Part 25

The Germans were still determined to take the town which they had showered with four million dollars’ worth of shells. It would be big news--the fall of Ypres as a prelude to the fall of Przemysl and of Lemberg. A wicked salient was produced in the British line to the southeast by the cave-in to the north. It seems to be the lot of the P. P’s to get into salients. On the 4th they lost 28 men killed and 98 wounded from a gruelling all-day shell-fire and stone-walling. That night they got relief and were out for two days, when they were back in the front trenches again. The 5th and the 6th were fairly quiet; that is, what the P. P’s or Mr. Thomas Atkins would call quiet. Average mortals wouldn’t. They would try to appear unconcerned and say they had been under pretty heavy fire--which means shells all over the place and machine guns combing the parapet. Very dull, indeed. Only three men killed and seventeen wounded.

On the night of May 7th the P. P’s had a muster of 635 men. This was a good deal less than half of the original total in the battalion, including recruits who had come out to fill the gaps caused by death, wounds and sickness. Bear in mind that before this war a force was supposed to prepare for retreat with a loss of ten per cent. and get under way to the rear with the loss of fifteen per cent., and that with the loss of thirty per cent. it was supposed to have borne all that can be expected of the best trained soldiers.

The Germans were quiet that night--suggestively quiet. At 4.30 the prelude began; by 5.30 the German gunners had fairly warmed to their work. They were using every kind of shell they had in the locker. Every signal wire the P. P’s possessed had been cut. The brigade commander could not know what was happening to them and they could not know his wishes--except that it may be taken for granted that the orders of any British brigade commander are always to “stick it.”

The shell-fire was as thick at the P. P.’s backs as in front of them. They were fenced in by shell-fire. And they were infantry taking what the guns gave in order to put them out of business so that the way would be clear for the German infantry to charge. In theory they ought to have been buried and mangled beyond the power of resistance by what is called “the artillery preparation for the infantry in attack.”

Every man of the P. P’s knew what was coming. There was relief in their hearts when they saw the Germans break from their trenches and start down the slope of the hill in front. Now they could take it out of the German infantry in payment for what the German guns were doing to them. This was their only thought. Being good shots, with the instinct of the man who is used to shooting at game, the P. P’s “shoot to kill” and at individual targets. The light green of the German uniform is more visible on the deep green background of spring grass and foliage than against the tints of autumn.

At two or three or four hundred yards no one of the marksmen of the P. P’s, and there were several said to be able to “shoot the eye off an ant,” could miss the target. As for Corporal Christy, the old bear hunter of the Northwest, he leaned out over the parapet when a charge began because he could shoot better in that position. They kept on knocking down Germans; they didn’t know that men around them were being hit; they hardly knew that they were being shelled except when a burst shook their aim or filled their eyes with dust. In that case they wiped the dust out of their eyes and went on. The first that many of them realised that the German attack was broken was when they saw green blots in front of the standing figures--which were now going in the other direction. Then the thing was to keep as many of these as possible from getting back over the hill. After that they could dress the wounded and make the dying a little more comfortable. For there was no getting the wounded to the rear. They had to remain there in the trench perhaps to be wounded again, spectators of their comrades’ valour without the preoccupation of action.

In the official war journal where a battalion keeps its records--that precious historical document which will be safeguarded in fireproof vaults one of these days--you may read in cold official language what happened in one section of the British line on the 8th of May. Thus:

“7 A. M. Fire trench on right blown in at several points.... 9 A. M. Lieutenants Martin and Triggs were hit and came out of left communicating trench with number of wounded.... Captain Still and Lieut. de Bay hit also.... 9.30 A. M. All machine guns were buried (by high explosive shells) but two were dug out and mounted again. A shell killed every man in one section.... 10.30 A.M. Lieut. Edwards was killed.... Lieutenant Crawford, who was most gallant, was severely wounded.... Captain Adamson, who had been handing out ammunition, was hit in the shoulder, but continued to work with only one arm useful.... Sergeant-Major Frazer, who was also handing out ammunition to support trenches, was killed instantly by a bullet in the head.”

At 10.30 only four officers remained fit for action. All were lieutenants. The ranking one of these was Niven, in command after Gault was wounded at 7 A. M. We have all met the Niven type anywhere from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Circle, the high-strung, wiry type, who moves about too fast to carry any loose flesh and accumulates none because he does move about so fast. A little man Niven, a rancher, a horseman, with a good education and a knowledge of men. He rather fits the old saying about licking his weight in wild cats--wild cats being nearer his size than lions or tigers.

Eight months before he had not known any more about war than thousands of other Canadians of his type, except that soldiers carried rifles over their shoulders and kept step. But he had “Fanny” Farquhar of the British army for his teacher; and he studied the book of war in the midst of shells and bullets--which means that the lessons stick in the same way as the lesson the small boy receives when he touches the red-hot end of a poker to see how it feels.

