Best o' luck; how a fighting Kentuckian won the thanks of Britain's king

BEST O LUCK

ALEXANDER M^CL1NT0CK,DX.M.

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BEST O' LUCK

BY ALEXANDER McCLINTOCK, D.C.M.

"The Distinguished Conduct Medal has been
awarded to Sergeant Alexander McClintock of
the Canadian Overseas Forces for conspicuous
gallantry in action. He displayed great cour-
age and determination during a raid against the
enemy's trenches. Later he rescued several
wounded men at great personal risk."

Extract from official communication
from the Canadian War Office to the
British Consul General in NewYork.

^EST O' LUCK

HOW A FIGHTING KENTUGKIAN
WON THE THANKS OF BRITAIN'S KING

BY
ALEXANDER McCLINTOCK, D.C.M,

Late Serfteant, 87th Battalion, Canadian Grenadier Guards
Now member of U. S. A. Reserve Corps

NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 191 7,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO MY MOTHER

MAUDE JOHNSON McCLINTOCK

1

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I Training FOR THE War . . . . ii

II The Bombing Raid ..... 43

III "Over THE Top AND Give 'em Hell" 75

IV Shifted to the Somme .... loi
V Wounded IN Action 123

VI A Visit from the King . . . .153

(vii)

1

TRAINING FOR THE WAR

BEST O' LUCK

CHAPTER I

TRAINING FOR THE WAR

I don't lay claim to being much of a
writer, and up 'till now I never felt the
call to write anything about my experiences
with the Canadian troops in Belgium and
France, because I realized that a great many
other men had seen quite as much as I, and
could beat me telling about it. Of course, I
believed that my experience was worth re-
lating, and I thought that the matter pub-
lished in the newspapers by professional
writers sort of missed the essentials and
lacked the spirit of the "ditches" in a good
many ways despite its excellent literary
style, but I didn't see any reason why it was
up to me to make an efifort as a war histo-
rian, until now.

[II]

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Now, there is a reason, as I look at it.

I believe I can show the two or three mil-
lions of my fellow countrymen who will be
"out there" before this war is over what
they are going to be up against, and what
they ought to prepare for, personally and
individually.

That is as far as I am going to go in the
way of excuse, explanation, or comment.
The rest of my story is a simple rela-
tion of facts and occurrences in the
order in which they came to my notice
and happened to me. It may start off a
little slowly and jerkily, just as we did — not
knowing what was coming to us. I'd like
to add that it got quite hot enough to suit
me later — several times. Therefore, as my
effort is going to be to carry you right along
with me in this account of my experiences,
don't be impatient if nothing very impor-
tant seems to happen at first. I felt a little
ennui myself at the beginning. But that was
certainly one thing that didn't annoy me
later.

In the latter part of October, 191 5, I de-

[12]

TRAINING FOR THE WAR

cided that the United States ought to be
fighting along with England and France on
account of the way Belgium had been
treated, if for no other reason. As there
seemed to be a considerable division of opin-
ion on this point among the people at home,
I came to the conclusion that any man who
was free, white, and twenty-one and felt as
I did, ought to go over and get into it single-
handed on the side where his convictions led
him, if there wasn't some particular reason
why he couldn't. Therefore, I said good-
by to my parents and friends in Lexington,
and started for New York with the idea of
sailing for France, and joining the Foreign
Legion of the French Army.

A couple of nights after I got to New York
I fell into conversation in the Knickerbocker
bar with a chap who was in the reinforce-
ment company of Princess Pat's regiment of
the Canadian forces. After my talk with
him, I decided to go up to Canada and look
things over. I arrived at the Windsor Ho-
tel, in Montreal, at eight o'clock in the
morning, a couple of days later, and at ten

[13]

BEST 0' LUCK

o'clock the same morning I was sworn in as
a private in the Canadian Grenadier
Guards, Eighty-seventh Overseas Battalion,
Lieut.-Col. F. S. Meighen, Commanding.

They were just getting under way mak-
ing soldiers out of the troops I enlisted
with, and discipline was quite lax. They
at once gave me a week's leave to come
down to New York, and settle up some
personal affairs, and I overstayed it five
days. All that my company commander
said to me when I got back was that I
seemed to have picked up Canadian habits
very quickly. At a review one day in our
training camp, I heard a Major say:

"Boys, for God's sake don't call me Harry
or spit in the ranks. Here comes the Gen-
eral 1"

We found out eventually that there was a
reason for the slackness of discipline. The
trouble was that men would enlist to get
$i.io a day without working for it, and
would desert as soon as any one made it un-
pleasant for them. Our officers knew what
they were about. Conditions changed in-

[14]

TRAINING FOR THE WAR

stantly we went on ship-board. Discipline
tightened up on us like a tie-rope on a colt.

We trained in a sort of casual, easy way
in Canada from November 4th to the fol-
lowing April. We had a good deal of trou-
ble keeping our battalion up to strength, and
I was sent out several times with other "non-
coms" on a recruiting detail.

Aside from desertions, there were rea-
sons why we couldn't keep our quota.
The weeding out of the physically un-
fit brought surprising and extensive re-
sults. Men who appeared at first amply
able to stand "the game" were unable to
keep up when the screw was turned. Then,
also, our regiment stuck to a high physical
standard. Every man must be five feet ten,
or over. Many of our candidates failed on
the perpendicular requirement only. How-
ever, we were not confined to the ordinary
rule in Canada, that recruits must come
from the home military district of the bat-
talion. We were permitted to recruit
throughout the Dominion, and thus we
gathered quite a cosmopolitan crowd. The

[15]

BEST 0' LUCK

only other unit given this privilege of Do-
minion-wide recruiting w2ls the P. P. C.
L. I. (Princess Patricia's Canadian Light
Infantry), the first regiment to go over-
seas from Canada, composed largely of vet-
erans of the South African and other colo-
nial wars. We felt a certain emulation
about this veteran business and voiced it in
our recruiting appeals. We assured our pro-
spective "rookies" that we were just as first-
class as any of them. On most of our recruit-
ing trips we took a certain corporal with us
who had seen service in France with a Mon-
treal regiment and had been invalided home.
He was our star speaker. He would mount a
box or other improvised stand and describe
in his simple, soldierly way the splendid
achievements of the comrades who had gone
over ahead of us, and the opportunities for
glory and distinction awaiting any brave man
who joined with us. When he described
his experiences there was a note of com-
pelling eloquence and patriotic fervor in
his remarks which sometimes aroused the
greatest enthusiasm. Often he was cheered

[i6]

TRAINING FOR THE WAR

as a hero and carried on men's shoulders
from the stand, while recruits came forward
in flocks and women weepingly bade them
go on and do their duty. I learned, after-
wards that this corporal had been a cook,
had never been within twenty miles of the
front line, and had been invalided home for
varicocele veins. He served us well; but
there was a man who was misplaced, in vo-
cation and geography. He should have been
in politics in Kentucky.

While we were in the training camp at St.
Johns, I made the acquaintance of a young
Canadian who became my "pal." He was
Campbell Macfarlane, nephew of George
Macfarlane, the actor who is so well known
on the American musical stage. He was a
sergeant. When I first knew him, he was
one of the most delightful and amusing
young fellows you could imagine.

The war changed him entirely. He be-
came extremely quiet and seemed to be
borne down with the sense of the terrible
things which he saw. He never lost the
good-fellowship which was inherent in him,

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BEST O' LUCK

and was always ready to do anything to
oblige one, but he formed the habit of sit-
ting alone and silent, for hours at a time,
just thinking. It seemed as if he had a pre-
monition about himself, though he never
showed fear and never spoke of the dangers
we were going into, as the other fellows did.
He was killed in the Somme action in which
I was wounded.

I'm not much on metaphysics and it is
difficult for me to express the thought I
would convey here. I can just say, as I
would if I were talking to a pal, that I have
often wondered what the intangible mental
or moral quality is that makes men think
and act so differently to one another when
confronted by the imminent prospect of sud-
den death. Is it a question of will power —
of imagination, or the lack of it — of some-
thing that you can call merely physical cour-
age— or what? Take the case of Macfar-
lane : In action he was as brave as they make*
them, but, as I have said before, the prospect
of sudden death and the presence of death
and suffering around him changed him ut-

[i8]

TRAINING FOR THE WAR

terly. From a cheerful, happy lad he was
transformed into an old man, silent, gloomy
and absent-minded except for momentary
flashes of his old spirit which became less
and less frequent as the time for his own end
drew nearer.

There was another chap with us from a
little town in Northern Ontario. While in
Canada and England he was utterly worth-
less ; always in trouble for being absent with-
out leave, drunk, late on parade, or some-
thing else. I think he must, at one time or an-
other, have been charged with every offense
possible under the K. R.&O. (King's Regu-
lations and Orders). On route marches he
was constantly "falling out." I told him,
one day when I was in command of a pla-
toon, that he ought to join the Royal Flying
Corps. Then he would only have to fall out
once. He said that he considered this a very
good joke and asked me if I could think of
anything funny in connection with being ab-
sent without leave — which he was, that
night. In France, this chap was worth ten
ordinary men. He was always cheerful, al-

[19]

BEST O' LUCK

ways willing and prompt in obeying orders,
ready to tackle unhesitatingly the most un-
pleasant or the most risky duty, and the hot-
ter it was the better he liked it. He came
out laughing and unscathed from a dozen
tight places whpre it didn't seem possible
for him to escape. To use a much-worn
phrase, he seemed to bear a charmed life.
I'll wager my last cent that he never gets an
"R. I. P." — which they put on the cross
above a soldier's grave, and which the Tom-
mies call "Rise If Possible." Then there
was a certain sergeant who was the best in-
structor in physical training and bayonet
fighting in our brigade and who was as fine
and dashing a soldier in physique and car-
riage as you ever could see. When he got
under fire he simply went to pieces. On our
first bombing raid he turned and ran back
into our own barbed wire, and when he was
caught there acted like a madman. He was
given another chance but flunked worse than
ever. I don't think he was a plain
coward. There was merely something
wrong with his nervous system. He just

[20]

TRAINING FOR THE WAR

didn't have the "viscera." Now he
is back of the lines, instructing, and v^ill
never be sent to the trenches again. We had
an officer, also, v^ho was a man of the great-
est courage, so far as sticking where he be-
longed and keeping his men going ahead
might be concerned, but every time he heard
a big shell coming over he was seized with
a violent fit of vomiting. I don't know what
makes men brave or cowardly in action, and
I wouldn't undertake to say which quality
a man might show until I saw him in action,
but I do know this : If a man isn't frightened
when he goes under fire, it's because he lacks
intelligence. He simply must be frightened
if he has the ordinary human attributes.
But if he has what we call physical courage
he goes on with the rest of them. Then if
he has extraordinary courage he may go on
where the rest of them won't go. I should
say that the greatest fear the ordinary man
has in going into action is the fear that he
will show that he is afraid — not to his offi-
cers, or to the Germans, or to the folks back
home, but to his mates; to the men with

[21]

BEST O' LUCK

whom he has laughed and scoffed at danger.

It's the elbow-to-elbow influence that car-
ries men up to face machine guns and gas.
A heroic battalion may be made up of units
of potential cowards.

At the time when Macfarlane was given
his stripes, I also was made a sergeant on
account of the fact that I had been at school
in the Virginia Military Institute. That is,
I was an acting sergeant. It was explained
to me that my appointment would have to
be confirmed in England, and then recon-
firmed after three months' service in France.
Under the regulations of the Canadian
forces, a non-commissioned officer, after
final confirmation in his grade, can be re-
duced to the ranks only by a general court-
martial, though he can escape a court-mar-
tial, when confronted with charges, by re-
verting to the ranks at his own request.

Forty-two hundred of us sailed for Eng-
land on the Empress of Britain, sister ship
to the Empress of Ireland, which was sunk
in the St. Lawrence River. The steamer
was, of course, very crowded and uncom-

TRAINING FOR THE WAR

fortable, and the eight-day trip across was
most unpleasant. We had tripe to eat until
we were sick of the sight of it. A sergeant
reported one morning, "eight men and
twenty-two breakfasts, absent." There were
two other troop ships in our convoy, the
Baltic and the Metagama. A British cruiser
escorted us until we were four hundred
miles off the coast of Ireland ; then each ship
picked up a destroyer which had come out
to meet her. At that time, a notice was
posted in the purser's office informing us
that we were in the war zone, and that
the ship would not stop for anything,
even for a man overboard. That day a sol-
dier fell off the Metagama with seven hun-
dred dollars in his pocket, and the ship never
even hesitated. They left him where he had
no chance in the world to spend his money.

Through my training in the V. M. L, I
was able to read semaphore signals, and I
caught the message from the destroyer
which escorted us. It read:

"Each ship for herself now. Make a
break!"

[35]

BEST O' LUCK

We beat the other steamers of our convoy
eight hours in getting to the dock in Liver-
pool, and, according to what seemed to be
the regular system of our operations at that
time, we were the last to disembark.

The majority of our fellows had never
been in England before, and they looked on
our travels at that time as a fine lark. Every-
body cheered and laughed when they dusted
ofif one of those little toy trains and brought
it up to take us away in it. After we were
aboard of it, we proceeded at the dizzy rate
of about four miles an hour, and our regu-
lar company humorist — no company is com-
plete without one — suggested that they were
afraid, if they went any faster, they might
run off of the island before they could stop.
We were taken to Bramshott camp, in
Hampshire, twelve miles from the Alder-
shott School of Command. The next day
we were given "King's leave" — eight days
with free transportation anywhere in the
British Isles. It is the invariable custom
to give this sort of leave to all colonial troops
immediately upon their arrival in England.

[24]

TRAINING FOR THE WAR

However, in our case, Ireland was barred.
Just at that time, Ireland was no place for
a newly arrived Canadian looking for sport.

Our men followed the ordinary rule of
soldiers on leave. About seventy-five per
cent, of them wired in for extensions and
more money. About seventy-four per cent,
received peremptorily unfavorable replies.
The excuses and explanations which came
in kept our officers interested and amused
for some days. One man — who got leave — ■
sent in a telegram which is now framed and
hung on the wall of a certain battalion or-
derley's room. He telegraphed:

*'No one dead. No one ill. Got plenty
of money. Just having a good time. Please
grant extension."

After our leave, they really began to make
soldiers of us. We thought our training in
Canada had amounted to something. We
found out that we might as well have been
playing croquet. We learned more the first
week of our actual training in England than
we did from November to April in Canada.
I make this statement without fear that any

[25]

BEST O' LUCK

officer or man of the Canadian forces alive
to-day will disagree with me, and I submit
it for the thoughtful consideration of the
gentlemen who believe that our own armies
can be prepared for service here at home.

The sort of thing that the President is up
against at Washington is fairly exemplified
in what the press despatches mention as "ob-
jections on technical grounds" of the
"younger officers of the war college," to the
recommendations which General Pershing
has made as to the reorganization of the
units of our army for service in Europe.

The extent of the reorganization which
must be made in pursuance of General
Pershing's recommendations is not apparent
to most people. Even our best informed
militia officers do not know how funda-
mentally different the organization of Euro-
pean armies is to that which has existed in
our own army since the days when it was
established to suit conditions of the Civil
War. But the officers of our regular army
realize what the reorganization would
mean and some of them rise to oppose it for

[26]

TRAINING FOR THE WAR

fear it may jeopardize their seniority or
promotion or importance. But they'll have
to come to it. The Unites States army can
not operate successfully in France unless its
units are convenient and similar multiples
to those in the French and British armies.
It w^ould lead to endless confusion and diffi-
culty if w^e kept the regiment as our field
unit while our allies have the battalion as
their field unit.

