Chapter 16

ON THE BELGIAN BORDER.

Upon my return from Canada, while waiting in London for orders to proceed to France, I received a telegram to appear at Buckingham Palace on the following morning at 10.15. The taxi drove through the outer courtyard to the inner palace entrance and my coat and hat were taken charge of by a scarlet-coated attendant who gave me a numbered check for the same.

An equerry-in-waiting asked me what my decoration was to be, and he showed me into a large room with an immense bay window from which a splendid view of a magnificent park could be seen. The bay window was divided up by scarlet ropes into several sections, into one of which I was ushered. One of these was for the C.B.'s, and contained a sole occupant, a naval officer. The next sections were for the C.M.G.'s, the next for the D.S.O.'s, M.C.'s, etc.

There were eight officers in our section, the first six being generals. An attendant then came and placed a hook on the left hand side of our tunics, our names were checked over and we were placed in order according to rank.

When everything was ready the great doors leading into the room where King George was to invest us, were swung back and we slowly proceeded towards it. The first name was called and the naval officer stepped forward and disappeared into the room beyond. The next officer, Lord Locke, who was the first in line for the C.M.G. went next, and so they proceeded quickly until my turn came.

As I advanced I could see the King standing about twenty feet in front of a large window, dressed in a morning suit, and looking exactly like his pictures. As he hung the decoration of the order on my little hook he shook hands cordially and said "I am glad to give you the C.M.G."

Then he added, "Have you been with my army in France?"

I replied, "Yes, sir, with the first army."

"Have you been out there long?" he queried.

"I have been there for eight months, was re-called to Canada for two months, and am now on my way back," I replied.

He nodded, adding something I did not catch, shook hands for the second time, and repeated as though he really meant it, "I am very glad to give you the C.M.G."

I backed away a few steps, and retired by another route, feeling that this was the simplest and easiest ordeal I had ever gone through. It was impossible to make a mistake even if you had tried to and everybody was kindness and courtesy itself. An attendant removed the decoration, placed it in a box and handed it to me; another attendant handed me my coat and cap and I left the palace. "So much for Buckingham!"

Soldiers were drilling in the courtyard and guards sprang to attention and presented arms as I passed, while a policeman hailed a taxi for me in which I drove to St. Paul's to see the most beautiful chapel there--that of "The most distinguished order of St. Michael and St. George."

As I drove by West Sandling camp and through Hythe to take the morning packet back to France a cold raw wind searched my very bones. The channel was rough enough to make the windward side of the deck wet and unpleasant and the officers with which the boat was packed huddled into their trench coats and British warms trying to keep out the cold. The torpedo boat destroyers threshed about hither and thither in smothers of spray while away to the north the mine sweepers stretched across from shore to shore intent upon their never-ending search.

It was rough travelling on the road to the north next day; rain, snow, sleet and hail, driven by a stinging wind, lashed our faces during the whole of the trip. En route we called at General Headquarters and Army Headquarters to report, and arrived at noon in the little French town on the Belgian border which was the new location of our field laboratory.

The Major and Captain seemed glad to see me and escorted me to my new billet near the railway station; there was no glass in the windows and the room was very cold. The officers pointed out a big hole in the pavement in front of the house, made the day before by a German bomb. The bomb had killed a number of horses and several men and had blown the glass out of all the windows in the neighborhood. But the Major assured me that a bomb seldom struck twice in the same place and that, as the Bosches were after the railway station close by at the end of the street, the safest place was the immediate neighborhood of the station. As this sounded quite logical, I remained at the billet until summer time, though I never noticed any great eagerness on the part of my two officers to move to the vicinity of the station from comfortable billets in the centre of the town.

The very next day the town was bombed again and one "dud" fell in our back yard.

The new town was larger than our old one, but very uninteresting and very dirty in the winter months. The people were distinctly rougher in dress, appearance and manners than those in France farther from the Belgian frontier, differences possibly due to the effects of mixture with Flemish blood. The surrounding country was rolling and much prettier than that around Merville and it was a great relief to be able to rest the eyes with the diversities of a rolling landscape instead of constantly looking out upon a deadly monotonous level country.

The headquarters of the Canadian corps was in the town and the Canadians occupied the front line at, and north of, Ploegsteert wood, opposite the Messines-Wytschaete ridge.

For days and weeks officers and men kept calling to get the news from home in Canada, particularly about recruiting, and they would listen as long as I would talk. Favorite questions were: "What does the corner of King and Yonge streets look like?" and "How is Tommy Church?"

Among those who called was General Mercer to whom I had brought a box of candy from one of his office staff in Toronto and he stayed for half an hour while I told him all the home news. We dined with him that night and had a very pleasant evening with his staff, Lt.-Col. Hayter, Lt.-Col. McBrien, Captain Gooderham, Lt. Cartwright; the General was very optimistic as to the final result of the war, though he felt that it would last at least three years longer.

