Into the Jaws of Death

by Jack O'Brien

DEAR JACK:

Well, you certainly had a pretty tough time in Germany, and I don't envy your experience. And now you want to hear what we did after you were taken prisoner, and what became of the bunch that you and I knew so well. It's not pleasant to recall the things that happened, Jack, but I'll do my best. Let me see; the Battle of St. Éloi was the last scrap you took part in. Well, after that things cooled down a bit, but we still took our turn in the trenches on that part of the line. No. 10 Platoon was still intact. We missed poor old Woodrow, and his chum Fred went around looking like a ghost. The latter had never gotten over his experience in No Man's Land, his eyes were sunken in his head, and he was nothing but a wreck. One night, when we were in reserves in Dickiebush, a few of us were talking and saying how lucky our little bunch had been, when at that minute an order came in sending us out on a working party. Fritz had gotten busy and blown down a section of our front lines, and the boys holding this spot had no protection, so we were being sent up to repair the damage. I guess Fritz was sore, for our Stokes light trench mortars and heavies had been pounding the German trenches all day long. Well, we were told off in small parties to carry up sandbags, corrugated iron, picks and shovels, to repair the line.

Our little bunch consisted of Tommy, Bink, Scottie, Bob Richardson, Newell, McMurchie, and one or two others whom you do not know. "Flare-pistol Bill" was in charge, of course; and just our luck, we had to carry the corrugated iron (and damned awkward stuff it is), it's too wide to carry through the trenches, so we had to go overland—and I tell you, the machine gun fire was wicked. The boys holding the trenches had a lot of casualties. Well, we got our loads and started off in and out of shell holes. Tommy fell into a hole that was full of water and got soaked; and Chappie, with his poor eyesight, if he fell once, he fell at least a dozen times. We went along cursing our hard luck, and making the best time we could, for the bullets were flying mighty thick. Flares were going up every few minutes, and every time one went up we would "freeze" till it went out again. At last we got quite close to the front line, and when Fritz sent up a flare it would fall right behind us. They couldn't help seeing us, for we made a lovely target with those big slabs of corrugated iron on our heads. The machine guns just ripped lead at us, and we were hurrying to get to the trench, when young Blair got it through the thigh. He started to yell at the top of his voice; and Scottie, who happened to be next in line, cussed him roundly for the noise he was making. We would likely have been all killed if he hadn't shut up. Well, they bound him up and carried him out, and the rest of us went on.

We hadn't gone fifty feet when Scottie went down with a crash, just in front of me. I crawled up to him, and he was badly hit—the blood was pouring from his mouth, and he mumbled "Stretcher bearer." Flare-pistol Bill went on to the trench to hunt up one, and I crawled back to see if I could find the one who had come up with us. Before I got back with Bob the stretcher bearer from the trench had fixed Scottie up as well as he could. Poor Scottie! his jaw was shattered. Bink insisted on carrying Scottie out on his shoulders, and they started. But before going halfway Bink played out, and when Scottie saw that Bink was all in he got down and walked to the dressing-station. Say, that boy was sure game. By the way, he's in Blighty now. Well, the rest of us got through safely, we fixed up our trench and managed to get back to our supports. A few nights later we made another trip to the front lines, and this was disastrous for No. 10. First of all, Tucker got shot in the face while on a wiring party; then Jack Branch was on a working party behind the trench when Fritzie started shelling, and he got a shrapnel bullet through his arm. We bound him up, and he was in great pain, but he smiled all the time. As he went out, he said, "I'll give your love to all the girls at Shorncliffe." I thought, "Well, isn't this a hell of a war, when a man can be pleased over getting a bloomin' big hole through his arm?"

