The 116th Battalion in France

by E. P. S. Allen

Our sojourn in Houdain was short and sweet. The villagers did everything in their power to make us comfortable, and in return the local estaminets were well patronized. The boys of No. 7 platoon who were quartered in a brewery were particularly loath to leave, but a pile of trouble was in store for the Canadians, and it was quite universally known that on the 9th of April the Canadian Corps was to carry out an operation in conjunction with Imperial troops that would result in the immediate departure of the enemy from the summit of Vimy Ridge.

For two years he had looked down into our trenches from the top of that accursed ridge, which had been lost by the French in the early days of the war. He could see the country behind our lines for a distance of about 5 miles, and although every artifice in the dictionary of camouflage had been used to conceal the hundreds of guns which were hauled in, under cover of darkness, for the attack, Mister Fritz could not help seeing something of our preparations. His nerves were certainly on edge, but it was equally certain that he underestimated both the strength and number of our guns and the courage of the assaulting troops.

To drive him from the top of the ridge we must advance a distance of nearly three miles, uphill, over deep mud and shell holes, and through barbed wire entanglements strung across the front in a way that only Germans with a dread of British steel know how to do. Such an advance, even without a shot being fired from his lines, would be quite an undertaking; and so he sat back in his deep dug-outs around the “Zwichen Stellung,” and smiled at the idea of anyone taking that comfortable home away from him.

This, then, was the situation when we received orders on the 7th of April to vacate our billets in Houdain and take over a series of mud holes on the top of Mt. St. Eloi, called Dumbell Camp.

From this position, which was right on the edge of a wood (Bois Des Alleux), we had a wonderful view of Vimy Ridge, and also made an equally wonderful target for Fritz’s high-velocity gunners, who seemed to suspect, and rightly so, that that wood of ours was a good hiding place for troops. (There must have been at least two Brigades in the vicinity, to say nothing of countless ammunition dumps and big guns.) His shooting was erratic so far as we were concerned, the shells either going over our heads into the Engineers’ Camp or falling short amongst the mud holes of another battalion.

And here we stayed until the morning of the 9th of April, which was the day set for the attack. No definite position among the assaulting troops was assigned to us, the whole of the 9th Brigade being in reserve, but we were told that we would be used to consolidate the captured trenches, and that we might win much honour and glory by conveying ammunition and trench material to the front line, in the event of a successful attack. These little jobs sound rather tame in comparison with honest fighting, but in reality they require just as much skill and courage. Ask any infantry man which he would rather do—go “over the top” or be in reserve and do working parties, and he will choose “going over the top” every time. We had not yet reached the point where we could appreciate these little distinctions, and in consequence were inclined to underestimate the importance of the part allotted to us.

The dawn of the 9th of April, 1917, saw perhaps the fiercest and most scientific artillery barrage of the war (so far) let loose on the German front and support line trenches. Fritz must surely have realized that this was something more than the daily “warm up,” which our artillery had been giving him during the last three weeks, and when its full meaning had sunk into his thick and short-cropped head his feelings must have been far from happy.

The boot was to be on the other foot now, for instead of watching us swimming around in the mud of the Souchez Valley, we were soon to see him flying across the lowland which stretches from the eastern side of the Ridge towards Avion and Lens, with the lash of our shells and bullets around his ears.

From our position we could see only the flash of the guns as it was scarcely daylight, when, like a mighty earthquake, the artillery burst forth, sounding the keynote of the advance to our waiting comrades in the trenches.