Our laboratory was now located in a school which was being utilized as part of No. 2 British casualty clearing station and the first visit I made to this hospital was to see an old school friend, Captain Cole, the medical officer of the Princess Patricia's who was there with a bullet through his lungs. The very first day after his arrival from the base after an attack of pneumonia he was caught by a sniper. He made an uninterrupted recovery and eventually returned to active service.

The British Army in France was steadily growing larger and troops were beginning to be shifted about to give place to new divisions coming into the line to train. A new division is never put directly into the firing line and given a section of front; that would be too risky. The new division is billeted in the area back of the lines and is gradually brought up towards the front. The infantry is put into the reserve and front line trenches by platoons and companies and mixed with the old-timers who know all the ropes. In this way the new comer picks up the routine of trench work very quickly, and, when the men have all been broken in, the division gradually takes over its section of front. In the same way the gunners are instructed in practical artillery work and the men in other branches of the service are similarly broken in.

There were rumours that the Canadians were again to move on to the historic Ypres salient and those of the old brigade were not looking forward to it with any perceptible amount of enthusiasm. Ypres had associations which a whole year had not been able to eradicate. Canadian casualties at this time were very slight; in fact almost nothing. "Plugstreet" was supposed to be the pleasantest part of the whole line, and to those who had been to Muskoka it seemed very much like home, for there were log houses and rustic gates and all the other accessories found in the wild playgrounds of northern Ontario.

"Plugstreet" was an easy place to approach since the woods prevented observation and motor cars could get right up into the woods itself. While standing in Ploegsteert woods by the car one day I heard somebody singing an aria from Faust; the voice was magnificent and evidently that of a highly trained singer who had sung in grand opera; I listened with great delight while he sang with the utmost abandon, and when he stopped, I watched for the owner of the voice to step out from among the bushes. The songster proved to be a cook preparing the evening meal. It was another example of the cosmopolitan nature of the first Canadian contingent, which had in its ranks men of every profession and walk in life.

Life was at this time becoming very monotonous for our men in the trenches. The mail was the one great event of the day.

To relieve the monotony of trench life all sorts of games were devised to pass the time. One unit had an intensely exciting morning in one of the trenches--racing frogs. Two frogs had by mistake hopped into the trench and were captured. Sides were formed and bets made as to which frog would reach a given point first. As their leaders with the aid of straws goaded their respective frogs into greater activity, the woods of Ploegsteert fairly rang with the cheers of the rival parties.

Early in April the Canadians again found themselves in the Ypres salient, as usual alongside the British guards. At St. Eloi they had had casualties amounting in all to something over 500.

The Australian divisions had arrived on the western front, and two of them came into our area. In length of limb and general "ranginess" they greatly resembled our own westerners, and walked with the freedom bred of a life in the open. Their usual question at first when they met another soldier was, "Have you been to war or in France?" They got the surprise of their lives when they found that life on the western front was far more strenuous than it was on the Gallipoli peninsula.

The British army was learning by hard knocks how to do things, and the truth of the old saying was constantly borne home to one that in the early years of any great war England paid dearly for her experience in blood and treasure.

The Fokker plane had "thrown a scare" into the air service, and there was a general demand on the part of the British public for greater efficiency. As a new arm of the service it was not considered by Whitehall with the seriousness it deserved; only the men who saw planes come over, hover about, and were in consequence heavily and accurately shelled shortly afterwards, realized what the command of the air meant. The air tangle, and the inadequacy of the air service became such a scandal that Lord Derby and Lord Montague resigned from the air board as a protest against the way this branch of the service was being bungled.

As a matter of fact the Fokker was never considered, by our men, to be a very wonderful machine, and we quickly evolved types that were superior to it in every respect.

Nevertheless these were bad days on our front, and for a while as a result of the enemy's air superiority we were bombed with great regularity. At Canadian corps headquarters, where we dined with Generals Alderson and Burstall one night after our own town had been bombed, they were very much interested as they had occupied that town for several months, and each officer wanted to know whether his former billet had been struck.

The same night German planes bombed Canadian headquarters fairly heavily, and also some of the camps and hospitals (the hospitals were all marked with huge red crosses on the roof). During the same period the enemy shelled towns, camps and roads far back from the front line area, making life in the war area on the whole very uncertain and very uncomfortable. It was necessary to visit many places under cover of darkness, so accurate was the German observation and shell fire during the day time.[1]

For example: one Sunday morning we travelled from Armentieres to Ploegsteert by a road which in spots could be seen from the German lines, though screened by green canvas at such places. Just before we entered Ploegsteert village we were in full view of the enemy for a short distance. Instead of passing right through the long village street as I had intended we stopped for a minute to look at a well which was being used as a source of drinking water. As we started forward shells began to spray the road at the far end of the village at the very moment when we ourselves would have arrived had we gone right on. Naturally we changed our course and turned off at right angles towards home, while heavy shelling of the town continued.