There are but unimportant differences in
the unit organization of the French, British
and Canadian forces. The British plan of
organization is an examplar of all, and it is
what we must have in our army. There is
no such thing in the British army as an
established regimental strength. A battal-
ion numbers 1,500 men, but there is no limit
to the number of battalions which a regi-
ment may have. The battalion is the field
unit. There are regiments in the British
army which have seven battalions in the
field. Each battalion is commanded by a
lieutenant-colonel. All full colonels either
do stafif duty or act as brigaders. There

[27]

BEST 0' LUCK

are five companies of 250 men each in every
battalion. That is, there are four regular
companies of 250 men each, and a head-
quarters company of approximately that
strength. Each company is commanded by
a major, with a captain as second in com-
mand, and four lieutenants as platoon com-
manders. There are no second lieuten-
ants in the Canadian forces, though
there are in the British and French. The
senior major of the battalion commands
the headquarters company, which in-
cludes the transport, quartermaster's staff,
paymaster's department (a paymaster and
four clerks), and the headquarters stafJ (a
captain adjutant and his non-commissioned
stafif). Each battalion has, in addition to
its full company strength, the following
^'sections" of from 30 to 75 men each, and
each commanded by a lieutenant: bombers,
scouts and snipers, machine gunners and sig-
nallers. There is also a section of stretcher-
bearers, under the direct command of the
battalion surgeon, who ranks as a major.
In the United States army a battalion is com-

[28]

TRAINING FOR THE WAR

manded by a major. It consists merely of
four companies of 1 12 men each, with a cap-
tain and two lieutenants to each company.

As I have said, a British or French bat-
talion has four ordinary companies of 250
men each and the headquarters company
of special forces approximating that num-
ber of men. Instead of one major it has six,
including the surgeon. It has seven cap-
tains, including the paymaster, the adjutant
and the quartermaster. It has twenty lieu-
tenants, including the commanders of spe-
cial "sections." You can imagine what con-
fusion would be likely to occur in substitut-
ing a United States force for a French or
English force, with these differences of
organization existing.

In this war, every man has got to be a
specialist. He's got to know one thing bet-
ter than anybody else except those who have
had intensive instruction in the same branch.
And besides that, he's got to have effective
general knowledge of all the specialties in
which his fellow soldiers have been particu-
larly trained. I can illustrate this. Imme-

[29]

BEST 0' LUCK

diately upon our return from first leave in
England, we were divided into sections for
training in eight specialties. They were:
Bombing, sniping, scouting, machine-gun
fighting, signalling, trench mortar opera-
tion, bayonet fighting, and stretcher-bear-
ing. I was selected for special training in
bombing, probably because I was supposed,
as an American and a baseball player, to be
expert in throwing. With the other men
picked for training in the same specialty, I
was sent to Aldershott, and there, for three
weeks, twelve hours a day, I threw bombs,
studied bombs, read about bombs, took
bombs to pieces and put them together
again, and did practically everything else
that you would do with a bomb, except
eat it.

Then I was ordered back along with the
other men who had gained this intimate
acquaintance with the bomb family, and
we were put to work teaching the entire
battalion all that we had learned. When
we were not teaching, we were under in-
struction ourselves by the men who had

[30]

TRAINING FOR THE WAR

taken special training in other branches.
Also, at certain periods of the day, we had
physical training and rifle practice. Up to
the time of our arrival in England, inten-
sive training had been merely a fine phrase
with us. During our stay there, it was a
definite and overpowering fact. Day and
night we trained and day and night it rained.
At nine o'clock, we would fall into our
bunks in huts which held from a half to a
whole platoon — from thirty to sixty men —
and drop into exhausted sleep, only to turn
out at 5 A.M. to give a sudden imitation
of what we would do to the Germans if
they sneaked up on us before breakfast in
six inches of mud. Toward the last, when
we thought we had been driven to the limit,
they told us that we were to have a period
of real, intensive training to harden us for
actual fighting. They sent us four imperial
drill sergeants from the British Grenadier
Guards, the senior foot regiment of the
British army, and the one with which we
were affiliated.

It would be quite unavailing for me to

[31]

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attempt to describe these drill sergeants.
The British drill sergeant is an institution
which can be understood only through per-
sonal and close contact. If he thinks a
major-general is wrong, he'll tell him so on
the spot in the most emphatic way, but with-
out ever violating a single sacred tradition
of the service. The sergeants, who took us
in charge to put the real polish on our
training, had all seen from twenty to twenty-
five years of service. They had all been
through the battles of Mons and the Marne,
and they had all been wounded. They were
perfect examples of a type. One of them
ordered all of our commissioned officers,
from the colonel down, to turn out for rifle
drill one day, and put them through the
manual of arms while the soldiers of the
battalion stood around, looking on.

^'Gentlemen," said he, in the midst of
the drill, "when I see you handle your
rifles I feel like falling on my knees
and thanking God that we've got a
navy."

On June 2d, after the third battle of

[32]

TRx^INING FOR THE WAR

Ypres, while Macfarlane and I were sitting
wearily on our bunks during an odd hour
in the afternoon when nobody had thought
of anything for us to do, a soldier came in
with a message from headquarters which
put a sudden stop to the discussion we were
having about the possibility of getting leave
to go up to London. The message was that
the First, Second and Third divisions of the
Canadians had lost forty per cent, of their
men in the third fight at Ypres and that
three hundred volunteers were wanted from
each of our battalions to fill up the gaps.

*Torty per cent.," said Macfarlane, get-
ting up quickly. "My God, think of it!
Well, I'm off to tell 'em I'll go."

I told him I was with him, and we started
for headquarters, expecting to be received
with applause and pointed out as heroic ex-
amples. We couldn't even get up to give in
our names. The whole battalion had gone
ahead of us. They heard about it first. That
was the spirit of the Canadians. It was
about this time that a story went 'round con-
cerning an English colonel who had been

[33]

BEST O' LUCK

called upon to furnish volunteers from his
outfit to replace casualties. He backed his
regiment up against a barrack wall and said :

"Now, all who don't want to volunteer,
step three paces to the rear."

In our battalion, sergeants and even offi-
cers offered to go as privates. Our volun-
teers went at once, and we were re-enforced
up to strength by drafts from the Fifth
Canadian division, which was then forming
in England.

In July, when we were being kept on the
rifle ranges most of the time, all leave was
stopped, and we were ordered to hold our-
selves in readiness to go overseas. In the
latter part of the month, we started. We
sailed from Southampton to Havre on a big
transport, escorted all the way by destroyers.
As we landed, we got our first sight of the
harvest of war. A big hospital on the quay
was filled with wounded men. We had
twenty-four hours in what they called a
"rest camp." We slept on cobble stones in
shacks which were so utterly comfortless
that it would be an insult to a Kentucky

[34]

TRAINING FOR THE WAR

thoroughbred to call them stables. Then we
were on the way to the Belgian town of
Poperinghe, which is one hundred and fifty
miles from Havre and was, at that time, the
rail head of the Ypres salient. We made the
trip in box cars which were marked in
French: "Eight horses or forty men," and
we had to draw straws to decide who should
lie down.

We got into Poperinghe at 7 A. M.^
and the scouts had led us into the front
trenches at two the next morning Our posi-
tion was to the left of St. Eloi and was known
as "The Island," because it had no support
on either side On the left, were the Yser
Canal and the bluff which forms its bank.
On the right were three hundred yards of
battered-down trenches which had been re-
built twice and blown in again each time by
the German guns. For some reason, which
I never quite understood, the Germans
were able to drop what seemed a tolerably
large proportion of the output of the Krupp
works on this particular spot whenever they
wanted to. Our high command had con-

[35]

BEST O' LUCK

eluded that it was untenable, and so we, on
one side of it, and the British on the other,
had to just keep it scouted and protect our
separate flanks. Another name they had
for that position was the "Bird Cage." That
was because the first fellows who moved into
it made themselves nice and comfy and put
up wire nettings to prevent any one from
tossing bombs in on them. Thus, when the
Germans stirred up the spot with an accu-
rate shower of "whiz-bangs" and "coal-
boxes," the same being thirteen-pounders
and six-inch shells, that wire netting pre-
sented a spectacle of utter inadequacy which
hasn't been equalled in this war.

They called the position which we were
assigned to defend "The Graveyard of Can-
ada." That was because of the fearful
losses of the Canadians here in the second
battle of Ypres, from April 21, to June i,
191 5, when the first gas attack in the world's
history was launched by the Germans, and,
although the French, on the left, and the
British, on the right, fell back, the Cana-
dians stayed where they were put.

[36]

TRAINING FOR THE WAR

Right here I can mention something
which will give you an idea why descrip-
tions of this war don't describe it. During
the first gas attack, the Canadians, choking to
death and falling over each other in a fight
against a new and unheard-of terror in war-
fare, found a way — the Lord only knows
who first discovered it and how he happened
to do it — to stay through a gas cloud and
come out alive. It isn't pretty to think of,
and it's like many other things in this war
which you can't even tell of in print, be-
cause simple description would violate the
nice ethics about reading matter for the pub-
lic eye, which have grown up in long years
of peace and traditional decency. But this
thing which you can't describe meant just
the difference between life and death to
many of the Canadians, that first day of the
gas. Official orders: now, tell every soldier
what he is to do with his handkerchief or a
piece of his shirt if he is caught in a gas at-
tack without his mask.

The nearest I can come, in print, to tell-
ing you what a soldier is ordered to do in

[37]

BEST 0' LUCK

this emergency is to remind you that am-
monia fumes oppose chlorine gas as a neu-
tralizing agent, and that certain emanations
of the body throw ofif ammonia fumes.

Now, that I've told you how we got from
the Knickerbocker bar and other places to a
situation which was just one hundred and
fifty yards from the entrenched front of the
German army in Belgium, I might as well
add a couple of details about things which
straightway put the fear of God in our
hearts. At daybreak, one of our Fourteenth
platoon men, standing on the firing step,
pushed back his trench helmet and remarked
that he thought it was about time for coffee.
He didn't get any. A German sharpshooter,
firing the first time that day, got him under
the rim of his helmet, and his career with
the Canadian forces was over right there.
And then, as the dawn broke, we made out
a big painted sign raised above the German
front trench. It read:

WELCOME,
EIGHTY-SEVENTH CANADIANS
[38]

TRAINING FOR THE WAR

We were a new battalion, we had been less
than seventy-two hours on the continent of
Europe and the Germans were not supposed
to know anything that was going on behind
our lines!

We learned, afterward, that concealed
telephones in the houses of the Belgian bur-
gomasters of the villages of Dinkiebusch
and Renninghelst, near our position, gave
communication with the German headquar-
ters opposite us. One of the duties of a de-
tail of our men, soon after that, was to stand
these two burgomasters up against a wall
and shoot them.

[39]

THE BOMBING RAID

[41]

CHAPTER II

THE BOMBING RAID

When we took our position in the front
line trenches in Belgium, we relieved the
Twenty-sixth Canadian Battalion. The
Twenty-sixth belonged to the Second divi-
sion, and had seen real service during the
battle of Hooge and in what is now termed
the third battle of Ypres, which occurred in
June, 1916. The organization was made up
almost exclusively of French Canadians
from Quebec, and it was as fine a fighting
force as we had shown the Fritzes, despite
the fact that men of their race, as develop-
ments have proved, are not strongly loyal
to Canada and Britain. Individually, the
men of this French Canadian battalion were
splendid soldiers and the organization could
be criticized on one score only. In the heat
of action it could not be kept in control. On

[43]

BEST O' LUCK

one occasion when it went in, in broad day-
light, to relieve another battalion, the men
didn't stop at the fire trench. They went
right on "over the top," without orders, and,
as a result, were badly cut up. Time and
again the men of this battalion crossed "No
Man's Land" at night, without orders and
without even asking consent, just to have a
scrimmage with "the beloved enemy."
Once, when ordered to take two lines of
trenches, they did so in the most soldierly
fashion, but, seeing red, kept on going as
if their orders were to continue to Berlin.
On this occasion they charged right into
their barrage fire and lost scores of their
men, struck down by British shells. It has
been said often of all the Canadians that
they go the limit, without hesitation. There
was a time when the "Bing Boys" — the
Canadians were so called because this title
of a London musical comedy was suggested
by the fact that their commander was Gen-
eral Byng — were ordered to take no prison-
ers, this order being issued after two of their
men were found crucified. A Canadian pri-

[44]

THE BOMBING RAID

vate, having penetrated a German trench
with an attacking party, encountered a Ger-
man who threw up his hands and said:
"Mercy, Kamerade. I have a wife and five
children at home.

"You're mistaken," replied the Canadian.
"You have a widow and five orphans at
home."

And, very shortly, he had.

Scouts from the Twenty-sixth battalion
had come back to the villages of Dinkei-
busch and Renninghelst to tell us how glad
they were to see us and to show us the way
in. As we proceeded overland, before
reaching the communication trenches at the
front, these scouts paid us the hospitable at-
tentions due strangers. That is, one of them
leading a platoon would say :

"Next two hundred yards in machine gun
range. Keep quiet, don't run, and be ready
to drop quick if you are warned."

There was one scout to each platoon, and
we followed him, single file, most of the
time along roads or well-worn paths, but
sometimes through thickets and ragged

[45]

BEST 0' LUCK

fields. Every now and then the scout would
yell at us to drop, and down we'd go on our
stomachs while, away off in the distance we
could hear the "put-put" of machine guns —
the first sound of hostile firing that had ever
reached our ears.

"It's all right," said the scout. "They
haven't seen us or got track of us. They're
just firing on suspicion."

Nevertheless, when our various platoons
had all got into the front reserve trenches, at
about two hours after midnight, we learned
that the first blood of our battalion had been
spilled. Two men had been wounded,
though neither fatally. Our own stretcher-
bearers took our wounded back to the field
hospital at Dinkiebusch. The men of the
Twenty-sixth battalion spent the rest of the
night instructing us and then left us to hold
the position. We were as nervous as a lot
of cats, and it seemed to me that the Ger-
mans must certainly know that they could
come over and walk right through us, but,
outside of a few casualties from sniping,
such as the one that befell the Fourteenth

[46]

THE BOMBING RAID

platoon man, which I have told about, noth-
ing very alarming happened the first day
and night, and by that time v^e had got
steady on our job. We held the position for
tv^enty-six days, which was the longest period
that any Canadian or British organization
had ever remained in a front-line trench.

In none of the stories I've read, have I
ever seen trench fighting, as it was then car-
ried on in Belgium, adequately described.
You see, you can't get much of an idea about
a thing like that, making a quick tour of the
trenches under official direction and escort,
as the newspaper and magazine writers do.
I couldn't undertake to tell anything worth
while about the big issues of the war, but I
can describe how soldiers have to learn to
fight in the trenches — and I think a good
many of our young fellows have that to
learn, now. "Over there," they don't talk of
peace or even of to-morrow. They just sit
back and take it.

We always held the fire trench as lightly
as possible, because it is a demonstrated fact
that the front ditch cannot be successfully

[47]

BEST 0' LUCK

defended in a determined attack. The thing
to do is to be ready to jump onto the enemy
as soon as he has got into your front trench
and is fighting on ground that you know and
he doesn't and knock so many kinds of tar
out of him that he'll have to pull his freight
for a spot that isn't so warm. That system
worked first rate for us.

During the day, we had only a very few
men in the fire trench. If an attack is com-
ing in daylight, there's always plenty of
time to get ready for it. At night, we kept
prepared for trouble all the time. We had
a night sentry on each firing step and a man
sitting at his feet to watch him and know if
he was secretly sniped. Then we had a sen-
try in each "bay" of the trench to take mes-
sages.

Orders didn't permit the man on the firing
step or the man watching him to leave post
on any excuse whatever, during their two-
hour "spell" of duty. Hanging on a string,
at the elbow of each sentry on the fire-step
was a siren whistle or an empty shell case
and bit of iron with which to hammer on it.

[48]

THE BOMBING RAID

This — siren or improvised gong — was for
the purpose of spreading the alarm in case
of a gas attack. Also we had sentries in "lis-
tening posts," at various points from twenty
to fifty yards out in "No Man's Land."
These men blackened their faces before they
went "over the top," and then lay in shell
holes or natural hollows. There were al-
ways two of them, a bayonet man and a
bomber. From the listening post a wire ran
back to the fire trench to be used in signal-
ing. In the trench, a man sat with this wire
wrapped around his hand. One pull meant
"All O. K.," two pulls, "I'm coming in,"
three pulls, "Enemy in sight," and four
pulls, "Sound gas alarm." The fire step in
a trench is a shelf on which soldiers stand
so that they may aim their rifles between the
sand bags which form the parapet.

