Canada in Flanders, Volume I

by Baron Max Aitken Beaverbrook

And here is a story of a Brigade Headquarters that lived in a house surrounded by a moat over which there was only one road. On Thursday the enemy's artillery found the house, and later on, as the rush came, their rifle fire found it also. The staff went on with its work till the end of the week, when incendiary shells set the place alight and they were forced to move. The road being impassable on account of shrapnel, they swam the moat, but one of them was badly wounded, and for him swimming was out of the question. Captain Scrimger, medical officer attached to the Royal Montreal Regiment, protected the wounded man with his own body against the shrapnel that was coming through the naked rafters, and carried him out of the blazing house into the open.[[3]] Two of the staff, Brig.-General Hughes (then Brigade Major of the 3rd Infantry Brigade) and Lieut. Thompson (then Assistant Adjutant, Royal Montreal Regiment) reswam the moat and, waiting for a lull in the shell fire, got the wounded man across the road on to a stretcher and into a dressing station, after which they went on with their official duties.

On April 24th Colonel Watson, who was editor of the Quebec Chronicle before he took command of the 2nd Battalion, was called on to perform as difficult and dangerous a task as fell to the lot of any commander during all these difficult and bloody days. The operation was most ably carried out, and Colonel Watson crowned his success, in the midst of what appeared to be defeat, with a deed of personal heroism which, but for his rank, would most assuredly have won for him the Victoria Cross. It may be said at once that Colonel Watson proved himself the bravest of the brave.

About noon, the General Officer Commanding the 3rd Brigade telephoned to Colonel Watson to ask whether, in his opinion, the line of which he was in charge, could still be held. Colonel Watson, though the position was precarious, said that he could still hold on; and he was then instructed to regard as cancelled an order which had been telegraphed to him to retire.

Matters, however, grew worse, and at two o'clock the General Officer Commanding sent Colonel Watson a peremptory order to fall back at once. Unfortunately, this message was not received until about a quarter to three, when the position had become desperate.

The Battalion, apart from many dead, had by this time upwards of 150 wounded, and the Colonel first saw to the removal of all these. Then, leaving his Battalion Headquarters, he went up to the front line, in order that he might give, in person, his instructions to his company commanders to retire. When he reached the front line, Colonel Watson made the most careful dispositions so as to avoid, even at that terrible moment, any excuse for disorder and undue haste in the course of the most perilous and intricate manoeuvre which had now to be carried out. He began by sending back all details, such as signallers and pioneers, and then proceeded to get the companies out of the trenches, one by one—first the company on the left, then the centre company, and, lastly, the company on the right.

It was from the angle of a shattered house, which had been used as a dressing station, that Colonel Watson and Colonel Rogers, the second in command of the Battalion, watched the retirement of the three companies, together with details of the 14th Battalion, which had been attached to them since the morning. The men were in extended order, and as they passed the officers the enemy's fire was very heavy, and men fell like wheat before a scythe.

When the last company was well on its way to safety, the two officers, after a brief consultation, decided that it would be best for them to take separate routes back to the Battalion Headquarters line. The reason for this was simple and poignant—it increased the chances of one of them getting through; not, for that matter, that either had very much hope of escaping the enemy's pitiless fire. They never expected to see each other again, and they shook hands in farewell before they dashed out on their separate ways, which lay through a spray of bullets and flying shrapnel. When he had gone about 300 yards, Colonel Watson paused for a moment under the cover of a tree to watch the further retirement of the company he was following. It was at this moment that he noticed one of his officers, Lieut. A. H. Hugill, lying on the ground about sixty yards to the left, in the direction of the enemy's attack. Without a moment's hesitation, Colonel Watson went back to him, thinking that he was wounded; but on asking him what was the matter, Lieut. Hugill told him that he had simply been compelled to rest and recover his breath before he could make another rush.

Almost at the same moment, Private Wilson, also of the 2nd Battalion, was passing near by when he was shot through the leg. The man was so close at hand that Colonel Watson felt impelled to endeavour to rescue him, and suggested to Lieut. Hugill that, between them, they might be able to carry the wounded man back over the eight or nine hundred yards—nearly half a mile—which still separated them from a place of comparative safety. Lieut. Hugill immediately agreed, whereupon Colonel Watson knelt down, and got Wilson on to his back, and carried him several hundred yards until the original Battalion Headquarters was reached; and all the time that Colonel Watson staggered along with his load the air was alive with bullets, which drew thicker and thicker, as the enemy was now rapidly advancing.

The various companies had already retired beyond what had been the Battalion Headquarters, so that Colonel Watson and Lieut. Hugill had no opportunity of calling for aid. They rested for a few minutes and then started off once more, and between them they managed to get the wounded private across the 700 yards of fire-swept ground which still had to be covered. But, in spite of the fact that the ground was ploughed up with shells all round them during their desperate and heroic retreat, Colonel Watson and Lieutenant Hugill retrieved their man in safety.

What, again, could be more thrilling than the story of the dash of Major H. M. Dyer, a farmer from Manitoba, and Captain (now Lieut.-Col. 25th Battalion) Edward Hilliam, a fruit farmer from British Columbia, when in the face of almost certain death, after the trench telephones were disabled, they set out to order the retirement of a battalion on the point of being overwhelmed!