Half a mile out of the village we met a civilian with his wife and little six year old girl, all dressed in their Sunday clothes, jogging along in a two wheeled cart to their home in Ploegsteert village, which was still being shelled. Why people should apparently discount death as some of these civilians seemed to do, passed our powers of comprehension; it never ceased to be an astonishing thing to me.

There was great air activity during that period on the part of the Bosches and with a reason. We knew that they were ready for another gas attack, for our artillery had burst a tank in the German trenches and the yellow fumes of chlorine gas had been identified. A German gas bag used for getting the wind drift was also brought in to us for examination, showing that the enemy was awaiting a favorable opportunity.

As I sat out in our garden in Bailleul one evening at the end of April reading "The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne," three aeroplanes like great birds volplaned slowly down from the clouds--coming home to roost--until they were within 100 feet of the ground, just clearing the house tops as they dropped into their nesting ground on the other side of the town. I could see the pilots quite plainly.

In that brick-walled garden, full of rose bushes in leaf, I sat and looked at the cherry trees in early blossom, and thoughts came to me of other gardens away back in Canada, where I had spent many an hour in the gloaming, while real birds and bats flitted about across the sky. I leaned over to breathe the perfume of a white jonquil and a thrill of emotion swept over me and almost made me dizzy--for the odour was one I had not met with for a long, long time. This variety of jonquil my father used to grow at the lake, and in the spring of the year on which he died some of the bulbs planted with his own hands were in bloom when we made our first trip up there; they had seemed like a sweet message from the dead.

I went to bed that night very homesick, wishing that the Kaiser was in Hades and the war was over. For a long time I could not get to sleep and an agitated rapping on my door made me start up quickly from a restless slumber. My window was open and the choking fumes of chlorine poured into the room while Madame rapped away, exclaiming, "Monsieur the Colonel; the asphyxiating gas has arrived." I slammed the window to, soaked a muffler in water and wrapped it over my mouth and nose while robed in a dressing gown, I hastened down stairs. My own gas mask, carefully placed in a corner, had been moved, and, in the dark, I could not find it. I gathered the four women into the inner kitchen and made them breathe through towels wrung out in a solution of ammonium carbonate, which we were fortunate enough to find, while we excluded as much gas as possible by wet towels placed over the cracks in the doors.

It was a most unpleasant experience. As we were nearly seven miles from the German line, it was quite evident that the gas must have been discharged in tremendous quantity to have reached us in the strength it did. I had visions of the Germans discharging gas for hours and killing everything that breathed for miles back of the lines. It was a horrible sensation to realize that you had been caught like rats in a cellar and would slowly die of asphyxiation. The gas crept in through the doors, and it was quite impossible to breathe except through towels saturated with the chemical solution. I wondered how the Germans would feel about it when they came over through a country devoid of all life and whether they would take the trouble to bury all the women and children and dead animals.

Breathing was steadily becoming more and more difficult, when suddenly the door bell rang. One of the girls insisted on going to answer it, and quickly came back to report that a neighbor had called to see whether they were all right, and that the gas cloud had passed. Never did fresh air taste so sweet to me, and I wasted no time in sending to a hospital for a set of masks so as to be prepared should another gas cloud arrive.

The streak of gas that crossed our section of the town must have drifted along some depression in the surface of the country, for a good many people in other parts of the town, particularly where the windows had been closed, were not greatly inconvenienced by it.

The gas was strong enough to kill all the young foliage of the roses and other plants in our garden, while closer to the front a number of horses were poisoned by it. Several hundred soldiers of British regiments were gassed and the Germans, under cover of the gas cloud, raided the British trenches in an endeavour to locate and blow up certain mine shafts. That they did not succeed was shown recently when these same mines on the Wytschaete ridge blew both Germans and trenches far on the way towards the eternal stars.

Other gas attacks launched by the Germans the same night failed to achieve any results; and in one section they managed to gas themselves badly. We reported the gas to be chlorine, and the post mortems of gassed soldiers carried out by Major Rankin, blood tests by myself to exclude other possibilities, and evidence obtained elsewhere, all indicated that the gas employed had been chlorine.

The New Zealand division which had come into our area, held the line in front of Armentieres. A small epidemic of suspected dysentery in that division took us through that town frequently, and we found it almost completely deserted. The Huns shelled it almost daily and had made the place almost untenable for civilians, though, as usual, a number of them hung on and did a fairly good business.