In addition to these men, we had patrols
and scouts out in "No Man's Land" the
greater part of the night, with orders to gain
any information possible which might be of
value to battalion, brigade, division or gen-
eral headquarters. They reported on the

[49]

BEST 0' LUCK

conditions of the Germans' barbed wire, the
location of machine guns and other little
things like that which might be of interest
to some commanding officer, twenty miles
back. Also, they were ordered to make
every effort to capture any of the enemy's
scouts or patrols, so that we could get infor-
mation from them. One of the interesting
moments in this work came when a star shell
caught you out in an open spot. If you
moved you were gone. I've seen men stand
on one foot for the thirty seconds during
which a star shell will burn. Then, when
scouts or patrols met in "No Man's Land"
they always had to fight it out with bayonets.
One single shot would be the signal for ar-
tillery fire and would mean the almost in-
stant annihilation of the men on both sides
of the fight. Under the necessities of this
war, many of our men have been killed
by our own shell fire.

At a little before daybreak came "stand-
to," when everybody got buttoned up and
ready for business, because, at that hour,
most attacks begin and also that was one of

[50]

THE BOMBING RAID

the two regular times for a dose of "morning
and evening hate," otherwise a good lively
fifteen minutes of shell fire. We had some
casualities every morning and evening, and
the stretcher-bearers used to get ready for
them as a matter of course. For fifteen
minutes at dawn and dusk, the Germans
used to send over "whiz-bangs," "coal-
boxes" and "minniewurfers" (shells from
trench mortars) in such a generous way that
it looked as if they liked to shoot 'em ofif,
whether they hit anything or not. You
could always hear the "heavy stuff" coming,
and we paid little attention to it as it was
used in efiforts to reach the batteries, back of
our lines. The poor old town of Dinkie-
busch got the full benefit of it. When a
shell would shriek its way over, some one
would say: "There goes the express for Din-
kiebusch," and a couple of seconds later,
when some prominent landmark of Dinkie-
busch would disintegrate to the accompani-
ment of a loud detonation, some one else
would remark:
"Train's arrived!"

[51]

BEST O' LUCK

The scouts who inhabited "No Man's
Land" by night became snipers by day.
Different units had different systems of util-
izing these specialists. The British and
the French usually left their scouts and snip-
ers in one locality so that they might come
to know every hummock and hollow and
tree-stump of the limited landscape which
absorbed their unending attention The
Canadians, up to the time when I left
France, invariably took their scouts and
snipers along when they moved from one
section of the line to another. This system
was criticized as having the disadvantage of
compelling the men to learn new territory
while opposing enemy scouts familiar
with every inch of the ground. As to the
contention on this point, I could not under-
take to decide, but it seemed to me that our
system had, at least, the advantage of keep-
ing the men more alert and less likely to
grow careless. Some of our snipers ac-
quired reputations for a high degree of skill
and there was always a fascination for me
in watching them work. We always had

[52]

THE BOMBING RAID

two snipers to each trench section. They
would stand almost motionless on the fire
steps for hours at a time, searching every
inch of the German front trench and the sur-
rounding territory with telescopes. They
always swathed their heads with sand bags,
looking like huge, grotesque turbans, as this
made the finest kind of an "assimilation cov-
ering." It would take a most alert German
to pick out a man's head, so covered, among
all the tens of thousands of sand bags which
lined our parapet. The snipers always used
special rifles with telescopic sights, and they
made most extraordinary shots. Some of
them who had been huntsmen in the Cana-
dian big woods were marvellous marksmen.
Frequently one of them would continue for
several days giving special attention to a
spot where a German had shown the top of
his head for a moment. If the German ever
showed again, at that particular spot, he
was usually done for. A yell or some little
commotion in the German trenches, follow-
ing the sniper's quick shot would tell the
story to us. Then the sniper would receive

[53]

BEST 0' LUCK

general congratulations. There is a first
warning to every man going into the
trenches. It is: "Fear God and keep your
head down."

Our rations in the trenches were, on the
whole, excellent. There were no delicacies
and the food was not over plentiful, but it
was good. The system appeared to have the
purpose of keeping us like bulldogs before
a fight — with enough to live on but hungry
all the time. Our food consisted princi-
pally of bacon, beans, beef, bully-beef, hard
tack, jam and tea. Occasionally we had a
few potatoes, and, when we were taken back
for a few days' rest, we got a good many
things which difficulty of transport excluded
from the front trenches. It was possible,
sometimes, to beg, borrow or even steal eggs
and fresh bread and coffee.

All of our provisions came up to the front
line in sand bags, a fact easily recognizable
when you tasted them. There is supposed
to be an intention to segregate the various
foods, in transport, but it must be admitted
that they taste more or less of each other,

[54]

THE BOMBING RAID

and that the characteristic sand-bag flavor
distinguishes all of them from mere, ordi-
nary foods which have not made a venture-
some journey. As many of the sand bags
have been originally used for containing
brown sugar, the flavor is more easily recog-
nized than actually unpleasant. When we
got down to the Somme, the food supply was
much less satisfactory — principally because
of transport difficulties. At times, even in
the rear, we could get fresh meat only twice
a week, and were compelled to live the rest
of the time on bully-beef stew, which resem-
bles terrapin to the extent that it is a liquid
with mysterious lumps in it. In the front
trenches, on the Somme, all we had were the
"iron rations" which we were able to carry
in with us. These consisted of bully-beef,
hard tack, jam and tea. The supply of these
foods which each man carries is termed
"emergency rations," and the ordinary rule
is that the emergency ration must not be
touched until the man has been forty-eight
hours without food, and then only by per-
mission of an officer.

[55]

BEST O' LUCK

One of the great discoveries of this war
is that hard tack makes an excellent fuel,
burning like coke and giving ofif no smoke.
We usually saved enough hard tack to form
a modest escort, stomachward, for our jam,
and used the rest to boil our tea. Until one
has been in the trenches he cannot realize
vi^hat a useful article of diet jam is. It is
undoubtedly nutritious and one doesn't tire
of it, even though there seem to be but two
varieties now existing in any considerable
quantities — plum and apple. Once upon a
time a hero of the "ditches" discovered that
his tin contained strawberry jam, but there
was such a rush when he announced it that
he didn't get any of it.

There was, of course, a very good reason
for the shortness and uncertainty of the food
supply on the Somme. All communication
with the front line was practically overland,
the communication trenches having been
blown in. Ration parties, bringing in food,
frequently suffered heavy casualties. Yet
they kept tenaciously and courageously do-
ing their best for us. Occasionally they even

[56]

THE BOMBING RAID

brought up hot soup in huge, improvised
thermos bottles made from petrol tins
wrapped in straw and sand bags, but this was
very rarely attempted, and not with much
success. You could sum up the food situa-
tion briefly. It was good — when you got it.
It may be fitting, at this time, to pay a
tribute to the soldier's most invaluable
friend, the sand bag. The sand bag, like the
rest of us, did not start life in a military
capacity, but since joining the army it has
fulfilled its duty nobly. Primarily, sand
bags are used in making a parapet for a
trench or a roof for a dug-out, but there are
a hundred other uses to which they have
been adapted, without hesitation and possi-
bly without sufficient gratitude for their
ready adaptability. Some of these uses may
surprise you. Soldiers strain their tea
through them, wrap them around their legs
for protection against cold and mud, swab
their rifles with them to keep them clean,
use them for bed sacks, kit bags and ration
bags. The first thing a man does when he
enters a trench or reaches a new position

[57]

BEST O' LUCK

which is to be held is to feel in his belt, if
he is a private, or to yell for some one else
to feel in his belt, if he is an officer, for a
sand bag. Each soldier is supposed to have
five tucked beneath his belt whenever he
starts to do anything out of the ordinary.
When you've got hold of the first one, in a
new position, under fire, you commence fill-
ing it as fast as the Germans and your own
ineptitude will permit, and the sooner that
bag is filled and placed, the more likely you
are to continue in a state of health and good
spirits. Sand bags are never filled with
sand, because there is never any sand to put
into them. Anything that you can put in
with a shovel will do.

About the only amusement we had during
our long stay in the front trenches in Bel-
gium, was to sit with our backs against the
rear wall and shoot at the rats running along
the parapet. Poor Macfarlane, with a flash
of the old humor which he had before the
war, told a "rookie" that the trench rats
were so big that he saw one of them trying
on his great-coat. They used to run over

[58]

THE BOMBING RAID

our faces when we were sleeping in our dug-
outs, and I've seen them in ravenous swarms,
burrowing into the shallow graves of the
dead. Many soldiers' legs are scarred to the
knees with bites.

The one thing of which we constantly
lived in fear was a gas attack. I used to
awaken in the middle of the night, in a cold
sweat, dreaming that I heard the clatter and
whistle-blowing all along the line which
meant that the gas was coming. And,
finally, I really did hear the terrifying
sound, just at a moment when it couldn't
have sounded worse. I was in charge of the
nightly ration detail, sent back about ten
miles to the point of nearest approach of the
transport lorries, to carry in rations, ammu-
nition and sand bags to the front trenches.
We had a lot of trouble, returning with our
loads. Passing a point which was called
"Shrapnel Corner" because the Germans
had precise range on it, we were caught
in machine-gun fire and had to lie on our
stomachs for twenty minutes, during which
we lost one man, wounded. I sent him back

[59]

BEST 0' LUCK

and went on with my party only to run into
another machine-gun shower a half-mile
further on. While we were lying down to
escape this, a concealed British battery of
five-inch guns, about which we knew noth-
ing, opened up right over our heads. It
shook us up and scared us so that some of
our party were now worse off than the man
who had been hit and carried to the rear.
We finally got together and went on. When
we were about a mile behind the reserve
trench, stumbling in the dark through the
last and most dangerous path overland, we
heard a lone siren whistle followed by a
wave of metallic hammering and wild toot-
ing which seemed to spread over all of Bel-
gium a mile ahead of us. All any of us
could say was:

"Gas!"

All you could see in the dark was a col-
lection of white and frightened faces.
Every trembling finger seemed awkward as
a thumb as we got out our gas masks and
helmets and put them on, following direc-
tions as nearly as we could. I ordered the

[60]

THE BOMBING RAID

men to sit still and sent two forward to no-
tify me from headquarters when the gas
alarm was over. They lost their way and
were not found for two days. We sat there
for an hour, and then I ventured to take my
mask off. As nothing happened, I ordered
the men to do the same. When we got into
the trenches with our packs, we found that
the gas alarm had been one of Fritz's jokes.
The first sirens had been sounded in the Ger-
man lines, and there hadn't been any gas.

Our men evened things up with the Ger-
mans, however, the next night. Some of our
scouts crawled clear up to the German
barbed wire, ten yards in front of the enemy
fire trench, tied empty jam-tins to the barri-
cade and then, after attaching light tele-
phone wires to the barbed strands, crawled
back to our trenches. When they started
pulling the telephone wires the empty tins
made a clatter right under Fritz's nose.
Immediately the Germans opened up with
all their machine-gun and rifle fire, began
bombing the spot from which the noise came
and sent up ''S. O. S." signals for artillery

[6i]

BEST O' LUCK

fire along a mile of their line. They fired
a ten-thousand-dollar salute and lost a
night's sleep over the noise made by the dis-
carded containers of five shillings' worth of
jam. It was a good tonic for the Tommies.

A few days after this, a very young offi-
cer passed me in a trench while I was sitting
on a fire-step, writing a letter. I noticed
that he had the red tabs of a stafif officer on
his uniform, but I paid no more attention
to him than that. No compliments such as
salutes to officers are paid in the trenches.
After he had passed, one of the men asked
me if I didn't know who he was. I said I
didn't.

"Why you d d fool," he said, "that's

the Prince of Wales."

When the little prince came back, I stood
to salute him. He returned the salute with
a grave smile and passed on. He was quite
alone, and I was told afterward, that he
made these trips through the trenches just
to show the men that he did not consider
himself better than any other soldier. The
heir of England was certainly taking nearly

[62]

THE BOMBING RAID

the same chance of losing his inheritance
that we were.

After we had been on the front line fifteen
days, we received orders to make a bombing
raid. Sixty volunteers were asked for, and
the whole battalion offered. I was lucky —
or unlucky — enough to be among the sixty
who were chosen. I want to tell you in de-
tail about this bombing raid, so that you
can understand what a thing may really
amount to that gets only three lines, or per-
haps nothing at all, in the official dispatches.
And, besides that, it may help some of the
young men who read this, to know some-
thing, a little later, about bombing.

The sixty of us chosen to execute the raid
were taken twenty miles to the rear for a
week's instruction practice. Having only a
slight idea of what we were going to try to
do, we felt very jolly about the whole enter-
prise, starting ofif. We were camped in an
old barn, with several special instruction
officers in charge. We had oral instruction,
the first day, while sappers dug and built
an exact duplicate of the section of the Ger-

[63]

BEST O' LUCK

man trenches which we were to raid. That
is, it was exact except for a few details.
Certain "skeleton trenches," in the practice
section, were dug simply to fool the German
aviators. If a photograph, taken back to
German headquarters, had shown an exact
duplicate of a German trench section, suspi-
cion might have been aroused and our plans
revealed. We were constantly warned about
the skeleton trenches and told to remember
that they did not exist in the German section
where we were to operate. Meanwhile, our
practice section was changed a little, several
times, because aerial photographs showed
that the Germans had been renovating and
making some additions to the trenches in
which we were to have our frolic with them.
We had oral instruction, mostly, during
the day, because we didn't dare let the Ger-
man aviators see us practicing a bomb raid.
All night long, sometimes until two or three
o'clock in the morning, we rehearsed that
raid, just as carefully as a company of star
actors would rehearse a play. At first there
was a disposition to have sport out of it.

[64]

THE BOMBING RAID

''Well," some chap would say, rolling into
the hay all tired out, "I got killed six times
to-night. S'pose it'll be several times more
to-morrow night."

One man insisted that he had discovered,
in one of our aerial photographs, a German
burying money, and he carefully examined
each new picture so that he could be sure to
find the dough and dig it up. The
grave and serious manner of our officers,
however; the exhaustive care with which we
were drilled and, more than all, the ap-
proach of the time when we were "to go
over the top," soon drove sport out of our
minds, and I can say for myself that the very
thought of the undertaking, as the fatal
night drew near, sent shivers up and down
my spine.

A bombing raid — something originated in
warfare by the Canadians — is not intended
for the purpose of holding ground, but to
gain information, to do as much damage as
possible, and to keep the enemy in a state of
nervousness. In this particular raid, the
chief object was to gain information. Our

[65]

BEST 0 LUCK

high command wanted to know what troops
were opposite us and what troops had been
there. We were expected to get this infor-
mation from prisoners and from buttons and
papers off of the Germans we might kill.
It was believed that troops were being re-
lieved from the big tent show, up at the
Somme, and sent to our side show in Bel-
gium for rest. Also, it was suspected that
artillery was being withdrawn for the
Somme. Especially, we were anxious to
bring back prisoners.

In civilized war, a prisoner can be com-
pelled to tell only his name, rank and relig-
ion. But this is not a civilized war, and
there are ways of making prisoners talk.
One of the most effective ways — quite hu-
mane— is to tie a prisoner fast, head and
foot, and then tickle his bare feet with a
feather. More severe measures have fre-
quently been used — the water cure, for in-
stance— but I'm bound to say that nearly all
the German prisoners I saw were quite lo-
quacious and willing to talk, and the accu-
racy of their information, when later con-

[66]

THE BOMBING RAID

firmed by raids, was surprising. The iron
discipline, which turns them into mere chil-
dren in the presence of their officers seemed
to make them subservient and obedient to
the officers who commanded us. In this
way, the system worked against the Father-
land. I mean, of course, in the cases of pri-
vates. Captured Gennan officers, espe-
cially Prussians, were a nasty lot. We
never tried to get information from them
for we knew they would lie, happily and
intelligently.

At last came the night when we were to
go "over the top," across "No Man's Land,"
and have a frolic with Fritz in his own,
bailiwick. I am endeavoring to be as ac-
curate and truthful as possible in these
stories of my soldiering, and I am therefore
compelled to say that there wasn't a man in
the sixty who didn't show the strain in his
pallor and nervousness. Under orders, we
discarded our trench helmets and substi-
tuted knitted skull caps or mess tin covers.
Then we blackened our hands and faces
with ashes from a camp fire. After

[67]

BEST O' LUCK

this they loaded us into motor trucks and
took us up to "Shrapnel Corner," from
which point we went in on foot. Just before
we left, a staff officer came along and gave
us a little talk.

"This is the first time you men have been
tested," he said. "You're Canadians. I
needn't say anything more to you. They're
going to be popping them off at a great rate
while you're on your way across. Remem-
ber that you'd better not stand up straight
because our shells will be going over just
six and a half feet from the ground — where
it's level. If you stand up straight you're
likely to be hit in the head, but don't let that
worry you because if you do get hit in the
head you won't know it. So why in hell
worry about it?" That was his farewell.
He jumped on his horse and rode off.

The point we were to attack had been se-
lected long before by our scouts. It was not,
as you might suppose, the weakest point in
the German line. It was on the contrary,
the strongest. It was considered that the
moral effect of cleaning up a weak point

[68]

THE BOMBING RAID

would be comparatively small, whereas to
break in at the strongest point would be
something really worth while. And, if we
were to take chances, it really wouldn't pay
to hesitate about degrees. The section we
were to raid had a frontage of one hundred
and fifty yards and a depth of two hundred
yards. It had been explained to us that we
were to be supported by a "box barrage," or
curtain fire from our artillery, to last exactly
twenty-six minutes. That is, for twenty-six
minutes from the time when we started
''over the top," our artillery, several miles
back, would drop a "curtain" of shells all
around the edges of that one hundred and
fifty yard by two hundred yard section. We
were to have fifteen minutes in which to do
our work. Any man not out at the end of
the fifteen minutes would necessarily be
caught in our own fire as our artillery would
then change from a "box" to pour a straight
curtain fire, covering all of the spot of our
operations.

'Our officers set their watches very care-
fully with those of the artillery officers, be-

[69]

BEST O' LUCK

fore we went forward to the front trenches.
We reached the front at ii P.M.^ and
not until our arrival there were we informed
of the "zero hour" — the time when the at-
tack was to be made. The hour of twelve-
ten had been selected. The waiting from
eleven o'clock until that time was simply an
agony. Some of our men sat stupid and
inert. Others kept talking constantly about
the most inconsequential matters. One man
undertook to tell a funny story. No one lis-
tened to it, and the laugh at the end was
emaciated and ghastly. The inaction was
driving us all into a state of funk. I could
actually feel my nerve oozing out at my fin-
ger tips, and, if we had had to wait fifteen
minutes longer, I shouldn't have been able
to climb out of the trench.

About half an hour before we were to go
over, every man had his eye up the trench
for we knew "the rummies" were coming
that way. The rum gang serves out a stiff
shot of Jamaica just before an attack, and
it would be a real exhibition of temperance
to see a man refuse. There were no prohibi-

[70]

THE BOMBING RAID

tionists in our set. Whether or not we got
our full ration depended on whether the ser-
geant in charge was drunk or sober. After
the shot began to work, one man next to me
pounded my leg and hollered in my ear:

^'I say. Why all this red tape? Let's go
over now."

That noggin' of rum is a life saver.

When the hour approached for us to start,
the artillery fire was so heavy that orders
had to be shouted into ears, from man to
man. The bombardment was, of course,
along a couple of miles of front, so that the
Germans would not know where to expect
us. At twelve o'clock exactly they began
pulling down a section of the parapet so that
we wouldn't have to climb over it, and we
were oflf.

[71]

"OVER THE TOP AND GIVE 'EM HELL"

[73]

CHAPTER III

"over the top and give 'em hell"

As we climbed out of the shelter of our
trenches for my first — and, perhaps, my last,
I thought — adventure in "No Man's Land,"
the word was passed :

"Over the top and give 'em hell!"

That is the British Tommies' battle cry
as they charge the enemy and it has often
sounded up and down those long lines in
western France as the British, Canadian,
and Australian soldiers go out to the fight
and the death.

We were divided into six parties of ten
men, each party having separate duties to
perform. We crouched forward, moving
slowly in single file, stumbling into shell
holes and over dead men — some very long
dead^— and managing to keep in touch with
each other through the machine-gun bullets

[75]

BEST O' LUCK

began to drop men almost immediately.
Once we were started, we were neither fear-
ful, nor rattled. We had been drilled so
long and so carefully that each man knew
just what he was to do and he kept right on
doing it unless he got hit. To me, it seemed
the ground was moving back under me.
The first ten yards were the toughest. The
thing was perfectly organized. Our last
party of ten was composed of signallers.
They were paying out wires and carrying
telephones to be used during the fifteen
minutes of our stay in the German trenches
in communicating with our battalion head-
quarters. A telephone code had been ar-
ranged, using the names of our commanding
officers as smybols. "Rexford i" meant,
"First prisoners being sent back" ; "Rexford
2" meant, "Our first wounded being sent
over"; "Rexford 3" meant, "We have en-
tered German trench." The code was very
complete and the signallers had been drilled
in it for a week. In case the telephone wires
were cut, the signallers were to send mes-
sages back by the use of rifle grenades.

[76]

"over the top and give 'em hell"

These are rifle projectiles which carry little
metal cylinders to contain written messages,
and which burst into flame when they strike
the earth, so that they can be easily found at
night. The oflicer in charge of the signal-
lers was to remain at the point of entrance,
with his eyes on his watch. It was his duty
to sound a warning signal five minutes be-
fore the end of our time in the German
trenches.

The leader of every party of ten also had
a whistle with which to repeat the warning
blast and then the final blast, when each man
was to drop everything and get back of our
artillery fire. We were not to leave any
dead or wounded in the German trench, on
account of the information which the Ger-
mans might thus obtain. Before starting on
the raid, we had removed all marks from
our persons, including even our identifica-
tion discs. Except for the signallers, each
party of ten was similarly organized. First,
there were two bayonet men, each with an
electric flash light attached to his rifle so as
to give light for the direction of a bayonet

[77]

BEST O' LUCK

thrust and controlled by a button at the left-
hand grasp of the rifle. Besides his rifle, each
of these men carried six or eight Mills No.
5 hand grenades, weighing from a pound
and five ounces to a pound and seven ounces
each. These grenades are shaped like tur-
key eggs, but slightly larger. Upon with-
drawing the firing pin, a lever sets a four-
second fuse going. One of these grenades
will clean out anything living in a ten-foot
trench section. It will also kill the man
throwing it, if he holds it more than four
seconds, after he has pulled the pin. The
third man of each ten was an expert bomb
thrower, equipped as lightly as possible to
give him freedom of action. He carried a
few bombs, himself, but the main supply
was carried by a fourth man who was not to
throw any unless the third man became a
casualty, in which case number four was to
take his place. The third man also carried a
knob-kerrie — a heavy bludgeon to be used
in whacking an enemy over the head. The
kind we used was made by fastening a heavy
steel nut on a stout stick of wood — a very

[78]

''OVER THE TOP AND GIVE 'EM HELL"

business-like contrivance. The fourth man,
or bomb carrier, besides having a large sup-
ply of Mills grenades, had smoke bombs, to
be used in smoking the Germans out of dug-
outs and, later, if necessary, in covering our
retreat, and also fumite bombs. The latter
are very dangerous to handle. They con-
tain a mixture of petrol and phosphorous,
and weigh three pounds each. On explod-
ing they release a liquid fire which will burn
through steel.

The fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth in
line, were called utility men. They were to
take the places of any of the first four who
might become casualties. In addition, they
carried two Stokes-gun bombs, each. These
weigh nine pounds apiece, have six-second
fuses, and can be used in wrecking dug-outs.
The ninth and tenth men were sappers, car-
rying slabs of gun-cotton and several hun-
dred yards of instantaneous fuse. This ex-
plosive is used in demolishing machine-gun
emplacements and mine saps. The sappers
were to lay their charges while we were at
work in the trenches, and explode them as

[79]

BEST O' LUCK

soon as our party was far enough out on the
return journey to be safe from this danger.
In addition to these parties of ten, there
were three of us who carried bombs and had
orders to keep near the three officers, to take
the place of any one of them that might go
down, and meanwhile to use our own judg-
ment about helping the jolly old party
along. I was one of the three.

In addition to the raiding party, proper,
there was a relay all across "No Man's
Land," at ten paces interval, making a hu-
man chain to show us our way back, to assist
the wounded and, in case of opportunity or
necessity, to re-enforce us. They were or-
dered not to leave their positions when we
began to come back, until the last man of
our party had been accounted for. The final
section of our entourage was composed of
twelve stretcher-bearers, who had been spe-
cially trained with us, so that they would be
familiar with the trench section which we
were to raid.

There were two things which made it pos-
sible for our raiding party to get started

[80]

"over the top and give 'em hell"

across "No Man's Land." One was the mo-
mentary quickening of the blood which fol-
lows a big and unaccustomed dose of rum,
and the other was a sort of subconscious, me-
chanical confidence in our undertaking,
which was a result of the scores of times we
had gone through every pre-arranged move-
ment in the duplicate German trenches be-
hind our lines. Without either of those in-
fluences, we simply could not have left shel-
ter and faced what was before us.

An intensified bombardment from our
guns began just as soon as we had
climbed "over the top" and were lining up
for the journey across. "Lining up" is not
just a suitable term. We were crawling
about on all fours, just far enough out in
"No Man's Land" to be under the edge of
the German shell-fire, and taking what shel-
ter we could in shell-holes while our leaders
picked the way to start across. The extra
heavy bombardment had warned the Ger-
mans that something was about to happen.
They sent up star shells and "S. O. S." sig-
nals, until there was a glare over the torn

[8i]

BEST O' LUCK

earth like that which you sec at the grand
finish of a Pain's fire-works display, and
meanwhile they sprayed "No Man's Land"
with streams of machine-gun fire. In the
face of that, we started.

It would be absurd to say that we were
not frightened. Thinking men could not
help but be afraid. If we were pallid —
which undoubtedly we were — the black
upon our faces hid it, but our fear-struck
voices were not disguised. They trembled
and our teeth chattered.

We sneaked out, single file, making our
way from shell-hole to shell-hole, nearly all
the time on all fours, crawling quickly over
the flat places between holes. The Ger-
mans had not sighted us, but they were
squirting machine-gun bullets all over the
place like a man watering a lawn with a
garden hose, and they were bound to get
some of us. Behind me, I heard cries of
pain, and groans, but this made little im-
pression on my benumbed intelligence.
From the mere fact that whatever had
happened had happened to one of the

[82]

''OVER THE TOP AND GIVE 'EM HELL"

Other sections of ten and not to my own, it
seemed, some way or another, no affair to
concern me. Then a man in front of me
doubled up suddenly and rolled into a shell-
hole. That simply made me remember very
clearly that I was not to stop on account of
it. It was some one else's business to pick
that man up. Next, according to the queer
psychology of battle, I began to lose my
sensation of fear and nervousness. After I
saw a second man go down, I gzvt my atten-
tion principally to a consideration of the ir-
regularities of the German parapet ahead of
us, picking out the spot where we were to
enter the trench. It seems silly to say it,
but I seemed to get some sort of satisfaction
out of the realization that we had lost the
percentage which we might be expected to
lose, going over. Now, it seemed, the rest
of us were safe until we should reach the
next phase of our undertaking. I heard di-
rections given and I gave some myself. My
voice was firm, and I felt almost calm.
Our artillery had so torn up the Ger-
man barbed wire that it gave us no

[83]

BEST 0' LUCK

trouble at all. We walked through it with
only a few scratches. When we reached the
low, sand-bag parapet of the enemy tr.ench,
we tossed in a few bombs and followed them
right over as soon as they had exploded.
There wasn't a German in sight. They were
all in their dug-outs. But we knew pretty
well where every dugout was located, and
we rushed for the entrances with our Dombs.
Everything seemed to be going just as we
had expected it to go. Two Germans ran
plump into me as I round a ditch angle,
with a bomb in my hand. They had their
hands up and each of them yelled:

"Mercy, Kamaradl"

I passed them back to be sent to the rear,
and the man who received them from me
chuckled and told them to step lively. The
German trenches were practically just as we
had expected to find them, according to our
sample. They were so nearly similar to the
duplicate section in which we had practiced
that we had no trouble finding our way in
them. I was just thinking that really the
only tough part of the job remaining would

[84]

"over the top and give 'em hell"

be getting back across "No Man's Land,"
when it seemed that the whole earth behind
me, rose in the air. For a moment I was
stunned, and half blinded by dirt blown
into my face. When I was able to see, I
discovered that all that lay back of me was
a mass of upturned earth and rock, with here
and there a man shaking himself or scramb-
ling out of it or lying still.

Just two minutes after we went into their
trench, the Germans had exploded a mine
under their parapet. I have always believed
that in some way or another they had learned
which spot we were to raid, and had pre-
pared for us. Whether that's true or not,
one thing is certain. That mine blew our
organization, as we would say in Kentucky,
"plumb to Hell." And it killed or disabled
more than half of our party.

There was much confusion among those
of us who remained on our feet. Some one
gave an order to retire and some one coun-
termanded it. More Germans came out of
their dug-outs, but, instead of surrendering
as per our original schedule, they threw

[85]

BEST 0' LUCK

bombs amongst us. It became apparent that
we should be killed or captured if we stuck
there and that we shouldn't get any more
prisoners. I looked at my wrist watch and
saw that there remained but five minutes
more of the time which had been allotted
for our stay in the trench, so I blew my
whistle and started back. I had seen Pri-
vate Green (No. 177,250) knocked down
by a bomb in the next trench section, and I
picked him up and carried him out over the
wrecked parapet. I took shelter with him
in the first shell-hole but found that he
was dead and left him there. A few yards
further back toward our line I found Lance
Corporal Glass in a shell-hole, with part of
his hip shot away. He said he thought he
could get back if I helped him, and I started
with him. Private Hunter, who had been
in a neighboring shell-hole came to our as-
sistance, and between us, Hunter and I got
Glass to our front trench.

We found them lining up the survivors
of our party for a roll call. That showed
so many missing that Major John Lewis,

[86]

"OVER THE TOP AND GIVE 'EM HELL"

our company commander, formerly manag-
ing-editor of the Montreal Star, called for
volunteers to go out in "No Man's Land"
and try to find some of our men. Corporal
Charleson, Private Saunders and I went
out. We brought in two wounded, and we
saw a number of dead, but, on account of
their blackened faces, were unable to iden-
tify them. The scouts, later, brought in
several bodies.

Of the sixty odd men who had started in
our party, forty-three were found to be casu-
alties— killed, wounded, or missing. The
missing list was the longest. The names of
these men were marked, "M. B. K." (miss-
ing, believed killed) on our rolls. I have
learned since that some few of them
have been reported through Switzerland
as prisoners of war in Germany, but
most of them are now officially listed as
dead.

All of the survivors of the raiding party
were sent twenty miles to the rear at seven
o'clock, and the non-commissioned officers
were ordered to make reports in writing

[87]

BEST O' LUCK

concerning the entire operation. We re-
corded, each in his own way, the ghastly-
failure of our first aggressive efifort against
the Germans, before we rolled into the hay-
in the same old barn where we had been
quartered during the days of preparation for
the raid. I was so dead tired that I soon
fell asleep, but not for long. I never slept
more than an hour at a time for several days
and nights. I would doze off from sheer ex-
haustion, and then suddenly find myself sit-
ting straight up, scared half to death, all
over again.

There may be soldiers who don't get
scared when they know they are in danger
or even when people are being killed right
around them, but Fm not one of them. And
I've never met any of them yet. I know a
boy who won the Military Medal, in the
battle of the Somme, and I saw him on his
knees before his platoon commander, shame-
lessly crying that he was a coward and beg-
ging to be left behind, just when the order to
advance was given.

