positions, yet quite content. Yonder is a lusty Yorkshireman, big, blue-eyed, and fair, who for some reason best known to himself _will_ call himself an Irishman. We know him as “the man with three voices,” for he has a rich, tuneful, though uncultivated tenor, a wonderful falsetto, and a good alto. His tricks are remarkable, but his ear is fine. He loves to lie sprawled on his great back, and lift up his voice to the skies. All the words of half the old and new songs of two peoples, British and American, he has committed to memory. He is our “leading man,” a shining light in the concert firmament. We have heard and helped him to sing in the course of one crowded period of thirty minutes the following varied programme: “Tipperary,” “Silver Threads Among the Gold,” “My Old Kentucky Home,” “Fight the Good Fight,” “A Wee Deoch an’ Doris,” “When the Midnight Choochoo Leaves for Alabam,” “The Maple Leaf,” “Cock Robin,” “Get Out and Get Under,” “Where is My Wandering Boy To-Night,” “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” and “I Stand in a Land of Roses, though I Dream of a Land of Snow.” But there is one song we never sing, “Home, Sweet Home.” Home is too sacred a subject with us; it touches the deeper, aye, the deepest, chords, and we dare not risk it, exiles that we are.

Very often there are strange paradoxes in the words we sing, when compared with reality.... “I stand in a land of roses!” Well, not exactly, although Salisbury Plains in the summer time are, like the curate’s egg, “good in parts.” But the following line is true enough of many of us. We do “dream of a land of snow”; of the land, and those far, far away in it. Sometimes we sing “rag-time melodee,” but that is only _pour passer le temps_. There is something which prompts us to other songs, and to sacred music. It often happens that in our tent there are three or four men with voices above the average who take a real delight in singing. One of the most beautiful things of the kind the writer has ever heard was a quartette’s singing of “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” Fine, well-trained voices they possessed, blending truly and harmoniously, which rang out almost triumphal in the frosty night. They sang it once, and then again, and as the last notes died away the bugles sounded the “Last Post.”

Taa-Taa, Taa-Taa, Ta-ta-ti-ti-ti-ti-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta. Ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-ta-ta-ta-ta-taa, Taa-Taa, Taa-Taa, Taaa, Tiii!

Verily, even under canvas music _hath_ charms to soothe the savage breast.

RATTLE-SNAKE PETE

Very tall, thin, and cadaverous, with a strong aquiline nose, deep-set, piercing black eyes, bushy eyebrows matching them in colour, and a heavy, fiercely waxed moustache, streaked with grey, he was a man who commanded respect, if not fear.

In spite of his sixty years he was as straight as the proverbial poker, and as “nippy on his pins” as a boy a third of his age. Two ribbons rested on his left breast--the long service ribbon and that of the North-West Rebellion. His voice was not harsh, nor was it melodious, but it could be heard a mile off and struck pure terror into the heart of the evil-doer when he heard it! Rattle-Snake Pete was, as a matter of fact, our Company Sergeant-Major.

Withering was the scorn with which he surveyed a delinquent “rooky,” while his eyes shot flame, and in the terrified imagination of the unfortunate being on whom that fierce gaze was bent his ears seemed to curve upwards into horns, until he recalled the popular conception of Mephistopheles! We called him--when he was safely beyond hearing--Rattle-Snake Pete, but that worthy bravo was far less feared than was his namesake.

First of all, the Sergeant-Major was a real soldier, from the nails in his boots to the crown of his hat. Secondly, he was a man of strong prejudices, and keen dislikes, and, lastly, a very human, unselfish, kind-hearted man.

Discipline was his God, smartness on parade and off the greatest virtue in man, with the exception of pluck. He ruled with a rod of iron, tempered by justice, and his keenness was a thing to marvel at. At first we all hated him with a pure-souled hate. Then, as he licked us into shape, and the seeds of soldiering were sown, we began to realise that he was right, and that we were wrong--and that, after all, the only safe thing to do was to obey!

One day a man was slow in doing what his corporal told him to do. As was his habit, the S.-M. came on the scene suddenly, a lean tower of steely wrath. After he had poured out the vials of his displeasure on the head of the erring one, he added: “I’ll make you a soldier, lad, or I’ll break your heart!” He meant it; he could do it; we knew he could, and it resulted in our company being the best in the regiment.

Shortly before we moved to France, a personage and his consort inspected us. He shook hands with Rattle-Snake, and spoke to him for several moments.

“How old are you?”

“Forty-five, Your Majesty.”

“Military age, I suppose?” queried the Personage with a kindly smile.

“Yes, sir.”

Never in his life was Rattle so happy as he was that day, and we felt rather proud of him ourselves.

_Our_ Sergeant-Major had shaken hands with the King!

Those who had stood near enough to hear what had passed achieved a temporary fame thereby, and in tent and canteen the story was told, with variations suited to the imagination of the raconteur, for days after the event.

When we moved to France Rattle-Snake Pete came with us. I think the doctor saw it would have broken his heart not to come, although at his age he certainly should not have done so. But come he did, and never will the writer forget the day Rattle pursued him into an old loft, up a broken, almost perpendicular ladder, to inquire in a voice of thunder why a certain fatigue party was minus a man.

“Come you down out of there, lad, or you’ll be for it!” And, meekly as a sucking-dove, I came!

He was wounded at the second battle of Ypres, and, according to all accounts, what he said about the Germans as he lay on that battle-field petrified the wounded around him, and was audible above the roar of bursting Jack Johnsons.

They sent him to hospital in “Blighty,” an unwilling patient, and there he has been eating out his heart ever since, in the face of adamantine medical boards.