The staff of our laboratory had been reduced from three officers to two, and after a good deal of discussion, Major Rankin dropped out at his own earnest request and was detailed to the Canadian Corps to train for the position of D.A.D.M.S. To celebrate the occasion he gave us a little dinner, and invested heavily in nectarines, strawberries and peaches from the graperies. The occasion was only slightly marred by the popping cork of a champagne bottle crashing through a skylight and bringing down a shower of glass on the Cap.'s head, which bled profusely.

One evening after dinner as we sat with French windows opened wide to the warm evening air of late spring, puffing idly at our cigars, a most beautiful bird song burst upon our ears--a song that made us stare at one another in amazement; we had never heard its like before. It might be described as a bird fantasia--the notes covered a wide range of sounds and the effect was beautiful. Captain Ellis walked quietly down the garden path and got close to the cherry tree from which the trills and lilts continued to pour, but could see nothing. Mlle. C---- said it was a chantresse (songster) but that did not give us much idea of what it was like.

Every morning and evening after that, this indefatigable songster made music for us (or rather for his mate, probably sitting on her eggs) in the cherry tree on the other side of the wall. How we enjoyed listening to it! Many a time we tried to locate the singer in his leafy home, but in vain; the nearest we ever came to it was once when we saw a branch shake as the bird hopped to another limb.

One morning the brilliant bursts of song were lacking, and we missed them. Just before we left for the laboratory Mademoiselle C---- brought in a rat trap to show us, and there caught in it, was our little shy singer with grey dappled breast, its head crushed by the cruel steel spring. Evidently in search of food in the early morning it had hopped on the trigger of the trap and met its fate. It was one of the little tragedies continually occurring in nature; to the little bird-wife waiting in the cherry tree it was just as great a tragedy as would be the death of her husband to the woman waiting at home.

This was an eventful period in the history of the war for Canadians. A heavy bombardment all along the line from La Bassee to Ypres forecasted something unusual. My diary, unusually voluminous for the day of June 3rd, shows that I was greatly impressed by the occurrences of that day and had taken the trouble to write down my impressions at length. The following extract is a word for word copy from my diary:

June 3rd.--Awakened at 2.15 a.m. by agitated firing of anti-aircraft guns. Heard planes overhead and big guns going. Listened for a while and got partly dressed and went down into garden. Two British planes going up--no Bosches visible. Quite clear at 2.30 a.m. with low summer clouds. Slept till 8. Asked Rankin and Ellis at breakfast about bombardment; they hadn't heard it. Rad said 18 British ships sunk and Canadians had lost trenches--laughed at him.

Sanitary officer 24th Division called re beer used at Dranoutre taken from becque ¾ mile below Locre sewage outfall. Also discussed lime treatment of sewage effluent, grease traps, etc., etc.

French paper at noon said British and German fleets had been engaged.

After dinner went with Ellis to Abeele, called on paymaster for money. Major said Canadians had had 2,000 casualties. The Germans started a 5-hour bombardment at 9 a.m., June 2nd. General Mercer and Brig. General Vic Williams were making an inspection at the time and both wounded; were last seen at 3 p.m. going into a dug-out, which was taken afterwards by Germans, and have not been seen since--probably captured. Lt.-Col. Tanner, O.C. Field Ambulance, badly wounded. In counter-attacks by 3rd Canadian Division--a good deal of trenches recovered--not all. Attack made on 3rd Division--General Lipsett now in command--and part of 1st division. 14th, 15th, and 10th Battalions, 1st Division, made counter-attack this morning--Toronto Highlanders did particularly well. 4th and 5th C.M.R.'s said to have lost 500 each. Last official bulletin about fleet--Queen Mary, Invincible and Indefatigable--battle cruisers, sunk. Also 3 cruisers sunk and one abandoned; 6 torpedo boats sunk and 6 missing. Germans lost one sunk and one damaged. Evidently the British fleet was done in badly, but the reason cannot be explained until all the facts are known.

Went to No. 10 C.C.S. to see if Ellis' brother of the 7th Battalion had been wounded--no news of him but arranged to have any information telephoned, and that he be sent for by Captain Stokes--saw the spirochaete of epidemic jaundice. General Porter there, and chatted to him for a minute.

On the way back we stopped at Mt. Rouge and saw the German lines.

It was a beautiful clear day with a tang in the air like late September.

From our little observation point on the top of Mt. Rouge we could see for miles on all sides. Over in front lay Mt. Kemmel, bristling with guns but not one visible with the field glasses. Beneath us and between us and Kemmel, on the road that runs from Bailleul to Ypres, nestled the little village of Locre, with its white walled cottages and red tiled roofs.