Writing in the midst of ruined trenches rocked by the concussion of shells, every message he sent that day, every report he made by orderly after the wires were down was written out very explicitly-- which Farquhar had taught him was the army way. The record is there of his coolness when the lid was blown off of hell. For all you can tell by the firm chirography he might have been sending a note to a ranch foreman.

After his communications were cut, he was not certain how much support he had on his flanks. It looked for a time as if he had none. After the first charge was repulsed he made contact with the King’s Royal Rifle Corps on his right. He knew from the nature of the first German charge that the second would be worse than the first. The Germans had advanced some machine guns; they would be able to place their increased artillery fire more accurately. Again green figures started down that hill and again they were put back. Then Niven was able to establish contact with the Shropshire Light Infantry, another regiment on his left. So he knew that right and left he was supported--and by seasoned British regulars. This was very, very comforting--especially so when German machine gun fire was not only coming from the front but in enfilade--which is so trying to a soldier’s steadiness. In other words, the P. P’s were shooting at Germans in front while bullets were whipping crosswise of their trenches and of the regulars on their flanks, too. Some of the German infantrymen who had not been hit or had not fallen back had dug themselves cover and were firing at a closer range.

The Germans had located the points in the P. P’s’ trench occupied by the machine guns. At least, they could put these hornets’ nests out of business, if not all the individual riflemen. So they concentrated high explosive shells on them. That did the trick; it buried them. But a buried machine gun may be dug out and fired again. It may be dug out two or three times and keep on firing as long as it will work and there is any one to man it.

While the machine guns were being exhumed every man in one sector of the trench was killed. Then the left half of the right fire trench got three or four shells one after another bang into it. There was no trench left: only macerated earth and mangled men. Those emerging alive were told to fall back to the communicating trench. Next the right end of the left fire trench was blown in. When the survivors fell back to the communication trench that was also blown in their face.

“Oh, but we were having a merry party,” as Lieutenant Vandenberg said.

Niven and his lieutenants were moving here and there to the point of each new explosion to ascertain the amount of the damage and to decide what was to be done as the result. One soldier described Niven’s eyes as sparks emitted from two holes in his dust-caked face.

Papineau tells how a tree outside the trench was cut in two by a shell and its trunk laid across the breach of the trench caused by another shell; and lying over the trunk limp and lifeless where he had fallen was a man killed by still another shell.

“I remember how he looked because I had to step around him and over the trunk,” said Papineau.

Unless you did have to step around a dead or wounded man there was no time to observe his appearance; for by noon there were as many dead and wounded in the P. P’s’ trench as there were men fit for action.

Those unhurt did not have to be steadied by their superiors. Knocked down by a concussion they sprang up with the promptness of disgust of one thrown off a horse or tripped by a wire. When told to move from one part of the trench to another where there was desperate need, a word was sufficient direction. They understood what was wanted of them, these veterans. They went. They seized every lull to drop the rifle for the spade and repair the breaches. When they were not shooting they were digging. The officers had only to keep reminding them not to expose themselves in the breaches. For in the thick of it--and the thicker the more so--they must try to keep some dirt between all of their bodies except the head and arm which must be up in order to fire.

At 1.30 a cheer rose from that trench. It was for a platoon of the King’s Royal Rifles which had come as reinforcement. Oh, but that band of Tommies did look good to the P. P’s! And the little prize package that the very reliable Mr. Atkins had with him--the machine gun! You can always count on Mr. Atkins to remain “among those present” to the last on such occasions.

Now Niven got word by messenger to go to the nearest point where the telephone was working and tell the brigade commander the complete details of the situation. The brigade commander asked him if he could stick, and he said “Yes, sir!” which is what Col. “Fanny” Farquhar would have said. That trip was hardly what could be called peaceful. The orderly whom Niven had with him both going and coming was hit by high explosive shells. Niven is so small--it is very difficult to hit him. He is about up to Major Gault’s shoulder.

He had been worrying about his supply of rifle cartridges. There were not enough to take care of another German infantry charge which was surely coming. After repelling two charges, think of failing to repel the third for want of ammunition! Think of Corporal Christy, the bear-hunter, with the Germans thick in front of him and no bullets for his rifle! But appeared again Mr. Thomas Atkins--another platoon of him with twenty boxes of cartridges which were rather a risky burden to bring through the shell fire. The relief as these were distributed was that of having something at your throat which threatens to strangle you removed.

Making another tour of his trenches about four in the afternoon, Niven found that there was a gap of fifty yards between his left and the right of the adjoining regiment. Fifty yards is the inch on the end of a man’s nose in trench warfare on such an occasion. He was able to place eight men in that gap. At least, they could keep a lookout and tell him what was going on.