Later that same night Tommy Gammon was on sentry go, and I was sleeping in the dugout behind him, when Corporal Banks came in and woke me. He said, "Do you want to see Tommy? He's hit." Gee, I jumped up in a hurry and ran down the trench to where Tommy was; but I breathed freely when I saw that it was only a hole through his arm—I was afraid he had got it bad. "How did you get it, Tommy?" I said. He said, "Oh, you know the sandbags we rolled out of the way to fire through last night?—well, I thought some one might be walking past and get a bullet through his bean, as a fellow had farther down the trench, so I put up my arm to roll the bag into place, and bingo! Fritzie was right on the job." I wrote to Tommy's mother that night and told her that I thought Tommy had a Blighty, and she came all the way out from Canada to see him. But he didn't get farther than our base hospital, and he was back to the trenches again in six months, so his mother did not see him after all.

Well, after Tommy left us, we were sent back to rest billets, and it was then that the Battle of Hooge started. We could hear the guns roaring and at night the whole sky on our left was lit up. The roads were jammed with machine guns, marching troops, cyclists, and cavalry—while coming from the scene of battle was a constant stream of ambulances. Tales of what was going on came leaking through and we fully expected to be sent up. But we couldn't move without orders, and we thought we might just as well enjoy ourselves, so we got up an open-air concert. It certainly was a dandy, and we had no end of a time. A lot of the old boys took part; and then some one got up and gave us a parody on "The Sunshine of Your Smile." It goes like this:

"Oh, Fritzie that hands those Blighties out so free,
Just send a nice sweet cushy one to me--
One that will strike me just below the knee.
Six months in Blighty--oh, how sweet 'twould be!

"Send me a shell with pellets nice and round;
Scatter them, all but one, upon the ground;
Send me that one, but let it come a mile,
And I will give you the sunshine of my smile."

