That night some bombs were dropped near the station at Arras on units of the 3rd Division, which passed through Achicourt in the afternoon, causing many casualties, and we felt that the Germans knew another attack was at hand. It was the last night I had a billet in France. On the next morning we moved forward to some trenches on the way to Inchy, and I parted from Headquarters there. This was really the most primitive home that the Division had ever had. We had in fact no home at all. We found our stuff dumped out in a field, and had to hunt for our possessions in the general pile. A few tents were pitched and the clerks got to work. In a wide trench little shacks were being run up, and I was to be quartered in the same hut as the field cashier, which was thus to be a kind of union temple for the service of God and the service of Mammon. I looked down into the clay pit and saw the men working at my home, but I knew that I should probably not occupy it. I determined to go forward to our Battle Headquarters, prepared for a missionary journey, and find out when the attack was going to be made. I put into my pack some bully-beef, hardtack, tinned milk and other forms of nourishment, as well as a razor, a towel and various toilet necessaries. On the other side of the road, the signallers had their horse-lines, and our transports were near-by. I got my side-car and, bidding good-bye to my friends, left for Inchy. We passed down the road to Quéant, where we saw the wounded in the field ambulance, and from there started off through Pronville to Inchy Station. The roads as usual were crowded, and the dust from passing lorries was very unpleasant. We were going through the valley by Inchy Copse when we suddenly heard a loud crash behind us which made my driver stop. I asked him what he was about, and said, "That was one of our guns, there is nothing to be alarmed at." "Guns!" he said, "I know the sound of a shell when I hear it. You may like shells but I don't. I'm going back." I said, "You go ahead, if I had a revolver with me, I would shoot you for desertion from the front line. That was only one of our guns." He looked round and said, "You call that a gun? Look there." I turned and sure enough, about a hundred feet away in the middle of the road was the smoke of an exploded shell. "Well," I said, "you had better go on or there will be another one pretty soon, and it may get us." With extraordinary speed we hurried to our destination, where I left the car, taking my pack with me. I told the driver, much to his relief, that he could go home, and that when I wanted the car again I would send for it.
The quarry was, as I have said, our Battle Headquarters, and here in the deep dugouts which I had visited previously I found our staff hard at work. They told me that this was "Y" day, and that zero hour when the barrage would start was at 5.20 the next morning. At that hour we were to cross the Canal and then press on into the country beyond. We had a two battalion front. The 4th and 14th Battalions were to make the attack, and be followed up by the other battalions in the 1st and 3rd Brigades. When these had reached their objective the 2nd Brigade was to "leap frog" them and push on to Haynecourt and beyond. I was glad that I had come provided for the expedition, and bidding good-bye to General Thacker, whose parting injunction was not to do anything foolish, I got out of the quarry and made my way down the hill towards Inchy. A railway bridge which crossed the road near me was a constant mark for German shells, and it was well to avoid it. An officer met me and asked where I was going. I said, "I don't know, but I think the Spirit is leading me to the old 14th Battalion in Buissy Switch Trench." He told me the direction to take, which was to cross the road and follow the line of railway. The tins of milk and bully-beef cut into my back so I stopped by a culvert and taking off my pack and tunic, sat on the ground and cooled off. There was no sign of Buissy Switch anywhere, but I got up and went on. The evening was closing in by this time, and, as I am never good at seeing in the dark, it began to be difficult to keep from tripping over things. At last the road brought me to a trench in which I found the 14th Battalion. They were getting ready to move off at midnight and wait in the wood by the edge of the Canal until the barrage opened. It made one proud to be with those young men that evening and think what they were called upon to do. What difficulties they would encounter in the Canal they did not know. They said they might have to swim. We hoped, however, that there was not much water, as the canal was still unfinished.
I said good-bye to them and wished them all good-luck. Crossing the road I entered another trench, where I found the 13th Battalion, and beyond them came to the 1st Battalion. By this time, it was dark and rainy, and the ground was very slippery. I had to feel my way along the trench. A company of the 4th Battalion who were to be in the first wave of the attack, passed on their way forward to take up their position for the following morning. Probably never in the war had we experienced a moment of deeper anxiety. The men would have to climb down one side of the canal, rush across it, and climb up the other. It seemed inevitable that the slaughter would be frightful. At home in the cities of Canada things were going on as usual. Profiteers were heaping up their piles of gold. Politicians were carrying on the government, or working in opposition, in the interests of their parties, while here, in mud and rain, weary and drenched to the skin, young Canadians were waiting to go through the valley of the shadow of death in order that Canada might live.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
The Crossing of the Canal Du Nord.
September 27th, 1918.
When I got to the sunken road above Inchy I found that No. 1 Company of the Machine-Gun Battalion had a little sandbag house there, and were waiting for the attack. I went in and the young officers and men made me at home at once. I divested myself of my pack, coat and steel helmet, and determined to settle down for the night. Suddenly a shell burst in the road, and I went out to see if anyone was hit. Two or three men were wounded but not severely. We got them in and the young O.C. of the company bound up their wounds and sent them off. There was a row of these sandbag-huts against the bank, and at one end of them was the entrance to a dugout in which the 1st Battalion and the General of the 1st Brigade had made their headquarters. I went down the steep steps into a long dark passage, lit here and there by the light which came from the rooms on either side. The whole place was crowded with men and the atmosphere was more than usually thick. I made my way down to the end where there was a pump which had been put there by the Germans. Here the men were filling their water-bottles, and I got a fresh supply for mine. Not far from the pump a few steps led down into a room where I found the C.O. and a number of the officers of the 1st Battalion. It was about two a.m., and they were having a breakfast of tea and bacon and invited me to join them. After the meal was finished, the Colonel, who was lying on a rough bed, said to me, "Sit down, Canon, and give us some of your nature poems to take our minds off this beastly business." It was very seldom that I was invited to recite my own poems, so such an opportunity could not be lost. I sat down on the steps and repeated a poem which I wrote among the Laurentian mountains, in the happy days before we ever thought of war. It is called, "The Unnamed Lake."
"It sleeps among the thousand hills
Where no man ever trod,
And only nature's music fills
The silences of God.
Great mountains tower above its shore,
Green rushes fringe its brim,
And o'er its breast for evermore
The wanton breezes skim.
Dark clouds that intercept the sun
Go there in Spring to weep,
And there, when Autumn days are done,
White mists lie down to sleep.
Sunrise and sunset crown with gold
The peaks of ageless stone,
Where winds have thundered from of old
And storms have set their throne.