Canada in Flanders, Volume II

by Baron Max Aitken Beaverbrook

For all kinds of patrol work between the lines the Canadians showed an inherent aptitude from the start. The art of woodcraft, the inherited instinct of men whose fathers and grandfathers had been mighty hunters before the Lord, gave the corps supremacy almost at once over their adversaries in these contests of small groups in the dark.

Except for one brief period, when a particularly adventurous Saxon corps developed a tendency to dispute the mastery of "No Man's Land," the Canadians throughout the winter of 1915 ranged almost at will over that doubtful territory. They won the right by their conspicuous victories over larger bodies of the enemy in struggles where good shooting, steady nerves, and individual initiative were more vital to success than drill or routine. They excelled in the most fascinating of pursuits which modern war has left to its votaries. The sharp night air, the rustle in the grass or the trees which may mean an enemy, the stealthy crawl with the fingers on the trigger, the fitful flare of the star-shells, the rasp of barbed wire, the knowledge that life depends on one's own personal swiftness of action, wake again in civilised man the old instincts of the hunter and the hunted. Life runs keen in the veins because Death lurks under every shadow. In spite of their personal courage, the disciplined stolidity of the Germans is hardly adapted to this peculiar kind of sport. They lacked the range of inventiveness of their opponents, and by posing opportunities of quick action they lost the initiative of attack. Instances without number could be given of these small engagements on the front at night in which every regiment has borne its share. One could almost select one's instances at random and do no injustice to the general picture.

Oct. 20th, 1915.

On the night of October 20th, 1915, a patrol from the 4th (Central Ontario) Battalion, in charge of Sergt.-Major Matheson, became enveloped in a heavy fog in "No Man's Land" and lost its way. While trying to regain direction, Pte. Inwood was wounded. Corporal May went to Inwood's assistance, and found him lying in the German entanglements. In attempting to remove Inwood from the wire, the corporal's foot struck a tin can, and the sound drew an instant volley of fire from the enemy's parapet. Inwood received another wound in his body and May was hit in the thigh and shoulder. The corporal remained with Inwood in the German wire until the latter's death, and then crawled into the cover of a clump of bushes close at hand. In the meantime, the other members of the patrol had been forced back to our trenches by a converging fire from the enemy. Sergt.-Major Matheson, accompanied by Sergt. Norwood, went out and searched unsuccessfully for the wounded men. At dawn the Sergeant-major went out again, this time with Pte. Donoghue. These two separated soon after leaving our trench, the better to cover the ground in their merciful quest. Donoghue found Corporal May in the little clump of bushes near the German wire, dressed his wounds, and slowly, tenderly, and under the constant menace of death, removed him to the head of one of our saps.

On the same evening Lieutenant Cosgrave, of the Engineers, supported by a small party of the 15th (48th Highlanders), under Lieutenant McLaurin, of the 16th (Canadian Scottish), who had reconnoitred the ground beforehand, went out two hundred yards from our trenches and blew up a heavily-wired and fortified house.

The weather during the latter part of October was inclined to be misty, and this led to a considerable activity on the part of the patrols in front of the line by night, and of the digging parties behind it by day.

Oct. 23rd, 1915.

But a new horror was added to life—the discovery of land-mines laid down by the Germans between the lines, some fired by trip-wires after the fashion of the spring gun in forbidden woods, others electrically connected by wires with the hostile trenches. On the 23rd, a whole party of the 8th (Winnipeg Rifles) nearly fell victims to one of the former kind, and Pte. Green, who actually touched off the wire, was blown to atoms.

The end of the month was marked by one or two very daring reconnaissances by Lieutenant Owen, of the 7th (British Columbia) Battalion, up the bed of the Douve River, and by a great aeroplane battle.

The aeroplane battle occurred upon a morning warm and bright with sunshine. The conditions were admirable for flying and observing, and, as usual, a German Albatross took advantage of them. Soaring high against the warm blue of the sky, over Bailleul, over the headquarters of a division, over our brigades and trenches and back again, it glinted like silver in the morning sun. The snow-white blobs of bursting shrapnel from our anti-aircraft guns followed its graceful sweeps and curves—followed and followed, but never caught it up; and thousands of our men stared after it. But a more dramatic spectacle was in store for the watchers on the brown roads and in the brown trenches.