Canada in Flanders, Volume I

by Baron Max Aitken Beaverbrook

The advance was indeed costly, but it was made with a devotion which could not be denied. The story is one of which the Brigades may be proud, but it does not belong to the special account of the fortunes of the Canadian contingent. It is sufficient for our purpose to notice that the attack succeeded in its object, and the German advance along the line, momentarily threatened, was arrested.

We had reached, in describing the events of the afternoon, the points at which the trenches of the 2nd Brigade had been completely destroyed. This Brigade, the 3rd Brigade, and the considerable reinforcements which by this time filled the gap between the two Brigades, were gradually driven, fighting every yard, upon a line running roughly from Fortuin, south of St. Julien, in a north-easterly direction towards Passchendaele. Here the two Brigades were relieved by two British brigades, after exertions as glorious, as fruitful, and, alas! as costly, as soldiers have ever been called upon to make.

Monday morning broke bright and clear and found the Canadians behind the firing line. But this day, too, was to bring its anxieties. The attack was still pressed, and it became necessary to ask Brigadier-General Currie whether he could once more call on his shrunken Brigade.

"The men are tired," this indomitable soldier replied, "but they are ready and glad to go again to the trenches." And so, once more, a hero leading heroes, the General marched back the men of the 2nd Brigade, reduced to a quarter of its strength, to the very apex of the line as it existed at that moment. The Brigade held this position throughout Monday; on Tuesday it occupied reserve trenches, and on Wednesday it was relieved and retired to billets in the rear.[[13]]

It is a fitting climax to the story of the Canadians at Ypres that the last blows were struck by one who had borne himself throughout gallantly and resourcefully. Lieut.-Colonel Watson, on the evening of Wednesday, April 28th, was ordered to advance with his Battalion and dig a line of trenches which were to link up the French on the left and a battalion of the Rifle Brigade on the right. It was both a difficult and a dangerous task, and Lieut.-Colonel Watson could only employ two companies to dig, while two companies acted as cover.

They started out at 7 o'clock in the evening from the field in which they had bivouacked all day west of Brielen, and made north, towards St. Julien. And, even as they started, there was such a hail of shrapnel, intended either for the farm which served as the Battalion's Headquarters, or for the road junction which they would have to cross, that they were compelled to stand fast.

At 8 o'clock, however, Colonel Watson was able to move on again; and, as the men marched north, terrible scenes en route showed the fury of the artillery duel which had been in progress since the Battalion had moved out of the firing line on the morning of the 26th.

At the bridge crossing Ypres Canal, guides met the Regiment, and the extraordinary precautions which were taken to hide its movements indicated the seriousness of its errand.

The Battalion had suffered heavy losses at this very spot only a few days before, and a draft of five officers and 112 men from England had reinforced it only that morning. And the officers and men of this draft received an awful baptism of fire within practically a few hours of their arrival at the front. High explosives were bursting and thundering; there were shells searching hedgerows and the avenue of trees between which the Battalion marched, and falling in dozens into every scrap of shelter where the enemy imagined horses or wagons might be hidden. Slowly and cautiously, the march continued until the Battalion arrived behind the first line trench held by a battalion of the King's Own Scottish Borderers. Through this line Colonel Watson and his men had to pass, and on every side were strewn the bodies of scores of Ghurkas, the gallant little soldiers who had that morning perished while attempting the almost impossible task of advancing to the assault over nearly 700 yards of open ground.

When the Battalion reached the place where the trenches were to be dug, two companies were led out by Colonel Watson himself, to act as cover to the other two companies, which then began digging along the line marked by the Engineers. And if ever men worked with nervous energy, these men did that night. From enemy rifles on the ridge came the ping of bullets, which mercifully passed overhead, although, judging from the persistency and multitude of their flares, the enemy must have known that work was being done.