Soldiers of our army who read this story

[88]

"over the top and give 'em hell"

will probably observe one thing in particu-
lar, and that is the importance of bombing
operations in the present style of warfare.
You might say that a feature of this war has
been the renaissance of the grenadier. Only
British reverence for tradition kept the
name of the Grenadiers alive, through a con-
siderable number of wars. Now, in every
offensive, big or small, the man who has
been trained to throw a bomb thirty yards is
busier and more important than the fellow
with the modern rifle which will shoot a
mile and a half and make a hole through a
house. In a good many surprising ways this
war has carried us back to first principles.
I remember a Crusader's mace which I once
saw in the British museum that would make
a bang-up knob-kerrie, much better than the
kind with which they arm our Number 4
men in a raiding party section. It had a
round, iron head with spikes all over it. I
wonder that they haven't started a factory
to turn them out.

As I learned during my special training
in England, the use of hand grenades was

[89]

BEST 0' LUCK

first introduced in warfare by the French, in
1667. The British did not use them until ten
years later. After the battle of Waterloo
the hand grenade was counted an obsolete
weapon until the Japanese revived its use in
the war with Russia. The rude grenades
first used by the British in the present war
weighed about eight pounds. To-day, in the
British army, the men who have been
trained to throw grenades — now of lighter
construction and much more efficient and
certain action — are officially known as
''bombers." for this reason: When grenade
fighting came back to its own in this war,
each battalion trained a certain number of
men in the use of grenades, and, naturally,
called them ''grenadiers." The British
Grenadier Guards, the senior foot regiment
in the British Army, made formal com-
plaint against the use of their time-honored
name in this connection, and British rev-
erence for tradition did the rest. The
Grenadiers were no longer grenadiers, but
they were undoubtedly the Grenadiers. The
war office issued a formal order that battal-

[90]

"OVER THE TOP AND GIVE 'EM HELL"

ion grenade throwers should be known as
"bombers" and not as "grenadiers."

Up to the time when I left France we had
some twenty-seven varieties of grenades, but
most of them were obsolete or inefifective,
and we only made use of seven or eight
sorts. The grenades were divided into two
principal classes, rifle grenades and hand
grenades. The rifle grenades are discharged
from a rifle barrel by means of a blank car-
tridge. Each grenade is attached to a slen-
der rod which is inserted into the bore of
the rifle, and the longer the rod the greater
the range of the grenade. The three princi-
pal rifle grenades are the Mills, the Hales,
and the Newton, the former having a maxi-
mum range of 120 yards, and the latter of
400 yards, A rifle discharging a Mills
grenade may be fired from the shoulder, as
there is no very extraordinary recoil, but in
using the others it is necessary to fasten the
rifle in a stand or plant the butt on the
ground. Practice teaches the soldier how
much elevation to give the rifle for different
ranges. The hand grenades are divided also

[91]

BEST 0' LUCK

into two classes, those which are dis-
charged by percussion, and those which have
time fuses, with detonators of fulminate of
mercury. The high explosives used are am-
monal, abliste and sabulite, but ammonal is
the much more commonly employed. There
are also smoke bombs, the Mexican or tonite
bomb, the Hales hand grenade, the No. 19
grenade and the fumite bomb, which con-
tains white phosphorous, wax and petrol,
and discharges a stream of liquid fire which
will quickly burn out a dug-out and every-
thing it contains. Hand grenades are al-
ways thrown with a stifif arhi, as a bowler
delivers a cricket ball toward the wicket.
They cannot be thrown in the same manner
as a baseball for two reasons. One is that
the snap of the wrist with which a baseball
is sent on its way would be likely to cause
the premature discharge of a percussion
grenade, and the second is that the grenades
weigh so much — from a pound and a half to
ten pounds — that the best arm in the world
couldn't stand the strain of whipping them
ofif as a baseball is thrown. I'm talking by

[92]

"over the top and give 'em hell"

the book about this, because I've been a
bomber and a baseball player.

A bomber, besides knowing all about the
grenades in use in his own army, must have
practical working knowledge concerning
the grenades in use by the enemy. After
we took the Regina trench, on the Somme,
we ran out of grenades at a moment when
a supply was vitally necessary. We found
a lot of the German "egg" bombs, and
through our knowledge of their workings
and our consequent ability to use them
against their original owners we were able
to hold the position.

An officer or non-commissioned officer in
charge of a bombing detail must know inti-
mately every man in his command, and have
such discipline that every order will be car-
ried out with scrupulous exactitude when
the time comes. The leader will have no
time, in action, to prompt his men or even
to see if they are doing what they have been
told to do. When a platoon of infantry is in
action one rifleman more or less makes little
difference, but in bombing operations each

[93]

BEST 0' LUCK

man has certain particular work to do and
he must do it, just as it has been planned, in
order to protect himself and his comrades
from disaster. If you can out-throw the
enemy, or if you can make most of the
bombs land with accuracy, you have a won-
derful advantage in an attack. But throw-
ing wild or throwing short you simply give
confidence to the enemy in his own offen-
sive. One very good thrower may win an
objective for his squad, while one man who
is faint-hearted or unskilled or "rattled"
may cause the entire squad to be anni-
hilated.

In the revival of bombing, some tricks
have developed which would be humorous
if the denouments were not festooned with
crepe and accompanied by obituary nota-
tions on muster rolls. There may be some-
thing which might be termed funny on one
end of a bombing-ruse — but not on both
ends of it. Whenever you fool a man with
a bomb, you're playing a practical joke on
him that he'll never forget. Even, probably,
he'll never get a chance to remember it.

[94]

''OVER THE TOP AND GIVE 'EM HELL"

When the Canadians first introduced
bombing, the bombs were improvised out of
jam tins, the fuses were cut according to the
taste and judgment of the individual
bomber, and, just when the bomb would ex-
plode, was more or less problematical.
Frequently, the Germans have tossed our
bombs back into our trenches before they
went ofif. That was injurious and irritating.
They can't do that with a Mills grenade
nor with any of the improved factory-made
bombs, because the men know just how they
are timed and are trained to know just how
to throw them. The Germans used to work
another little bomb trick of their own.
They learned that our scouts and raiders
were all anxious to get a German helmet as
a souvenir. TheyM put helmets on the
ground in "No Man's Land," or in an ad-
vanced trench with bombs under them. In
several cases, men looking for souvenirs sud-
denly became mere memories, themselves.
In several raids, when bombing was new, the
Canadians worked a trick on the Germans
with extensively fatal effect. They tossed

[95]

BEST O' LUCK

bombs into the German trenches with six-
inch fuses attached. To the Germans they
looked just like the other bombs we had
been using, and, in fact they were — all but
the fuses. Instead of having failed to con-
tinue burning, as the Germans thought,
those fuses had never been lighted. They
were instantaneous fuses. The ignition
spark will travel through instantaneous fuse
at the rate of about thirty yards a second.
A German would pick up one of these
bombs, select the spot where he intended to
blow up a few of us with our own ammonal,
and then light the fuse. After that there had
to be a new man in his place. The bomb
would explode instantly the long fuse was
ignited.

The next day when I got up after this
disastrous raid, I said to my bunkie:

"Got a fag?" ( Fag is the Tommy's name
for a cigarette.)

It's never, ''will you have a fag?" but al-
ways, "have you got a fag?"

They are the inseparable companions of
the men at the front, and you'll see the sol-

[96]

**OVER THE TOP AND GIVE 'EM HELL"

diers go over the top with an unlit fag in
their lips. Frequently, it is still there when
their work is done.
As we sat there smoking, my friend said:
"Something sure raised hell with our cal-
culations."

"Like those automatic self-cocking revol-
vers did with a Kentucky wedding when
some one made a remark reflecting on the
bride," I replied.

It may be interesting to note that Corpl.
Glass, Corpl. Charleson and Private (later
Corpl.) Saunders have all since been
"Killed in Action." Charleson and Saun-
ders the same morning I was wounded on
the Somme, and Glass, Easter morning at
Vimy Ridge, when the Canadians made
their wonderful attack.

[97]

SHIFTED TO THE SOMME

[99]

CHAPTER IV

SHIFTED TO THE SOMME

A few days after the bombing raid, which
ended so disastrously for us, our battalion
was relieved from duty on the front line, and
the tip we got was that we were to go down
to the big show then taking place on the
Somme. Our relief was a division of Aus-
tralians. You see, the sector which we had
held in Belgium was a sort of preparatory
school for the regular fighting over in
France.

It wasn't long before we got into what
you might call the Big League contest but,
in the meanwhile, we had a little rest from
battling Fritz and the opportunity to ob-
serve some things which seem to me to be
worth telling about. Those of you who are
exclusively fond of the stirring detail of
war, such as shooting and being shot at and

[lOl]

BEST 0' LUCK

bombing and bayoneting, need only skip a
little of this. We had an entirely satisfac-
tory amount of smoke and excitement later.

As soon as our relief battalion had got in,
we moved back to Renninghelst for a couple
of days rest. We were a pretty contented
and jovial lot — our platoon, especially. We
were all glad to get away from the strain of
holding a front trench, and there were other
advantages. For instance, the alterations of
our muster roll due to casualties, had not
come through battalion headquarters and,
therefore, we had, in our platoon, sixty-three
rum rations, night and morning, and only
sixteen men. There was a Canadian Scot in
our crowd who said that the word which
described the situation was "g-r-r-r-a-nd!"

There was a good deal of jealousy at that
time between the Canadians and the Aus-
tralians. Each had the same force in the
field — four divisions. Either force was big-
ger than any other army composed exclu-
sively of volunteers ever before assembled.
While I belong to the Canadian army and
believe the Canadian overseas forces the

[102]

SHIFTED TO THE SOMME

finest troops ever led to war, I must say that
I have never seen a body of men so magnifi-
cent in average physique as the Australians.
And some of them were even above the high
average. The man that punched me in the
eye in an "estaminet" in Poperinghe made
up entirely in his own person for the ab-
sence of Les Darcy from the Australian
ranks. I don't know just how the fight
started between the Australians and us, in
Poperinghe, but I know that it took three
regiments of Imperial troops to stop it. The
most convincing story I heard of the origin
of the battle was told me by one of our men
who said he was there when it began. He
said one of the Australians had carelessly re-
marked that the British generals had de-
cided it was time to get through with the
side-show in Belgium and this was the rea-
son why they had sent in regular troops like
the Australians to relieve the Canadians.

Then some sensitive Canadian wished the
Australians luck and hoped they'd finish it
up as well as they had the afTair in the Dar-
danelles. After that, our two days' rest was

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BEST O' LUCK

made up principally of beating it out of
"estaminets" when strategic requirements
suggested a new base, or beating it into
^'estaminets" where it looked as if we could
act as efficient re-inforcements. The fight
never stopped for forty-eight hours, and the
only places it didn't extend to were the
church and the hospitals. I'll bet, to this
day, that the Belgians who run the "estami-
nets" in Poperinghe will duck behind the
bars if you just mention Canada and Aus-
tralia in the same breath.

But I'm bound to say that it was good,
clean fighting. Nobody fired a shot, no-
body pulled a bayonet, and nobody got the
wrong idea about anything. The Australian
heavy-weight champion who landed on me
went right out in the street and saluted one
of our lieutenants. We had just one satis-
fying reflection after the fight was over.
The Australian battalion that relieved us
fell heir to the counter attack which the
Germans sent across to even up on our
bombing raid.

We began our march to the Somme by a

[104]

SHIFTED TO THE SOMME

hike to St. Ohmer, one of the early British
headquarters in Europe. Then we stopped
for a week about twenty miles from Calais,
where we underwent a course of intensified
training for open fighting. The infantry
tactics, in which we were drilled, were very
similar to those of the United States army
— those which, in fact, were originated by
the United States troops in the days of In-
dian fighting. We covered most of the
ground around Calais on our stomachs in
open order. While it may seem impertinent
for me, a mere non-com., to express an opin-
ion about the larger affairs of the campaign,
I think I may be excused for saying that
the war didn't at all take the course which
was expected and hoped for after the fight
on the Somme. Undoubtedly, the Allies ex-
pected to break through the German line.
That is well known now. While we were
being trained near Calais for open warfare,
a very large force of cavalry was being as-
sembled and prepared for the same purpose.
It was never used.
That was last August, and the Allies

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BEST 0' LUCK

haven't broken through yet. Eventually I
believe they will break through, but, in
my opinion, men who are waiting now
to learn if they are to be drawn for
service in our new American army will
be veterans in Europe before the big break
comes, which will wreck the Prussian
hope of success in this war. And if we of
the U. S. A. don't throw in the weight to
beat the Prussians now, they will not be
beaten, and, in that case, the day will not be
very far distant when we will have to beat
them to save our homes and our nation. War
is a dreadful and inglorious and ill-smelling
and cruel thing. But if we hold back now,
we will be in the logical position of a man
hesitating to go to grips with a savage,
shrieking, spewing maniac who has all but
whipped his proper keepers, and is going
after the on-looker next.

We got drafts of recruits before we went
on to the Somme, and some of our wounded
men were sent back to England, where we
had left our "Safety-first Battalion." That
was really the Fifty-first battalion, of the

[io6]

SHIFTED TO THE SOMME

Fourth Division of the Canadian forces,
composed of the physically rejected, men
recovering from wounds, and men injured
in training. The Tommies, however, called
it the "Safety-first," or "Major Gilday's
Light Infantry." Major Gilday was our
battalion surgeon. He was immensely pop-
ular, and he achieved a great name for him-
self. He made one realize what a great
personal force a doctor can be and what an
unnecessary and overwrought elaboration
there is in the civil practice of medicine.

Under Major Gilday's administration, no
man in our battalion was sick if he could
walk, and, if he couldn't walk, there was a
reasonable suspicion that he was drunk.
The Major simplified the practice of medi-
cine to an exact science involving just two
forms of treatment and two remedies —
"Number Nines" and whale oil. Number
Nines were pale, oval pills, which, if they
had been eggs, would have run about eight
to an omelette. They had an internal effect
which could only be defined as dynamic.
After our men had become acquainted with

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BEST O' LUCK

them through personal experience they
stopped calling them "Number Nines" and
called them "whiz-bangs." There were only
two possibilities of error under Major Gil-
day's system of simplified medicine. One
was to take a whiz-bang for trench feet, and
the other to use whale oil externally for
some form of digestional hesitancy. And, in
either case, no permanent harm could result,
while the error was as simple of correction
as the command "about face."

There was a story among our fellows that
an ambulance had to be called for Major
Gilday, in London, one day, on account of
shock following a remark made to him by
a bobby. The Major asked the policeman
how he could get to the Cavoy Hotel. The
bobby, with the proper bus line in mind, re-
plied: "Take a number nine, sir."

Two weeks and a half after we left Bel-
gium we arrived at Albert, having marched
all the way. The sight which met our eyes
as we rounded the rock-quarry hill, outside
of Albert, was wonderful beyond descrip-
tion. I remember how tremendously it im-

[io8]

SHIFTED TO THE SOMME

pressed my pal, Macfarlane. He sat by the
roadside and looked 'round over the land-
scape as if he were fascinated.

*'Boy," said he, "we're at the big show at
last."

Poor fellow, it was not only the big show,
but the last performance for him. Within
sight of the spot where he sat, wondering,
he later fell in action and died. The scene,
which so impressed him, gave us all a feel-
ing of awe. Great shells from a thou-
sand guns were streaking and criss-crossing
the sky. Without glasses I counted thirty-
nine of our observation balloons. Away off
in the distance I saw one German captive
balloon. The other air-craft were uncount-
able. They were everywhere, apparently in
hundreds. There could have been no more
wonderful panoramic picture of war in its
new aspect.

Our battalion was in and out of the town
of Albert several days waiting for orders.
The battle of Courcelette was then in prog-
ress, and the First, Second and Third Cana-
dian divisions were holding front positions

[109]

BEST O' LUCK

at terrible cost. In the first part of October,
1 91 6, we "went in" opposite the famous Re-
gina trench. The battle-ground was just
miles and miles of debris and shell-holes.
Before we went to our position, the officers
and non-coms, were taken in by scouts to get
the lay of the land. These trips were called
"Cook's Tours." On one of them I went
through the town of Poziers twice and
didn't know it. It had a population of
12,000 before the war. On the spot where
it had stood not even a whole brick was left,
it seemed. Its demolition was complete.
That was an example of the condition of the
whole country over which our forces had
blasted their way for ten miles, since the
previous July. There were not even land-
marks left.