To the left of Kemmel the sun made prominent the ruins of Wytschaete--a village in the German lines. Just beneath Wytschaete one could see the German trenches, two lines of them, which showed like brick red seams in the earth and ran up over and along the crest of the Wytschaete ridge, which itself ran towards St. Eloi and Ypres. Between these German trenches and our own was a sandy waste--no man's land--scarred and churned by untold numbers of shells. Even the forest patches in this region were dead and slivered by rifle and shell.

To the left of Wytschaete one could see great bursts of brown, black, greenish and white smoke over a width of country perhaps ¼ of a mile and a length of 2 miles. It was here that the 3rd and 1st Canadian Divisions were fighting with the Huns for mastery. Perhaps as we watched these bursting shells were killing our own friends.

The region of St. Eloi was cut off by the Scherpenberg Mountain and to the left of that again we could see with wonderful clearness the ruins of Ypres. As we watched, great clouds of dust went up at intervals from the square. The tower of St. Martin's Church, and the tower of the Cloth Hall to the right were clearly distinguishable.

To the left of Ypres again we could see spires of towns, and one town far away was right on the sea we were told, probably Dunkirk. To the right of Kemmel was the ruined tower of Messines in the German lines; to the left of that the smoking chimneys of Armentieres now also somewhat battle scarred, and away beyond it and a little to the left the City of Lille.

Thus we could see from Dunkirk on the sea to Lille, that fair city, well inland in northern France, and could follow the battle line from Pilken beyond Ypres to La Bassee. In that line we could actually see the flashes and shell bursts in Ypres, St. Eloi, Wytschaete and near Levantie. It was a wonderful day, and a view never to be forgotten.

It was a bitter day for us, and we had a bad evening discussing our hard knocks.

At 10.30 p.m. Ellis came back from the lab, with the latest report of the sea battle which has worried us so much:

LOSSES.

British. German.

3 Battle Cruisers sunk: 2 Dreadnaughts sunk. Queen Mary. 1 Battle Cruiser sunk. Indomitable. 3 Light Cruisers sunk. Indefatigable. 6 Destroyers sunk. 3 Cruisers sunk: 1 Submarine rammed and sunk. Warrior. 2 Battle Cruisers badly damaged. Black Prince. 3 other ships damaged. Defence. 1 Zeppelin destroyed. 8 Destroyers and Torpedo Boats sunk.

Hooray! even if above is not true.

The corrected report of the battle of Jutland was confirmed later and caused profound relief in the army. Why such a report had been allowed to pass and remain uncontradicted so long could not be fathomed. Those were very black days for the army in the field and many a man died with despair in his heart, convinced that what had been the greatest fact in his whole life--the invincibility of the British Fleet--was a myth. The British nation will take a long time to forgive the Admiralty for that unnecessary delay.

In that dark period the army in France, with the fleet destroyed, saw its lines of communication being cut, and the end in sight. I ran across Lt.-Col. (Canon) Scott, C.M.G., in a rest station the day after the correct report had arrived. His eye was blacked, his nose skinned, and his wrist sprained and he presented all the signs of having been in a fight, though as a matter of fact he had fallen from his horse while suffering from the effects of anti-typhoid inoculation. Notwithstanding his condition he had slipped away from the rest station that night and had gone up to the Canadian area to spread the good news of the naval battle in order to cheer up our men who were going into action. A German barrage had prevented him from getting up to the front line but he managed to have the good news telephoned in to the trenches. That was characteristic of the unselfish work of Canon Scott; he never spared himself and his thought was always for "the boys in the trenches." He is a great soul.

The Canadian losses in the St. Eloi battle were said to be about 6,000 and there was little glory for anybody and a good deal of prestige lost by many in that affair....

The death of Lord Kitchener off the Orkney Islands had startled the world and all wondered what catastrophe would happen next. The loss of Kitchener was greatly deplored by the French people who looked on Kitchener, the inscrutable, as a great mystery and one to admire and marvel at....

One day at Boulogne returning from leave after an uneventful channel crossing with some sort of Russian delegation, we had picked up our grips and started for the gangway, when the strains of a band on the dock became audible, and we could see a group of French officers waiting to meet the Russian delegates who were slowly filing down the gang plank. The band slowly played the Russian national anthem, and we all dropped our baggage and stood to attention. As the strains died away we again seized our grips and began to push forward when the band struck up the Marseillaise and again we dropped everything and stood to attention. After an interval of about ten minutes the last bars of the tune died away and for the third time we seized our things only to hear the strains of the British national anthem rising on the air. Again we dropped our stuff and smartly came to the salute like good loyal subjects though we heartily wished that the delegation had gone by the Archangel route, for we felt certain that the band would play the national anthems of Belgium, Japan, Serbia and Italy. However, like most things, it came to an end and we filed off after a delay of what had seemed to be a good half hour. It is strange how we were all keen to get back to the front to the work which we got so fed up with and would sometimes give the whole world to get away from.