This met with great applause, and we sang it till we all learned the words. The concert was scarcely over when our officers told us that word had come for us to be ready to move at a moment's notice. After talking to some of our wounded boys that had come back from the fighting, we began to realize that something very serious was happening. They told us that whole battalions of Canadians had been wiped out by shell fire. Fritzie had just blown everything to pieces before he advanced, just the same as he did at St. Éloi. We realized that our time on rest was likely to be cut short; so we got busy and spent all our money—and sure enough, next day the order came for us to move, and away we went along the road to V—— just behind Ypres. We reached there safely and some of our officers and N. C. O.'s went on up to the lines to see what kind of a place we were going into. They found that we would be on the left flank of the attack, and although the Germans had blown most of the front line to pieces, they had not attempted to advance here. That night two companies, A and B, were sent on ahead of the rest of us, and they went as near the lines as they could in motor-buses, then they took over what was left of the front lines, consisting mostly of shell holes. The rest of us were marched through Ypres, and we found it a mass of ruins. It was here that we saw the affects of war—dirty, horrible, stinking war. Hundreds of people were buried when Ypres was bombarded, and the stench of the place was unbearable. We followed the railroad for a piece and we passed some shell holes made by the "Fat Berthas" used by the Germans at the beginning of the war. You could bury an ordinary-sized house in any one of these holes. Dead horses were lying everywhere, showing that the road we were on had been shelled earlier in the evening. We didn't know what minute they would open up again, so we hurried over every crossroad. Fritzie had a mania for shelling crossing roads, and those in the Ypres salient are all named appropriately. Here are a few: "Shrapnel Corner," "Hellfire Corner," "Hell Blast Corner." We were marching in single file by this time, and every man carried a sandbag, bomb, rifle and bayonet, rations and a bottle of water. Some load, eh? Judging from the flares going up all around us, we seemed to be going into a pocket. On our right, the machine guns were going all the time, and they sounded like a thousand riveting machines, only instead of construction their noise meant destruction. Pretty soon we came to a big barrier of sandbags known as "China Wall," and here dead men were lying everywhere, and we couldn't help stumbling over them on our way in. At last we came to the communicating trench, and just as we reached it Fritzie sent a salvo of shells across—one or two of the boys caught it—the rest of us kept on our way. We followed the trench, scrambling over parts that were blown in, and stumbling over the dead that were lying everywhere. Finally we came to the trench that we were going to take over, and we relieved what was left of the Royal Canadian Rifles. They were an awful sight, dirty and bloodstained—many were shaking as though with a palsy—their nerves literally torn to pieces by the shell fire. But they had no word of complaint. "All right, boys, it's quiet. All's over now," was their greeting, but what they said didn't sound exactly true, for we had not been in five minutes, when with a roar all of Fritzie's guns opened up once more. Bullets swept over us like hail; it was hell let loose. The officer in charge was killed almost at once, and Major Q—— took over the command. I sat in a bay with Sammy, Emerson, and Sergeant-Major Banks; the other boys were farther along the trench. I had never seen anything like what we were getting; machine guns were enfilading our trench—just at my feet was an old empty water can, and the bullets going in sounded as though some one was playing a drum. They couldn't hit me, because I was behind a traverse, or jog in the trench. After a while it quieted down a little, but it didn't entirely stop, and next morning, just at dawn, it started again, and I hope that I shall never be called on to go through what I did that day. But if I lived to be a hundred I could never forget it. Our trench was literally blown to pieces, and we couldn't do a thing but sit there and curse our gunners for not firing back—no doubt they were doing all they could, but the terrific noise of bursting shells all around us drowned the sound of our own artillery, and we fancied that we were not being supported. Wounded men were crawling along the trench looking for a spot that would offer comparative safety, and the rest of us were sitting in a daze. I was suffering for a drink, and I had no water. I had started to make some tea, but a shell knocked a big chunk of dirt into the trench and it upset my canteen. I wouldn't ask any of the boys for water, for every one needed all they had, and we are supposed to look after our own. Finally I got desperate, for the smoke and gas from the bursting shells parches the throat, and I made a search through a dead man's pack. It wasn't pleasant work, but I found a tin of milk, and it was worth a million dollars to me then. I had just gotten my drink, when, all at once, the earth under my feet began to heave and I was thrown on my face. I scrambled up again, but the earth was rocking like a ship at sea. Finally it stopped, and we looked over to the front lines which were held by A and B companies, but all we could see was smoke, black smoke right up to the sky, and then we realized what had happened. Our front lines had been blown up with mines, and now all the artillery that had been playing on our front lines was lifted on to us, and our hell became worse than ever. Then the Germans came and we had our hands full. A machine gun battery in a strong point just ahead held out, and a trench mortar on our left supported us, and our few lads did the rest. We were using the Ross rifle, and we fired it till it jammed; then we grabbed some Lee-Enfields that had been left behind by the E. C. R.'s. Fritzie seemed doped, and he came forward carrying full kit and trench mats. They were evidently surprised to find any one alive, for when we began to fire they stared around stupidly. Then our fire caught him, and as he attempted to get through the gap in our front lines the portion of line that had not been mined swept him with their machine guns. All the time our boys were just being wiped out with shell fire. Little Henry Wright was hit in the knee and started to crawl out over the back of the trench. I grabbed him and brought him back and stuck him into a hole out of the way of flying splinters. "You won't leave me, will you, if you have to go back?" he cried. "Not on your life," said I. "But don't be afraid—Fritzie is not going to chase us out of here." Just then somebody came along and said that the Germans had broken through on our right. I looked at Sammy and said, "This back to back stuff isn't all it's cracked up to be, is it?" Sammy grinned and we went on firing, and an officer that came along told us that the report we heard was not true—our line still held.

Just then poor old Baldy was blown to pieces by a shell; he had thrown up his bomb-proof job and had come back to the battalion. Chappie was struck by a piece of that same shell, and he got it right through the lung. Oh, how he did suffer! We couldn't take him back to the dressing-station on account of the terrific shell fire, and he lay in a sheltered part of the trench slowly bleeding to death. We took turns in going to see him. "Tell my little girl that I died fighting," he said to Bink. His chum, Marriot, came rushing along—"Oh, deah boy, I'm so sorry you are hit—cheer up, old chap." He, like the rest of us, didn't know what to say. But old Chappie didn't "go west" after all. He was ill for a long time, but was finally invalided home to Canada.