From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade

by Frederic C. Curry

Field Kitchen in Reserve Billets.

Yet in spite of its unsanitary surroundings the house itself was beautifully clean inside, and no one could be healthier than the two buxom girls who formed part of the family that lived within. An exact census of the family was never obtained, as they poured out from nooks and crannies into the living-room occupied by us as sleeping quarters, generally at such awkward moments as when we were dressing or undressing. This was a matter of constant annoyance to Lyte, as the people persisted in announcing themselves with a "Bon jour, monsieur," no matter what state of nudity they had caught you in.

We shared this room with an artillery officer, a young Irishman named Lee, who had a battery hidden somewhere near. We saw little of him, however, as we were generally falling in to move off when he came in for the evening, and when we returned after a night dug in in rear of some other troops, he was leaving to go up to his guns.

On some occasions we returned so late that the family were already up and at work, and instead of unrolling our valises we popped right into their beds. This was the subject of much joking of the simple peasant sort on the part of the young ladies, and consequent blushing on the part of poor Lyte. We all accused him of being their favourite, as he had nicknamed them "Ox-eye" and "Freckleface," names much more descriptive than the Marie and Jeanne their parents had chosen, and, having taken "Ox-eye" into our confidence, told her that poor Lyte was "très timide." That was all she required, and from then on she directed all her charms toward him.

The next morning, his servant being as usual somewhere else, he ventured to ask for a little shaving water, in French of the first-steps variety. "Oh, monsieur speaks French," she answered, quite ignoring the mess-tin he held out. "Why did you not tell me?"—this last with an accusing glance at A——, the senior subaltern. Lyte began to deny all knowledge of the language, and she suddenly swung into English. "Nevair mind, I speak bloody good English," and then amidst our whoops of applause she demanded "It ees good? What!"

Lee came in one morning in a great state of excitement, his rich brogue being augmented with the news he brought. It seemed that on going up to his guns that morning he had found the farm there, till then occupied by a Belgian family, vacated and the white half-door—so familiar in all peasant countries where they keep pigs—placed lozenge-wise on the red roof. A hasty search revealed a partly burnt map and other papers of a military nature, and a German plane was already buzzing aloft. He had hurriedly withdrawn his guns; but siege guns take time to move, and before they could get away the shells were upon them and one gun crew had been practically wiped out. He was much excited, as became a man who had seen his first death.

We, too, had passed a very strenuous night. The Germans had commenced another attack on our line, using the gas again. We were wondering how much good the little respirators we were carrying would be, and the answer came soon enough.

As we moved forward we met men falling back gasping, coughing and sobbing, and the stink of their clothing was of hell's own reek, a choky mixture of chlorine and sulphur. "It's not war, mate; it's bloody murder!" was all one man gasped as he threw himself coughing on the ground, where he died before we moved on. It was not a pretty sight, and more than one rifle-butt was grasped the tighter and more than one oath sworn to get at the fiends who had let loose this vile poison, against which the only protection we had was a little pad of gauze to fasten over the mouth and nose after soaking in water from our water-bottles. These had been supplied by the thousand as soon as the authorities made known their wants by the women and children of England, and, feeble though this protection was, these simple little pads saved many lives that week.

But it was not our fate to meet the enemy again while in the salient. After continuing our march about another quarter-mile we lined a roadside and commenced digging another trench.

Here we lay and shivered all night, the men crouching in the trench, every fourth man alert and watching, the officers lying on the ground behind in shell holes or walking up and down swinging their arms and trying to keep warm. It was only one night of many.