The summer of 1916 was the period of the battle of the Somme and most of our interests hinged on that offensive. At the beginning of July the British began their big advance to the south and the fighting in our area consisted largely of trench raids, artillery bombardments, gas attacks, aeroplane raids and other events incidental to trench warfare.

A spectacular show occurred when the offensive began and the enemy observation balloons, hitherto practically unmolested, were attacked by our airmen with some new incendiary device with the result that nine were brought down in a few minutes in flames and the others were quickly hauled to earth to remain there for many weeks. Only occasionally during the succeeding months would a captive balloon ascend and then would quickly disappear on the approach of one of our planes.

Pens for German prisoners were under course of construction all along the front--a most satisfactory procedure from the psychological standpoint, as it seemed to express confidence in what the future was to bring. The capacity of the hospitals had also been increased from 540 to 1,000 beds, which also indicated business.

The Canadians were still in the salient side by side with the Guards and the latter used to cheer "the fighting Canucks" as they called them, as they went into the trenches. The only regret of the Canadians at that time was that they did not have the "Immortal Seventh Division" on their other side.

An attack by the Australians on our front resulted in casualties amounting to several thousands and the hospitals for many days afterwards were filled with cases of gas gangrene due to the men lying out too long in the open with infected wounds.

Divisions from our area would move out and go south to the Somme while battered divisions from the Somme front would drift up into our area. Among these was the Ulster division whose fife and drum band came marching gaily up the street, nearly every musician wearing a German cap. A few days later the south of Ireland division came up and the two divisions occupied the line side by side. Needless to say they fraternized in the best spirit while out of the line just as they supported one another while in it.

In the second week in August the first Canadian division came out of the salient into the training area preparatory to going down to the Somme, and the other Canadian divisions soon followed.

During this period a Canadian medical officer, noted for his self-possession, was proceeding along the road and came across a private soldier who had been hurt in an accident. At the same time a car stopped and a young lieutenant stepped out to see whether he could be of use. The M.O. examined the injured man and said to the lieutenant rather brusquely, "Is that your car?" The lieutenant said that it was. "Well we'll just put this man in and take him to the hospital in Hazebrouk if you don't mind," said the M.O. and without waiting for permission helped the injured man into the car. The lieutenant seemed to be quite agreeable and they drove to Hazebrouk several miles away.

The M.O. thoroughly enjoyed that drive; all along the road officers and men saluted the car deferentially and the M.O. acknowledged these salutes most graciously. Somehow or other the world seemed to be peculiarly affable to the M.O. and by the time Hazebrouk was reached he simply beamed on everybody.

As they drove up to the hospital there happened to be a General and a Colonel chatting to the officer commanding the hospital at the front door. Much to the M.O.'s surprise the General saluted first but as he made haste to acknowledge the salute, he observed that the General was smiling at the lieutenant beside him. Then, only, did it dawn upon the M.O. that the lieutenant was the Prince of Wales and his confusion was so great that he could never afterwards recall just what he did for the next three or four hours. He was heard to say that night that the Prince of Wales was "an awful decent chap and a thorough gentleman" and also that the Burgundy wine in Hazebrouk was of very inferior quality.

The work of the laboratory was very heavy from routine work of various sorts and an attempt to stamp out diphtheria from a Scotch division. Much the same sort of experiences as have been related elsewhere were encountered and we had entered upon the fed-up stage of life at the front. It needed something of extraordinary interest to rouse one's interest to any unusual degree.

At the beginning of September the three Canadian Divisions were en route to the Somme, while the newly arrived 4th Canadian Division came up to take over part of the line near the Ypres Salient.

The British and French were doing well and taking many prisoners on the Somme, as were the Russians on their front while the Roumanians began their offensive and swept far over the country much to the horror of the critics and everybody else.

There was great elation on the day of the big offensive on the Somme when the British first used "tanks." I shall never forget the thrill I had when we read a telegram received at one of the headquarters repeating a wireless message from an aeroplane observer to the effect that he could see a tank wobbling into a village followed by cheering troops. It was the first time that engines of warfare had led the way to an attacking force and the picture of the enemy fleeing before these new engines of terror spouting fire and destruction and rolling over trenches and machine gun emplacements, while cheering Tommies followed in their wake, will never be forgotten. We envied the air men their view that day and thought of how they must have thrilled at the sights below them.

We had been ordered to get out of our quarters in the school on October the first. After some difficulty we decided to build a hut for laboratory quarters and selected a field near the British isolation hospital. The view from the site selected, overlooking the rolling fields, with the Mt. de Cats surmounted by its monastery to the left, and Mt. Rouge to the right, is about as fine as anything I have seen in Belgium.

