The night of September 1st was very dark, and rain fell as the men assembled for the attack. Zero hour was to be 5 a. m. Captain Shea, one of the medical officers of the First Field Ambulance, with whom I was going to work the following day, found a square hole in the ground about two feet deep, and he and I rolled ourselves in our blankets and tried to sleep. The Germans were shelling this area very hard and shells were dropping all about us, and the rain upon us. Every little while I could hear the doctor, who was a very devout Catholic, give voice to the following soliloquy: “Think of a priest lying out in the mud a night like this! What awful times we are living in! I wonder what his people at home would say if they could see him now. A priest sleeping in a mud-hole!”
Then, perhaps, a shell would drop very near us and I could hear him say, optimistically: “Well, the worst we can expect is to be buried alive!”
I could not help laughing as the doctor continued. Everything seemed so strange to him, for he had but lately come to the front. And I had now been long enough in the army to take things as they came.
At five o’clock a. m. the earth began to thunder and rock as the terrible barrage began that was to sound the death-knell of the Drocourt Quéant line. We watched the men advance, then we were busy with the wounded. A great number passed through our hands, including some Irish lads from the Naval Division on our right. It took but an hour or two for the Canadians to break the Drocourt Quéant line which had been considered impregnable. Passing through the trenches and over the battlefield that day, I marvelled at the system of deep trenches from which led great dugouts lighted with electricity. We encountered many wounded Germans lying in shell-holes, and dispatched German prisoners to bring them to the Field Ambulance that had now been established near Cagnicourt.
We had not been shelled very much that day, but two or three days before, in one of the minor engagements, the shelling had been terrific. George and I had run the gauntlet of shell-fire known as a “creeping barrage.” Wall after wall of bursting shells had swept over us, killing nearly all our companions. George and two privates and I were the only ones out of fourteen who were not casualties.
Towards evening, as I was anointing some German wounded, one of our prisoners, an officer, stepped over and began to speak to the lad to whom I was administering. The officer told me in French that he would interpret, as he was a Catholic. I asked him to try to dispose the dying soldier for absolution. He did, and then helped me while I anointed the lad.
When I was through I thanked the officer for his aid and remarked that he seemed well grounded in his religion. He smiled a little at this, as he said: “I should be, for I am an ordained deacon.” I was still talking to this young ecclesiastic when I heard a friendly call from a stretcher, and, looking in that direction, I saw it was Lt. Maxwell-Scott—he who had first served my Mass at Fosse-dix. It seemed years ago. He was wounded, though not seriously.
The following day I waited, with an Anglican chaplain from the Third Brigade, till all the dead were brought in from the battlefield. Among the officers of the Sixteenth were two or three of my dear friends. One was the gentle officer who had slept in my billet at Carency, months before—the one who had been called “Wild Bill;” even in death there was a gentle expression on his kind face. We buried one hundred and twenty-five that day, and called the place “Dominion Cemetery.”
Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow,