The supply of bombs ran short, and Private Smith of Southampton, Ontario, volunteered to go forward with a fresh supply. Festooned with bombs, he crawled forward on all fours, and twice handed over his load to his friends. So hot was the fire that he had to toss the bombs[68] into the trench. His clothes were shot to rags, but he escaped unwounded. But all Private Smith's efforts to supply the bombers were unavailing. Soon all the grenades were gone, and meanwhile the machine guns and rifles on "Stony Mountain" were rapidly thinning the Canadian ranks. "One unknown wounded man was seen standing on the parapet of the German front-line trench. He had thrown every bomb he carried, and, weeping with rage, continued to hurl bricks and stones at the advancing enemy till his end came."
The British division had been held up on the left, and the enemy was now gathering in strength. The unsupported Canadians were therefore forced to retire, and give up the ground which they had gained. During the retirement many men fell, and some fine deeds of bravery were done. Private Gledhill of Ben Miller, near Goderich, Ontario, though hurled out of the trench by a bomb explosion which broke his rifle but did not injure him, found another rifle, and continued to fire while his comrades retired and he was almost alone. As he crawled towards his own lines he fell over a wounded lieutenant, and offered to carry him back. "Thanks, no," said the lieutenant; "I can crawl." "Will you take me?" asked a man with a leg missing, who lay hard by. "Sure," replied the gallant fellow, and amidst a tempest of fire he dragged the wounded man into safety. Out of twenty-three officers who went into battle that day only three were alive and untouched at nightfall. The fort on "Stony Mountain" could not be captured, and all the valour and perseverance of the Canadians went for nothing.
The account which you have just read gives you a very fair idea of the midsummer fighting on the Western front. Before I turn to the great offensive of September, let me describe briefly the struggle which took place at Hooge towards the end of July and the beginning of August. It had no real importance; it was only an incident in the constant tug of war that went on along the opposing lines. Hooge is a hamlet on the Ypres-Menin road, about two miles east of the city. On the 16th of June we had attacked the enemy's line, and had captured 1,000 yards of German front trenches, a part of the line, and 150 prisoners. During the fighting the Liverpool Scottish did specially fine work.
Plan of the Hooge Area.
The black line shows German position on morning of July 30, 1915.
This map shows you the scene of the struggle which I am about to describe. Notice the chateau and the lake to the north: both were in the hands of the Germans, who had pushed their front to the west and south-west of the lake, and had thus made an ugly sag in our line. Just north of the Hooge-Menin road there is a big hollow marked "Crater" on the map. About 3 a.m. on the morning of Friday, 30th July, the Germans violently attacked our trenches to the east of the Crater. They were held by men of the New Army. The Germans had already sapped up close to our line, and now they launched a torrent of liquid fire against us. At the same time big guns on the high ground to the north-east and south-west bombarded our lines, trench mortars joined in, and bombers stormed our trenches with grenades. This terrible onset of fire, flame, and bombs could not be resisted, and the Germans carried the first line and the Crater. Our men fell back to the second line, which ran north-west from the corner of Zouave Wood. Then the enemy began to shell the second line, and Zouave Wood became a death-trap. You will read on a later page how Second Lieutenant Sidney Woodroffe won the Victoria Cross by holding his trenches in Zouave Wood to the last.
A counter-attack was made in the afternoon, but it failed. Our men were mown down as soon as they advanced into the open. The Rifle Brigade had been entrusted with the task; it pushed forward to certain death with wonderful steadiness, but was almost wiped out. During this unsuccessful attack we lost 2,000 men. No further attempt was made for ten days, during which time our gunners shelled the enemy's lines, and stopped the fire of their artillery. So successful was the bombardment that it put new heart into our men, and they were quite ready for the next act of the drama, which was timed for Monday, 9th August. Just before dawn on that day the 16th and 18th Brigades advanced from the west and from the south against the Crater. They had to push uphill in black darkness for 500 yards. The 2nd York and Lancaster issued from Zouave Wood with the 2nd Durham Light Infantry on their right. The two battalions made a race of it, and the Durhams won. Over the horrible No Man's Land, strewn with barbed-wire entanglements and the bodies of the unburied dead, the infantry swept on, and in a few minutes were busy with the bayonet and bomb amongst the sorely shaken Germans. Many of them were sheltering in their dug-outs, which were very large and deep. The two hundred who held the Crater were killed to a man.
A correspondent tells us that, on scrambling over the enemy's parapet, a sergeant lost his balance and fell on his back to the bottom of the trench, close to a mortar in charge of a sentry. Immediately the sentry rushed at him with a bomb poised in his hand. With a great effort the sergeant slewed round and dealt his opponent a kick in the ribs which sent him spinning against the parapet, where he was dealt with by a private who had followed hard on the heels of his sergeant.