It was not cheering news either to learn a little later that the regiments on his left had withdrawn to trenches about three hundred yards to the rear--a long distance in trench warfare. But the P. P’s had no time for retirement. They could have gone only in the panic of men who think of nothing in their demoralisation except to flee from the danger in front without thinking that there may be more danger to the rear. They were held where they were under what cover they had by the renewed blasts of shells--putting the machine guns out of action again--which suddenly ceased; for the Germans were coming on again.

Now was the supreme effort. It was as a nightmare in which only the objective of effort is recalled and all else is a vague struggle of all the strength one can exert against smothering odds. No use to ask these men what they thought. What do you think when you are climbing up a rope whose strands are breaking over the edge of a precipice? You climb--that is all.

The P. P’s shot at Germans. After a night without sleep, after a day among their dead and wounded, after the torrents of shell-fire, after breathing smoke, dust and gas, these veterans were in a state of exaltation entirely unconscious of dangers of their surroundings, mindless of what came next, automatically shooting to kill as they were trained to do, even as a man pulls with every ounce of strength he has in him in a close finish of a boat race.

Corporal Dover had to give up firing his machine gun at last. Wounded, he had dug it out of the earth after an explosion and set it up again. The explosion that destroyed the gun finally crushed his leg and arm. He crawled out of the _débris_ towards the support trench which had become the fire trench, only to be killed by a bullet.

The Germans got possession of a section of the P. P’s’ trench where, it is believed, no Canadians were left. But the German effort died there. It could get no farther. This was as near to Ypres as the Germans were to go in this direction. When the day’s work was done and there in sight of the field scattered with German dead, the P. P’s counted their numbers. Of the 635 men who had begun the fight at daybreak one hundred and fifty men and four officers, Niven, Papineau, Clark and Vandenberg, remained fit for duty.

Papineau is a young lawyer of Montreal, who had already won the Military Cross for bombing Germans out of a sap at St. Eloi. Vandenberg is a Dutchman--but mostly he is Vandenberg. To him the call of youth is the call to arms. He knows the roads of Europe and the roads of Chihuahua. He was at home fighting with Villa at Zacatecas and at home fighting with the P. P’s in front of Ypres.

Darkness found all the survivors among the P. P’s in the support and communication trenches. The fire trench had become an untenable dust-heap. They crept out only to bring in any wounded unable to help themselves; and wounded and rescuers were more than once hit in the process. It was too dangerous to attempt to bury the dead, who were in the fire trench. Most of them had already been buried by shells. For them and for the dead in the support trenches interred by their living comrades Niven recited such portions as he could recall of the Church of England service for the dead--recited them with a tight throat. Then the P. P’s, unbeaten, marched out, leaving the position to their relief, a battalion of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps.

Eighteen hundred strong they had come out to France; and after they had repulsed German charges in the midst of shells that mauled their trenches at Hooge on that indescribable day of May 8th, one hundred and fifty were able to bear arms and little Lieutenant Niven, polo player and horseman, who had entered as a private, was in command. Corporal Christy, bear-hunter of the Northwest, who could “shoot the eyes off an ant,” by some miracle had escaped without a scratch. All the praise that the P. P’s, millionaire or labourer, scapegrace or respectable pillar of society, ask is that they were worthy of fighting side by side with Mr. Thomas Atkins, regular. At best one poor little finite mind only observes through a rift in the black smoke and yellow smoke of high explosives and the clouds of dust and military secrecy something of what has happened in a small section of that long line from Switzerland to the North Sea many times; and this is given here.

Leaning against the wall in a corner of the dining-room of the French château were the P. P’s’ colours. Major Niven took off the wrapper in order that I might see the flag with the initials of the battalion which Princess Patricia embroidered with her own hands. There’s room, one repeats, for a little sentiment and a little emotion, too, between Halifax and Vancouver.

“Of course we could not take our colours into action,” said Niven. “They would have been torn into tatters or buried in a shell crater. But we’ve always kept them up at battalion headquarters. I believe we are the only battalion that has. We promised the Princess that we would.”

In her honour an old custom has been renewed in France: knights are fighting in the name of a fair lady.

XXVI

FINDING THE BRITISH FLEET

The Briton’s island instinct--Secrecy surrounding the fleet--The magic message--The journey--A night drive along the bleak coast of Scotland--Boy scouts as sentries--An obdurate guard--The navy yard--The Admiral’s “quarter deck”--The largest contract in all England--Great dry docks--Patriots in workmen’s clothes.

The Briton’s national self-consciousness is surrounded by salt water. His island instinct is only another word for sea instinct. Ebb and flow of war on the Continent, play of party politics at home, optimism and pessimism wrestling in the press--in the back of his head he was thinking of the navy.