With the aid of a carpenter from the Canadian casualty clearing station, we built the hut, 40 feet by 20 feet, ourselves, and when I left for England early in October, it was a great satisfaction to feel that we were established in what a Surgeon-General subsequently stated to be "an ideal field laboratory."

On the way from what proved to be my last stay in France, we visited the Somme area and saw some of our old comrades. The Canadians had on the previous day suffered heavy casualties in trying to take Regina trench and we passed homeward through the tent covered area behind Albert with the knowledge that more of our old school friends were at that moment lying out wounded and dead in no man's land.

As we drove along the moonlit road from Albert on the way to Boulogne we passed company after company of soldiers trudging along towards the front; they did not sing. It was the 4th Canadian Division going into action--about to experience that great adventure of battle for which they had trained so long and had come so far to obtain.

Farther along the road we could hear away in the distance a song; we could not distinguish the words but we knew that soon we would hear "Pack up your troubles in your own kit bag and Smile, Smile, Smile!" They were Canadians coming out of the trenches.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Our men have since been astonished at the wonderful view of our lines obtained from the Messines-Wytschaete ridge.

INDEX

A

Air service, 237; battle, 88

Alderson, General, 94, 237

Advanced Dressing Station, 128

Ambulance, work of, 129; Field, Canadian, No. 3., 104, 108

Artillery, Canadian, in billets, 22; Shelling by, 158

Aubers ridge, battle of, 170

Australians, arrival of, from Gallipoli, 236

B

Band, British Guards, 173; Indian, 174

Bailleul, garden in, 116, 240

Balbaud, Professor Paul, 121

Barrows, Roman, Salisbury Plains, 27

Battalion, first Canadian, 117; third Canadian (Toronto), 70, 115; Winnipeg rifles, 7; work of medical officers of, 127

Baths, divisional, 146, 147

Bird life, Salisbury Plains, 25; the nameless, 242

Bombs, on Bailleul, 233; on Canadian Headquarters, 237; on Merville, 72

Bournemouth, 52

Boyd, Capt, 104

Brielen, 91

British officers, 66

Buckingham Palace, investiture at, 230

Burstall, General (C.B.), 94, 237

C

Canadian contingent, first, leaving Gaspé, 5; arrival at Plymouth, 9; Salisbury Plain, 10; sickness among, 19

Canadian division, first, review by King, 29; after Neuve Chappelle, 70; sports of, 74; German attack upon, 97

Canadian division, second, arrival in France, 123

Canadians in Ypres Salient, 1916, 250, 252

Canadian graveyard, 176; laboratory arrival in France, 65; work of (See 'Laboratory').

Casualty clearing station, work of a, 128

Chalons-sur-Marne, 206

Champagne, visit to, 205

Channel, crossing the British, 232

Cartwright, Lt., 234

Chlorine gas used by Germans, 94 treatment of water (See 'Water'), 140, 155

Cole, Capt. Cooper, 234

Cock fighting in France, 73

Creeks, pollution of, 147

D

Disease, (See 'Epidemics'); "Carriers" of, 139, 142

Dressing Station, Canadian Advanced, 99

Dysentery, suspected epidemic of, 157

E

Ellis, Major Arthur, 68, 107, 164, 232, 242, 245

Epidemics, how spread, 136; lack of, in British Army, 134

F

Festubert, battle of, 118, 166

Fire fete of Merville, 180

Flowers in Spring, England, 57; France, 67; Experience with Parisian flower-girl, 194; in Bailleul garden, 239; in Merville garden, 121

French artillery, 109; front, visit to, 205

Foch, General, 106

Foster, Col. (C.B.) (Surgeon-General), 113

Funeral, a Canadian Soldier's, 116

G

Gas, original, attack on Canadians, April 22, 1915, 93; attack by Germans, Spring, 1916, 240; on Belgians, April, 1915, 111; masks, suggested use of, 107; poison, nature of, 94, 95, 107; work of laboratory on, 115

Gaspé basin, 5

Gooderham, Capt., 234

Graves, Canadian, 176

H

Haig, General Sir Douglas, 170

Hardy, Lt.-Col. (D.S.O.), 101

Hayter, Lt.-Col. (D.S.O.), 234

Haywood, Major Alf. (M.C.), 71, 116

Highlanders, Canadian, at Ypres, 96; (Toronto), 115

Hospital on Salisbury Plain, 28; French Canadian, Paris, 199; at French front, 205; barges, 131

Hotel, Continental, Paris, 1916, 196; Lotti, Paris, 1916, 196; de l'Angleterre Beuvais, 1916, 190; Savoy, London, 1915-16, 36