The town of Albert will always remain
in my memory, and, especially, I shall al-
ways have the mental picture of the cathe-
dral, with the statue of the Virgin Mary with
the Babe in her arms, apparently about to
topple from the roof. German shells had
carried away so much of the base of the

[no]

SHIFTED TO THE SOMME

Statue that it inclined at an angle of 45 de-
grees. The Germans — for some reason
which only they can explain — expended
much ammunition in trying to complete the
destruction of the cathedral, but they did
not succeed and they'll never do it now.
The superstitious French say that when the
statue falls the war will end. I have a due
regard for sacred things, but if the omen
were to be depended upon I should not re-
gret to see the fall occur.

An unfortunate and tragic mishap oc-
curred just outside of Albert when the
Somme offensive started on July i. The
signal for the first advance was to be the
touching off of a big mine. Some fifteen
minutes before the mine exploded the Ger-
mans set off one of their own. Two regi-
ments mistook this for the signal and started
over. They ran simultaneously into their
own barrage and a German fire, and were
simply cut to pieces in as little time, almost,
as it takes to say it.

The Germans are methodical to such an
extent that at times this usually excellent

[III]

BEST 0' LUCK

quality acts to defeat their own ends. An
illustration of this was presented during the
bombardment of Albert. Every evening at
about six o'clock they would drop thirty
high-explosive shells into the town. When
we heard the first one coming we would dive
for the cellars. Everyone would remain
counting the explosions until the number
had reached thirty. Then everyone
would come up from the cellars and go
about his business. There were never thirty-
one shells and never twenty-nine shells.
The number was always exactly thirty, and
then the high-explosive bombardment was
over. Knowing this, none of us ever got
hurt. Their methodical "evening hate" was
w^asted, except for the damage it did to
buildings in the town.

On the night when we went in to occupy
the positions we were to hold, our scouts,
leading us through the flat desert of de-
struction, got completely turned 'round, and
took us back through a trench composed of
shell-holes, connected up, until we ran into
a battalion of another brigade. The place

[112]

SHIFTED TO THE SOMME

was dreadful beyond words. The stench of
the dead was sickening. In many places
arms and legs of dead men stuck out of the
trench walls.

We made a fresh start, after our blunder,
moving in single file and keeping in touch
each with the man ahead of him. We stum-
bled along in the darkness through this
awful labyrinth until we ran into some of
our own scouts at 2 A.M., and found that we
were half-way across "No Man's Land,"
several hundred yards beyond our front line
and likely to be utterly wiped out in twenty
seconds should the Germans sight us. At
last we reached the proper position, and fif-
teen minutes after we got there a whiz-bang
buried me completely. They had to dig me
out. A few minutes later another high-ex-
plosive shell fell in a trench section where
three of our men were stationed. All we
could find after it exploded were one arm
and one leg which we buried. The trenches
were without trench mats, and the mud was
from six inches to three feet deep all
through them. There were no dug-outs;

[113]

BEST 0' LUCK

only miserable "funk holes," dug where it
was possible to dig them without uncover-
ing dead men. We remained in this posi-
tion four days, from the 17th to the 21st of
October, 1916.

There were reasons, of course, for the dif-
ference between conditions in Belgium and
on the Somme. On the Somme, we were
constantly preparing for a new advance, and
we were only temporarily established on
ground which we had but recently taken,
after long drumming with big guns. The
trenches were merely shell-holes connected
by ditches. Our old and ubiquitous and use-
ful friend, the sand bag, was not present in
any capacity, and, therefore, we had no
parapets or dug-outs. The communication
trenches were all blown in and everything
had to come to us overland, with the result
that we never were quite sure when we
should get ammunition, rations, or relief
forces. The most awful thing was that the
soil all about us was filled with freshly-
buried men. If we undertook to cut a trench
or enlarge a funk hole, our spades struck

[114]

SHIFTED TO THE SOMME

into human flesh, and the explosion of a big
shell along our line sent decomposed and
dismembered and sickening mementoes of
an earlier fight showering amongst us. We
lived in the muck and stench of "glorious"
war; those of us who lived.

Here and there, along this line, were the
abandoned dug-outs of the Germans, and we
made what use of them we could, but that
was little. I had orders one day to locate
a dug-out and prepare it for use as battalion
headquarters. When I led a squad in to
clean it up the odor was so overpowering
that we had to wear our gas masks. On
entering, with our flashlights, we first saw
two dead nurses, one standing with her
arm 'round a post, just as she had stood
when gas or concussion killed her. Seated
at a table in the middle of the place was the
body of an old general of the German medi-
cal corps, his head fallen between his hands.
The task of cleaning up was too dreadful
for us. We just tossed in four or five fumite
bombs and beat it out of there. A few hours
later we went into the seared and empty

[115]

BEST 0' LUCK

cavern, made the roof safe with new
timbers, and notified battalion headquarters
that the place could be occupied.

During this time I witnessed a scene
which — with some others — I shall never
forget. An old chaplain of the Canadian
forces came to our trench section seeking the
grave of his son, which had been marked
for him on a rude map by an officer who
had seen the young man's burial. We man-
aged to find the spot, and, at the old chap-
lain's request, we exhumed the body. Some
of us suggested to him that he give us the
identification marks and retire out of range
of the shells which were bursting all around
us. We argued that it was unwise for him
to remain unnecessarily in danger, but what
we really intended was that he should be
saved the horror of seeing the pitiful thing
which our spades were about to uncover.

"I shall remain," was all he said. "He
was my boy."

It proved that we had found the right
body. One of our men tried to clear the
features with his handkerchief, but ended by

[ii6]

SHIFTED TO THE SOMME

Spreading the handkerchief over the face.
The old chaplain stood beside the body and
removed his trench helmet, baring his gray-
locks to the drizzle of rain that was falling.
Then, while we stood by with bowed heads,
his voice rose amid the noise of bursting
shells, repeating the burial service of the
Church of England. I have never been so
impressed by anything in my life as by that
scene.

The dead man was a young captain. He
had been married to a lady of Baltimore,
just before the outbreak of the war.

The philosophy of the British Tommies,
and the Canadians and the Australians on
the Somme was a remarkable reflection of
their fine courage through all that hell.
They go about their work, paying no atten-
tion to the flying death about them.

"If Fritz has a shell with your name and
number on it," said a British Tommy to me
one day, "you're going to get it whether
you're in the front line or seven miles back.
If he hasn't, you're all right."

Fine fighters, all. And the Scotch kilties,

[117]

BEST 0' LUCK

lovingly called by the Germans, "the women
from hell," have the respect of all armies.
Wc saw^ little of the Poilus, except a few on
leave. All the men were self-sacrificing to
one another in that big melting pot from
which so few ever emerge whole. The only
things it is legitimate to steal in the code of
the trenches are rum and "fags" (ciga-
rettes) . Every other possession is as safe as
if it were under a Yale lock.

[iiS]

WOUNDED IN ACTION

[119]

CHAPTER V

WOUNDED IN ACTION

Our high command apparently meant to
make a sure thing of the general assault
upon the Regina trench, in which we were
to participate. Twice the order to "go
over the top" was countermanded. The
assault was first planned for October 19th.
Then the date was changed to the 20th.
Finally, at 12 : 00 noon, of October 21st, we
went. It was the first general assault we had
taken part in, and we were in a highly nerv-
ous state. I'll admit that.

It seemed almost certain death to start
over in broad daylight, yet, as it turned out,
the crossing of "No Man's Land" was ac-
complished rather more easily than in our
night raids. Our battalion was on the ex-
treme right of the line, and that added ma-
terially to our difficulties, first by compel-

[121]

BEST 0' LUCK

ling US to advance through mud so deep that
some of our men sank to their hips in it and,
second, by giving us the hottest little spot in
France to hold later.

I was in charge of the second "wave" or
assault line. This is called the "mopping
up" wave, because the business of the men
composing it is thoroughly to bomb out
a position crossed by the first wave, to
capture or kill all of the enemy remaining,
and to put the trench in a condition to
be defended against a counter attack by
reversing the fire steps and throwing up
parapets.

While I was with the Canadians, all at-
tacks, or rather advances, were launched in
four waves, the waves being thirty to fifty
yards apart. A wave, I might explain, is
a line of men in extended order, or about
three paces apart. Our officers were in-
structed to maintain their places in the line
and to wear no distinguising marks which
might enable sharpshooters to pick them off.
Invariably, however, they led the men out
of our trenches. "Come on, boys, let's go,"

[122]

WOUNDED IN ACTION

they would say, climbing out in advance. It
was bred in them to do that.

Experience had taught us that it took the
German barrage about a minute and a half
to get going after ours started, and that they
always opened up on our front line trench.
We had a plan to take advantage of this
knowledge. We usually dug an "assembly
trench" some distance in advance of our front
line, and started from it. Thus we were able
to line up between two fires, our shells
bursting ahead of us, and the Germans' be-
hind us. All four waves started from the
assembly trench at once, the men of the sec-
ond, third and fourth waves falling back to
their proper distances as the advance pro-
ceeded. The first wave worked up to within
thirty to fifty yards of our own barrage and
then the men lay down. At this stage, our
barrage was playing on the enemy front line
trench. After a certain interval, carefully
timed, the gunners, away back of our lines,
elevated their guns enough to carry our bar-
rage a certain distance back of the enemy
front trench and then our men went in at

[123]

BEST 0 LUCK

I

the charge, to occupy the enemy trench be-
fore the Germans in the dugouts could
come out and organize a defense. Unless
serious opposition was met the first wave
went straight through the first trench, leav-
ing only a few men to guard the dugout
entrances pending the arrival of the second
wave. The second wave, only a few seconds
behind the first one, proceeded to do the
"mopping up." Then this wave, in turn,
went forward, leaving only a few men be-
hind to garrison the captured trench.

The third and fourth waves went straight
on unless assistance was needed, and rushed
up to the support of the new front line. The
men in these waves were ammunition car-
riers, stretcher-bearers and general reen-
forcements. Some of them were set to work
at once digging a communication trench to
connect our original front line with our new
support and front lines. When we estab-
lished a new front line we never used the
German trench. We had found that the
German artillery always had the range of
that trench down, literally speaking, to an

[124]

WOUNDED IN ACTION

inch. We always dug a new trench either
in advance of the German trench or in the
rear of it. Our manner of digging a trench
under these circumstances was very simple
and pretty sure to succeed except in an ex-
tremely heavy fire. Each man simply got
as flat to the ground as possible, seeking
whatever cover he might avail himself of,
and began digging toward the man nearest
him. Sand bags were filled with the first
dirt and placed to afford additional cover.
The above system of attack, which is now
well known to the Germans, was, at the time
when I left France, the accepted plan when
two lines of enemy trenches were to be taken.
It has been considerably changed, now, I am
told. If the intention was to take three, four,
five or six lines, the system was changed only
in detail. When four or more lines were to
be taken, two or more battalions were assem-
bled to operate on the same frontage. The
first battalion took two lines, the second
passed through the first and took two more
lines, and so on. The Russians had been
known to launch an attack in thirty waves.

[125]

BEST 0' LUCK

It is interesting to note how every attack,
nowadays, is worked out in advance in the
smallest detail, and how everything is done
on a time schedule. Aerial photographs of
the position they are expected to capture are
furnished to each battalion, and the men are
given the fullest opportunity to study them.
All bombing pits, dugouts, trench mortar
and machine-gun emplacements are marked
on these photographs. Every man is given
certain work to do and is instructed and re-
instructed until there can be no doubt that
he has a clear knowledge of his orders. But,
besides that, he is made to understand the
scope and purpose and plan of the whole
operation, so that he will know what to do
if he finds himself with no officer to com-
mand. This is one of the great changes
brought about by this war, and it signalizes
the disappearance, probably forever, of a
long-established tradition. It is something
which I think should be well impressed
upon the officers of our new army, about to
enter this great struggle. The day has
passed when the man in the ranks is sup-

[126]

WOUNDED IN ACTION

posed merely to obey. He must know what
to do and how to do it. He must think for
himself and "carry on" with the general
plan, if his officers and N. C. O.'s all be-
come casualties. Sir Douglas Haig said:
"For soldiers in this war, give me business
men with business sense, who are used to
taking initiative."

While I was at the front I had oppor-
tunity to observe three distinct types of bar-
rage fire, the "box," the "jumping," and the
"creeping." The "box," I have already de-
scribed to you, as it is used in a raid. The
"jumping" plays on a certain line for a cer-
tain interval and then jumps to another line.
The officers in command of the advance
know the intervals of time and space and
keep their lines close up to the barrage, mov-
ing with it on the very second. The "creep-
ing" barrage opens on a certain line and then
creeps ahead at a certain fixed rate of speed,
covering every inch of the ground to be
taken. The men of the advance simply walk
with it, keeping within about thirty yards
of the line on which the shells are falling.

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BEST O' LUCK

Eight-inch shrapnel, and high-explosive
shells were used exclusively by the British
when I was with them in maintaining bar-
rage fire. The French used their "seventy-
fives," which are approximately of eight-
inch calibre. Of late, I believe, the British
and French have both added gas shells for
this use, when conditions make it possible.
The Germans, in establishing a barrage,
used their "whiz-bangs," slightly larger
shells than ours, but they never seemed
to have quite the same skill and certitude
in barrage bombardment that our artillery-
men had.

To attempt to picture the scene of two
barrage fires, crossing, is quite beyond me.
You see two walls of flame in front of you,
one where your own barrage is playing, and
one where the enemy guns are firing, and
you see two more walls of flame behind you,
one where the enemy barrage is playing,
and one where your own guns are firing.
And amid it all you are deafened by titanic
explosions which have merged into one roar
of thunderous sound, while acrid fumes

[128]

WOUNDED IN ACTION

choke and blind you. To use a fitting, if not
original phrase, it's just "Hell with the
lid off."

That day on the Somme, our artillery
had given the Germans such a bat-
tering and the curtain fire which our
guns dropped just thirty to forty yards
ahead of us was so powerful that we lost
comparatively few men going over — only
those who were knocked down by shells
which the Germans landed among us
through our barrage. They never caught
us with their machine guns sweeping until
we neared their trenches. Then a good
many of our men began to drop, but we were
in their front trench before they could cut us
up anywhere near completely. Going over,
I was struck by shell fragments on the hand
and leg, but the wounds were not severe
enough to stop me. In fact, I did not know
that I had been wounded until I felt blood
running into my shoe. Then I discovered
the cut in my leg, but saw that it was quite
shallow, and that no artery of importance
had been damaged. So I went on.

[129]

BEST O' LUCK

I had the familiar feeling of nervousness
and physical shrinking and nausea at the be-
ginning of this fight, but, by the time we
were half way across "No Man's Land," I
had my nerve back. After I had been hit,
I remember feeling relieved that I hadn't
been hurt enough to keep me from going on
with the men. I'm not trying to make my-
self out a hero. I'm just -trying to tell you
how an ordinary man's mind works under
the stress of fighting and the danger of sud-
den death. There are some queer things in
the psychology of battle. For instance,
when we had got into the German trench
and were holding it against the most vig-
orous counter attacks, the thought which was
persistently uppermost in my mind was that
I had lost the address of a girl in London
along with some papers which I had thrown
away, just before we started over, and which
I should certainly never be able to find
again.

The Regina trench had been taken and lost
three times by the British. We took it that
day and held it. We went into action with fif-

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WOUNDED IN ACTION

teen hundred men of all ranks and came out
with six hundred. The position, which was
the objective of our battalion, was opposite
to and only twelve hundred yards distant
from the town of Pys, which, if you take the
English meaning of the French sound, was a
highly inappropriate name for that particu-
lar village. During a good many months,
for a good many miles 'round about that
place, there wasn't any such thing as
*'Peace." From our position, we could see
a church steeple in the town of Baupaume
until the Germans found that our gunners
were using it as a "zero" mark, and blew it
down with explosives.

I have said that, because we were on the
extreme right of the line, we had the hottest
little spot in France to hold for a while.
You see, we had to institute a double defen-
sive, as we had the Germans on our front
and on our flank, the whole length of the
trench to the right of us being still held by
the Germans. There we had to form a
''block," massing our bombers behind a bar-
ricade which was only fifteen yards from the

[131]

BEST O' LUCK

barricade behind which the Germans were
fighting. Our flank and the German flank
were in contact as fiery as that of two live
wire ends. And, meanwhile, the Fritzes
tried to rush us on our front with nine sepa-
rate counter attacks. Only one of them got
up close to us, and we went out and stopped
that with the bayonet. Behind our block
barricade, there was the nearest approach to
an actual fighting Hell that I had seen.

