One of our ambulances had a dressing station in the cellars of the Château, and there were a number of German prisoners there who were waiting their turn as stretcher bearers. From Willerval I went to the dressing station in the sunken road, where one of our chaplains was hard at work rendering assistance to the wounded. We had taken Arleux, but of course had to pay the price, and over the fields in different directions one could see stretchers being carried, bearing their loads of broken and suffering bodies. Our grand old Division never failed in taking its objective, and later on, we advanced from Arleux to Fresnoy, which completed for us our campaign on Vimy Ridge. The Divisions on each side of us were held up, but when we left the Ridge we handed over Fresnoy to our successors in the line. Later, they were obliged to relinquish it.
There is something splendid in the esprit-de-corps of a Division, and none could be greater than that which animated all the units of the 1st Canadian Division, or as we were called, "the boys of the old red patch," from the red patch which we wore as a distinguishing mark upon our arms.
On May 4th, orders came to us that we had to move, and at night I walked over the old plank road to say good-bye to my son—for their battery was to retain its position—and on the next day, followed by little Alberta, I rode from Arriane Dump to my old billet in Bruay, breaking the journey by a visit to the 87th Battalion at Château de la Haie. We had returned to our old quarters covered with glory, and, on all sides, the French people were sincere in their admiration for what the Canadian Corps had done. It was certainly delightful to get back to clean billets, and to be able to enjoy the charming spring weather on roads that were not shelled and in fields that were rich in the promise of summer. Our Headquarters once again made their home in the Administration Building in the square, and the usual round of entertaining went on. During the daytime, battalions practised the noble art of open warfare. The sense of "Something accomplished, something done," inspired our men with the ardour of military life, and bound us all even closer together in the spirit of valiant comradeship.
CHAPTER XVIII.
A Well-Earned Rest.
May and June, 1917.
Three days after we had settled at Bruay I was invited by one of our staff officers and the Colonel of one of our battalions to accompany them on a visit to our old trenches on the Somme. We left in the morning and went south, over the roads and past the little villages which we knew so well, till we came to Albert. We went up the Bapaume road, now deserted and lonely. Our front line was some miles to the east, and so all that waste of country over which we had fought was now without inhabitants. We left the motor near Courcellette and walked over the fields to the old trenches where the First Brigade had made their attack. It was a dreary day. Low clouds hung over the sky and a cold wind blew from the east. Spring had made very little advance in those wide fields of death, and the grass was hardly green, where there was any grass. We walked over the well-known tracks reviewing incidents of the great battle. We crossed Death Valley and saw our old lines. The place was so solemn that by mutual agreement we did not talk, but each went off by himself. I found a number of Canadian and German bodies still unburied, and all over the fields were rifles and mess tins, spades and bits of accoutrement. One could hardly imagine a scene more desolate and forlorn. Every inch of that ground had been fought over and bought with the price of human blood. The moan of the wind over the fields seemed like the great lament of Nature for her sons who had gone. It was impossible to identify the bodies we found, but we knew that burial parties would soon set to work to collect them. Over each poor brown and muddy form I held a short service and used the form of committal from the burial office in our prayer-book.
It was with a sense of relief that we walked back up the road, past the ruins of Courcelette, and rejoined the motor. The scene was too painful, and made too great a pull upon the heart-strings. In the great army of the slain that lay beneath that waste of mud were many whom we had known and loved with that peculiar love which binds comrades in the fighting line to one another—
"God rest you valiant Gentlemen
Who sleep beneath that ground."
Once more, at the end of the month, I paid another visit to Regina Trench, when I was on my way to place a cross over my son's grave in the cemetery at Tara Hill. By this time, the grass was green, the trenches were filling up and in the cloudless blue sky larks were singing. The impression of dreariness was passing away, and the wounds on the breast of nature were being healed.
Our life at Bruay as usual was exceedingly pleasant, and the men thoroughly enjoyed the beauty and the freshness of the country. Games and sports were indulged in and the nightly entertainments in the theatre given by our concert party were most enjoyable.