Hutchison, Capt. John, 71

Hughes, General Sir Sam, 2, 35

Hygiene work of laboratory, 154

I

Institute for maimed soldiers, Paris, 207; blind soldiers, Paris, 208

Indian band concert, France, 174; (Lahore) division, 107

Inoculation against Typhoid in Canadians, 24

Investiture, a royal, 230

J

Jutland, battle of, 244, 247

K

Kemmel, hill of, 245

Kipple, Sgt., description by, 15

Kitchener, death of Lord, 247

Kirkpatrick, Major, 76

Klotz, Capt. Herbert, 30

L

Laboratory, Canadian Mobile, 253; work of Canadian Mobile, 123, 152, 154, 159

La Gorgue, 79

Laventie, 80

Larkhill, 18

Laundries, waste from army, 147

Leicester square, 1914-15, 37

Lice and typhus fever, 144

Lipsett, General (C.M.G.), 244

London, 1914, 32

Locre, 245

M

Maclaren, Major, 100

Macpherson, Surgeon-General, 126, 169

Malaria, work of Rankin on, 163

Mavor, Major Wilfred (D.S.O., M.C.), 119

McBrien, Lt.-Col., (D.S.O.), 234

McPherson, Lt.-Col., (C.M.G.), 87

Mitchell, Lt.-Col., (C.M.G.), 100

Milk, use of, in army, 141

Medical service, British organization, 126, 138; officer's duties, 127; specialists, work of, 133; stores, advanced depot, 133

Mercer, Major-General (C.B.), 70, 110, 117, 233, 234

Mignault, Lt.-Col., 199

Moroccan troops (French colonials), 96

Mosquitoes and Malaria, 143

Muntz, Capt. Jerry, 71

N

New Zealand division, arrival of, 241

O

Opera in Paris, 1916, 192

Orbeliani, Prince, 202

P

Paris at night, March, 1916, 195; demi-mondes, 193; morality of, 194; women and dress, 198; Montmartre district, 191; opera in, 192

Pasteur Institute, Paris, 204

Piccadilly circus, 1914-15, 37

Plague, how spread in armies, 149

Ploegsteert, 235-238

Prince of Wales, 251

Poperinge, 105, 107, 111, 113, 114

Pollution of water (See 'Water').

Q

Quaker search party, 142

Queen Mary battle cruiser, 8

R

Rankin, Lt.-Col. Allan, 68, 93, 97, 112, 163, 232, 242

Rats, destruction of, in army, 204; carry plague, 149; story of, 150

Red Cross, Canadian, in Paris, 203

Rawlinson, General Sir Henry, 106

Refugees, 98, 102, 165

Rennie, General Robt., 70, 76

Roberts, Lord, funeral of, 42

Robertson, Capt. E., 99

Rowland, Capt. Sydney, 62

Ryerson, Capt. George, 71

Russian delegation, 249

S

Salisbury Plain, Old Sarum, 26; Silver Grill, 47; Stonehenge, 27; white horse, 26; arrival at, 10; description of, 11; bird life, 25

Sanitary Commission of War Allies, 189, 200

Sanitary section, organization of, 130

Sanitary officers, 132; methods employed in field, 137

Scrimger, Capt., (V.C.), 92

Serbia, Prince of, 197

Scott, (Canon) Lt.-Col. Frederick George, (C.M.G.), 86, 247

St. Jean, 88

St. Denis, 210

St. Eloi, 246, 248

St. Cloud hospital, 200

Search party (Quakers), 142

Sketches, Dirty Jock, etc., 184

Sloggett, Sir Arthur, 126

Somme, battle of, 249-253

T

Tanks, 252

Tanner, Lt.-Col., 244

Tetanus, 153

Typhoid fever among refugees, 165 absence of, in British army, 135

Typhus fever in Serbia, 144, 145, 201

U

Ulster division, 252

V

Valcartier camp, 1, 3

Verdun battle, Paris during, 191

Vlamertinge, 104

Van Straubenzie, Major, 70

W

War office, London, 1914, 39

Warren, Capt. Trumbull, 91

Water carts, 155; chlorination of, 140, 155; mobile filters, 141; supply, 140, 157; purification, control of, 154, 156; value of analysis, 156

Williams, General Vic., 244

Wickens, Major Bert, 71

Wieltze, 88, 98, 99

Winnipeg battalion, 7

Wounded, evacuation of, 128

Wytschaete, 245

Y

Ypres, city of, April 17, 1915, 83; April 22, 1915, 84; description of, 84; history of, 85; Cloth Hall of, 85; second battle of, 94, 100, 102, 109, 114

Warwick Bro's & Rutter, Limited. Printers and Bookbinders, Toronto, Canada.

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