During the first year of the war all other curtains of military secrecy were parted at intervals; but the world of British naval operations seemed hermetically sealed. One could only imagine what the Grand Fleet was like. He had despaired of ever seeing it in the life, when good fortune slipped a message across the Channel to the British front, which became the magic carpet of transition from the burrowing army in its trenches to the solid decks of battleships; which changed the war correspondent’s modern steed, the automobile, trailing dust over French roads, to destroyers trailing foam in choppy seas off English coasts.

But not all the journeying was on destroyers. One must travel by car also if he would know something of the intricate, busy world of the Admiralty’s work, which makes coastguards a part of its personnel. There was more than ships to see; more than one place to go in that wonderful week.

The transition is less sudden if we begin with the career of an open car along the coast of Scotland in the night. Dusk had fallen on the purple cloud-lands of heather dotted with the white spots of grazing sheep in the Scotch highlands under changing skies, with headlands stretching out into the misty reaches of the North Sea, forbidding in the chill air after the warmth of France and suggestive of the uninviting theatre where, in approaching winter, patrols and trawlers and mine-sweepers carried on their work to within range of the guns of Heligoland. A people who lived in such a chill land, in sight of such a chill sea, and who spoke of their “bonnie Scotland forever,” were worthy to be masters of that sea.

The Americans who think of Britain as a small island forget the distance from Land’s End to John o’ Groat’s, which represents coast line to be guarded; and we may find a lesson, too, we who must make our real defence by sea, of tireless vigils which may be our own if the old Armageddon beast ever comes threatening the far-longer coast line that we have to defend. For you may never know what war is till war comes. Not even the Germans knew, though they had practised with a lifelike dummy behind the curtains for forty years.

At intervals, just as in the military zone in France, sentries stopped us and took the number of our car; but this time sentries, who were guarding a navy’s rather than an army’s secrets. With darkness we passed the light of an occasional inn, while cottage lights made a scattered sprinkling among the dim masses of the hills. One wondered where all the kilted Highland soldiers whom he had seen at the front came from, without, I trust, disclosing any military secret that the canny Highlanders enlist Lowlanders in kilty regiments.

The Frenchmen of our party--M. Stephen Pichon, former Foreign Minister, M. Réné Bazin, of the Academie Française, M. Joseph Reinach, of the _Figaro_, M. Pierre Mille, of _Le Temps_, and M. Henri Ponsot-- who had never been in Scotland before, were on the lookout for a civilian Scot in kilts and were grievously disappointed not to find a single one.

That night ride convinced me that however many Germans might be moving about in England under the guise of cockney or of Lancashire dialects in quest of information, none has any chance in Scotland. He could never get the burr, I am sure, unless born in Scotland; and if he were, once he had it the triumph ought to make him a Scotchman at heart.

The officer of the Royal Navy, who was in the car with me, confessed to less faith in his symbol of authority than in the generations’-bred burr of our chauffeur to carry conviction of our genuineness; so arguments were left to him and successfully, including two or three with Scotch cattle, which seemed to be co-operating with the sentries to block the road.

After an hour’s run inland and the car rose over a ridge and descended on a sharp grade, in the distance under the moonlight we saw the floor of the sea again, melting into opaqueness, with curving fringes of foam along the irregular shore cut by the indentations of the firths. Now the sentries were more frequent and more particular. Our single light gave dim form to the figures of sailors, soldiers, and boy scouts on patrol.

“They’ve done remarkably well, these boys!” said the officer. “Our fears that, boylike, they would see all kinds of things which didn’t exist were quite needless. The work has taught them a sense of responsibility which will remain with them after the war, when their experience will be a precious memory. They realise that it isn’t play, but a serious business, and act accordingly.”

With all the houses and the countryside dark, the rays of our lamp seemed an invading comet to the men who held up lanterns with red twinkles of warning.

“The patrol boats have complained about your lights, sir!” said one obdurate sentry.

We looked out into the black wall in the direction of the sea and could see no sign of a patrol boat. How had it been able to inform this lone sentry of that flying ray which disclosed the line of a coastal road to any one at sea? He would not accept the best argumentative burr that our chauffeur might produce as sufficient explanation or guarantee. Most Scottish of Scots in physiognomy and shrewd matter-of-factness, as revealed in the glare of the lantern, he might have been on watch in the Highland fastnesses in Prince Charlie’s time.

“Captain R----, of the Royal Navy!” explained the officer, introducing himself.

“I’ll take your name and address!” said the sentry.

“The Admiralty. I take the responsibility.”

“As I’ll report, sir!” said the sentry, not so convinced but he burred something further into the chauffeur’s ear.