And yet a man who was in the midst of
it from beginning to end, came out without
a scratch. He was a tall chap named Hun-
ter. For twenty-four hours, without inter-
ruption, he threw German "egg-shell"
bombs from a position at the center of our
barricade. He never stopped except to light
a cigarette or yell for some one to bring him
more bombs from Fritz's captured store-
house. He projected a regular curtain of
fire of his own. Fve no doubt the Germans
reported he was a couple of platoons, work-
ing in alternate reliefs. He was awarded
the D. C. M. for his services in that fight,
and though, as I said, he was unwounded,

[132]

WOUNDED IN ACTION

half the men around him were killed, and
his nerves were in such condition at the end
that he had to be sent back to England.

One of the great tragedies of the war re-
sulted from a bit of carelessness when, a
couple of days later, the effort was made to
extend our grip beyond the spot which we
took in that first fight. Plans had been made
for the Forty-fourth Battalion of the Tenth
Canadian Brigade to take by assault the
trench section extending to the right from
the point where we had established the
*'block" on our flank. The hour for the at-
tack had been fixed. Then headquarters
sent out countermanding orders. Some-
thing wasn't quite ready.

The orders were sent by runners, as all
confidential orders must be. Telephones
are of little use, now, as both our people
and the Germans have an apparatus which
needs only to be attached to a metal spike
in the ground to "pick up" every telephone
message within a radius of three miles.
When telephones are used now, messages
are ordinarily sent in code. But, for

[T33]

BEST O' LUCK

any vitally important communication which
might cost serious losses, if misunderstood,
old style runners are used, just as they were
in the days when the field telephone was un-
heard of. It is the rule to dispatch two or
three runners by different routes so that one,
at least, will be certain to arrive. In the
case of the countermanding of the order for
the Forty-fourth Battalion to assault the
German position on our flank, some officer
at headquarters thought that one messenger
to the Lieut.-Colonel commanding the For-
ty-fourth would be sufficient. The messen-
ger was killed by a chance shot and his mes-
sage was undelivered. The Forty-fourth, in
ignorance of change of plan, "went over."
There was no barrage fire to protect the
force and their valiant effort was simply a
wholesale suicide. Six hundred out of eight
hundred men were on the ground in two and
one-half minutes. The battalion was simply
wiped out. Several officers were court-
martialed as a result of this terrible blunder.
We had gone into the German trenches at
a little after noon, on Saturday. On Sun-

[134]

WOUNDED IN ACTION

day night at about lo P.M. we were relieved.
The relief force had to come in overland,
and they had a good many casualities en
route. They found us as comfortable as
bugs in a rug, except for the infernal and
continous bombing at our flank barricade.
The Germans on our front had concluded
that it was useless to try to drive us out.
About one-fourth of the six hundred of us,
who were still on our feet, were holding the
sentry posts, and the remainder of the six
hundred were having banquets in the Ger-
man dugouts, which were stocked up like
delicatessen shops with sausages, fine canned
foods, champagne and beer. If we had only
had a few ladies with us, we could have had
a real party.

I got so happily interested in the spread
in our particular dugout that I forgot about
my wound until some one reminded me that
orders required me to hunt up a dressing
station, and get an anti-tetanus injection. I
went and got it, all right, but an injection
was about the only additional thing I could
have taken at that moment. If I had had to

[135]

BEST 0' LUCK

swallow anything more, it would have been
a matter of difficulty. Tommies like to take
a German trench, because if the Fritzes
have to move quickly, as they usually do,
we always find sausage, beer, and cham-
pagne— a welcome change from bully beef.
I could never learn to like their bread, how-
ever.

After this fight I was sent, with other
slightly wounded men, for a week's rest at
the casualty station, at Contay. I rejoined
my battalion at the end of the week. From
October 21st to November i8th we were in
and out of the front trenches several times
for duty tours of forty-eight hours each, but
were in no important action. At 6: 10 A.M.,
on the morning of November 18th, a bitter
cold day, we "went over" to take the Desire
and also the Desire support trenches. We
started from the left of our old position, and
our advance was between Thieval and Poi-
zers, opposite to Grandecourt.

There was the usual artillery prepara-
tion and careful organization for the attack.

[136]

WOUNDED IN ACTION

I was again in charge of the ''mopping up"
wave, numbering two hundred men and con-
sisting mostly of bombers. It may seem
strange to you that a non-commissioned offi-
cer should have so important an assignment,
but, sometimes, in this war, privates have
been in charge of companies, numbering
two hundred and fifty men, and I know of
a case where a lance-corporal was tempor-
arily in command of an entire battalion. It
happened, on this day that, while I was in
charge of the second wave, I did not go over
with them. At the last moment, I was given
a special duty by Major Lewis, one of
the bravest soldiers I ever knew, as well as
the best beloved man in our battalion. A
messenger came to me from him just as I
was overseeing a fair distribution of the rum
ration, and incidentally getting my own
share. I went to him at once.

"McClintock," said he, "I don't wish to
send you to any special hazard, and, so far
as that goes, we're all going to get more or
less of a dusting. But I want to put that

[137]

BEST 0' LUCK

machine gun which has been giving us so
much trouble out of action."

I knew very well the machine gun he
meant. It was in a concrete emplacement,
walled and roofed, and the devils in charge
of it seemed to be descendents of William
Tell and the prophet Isaiah. They always
knew what was coming and had their gun
accurately trained on it before it came.

"If you are willing," said Major Lewis,
"I wish you to select twenty-five men from
the company and go after that gun the min-
ute the order comes to advance. Use your
own judgment about the men and the plan
for taking the gun position. Will you go?"

"Yes, sir," I answered. "I'll go and pick
out the men right away. I think we can
make those fellows shut up shop over there."

"Good boyl" he said. "You'll try, all
right."

I started away. He called me back.

"This is going to be a bit hot, McClin-
tock," he said, taking my hand. "I wish you
the best of luck, old fellow — you and the
rest of them." In the trenches they always

[138]

WOUNDED IN ACTION

wish you the best of luck when they hand
you a particularly tough job.

I thanked him and wished him the same.
I never saw him again. He was killed in
action within two hours after our conversa-
tion. Both he and my pal, Macfarlane,
were shot down dead that morning.

When they called for volunteers to go
with me in discharge of Major Lewis' order,
the entire company responded. I picked out
twenty-five men, twelve bayonet men and
thirteen bombers. They agreed to my plan
which was to get within twenty-five yards of
the gun emplacement before attacking, to
place no dependence on rifle fire, but to
bomb them out and take the position with
the bayonet. We followed that plan and
took the emplacement quicker than we had
expected to do, but there were only two of
us left when we got there — Private Godsall,
No. 177,063, and myself. All the rest of
the twenty-five were dead or down. The
emplacement had been held by eleven Ger-
mans. Two only were left standing when
we got in.

[139]

BEST O' LUCK

When we saw the gun had been silenced
and the crew disabled, Godsall and I
worked round to the right about ten yards
from the shell-hole where we had sheltered
ourselves while throwing bombs into the
emplacement, and scaled the German para-
pet. Then we rushed the gun position. The
officer who had been in charge was standing
with his back to us, firing with his revolver
down the trench at our men who were com-
ing over at another point. I reached him
before Godsall and bayoneted him. The
other German who had survived our bomb-
ing threw up his hands and mouthed the
Teutonic slogan of surrender, ''Mercy,
Kamerad." My bayonet had broken ofif in
the encounter with the German officer, and
I remembered that I had been told always
to pull the trigger after making a bayonet
thrust, as that would usually jar the weapon
loose. In this case, I had forgotten instruc-
tions. I picked up a German rifle with
bayonet fixed, and Godsall and I worked on
down the trench.

The German, who had surrendered, stood

[140]

WOUNDED IN ACTION

with his hands held high above his head,
waiting for us to tell him what to do. He
never took his eyes off of us even to look at
his officer, lying at his feet. As we moved
down the trench, he followed us, still hold-
ing his hands up and repeating, "Mercy,
Kamerad!" At the next trench angle we
took five more prisoners, and as Godsall had
been slightly wounded in the arm, I turned
the captives over to him and ordered him to
take them to the rear. Just then the men
of our second wave came over the parapet
like a lot of hurdlers. In five minutes, we
had taken the rest of the Germans in the
trench section prisoners, had reversed the
fire steps, and had turned their own machine
guns against those of their retreating com-
panies that we could catch sight of.

As we could do nothing more here, I gave
orders to advance and reenforce the front
line. Our way led across a field furrowed
with shell-holes and spotted with bursting
shells. Not a man hesitated. We were win-
ning. That was all we knew or cared to
know. We wanted to make it a certainty for

[141]

BEST 0' LUCK

our fellows who had gone ahead. As we
were proceeding toward the German reserve
trench, I saw four of our men, apparently
unwounded, lying in a shell-hole. I stopped
to ask them what they were doing there. As
I spoke, I held my German rifle and bayo-
net at the position of "guard," the tip of the
bayonet advanced, about shoulder high. I
didn't get their answer, for, before they
could reply, I felt a sensation as if some one
had thrown a lump of hard clay and struck
me on the hip, and forthwith I tumbled in
on top of the four, almost plunging my bay-
onet into one of them, a private named Wil-
liams.

"Well, now you know what's the matter
with us," said Williams. "We didn't fall
in, but we crawled in."

They had all been slightly wounded. I
had twenty-two pieces of shrapnel and some
shell fragments imbedded in my left leg be-
tween the hip and the knee. I followed the
usual custom of the soldier who has got it."
The first thing I did was to light a "fag"
(cigarette) and the next thing was to inves-

[142]

WOUNDED IN ACTION

tigate and determine if I was in danger of
bleeding to death. There wasn't much
doubt about that. Arterial blood was spurt-
ing from two of the wounds, which were re-
vealed when the other men in the hole
helped me to cut ofif my breeches. With
their aid, I managed to stop the hemorrhage
by improvising tourniquets with rags and
bayonets. One I placed as high up as possi-
ble on the thigh and the other just below the
knee. Then we all smoked another *'fag"
and lay there, listening to the big shells go-
ing over and the shrapnel bursting near us.
It was quite a concert, too. We discussed
what we ought to do, and finally I said:

"Here; you fellows can walk, and I can't.
Furthermore, you're not able to carry me,
because you've got about all any of you can
do to navigate alone. It doesn't look as if
its going to be any better here very soon.
You all proceed to the rear, and, if you can
get some one to come after me, I'll be
obliged to you."

They accepted the proposition, because it
was good advice and, besides, it was orders.

[143]

BEST O' LUCK

I was their superior officer. And what hap-
pened right after that confirmed me forever
in my early, Kentucky-bred conviction that
there is a great deal in luck. They couldn't
have travelled more than fifty yards from the
shell-hole when the shriek of a high-explo-
sive seemed to come right down out of the
sky into my ears, and the detonation, which
instantly followed, shook the slanting sides of
the shell-hole until dirt in dusty little
rivulets came trickling down upon me.
Wounded as I was, I dragged myself up to
the edge of the hole. There was no trace,
anywhere, of the four men who had just left
me. They have never been heard of since.
Their bodies were never found. The big
shell must have fallen right amongst them
and simply blown them to bits.

It was about a quarter to seven in the
morning when I was hit. I lay in the shell-
hole until two in the afternoon, suffering
more from thirst and cold and hunger than
from pain. At two o'clock, a batch of
sixty prisoners came along under escort.
They were being taken to the rear un-

[144]

WOUNDED IN ACTION

der fire. The artillery bombardment
was still practically undiminished. I
asked for four of the prisoners and made one
of them get out his rubber ground sheet, car-
ried around his waist. They responded wil-
lingly, and seemed most ready to help me.
I had a revolver (empty) and some bombs
in my pockets, but I had no need to threaten
them. Each of the four took a corner
of the ground sheet and, upon it, they half
carried and half dragged me toward the
rear.

It was a trip which was not without inci-
dent. Every now and then we would hear
the shriek of an approaching "coal box,"
and then my prisoner stretcher-bearers and
I would tumble in one indiscriminate heap
into the nearest shell-hole. If we did that
once, we did it a half dozen times. After
each dive, the four would patiently reorga-
nize and arrange the improvised stretcher
again, and we would proceed. Following
every tumble, however, I would have to
tighten my tourniquets, and, despite all I
could do, the hemorrhage from my wound

[145]

BEST O' LUCK

continued so profuse that I was begin-
ning to feel very dizzy and weak. On
the way in, I sighted our regimental dress-
ing station and signed to my four bearers to
carry me toward it. The station was in an
old German dugout. Major Gilday was at
the door. He laughed when he saw me
with my own special ambulance detail.

"Well, what do you want?" he asked.

"Most of all," I said, "I think I want a
drink of rum."

He produced it for me instantly.

"Now," said he, "my advice to you is to
keep on travelling. You've got a fine spe-
cial detail there to look after you. Make
'em carry you to Poizers. It's only five
miles, and you'll make it all right. I've got
this place loaded up full, no stretcher-
bearers, no assistants, no adequate supply
of bandages and medicines, and a lot of
very bad cases. If you want to get out of
here in a week, just keep right on going,
now."

As we continued toward the rear, we were
the targets for a number of humorous re-

[146]

WOUNDED IN ACTION

marks from men coming up to go into the
fight.

''Give my regards to Blighty, you lucky
beggar," was the most frequent saying.

"Bli' me," said one Cockney Tommy.
"There goes one o' th' Canadians with an
escort from the Kaiser."

Another man stopped and asked about my
wound.

"Good work," he said. "I'd like to have
a nice clean one like that, myself."

I noticed one of the prisoners grinning at
some remark and asked him if he understood
English. He hadn't spoken to me, thougK
he had shown the greatest readiness to help
me.

"Certainly I understand English," he re-
plied. "I used to be a waiter at the Knick-
erbocker Hotel, in New York." That
sounded like a voice from home, and I
wanted to hug him. I didn't. However, I
can say for him he must have been a good
waiter. He gave me good service.

Of the last stages of my trip to Poizers I
cannot tell anything for I arrived uncon-

[147]

BEST O' LUCK

scious from loss of blood. The last I re-
member was that the former waiter, evi-
dently seeing that I was going out, asked me
to direct him how to reach the field dress-
ing station at Poizers and whom to ask for
when he got there. I came back to con-
sciousness in an ambulance on the way to
Albert.

[148]

A VISIT FROM THE KING

[149]

CHAPTER VI

A VISIT FROM THE KING

I was taken from Poizers to Albert in a
Ford ambulance, or, as the Tommies would
say, a "tin Lizzie." The man who drove this
vehicle would make a good chauffeur for
an adding machine. Apparently, he was
counting the bumps in the road for he didn't
miss one of them. However, the trip was
only a matter of seven miles, and I was in
fair condition when they lifted me out and
carried me to an operating table in the field
dressing station.

A chaplain came along and murmured a
little prayer in my ear. I imagine that
would make a man feel very solemn if
he thought there was a chance he was
about to pass out, but I knew I merely had
a leg pretty badly smashed up, and, while
the chaplain was praying, I was wondering

[151]

BEST O' LUCK

if they would have to cut it off. I figured,
if so, this would handicap my dancing.

The first formality in a shrapnel case is
the administration of an anti-tetanus inocu-
lation, and, when it is done, you realize that
they are sure trying to save your life. The
doctor uses a horse-syringe, and the injec-
tion leaves a lump on your chest as big as
a base ball which stays there for forty-
eight hours. After the injection a nurse
fills out a diagnosis blank with a description
of your wounds and a record of your name,
age, regiment, regimental number, religion,
parentage, and previous history as far as she
can discover it without asking questions
which would be positively indelicate. After
all of that, my wounds were given their first
real dressing.

