Canada in Flanders, Volume I

by Baron Max Aitken Beaverbrook

Nor can one dwell without pride on the case of Company Sergeant-Major F. W. Hall, V.C. During the night of April 23rd-24th the 8th Battalion took over a line of trenches from the 15th Battalion. Close in rear of the Canadian position at this point ran a high bank fully exposed to the fire of the enemy; and while crossing this bank to occupy the trench, several men of the 8th Battalion were wounded. During the early morning of Saturday, the 24th, Company Sergeant-Major F. W. Hall brought two of these wounded into the trench. A few hours later, at about 9 a.m., groans of suffering drew attention to another wounded man in the high ground behind the position. Corporal Payne went back for him, but was wounded. Private Rogerson next attempted the rescue, and was also wounded. Then Sergeant-Major Hall made the attempt. He reached his objective without accident, though under heavy fire from the German trenches in front. This was deliberate, aimed fire, delivered in broad daylight. He managed to get his helpless comrade into position on his back, but in raising himself a little to survey the ground over which he had to return to shelter, he was shot fairly through the head and instantly killed. The man for whom he had given his life was also killed.

For this gallant deed Sergeant-Major Hall was awarded a posthumous V.C. He was originally from Belfast, but his Canadian home was in Winnipeg. He joined the 8th Battalion at Valcartier, Quebec, in August, 1914, as a private.

Sergeant C. B. Ferris, of the 2nd Field Company of the Canadian Engineers, proved in the face of the enemy that he could keep a road repaired faster than they could destroy it by shell fire. From April 25th to the 29th, the road between Fortuin and the Yser Canal was under the constant hammer of German shells. It was of vital importance to the Canadian and British troops in the neighbourhood that this road should be kept open for all manner of transportation, and Captain Irving, commanding the 2nd Field Company, Canadian Engineers, sent a party under Sergeant Ferris and Corporal Rhodes to keep the highway in repair. Every shell-hole in the road-bed had to be filled with bricks brought up in wagons from the nearest ruined houses; and at times it seemed as if the German artillery would succeed in making new holes faster than the little party of Canadian Engineers could fill in the old ones. Sergeant Ferris and his men stuck to their task day and night, amid the dust and splinters and shock of bursting shells, and their work of reconstruction was more rapid than the enemy's work of destruction. They kept the road open.

On a moonlit night, a month later, the Roadmender developed the talents of a Pathfinder, when the 2nd Field Company of the Canadian Engineers was ordered to link up a trench in the Canadian front line with the attempted advance of a British division on our left, and establish a defensive flank. A pre-arranged signal was given, indicating that the advance had reached, and was holding, a point where the connection was to be made. In response, Sapper Quin attempted to carry through the tape, to mark the line for digging the linking trench, under a heavy fire of shells, machine guns, and rifles. He did not return, and Sapper Connan went out and failed to come back; and neither of these men has been seen or heard of since. Then Sapper Low made an attempt to carry the tape across, and failed to return. Without a moment's hesitation, Sergeant Ferris sprang over the parapet in the face of the most severe tire, and, with the tape in one hand and revolver in the other, cautiously crawled in the direction of the flaring signal.

Midway, he stumbled upon the wire entanglements of a German redoubt fairly on the line which his section had thought to dig. He followed the wire entanglements of this redoubt completely round, and for a time was exposed to rifle and machine gun fire from three sides. At this moment he was severely wounded through the lungs, but he persisted in his effort. He found out that a mistake had been made and that the attack had not reached the point indicated, and staggered back to make his report, bringing Sapper Low with him. Sergeant Ferris's information was eagerly listened to by Lieut. Matthewson and Sergeant-Major Chetwynd, who was present as a volunteer. Sergeant-Major Chetwynd quickly realised the nature of the difficulty, and, encouraged by Lieut. Matthewson, he rallied the detachment and led it to another point from which he successfully laid the line under very heavy fire from the German trenches.

Now we come to the story of Private Irving, one of General Turner's subordinate staff, who went out to do as brave a deed as a man might endeavour, but never returned. Irving had been up for forty-eight hours helping to feed the wounded as they were brought in to Brigade Headquarters, which had been turned into a temporary dressing station, when he heard that a huge poplar tree had fallen across the road and was holding up the ambulance wagons.

Though utterly weary, he at once offered to go out and cut the tree in pieces and drag it from the path at the tail of an ambulance wagon.

Irving set forth with the ambulance, but, on nearing the place of which he was in search, left it, an went forward on foot along the road, which was being swept by heavy artillery fire and a cross rifle fire. And then, even as, axe in hand, he tramped up this road, with shells bursting all around him and bullets whistling past him, he disappeared as completely as though the night had swallowed him up! General Turner, who appreciated the gallant work Irving had set out to do, himself had all the lists of the Field Force checked over to see if he had been brought in wounded. But Irving was never traced. He is missing to this day—a strange and brave little mystery of this great war.

In another portion of the field Sergeant W. Swindells, of the 7th Battalion, when all the company officers had become casualties, and the remnant of the company left their trench under stress of terrific fire, rallied them and took them back; but this again is only one instance in a record for cool daring which was later built up at Festubert and Givenchy. Swindells comes from Kamloops, and before the war was a rancher on Vancouver Island.

Very similar was the action of Sergeant-Major P. Flinter, of the 2nd Battalion, who displayed conspicuous gallantry at Langemarck on April 23rd while in command of a platoon on the left flank of the Battalion. This position was under exceptionally heavy gun and rifle fire, and his pure daring and bravery were such an inspiration to the men under his command, that they withstood successfully all attacks upon them. He was wounded in the head, but gallantly cheered his men to renewed attack. By fortunate observation he discovered an enemy bomb depôt in the woods near at hand, and concentrating all available fire on it, managed to blow it up. Throughout his service at the front his example has been an inspiration to all ranks.