One little incident. We were billeted in an old theatre, years ago it seems now, at Armentières. We had marched many kilometres in soaking rain that afternoon, and we were deadly weary. Rattle, though he said no word, was ill, suffering agonies from rheumatism. One could see it. Being on guard, I was able to see more than the rest, who, for the most part, slept the sleep of the tired out. One fellow was quite ill, and he tossed and turned a good deal in his sleep. Rattle was awake too, sitting in front of the dying embers in the stove, his face every now and then contorted with pain. Often he would go over to the sick man and arrange his bed for him as gently as a woman. Then he himself lay down. The sick man awoke, and I heard his teeth chatter. “Cold, lad?” said a deep voice near by. “Yes, bitter cold.” The old S.-M. got up, took his own blanket and put it over the sick man. Thereafter he sat until the dawn broke on a rickety chair in front of the dead fire.

MULES

Until there was a war, quite a lot of people hardly knew there were such things as mules. “Mules?” they would say, “Oh, er, yes ... those creatures with donkey’s ears, made like a horse? or do you mean canaries?”

_Nous avons changé tout cela!_ “Gonga Din” holds no hidden meaning from us now. We have, indeed, a respect for mules, graded according to closeness of contact.

In some Transports they think more of a mule than of a first-class, No. 1 charger. Why? Simply because a mule is--a mule. No one has yet written a theory of the evolution of mules. We all know a mule is a blend of horse and donkey, and that reproduction of the species is mercifully withheld by the grace of heaven, but further than that we do not go.

When the war began our C.O. was talking about mules. We had not crossed the water then. He said: “I will _not_ have any mules. No civilised man should have to look after a mule. When I was in Pindi once, a mule ... Mr. Jenks”--our worthy Transport Officer--“there will be no mules in this regiment.” That settled it for a while.

Our first mule came a month after we had landed in Flanders. It was a large, lean, hungry-looking mule. It stood about 17 feet 2 inches, and it had very large floppy ears and a long tail: it was rather a high-class mule, as mules go. It ate an awful lot. In fact it ate about as much as two horses and a donkey put together. The first time it was used some one put it in the Maltese cart, and it looked round at the cart with an air of surprise and regret. We were on the move, and the Transport was brigaded, and inspected by the Brigadier as it passed the starting point. James--the mule--behaved in a most exemplary fashion until he saw the Brigadier. Then he was overcome by his emotions. Perhaps the red tabs reminded him of carrots. (James was a pure hog where carrots were concerned.) At all events he proceeded to break up the march. He took the bit between his teeth, wheeled to the left, rolled his eyes, brayed, and charged across an open ditch at the G.O.C. with the Maltese cart.

The G.O.C. and staff extended to indefinite intervals without any word of command.

James pulled up in a turnip patch and began to eat contentedly. It took six men and the Transport Officer to get him on to the road again, and the Maltese cart was a wreck.

After that they tried him as a pack-mule. He behaved like an angel for two whole weeks, and then some bright-eyed boy tried him as a saddle mule. After that the whole of the Transport tried him, retiring worsted from the fray on each occasion. One day the Transport Officer bet all-comers fifty francs on the mule. The conditions were that riders must stick on for five minutes. We used to think we could ride any horse ever foaled. We used to fancy ourselves quite a lot in fact, until we met James. Half the battalion came to see the show, which took place one sunny morning at the Transport lines. We looked James over with an appraising eye. We even gave him a carrot, as an earnest of goodwill. James wore a placid, far-away expression and, now and then, rolled his eyes sentimentally.

We gathered up the reins, and vaulted on to his back. For a full two seconds James stood stock still. Then he emitted an ear-splitting squeal, laid back his ears, bared his teeth, turned round and bit at the near foot, and sat down on his hind legs. He did all these things in quick time, by numbers. The betting, which had started at 2-1 on James, increased to 3-1 immediately. However, we stuck. James rose with a mighty heave, then, still squealing, made a rush of perhaps ten yards, and stopped dead. We still stuck. The betting fell to evens, except for the Transport Sergeant, who in loud tones offered 5-1 (on James). That kept him busy for two minutes, during which time James did almost everything but roll, and bit a toe off one of my new pair of riding boots.

There was one minute to go, and there was great excitement. James gave one squeal of concentrated wrath, gathered his four hoofs together tightly, bucked four feet in the air, kicked in mid-ether, and tried to bite his own tail. When we next saw him he was being led gently away.

Since then we have had many mules. We have become used to them, and we respect them. If we hear riot in the Transport lines we know it is a mule. If we hear some one has been kicked, we know it is a mule. If we see one of the G.S. wagons carrying about two tons we know mules are drawing it. Old James now pulls the water-cart. He would draw it up to the mouth of the biggest Fritz cannon that ever was, but Frank Wootton could not ride him!

“OFFICE”

“Charge against No. 7762543, Private Smith, J.C.; In the field, 11.11.16, refusing to obey an order, in that he would not wash out a dixie when ordered to do so. First witness, Sergeant Bendrick.”

“Sirr! On Nov. 11th I was horderly sergeant. Private Thomas, cook, comes to me, and he says as ’ow ’e ’ad warned the pris-- the haccused, sir, to wash out a dixie, which same the haccused refused to do. Hordered by me to wash hout the dixie, sir, the haccused refused again, and I places ’im under hopen arrest, sir.”

“Cpl. Townsham, what have you to say?”

“Sirr! On Nov. 11th I was eatin’ a piece of bread an’ bacon when I was witness to what took place between Sergeant Bendrick an’ Private Smith, sir. I corroborates his evidence.”

“All right; Private Thomas?”

“Sirr! I coboriates both of them witnesses.”

“You corroborate what both witnesses have said?”

“Yessir.”

“Now, Smith, what have you got to say? Stand to attention!”