Again I maintain that war frightfulness of this kind does not frighten real men. The news of the crucified men soon reached all of the ranks. It increased our hatred. It doubled our bitterness. It made us all the more eager to advance—to fight—to "get." We had to avenge our comrades. Vengeance is not yet complete.
In the winter of 1914-1915 the Germans knew war. They had studied the game and not a move was unfamiliar to them. We were worse than novices. Even our generals could not in their knowledge compare with the expertness of those who carried out the enemy action according to a schedule probably laid down years before.
We knew that on the day following the terrible night of April twenty-second we must continue the advance, that we dare not rest, that we must complete the junction with the right wing of the British troops. And the enemy knew it, too.
We expected that the Germans would be entrenched possibly one hundred or even two hundred yards from our own position, but not so. His nearest entrenchment was easily a mile to a mile and a half across the open land from us.
The reason for this distance was simple enough. We had succeeded in our bluff that we had many hundreds more of men than in reality was the case. The enemy calculated that had we this considerable number of troops we would capture his trenches, were he to take a position close in, with one short and mad rush. He further calculated that had we even a million men, he would have the best of us if we attempted to cross the long, open flat land in the face of his thousands of machine guns.
April twenty-third was one of the blackest days in the annals of Canadian history in this war, and again it was one of the most glorious. That day we were given the task of retaking the greater part of the trenches which the Turco troops had lost the day preceding.
We lay, my own battalion, easily a mile and a half from the German trench which was to be our objective. About six o'clock in the morning we set out very cautiously, with Major Kirkpatrick in command. C and D Companies were leading, with a platoon or two of B Company following, comprising in all about seven hundred and fifty men. At first we thought the advance would be comparatively easy, but when we entered the village of St. Julien, the German coal boxes were falling all around us. So far our casualties were light.
To the left of the village we formed in field skirmishing order—about five paces apart—but before the formation of five successive lines or waves was completed, each man was easily eight paces away from his nearest mate instead of five. We were told that our objective was an enemy trench system about four hundred yards in length.
It is impossible to convey in words the feeling of a man in such a situation as this. Apparently none of us actually realized the significance of what we were about to undertake. Probably it was because we were no longer in the trenches, and because we had been out and in the open all the night before.