Immediately after this was done, I was
bundled into another ambulance — this time
a Cadillac — and driven to Contay where the
CCS. (casualty clearing station) and rail-
head were located. In the ambulance with
me went three other soldiers, an artillery
officer and two privates of infantry. We

[152]

A VISIT FROM THE KING

were all ticketed off as shrapnel cases, and
probable recoveries, which latter detail is
remarkable, since the most slightly injured
in the four had twelve wounds, and there
were sixty odd shell fragments or shrapnel
balls collectively imbedded in us. The
head nurse told me that I had about twenty
wounds. Afterward her count proved con-
servative. More accurate and later returns
showed twenty-two bullets and shell frag-
ments in my leg.

We were fairly comfortable in the ambu-
lance, and I, especially, had great relief
from the fact that the nurse had strapped my
leg in a sling attached to the top of the vehi-
cle. We smoked cigarettes and chatted
cheerfully, exchanging congratulations on
having got "clean ones," that is, wounds
probably not fatal. The artillery officer
told me he had been supporting our bat-
talion, that morning, with one of the "sacri-
fice batteries." A sacrifice battery, I might
explain, is one composed of field pieces
which are emplaced between the front and
support lines, and which, in case of an at-

[153]

BEST 0' LUCK

tack or counter attack, are fired at point-
blank range. They call them sacrifice bat-
teries because some of them are wiped out
every day. This officer said our battalion,
that morning, had been supported by an en-
tire division of artillery, and that on our
front of four hundred yards the eighteen
pounders, alone, in a curtain fire which
lasted thirty-two minutes, had discharged
fifteen thousand rounds of high-explosive
shells.

I was impressed by his statement, of
course, but I told him that while this was
an astonishing lot of ammunition, it was even
more surprising to have noticed at close
range, as I did, the number of Germans they
missed. Toward the end of our trip to Con-
tay, we were much exhausted and pretty
badly shaken up. We were beginning also
to realize that we were by no means out of
the woods, surgically. Our wounds had
merely been dressed. Each of us faced an
extensive and serious operation. We arrived
at Contay, silent and pretty much depressed.
For twenty-four hours in the Contay casu-

[154]

A VISIT FROM THE KING

alty clearing station, they did little except
feed us and take our temperatures hourly.
Then we were put into a hospital train for
Rouen.

Right here, I would like to tell a little
story about a hospital train leaving Contay
for Rouen — not the one we were on, but one
which had left a few days before. The
train, when it was just ready to depart with
a full quota of wounded men, was attacked
by German aeroplanes from which bombs
were dropped upon it. There is nothing,
apparently, that makes the Germans so fear-
less and ferocious as the Red Cross emblem.
On the top of each of the cars in this train
there was a Red Cross big enough to be seen
from miles in the air. The German aviators
accepted them merely as excellent targets.
Their bombs quickly knocked three or four
cars from the rails and killed several of the
helpless wounded men. The rest of the
patients, weak and nervous from recent
shock and injury, some of them half delir-
ious, and nearly all of them in pain,
were thrown into near-panic. Two of

,[155]

BEST O' LUCK

the nursing sisters in charge of the
train were the coolest individuals present.
They walked calmly up and down its length,
urging the patients to remain quiet, direct-
ing the male attendants how to remove the
wounded men safely from the wrecked cars,
and paying no attention whatever to the
bombs which were still exploding near the
train. I did not have the privilege of wit-
nessing this scene myself, but I know that I
have accurately described it for the details
were told in an official report when the King
decorated the two sisters with the Royal
Red Cross, for valor in the face of the
enemy.

The trip from Contay to Rouen was a
nightmare — twenty-six hours travelling one
hundred and fifty miles on a train, which
was forever stopping and starting, its jerky
and uncertain progress meaning to us just
hours and hours of suffering. I do not know
whether this part of the system for the re-
moval of the wounded has been improved
now. Then, its inconveniences and imper-
fections must have been inevitable, for, in

[156]

A VISIT FROM THE KING

every way afterward, the most thoughtful
and tender care was shown us. In the long
row of huts which compose the British Gen-
eral Hospital at Rouen, we found ourselves
in what seemed like Paradise.

In the hut, which constituted the special
ward for leg wounds, I was lifted from the
stretcher on which I had travelled all the
way from Poizers into a comfortable bed
with fresh, clean sheets, and instantly I
found myself surrounded with quiet,
trained, efficient care. I forgot the pain of
my wounds and the dread of the coming op-
eration when a tray of delicious food was
placed beside my bed and a nurse prepared
me for the enjoyment of it by bathing my
face and hands with scented water.

On the following morning my leg was
X-rayed and photographed. I told the sur-
geon I thought the business of operating
could very well be put off until I had had
about three more square meals, but he
couldn't see it that way. In the afternoon,
I got my first sickening dose of ether, and
they took the first lot of iron out of me. I

[157]

BEST O' LUCK

suppose these were just the surface deposits,
for they only got five or six pieces. How-
ever, they continued systematically. I had
five more operations, and every time I came
out of the ether; the row of bullets and shell
scraps at the foot of my bed was a little
longer. After the number had reached
twxnty-two, they told me that perhaps there
were a few more in there, but they thought
they'd better let them stay. My wounds had
become septic, and it was necessary to give
all attention to drainage and cure. It was
about this time that everything, for a while,
seemed to become hazy, and my memories
got all queerly mixed up and confused. I
recollect I conceived a violent dislike for a
black dog that appeared from nowhere, now
and then, and began chewing at my leg, and
I believe I gave the nurse a severe talking to
because she insisted on going to look on at
the ball game when she ought to be sitting
by to chase that dog away. And I was per-
fectly certain about her being at the ball
game, because I saw her there when I was
playing third base.

[158]

A VISIT FROM THE KING

It was at this time (on November 28,
1916, ten days after I had been wounded)
that my father, in Lexington, received the
following cablegram from the officer in
charge of the Canadian records, in Eng-
land:

"Sincerely regret to inform you that Ser-
geant Alexander McClintock is officially
reported dangerously ill in No. 5 General
Hospital, from gunshot wound in left thigh.
Further particulars supplied when re-
ceived."

It appears that, during the time of my ad-
ventures with the black dog and the inatten-
tive nurse, my temperament had ascended to
the stage when the doctors begin to admit
that another method of treatment might
have been successful. But I didn't pass out.
The one thing I most regret about my close
call is that my parents, in Lexington, were
in unrelieved suspense about my condition
until I myself sent them a cable from Lon-
don, on December 15th. After the first
official message, seemingly prepared almost
as a preface to the announcement of my de-

[159]

BEST 0' LUCK

mise, my father received no news of me
whatever. And, as I didn't know that the
official message had gone, I cabled nothing
to him until I was feeling fairly chipper
again. You can't have wars, though, with-
out these little misunderstandings.

If it were possible, I should say some-
thing here which would be fitting and ade-
quate about the English women who nursed
the twenty-five hundred wounded men in
General Hospital No. 5, at Rouen. But
that power isn't given me. All I can do is
to fall back upon our most profound Ameri-
can expression of respect and say that my
hat is ofif to them. One nurse in the ward
in which I lay had been on her feet for
fifty-six hours, with hardly time, even to eat.
She finally fainted from exhaustion, was
carried out of the ward, and was back again
in four hours, assisting at an operation. And
the doctors were doing their bit, too, in liv-
ing up to the obligations which they consid-
ered to be theirs. An operating room was
in every ward with five tables in each. After
the fight on the Somme, in which I was

[160]

A VISIT FROM THE KING

wounded, not a table was vacant any hour
in the twenty-four, for days at a time. Out-
side of each room was a long line of stretch-
ers containing patients next awaiting surgi-
cal attention. And in all that stress, I did
not hear one word of complaint from the
surgeons who stood, hour after hour, using
their skill and training for the petty pay of
English army medical officers.

On December 5th, I was told I was well
enough to be sent to England and, on the
next day, I went on a hospital train
from Rouen to Havre. Here I was
placed on a hospital ship which every
medical officer in our army ought to
have a chance to inspect. Nothing ingenu-
ity could contrive for convenience and com-
fort was missing. Patients were sent below
decks in elevators, and then placed in swing-
ing cradles which hung level no matter what
the ship's motion might be. As soon as I
had been made comfortable in my particu-
lar cradle, I was given a box which had
engraved upon it: "Presented with the com-
pliments of the Union Castle Line. May

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BEST 0' LUCK

you have a speedy and good recovery." The
box contained cigarettes, tobacco, and a
pipe.

When the ship docked at Southampton,
after a run of eight hours across channel,
each patient was asked what part of the
British Isles he would like to be taken to
for the period of his convalescence. I re-
quested to be taken to London, where, I
thought, there was the best chance of my see-
ing Americans who might know me. Say,
I sure made a good guess. I didn't know
many Americans, but I didn't need to know
them. They found me and made themselves
acquainted. They brought things, and then
they went out to get more they had forgotten
to bring the first trip. The second day
after I had been installed on a cot in the
King George Hospital, in London, I sent
fifteen hundred cigarettes back to the boys
of our battalion in France out of my surplus
stock. If I had undertaken to eat and drink
and smoke all the things that were brought
to me by Americans, just because I was an
American, I'd be back in that hospital now,

[162]

A VISIT FROM THE KING

only getting fairly started on the job. It's
some country when you need it.

The wounded soldier, getting back to
England, doesn't have a chance to imagine
that his services are not appreciated. The
welcome he receives begins at the railroad
station. All traffic is stopped by the Bob-
bies to give the ambulances a clear way
leaving the station. The people stand in
crowds, the men with their hats ofif, while
the ambulances pass. Women rush out and
throw flowers to the wounded men. Some-
times there is a cheer, but usually only
silence and words of sympathy.

The King George Hospital was built to
be a government printing office, and was
nearing completion when the war broke out.
It has been made a Paradise for convales-
cent men. The bareness and the sick sug-
gestion and characteristic smell of the
average hospital are unknown here. There
are soft lights and comfortable beds and
pretty women going about as visitors.
The stage beauties and comedians come and
entertain us. The food is delicious, and the

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BEST 0' LUCK

chief thought of every one seems to be to
show the inmates what a comfortable and
cheery thing it is to be ill among a lot of
real friends. I was there from December
until February, and my recollections of the
stay are so pleasant that sometimes I wish I
was back.

On the Friday before Christmas there
was a concert in our ward. Among the ar-
tists who entertained us were Fay Compton,
Gertrude Elliott (sister of Maxine Elliott) ,
George Robie, and other stars of the Lon-
don stage. After our protracted stay in the
trenches and our long absence from all the
civilized forms of amusement, the afifair
seemed to us the most wonderful show ever
given. And, in some ways, it was. For in-
stance, in the most entertaining of dramatic
exhibitions, did you ever see the lady artists
go around and reward enthusiastic applause
with kisses? Well that's what we got. And
I am proud to say that it was Miss Comp-
ton who conferred this honor upon me.

At about three o'clock on that afternoon,
when we were all having a good time, one

[164]

A VISIT FROM THE KING

of the orderlies threw open the door of the
ward and announced in a loud voice that
His Majesty, the King, was coming in. We
could not have been more surprised if some
one had thrown in a Mills bomb. Almost
immediately the King walked in, accompan-
ied by a number of aides. They were all
in service uniforms, the King having
little in his attire to distinguish him
from the others. He walked around, pre-
senting each patient with a copy of "Queen
Mary's Gift Book," an artistic little volume
with pictures and short stories by the most
famous of English artists and writers.
When he neared my bed, he turned to one
of the nurses and inquired:

"Is this the one?"

The nurse nodded. He came and sat at
the side of the bed and shook hands with
me. He asked as to what part of the United
States I had come from, how I got my
wounds, and what the nature of them were,
how I was getting along, and what I par-
ticularly wished done for me. I answered
his questions and said that everything I

[165]

BEST O' LUCK

could possibly wish for had already been
done for me.

"I thank you," he said, "for myself and
my people for your services. Our gratitude
cannot be great enough toward men who
have served us as you have."

He spoke in a very low voice and with no
assumption of royal dignity. There was
nothing in the least thrilling about the inci-
dent, but there was much apparent sincerity
in the few words.

After he had gone, one of the nurses asked
me what he had said.

"Oh," I said, "George asked me what I
thought about the way the war was being
conducted, and I said I'd drop in and talk
it over with him as soon as I was well
enough to be up."

There happened one of the great disap-
pointments of my life. She didn't see the
joke. She was English. She gasped and
glared at me, and I think she went out and
reported that I was delirious again.

Really, I wasn't much impressed by the
English King. He seemed a pleasant, tired

[i66]

A VISIT FROM THE KING

little man, with a great burden to bear, and
not much of an idea about how to bear it.
He struck me as an individual who would
conscientiously do his best in any situation,
but would never do or say anything with the
slightest suspicion of a punch about it. A few
days after his visit to the hospital, I saw in
the Official London Gazette that I had been
awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal.
Official letters from the Canadian headquar-
ters amplified this information, and a notice
from the British War Office informed me
that the medal awaited me there. I was
told the King knew that the medal had been
awarded to me, when he spoke to me in the
hospital. Despite glowing reports in the
Kentucky press, he didn't pin it on me.
Probably he didn't have it with him. Or,
perhaps, he didn't consider it good form to
hang a D. C. M. on a suit of striped, pre-
sentation pajamas with a prevailing tone of
baby blue.*

♦Editor's Note. — The medal was formally presented to
Sergt. McClintock by the British Consul General, in New
York City, on August 15, 1917.

[167]

BEST O' LUCK

While I was in the King George Hos-
pital I witnessed one of the most wonderful
examples of courage and pluck I had ever
seen. A young Scot, only nineteen years
old, McAuley by name, had had the greater
part of his face blown away. The surgeons
had patched him up in some fashion, but he
was horribly disfigured. He was the bright-
est, merriest man in the ward, always jok-
ing and never depressed. His own terrible
misfortune was merely the topic for humor-
ous comment with him. He seemed to get
positive amusement out of the fact that the
surgeons were always sending for him to do
something more with his face. One day he
was going into the operating room and a
fellow patient asked him what the new op-
eration was to be.

"Oh," he said, "I'm going to have a cab-
bage put on in place of a head. It'll grow
better than the one I have now."

Once in a fortnight he would manage to
get leave to absent himself from the hos-
pital for an hour or two. He never came
back alone. It took a couple of men to

[i68]

A VISIT FROM THE KING

bring him back. On the next morning, he
would say:

"Well, it was my birthday. A man must
have a few drinks on his birthday."

I was discharged from the hospital in the
middle of February and sent to a comfort-
able place at Hastings, Sussex, where I
lived until my furlough papers came
through. I had a fine time in London at
the theatres and clubs pending my depart-
ure for home. When my furlough had ar-
rived, I went to Buxton, Derb3^shire, where
the Canadian Discharge Depot was located
and was provided with transportation to
Montreal. I came back to America on the
Canadian Pacific Royal Mail steamer,
Metagama, and the trip was without inci-
dent of any sort. We lay for a time in the
Mersey, awaiting word that our convoy was
ready to see us out of the danger zone, and
a destroyer escorted us four hundred miles
on our way.

I was informed, before my departure, that
a commission as lieutenant in the Canadian
forces awaited my return from furlough,

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BEST 0' LUCK

and I had every intention of going back to
accept it. But, since I got to America,
things have happened. Now, it's the army
of Uncle Sam, for mine. I've written these
stories to show what we are up against. It's
going to be a tough game, and a bloody one,
and a sorrowful one for many. But it's up
to us to save the issue where it's mostly right
on one side, and all wrong on the other — and
I'm glad we're in. I'm not willing to quit
soldiering now, but I will be when we get
through with this. When we finish up
with this, there won't be any necessity for
soldiering. The world will be free of war
for a long, long time — and a God's mercy,
that. Let me take another man's eloquent
words for my last ones :

Oh! spacious days of glory and of grieving!

Oh! sounding hours of lustre and of loss;
Let us be glad we lived, you still believing

The God who gave the Cannon gave the Cross.

[170]

A VISIT FROM THE KING

Let us doubt not, amid these seething passions,
The lusts of blood and hate our souls abhor :

The Power that Order out of Chaos fashions
Smites fiercest in the wrath-red forge of War.

Have faith ! Fight on ! Amid the battle-hell,
Love triumphs, Freedom beacons, All is well.

(Robert W. Service, "Rhymes of a Red Cross
Man.")

THE END.

[171]

D.

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