Reginald Bateman, Teacher and Soldier / A Memorial Volume of Selections from His Lectures and Other Writings

by Reginald Bateman

IN THE TRENCHES

An address given in Saskatoon to a number of returned men and colleagues on the first anniversary of the battle of St. Julien. Professor Bateman had been recalled from France to take command of the Saskatchewan Company of the Western Universities' Battalion.

Twelve months ago, on April 22nd, when day broke upon the battlefields of Flanders, the new Canadian army, which had wallowed all winter in the mud of Salisbury, had yet to prove their mettle as fighting men. Ere the sun set that day, they had already won the title, given them throughout the Empire when the story of the fight was known, of "Glorious Canadians." The reputation won at Ypres and St. Julien was fully maintained at the battles of Festubert and Givenchy.

Although we soldiers of the Second Contingent experienced fighting on a smaller scale than our comrades of the First, we had quite enough to enable us to realize, as one who has not been there never can, a great deal of what the first lot went through. I think it is no exaggeration to say that no soldiers of the Second or succeeding contingents think it necessary to look anywhere but to the First Canadians for their highest example of self-sacrifice and devotion to duty.

I have heard people at home complain that they find it hard to get any information from returned soldiers as to their experience, or to get any real idea of what the fighting is like. I think the reason is that we are afraid of giving people a false impression, and that it is impossible to make people grasp the reality of conditions of warfare which have no parallel in history. Everybody at home expects a tale of glory and heroism, but the days of pomp and circumstance of battle are over, and it is only the ideals for which we are fighting that can dignify the mean and ugly reality of present-day war. Besides, when I look back upon the one or two little affairs out of the common in which I have taken part, my impressions are a curious mixture of distinctness and vagueness, as of a dream or nightmare rather than of a real experience, and such impressions are difficult to put into words.

I was in and out of the trenches for six months as an N.C.O., and was in the front line every time but one, so that as far as the ordinary routine of trench life goes, I am qualified to speak. The shortest phrase I know of which attempts to sum up life in the trenches is "Days of unendurable monotony and moments of indescribable fear." That phrase, as far as it goes, is a good description, but it leaves out two important aspects of trench life, the humorous and the picturesque. It is only a sense of humour that can make the monotony of trench life endurable. Any man who went up to the front line expecting to find the heroic defenders grimly defiant and serious over their task would probably be more shocked than amused to find men busy arguing over the division of a pot of jam while Fritz was generously spraying our line with shrapnel; or to discover that some fellow was more elated over having swiped someone else's brazier than if he had bayonetted a dozen Fritzes; or to discover that the breaking of a rum jar was considered a greater calamity by the whole company than if our trench had been blown to pieces.

I have often sat in my dug-out, just a little way down the communication trench, and listened to a ration party going up to the front line in the dark with their heavy loads, wading through mud, plunging into holes, falling over broken trench mats, and I have heard with great pleasure the flow of language; it was immense, nothing like it is to be heard from any other troops in the world's history.

And then there was the picturesque side. My recollections of the trenches come back to me chiefly as a series of pictures.

I see the velvety blackness of the night, cut by streaks of light as the flares go up continually along the front, as far as the eye can see, then shed their weird radiance over the mysterious region of No Man's Land, while every moving thing beneath their light lies still as death till darkness comes again to hide them from the searching eyes that never cease to scan the space between the trenches. I see the muffled sentries at their posts on the firing step; I hear the irregular crack, crack of rifle fire along the line as they shoot at a flash from the other trench, or at some moving object dimly seen through the darkness; then comes the sharp crackle of rifle fire or the rat-a-tat-tat of the machine-gun as we open upon one of Fritz's working parties. I see the flash and hear the bang of bursting shrapnel, or the distant woosh and cr-r-rump of the high explosive; or there is the dull pop from Fritz's line, and high in the air a tract of light makes its way towards our trench. We hear the familiar whoo-oo-oo-oosh, and we know that one of the dreaded aerial torpedoes is on its way; we wait with horrible suspense for the sickening thud and roar of the explosion, and wonder whether it has got anyone this time, and whether the next is coming our way; or we are roughly awakened from the deep sleep of exhaustion by someone excitedly pulling at our legs and shouting, "Gas!" We crawl quickly out of the dug-out into the darkness to find our comrades "standing to" all along the trench in their weird gas helmets, and presently discover with relief that a nervous listening post has mistaken the mist, which is rolling up from Fritz's trench, for the dreaded chlorine. Or we turn from our posts as we hear the shuffle of the stretcher-bearers along the trench, and we wish some unlucky (or lucky) comrade a safe passage to Blighty. Then there are nights to look back upon around the battered old brazier in the dug-out, when things were quiet, and we smoked a pipe or sang a song, and thought of what we should do when we got that leave that never seemed to come, or the "rest" which had been promised us every time we came out of the trenches for the last three months. And then there was the tramp back to billets through the shell-torn streets of a deserted Flemish village, and the blessed relief of flinging down the pack and rolling up in our blankets for the first straight sleep of many nights.

But best of all to look back upon are the good comrades we found in the trenches, whom we knew we could trust to the death, if need be. However much we appreciate the comfort of home and the kindness of friends here, the deepest thoughts of every returned soldier are now, and will ever be while this war lasts, with the boys they left behind them, "holding the line."