Into the Jaws of Death

by Jack O'Brien

While we were worrying over old Chappie a call came for volunteers to dig out some men that had been buried. McLeod and I grabbed shovels, and away we went in the direction pointed out. There was smoke everywhere and shells were continually coming. We went down the trench for quite a distance, and, turning a corner, what a sight met our eyes! There, sitting around on the firing-step of a bay, were nine of our boys, dead. The shell must have burst just above them, for they were full of holes, and their clothes were on fire. I turned to Mac: "Nothing for us to do here, old boy," and we started back. Just then I stumbled over something, and looking down, I saw that it was a body almost entirely buried in the dirt and wire netting. I scraped away some of the dirt and found that the man still breathed, so I got busy and tried to get him out. He was covered with the wire that is used to keep our trenches from caving in, and it was an awful job getting the wire and dirt off. We dug with our shovels, and tore at the wire until finally we got him extricated. We couldn't see a wound, but we thought it might be concussion, but when we lifted him up there was a hole in his back that I could put my fist in. Poor fellow, I saw that it was no use, but I threw some water in his face, and he opened his eyes, and tried to speak, and then quietly "went west." I went back to the boys feeling mighty blue, and their only greeting was, "Where in hell have you been? Don't you know your place is here?" but I just cursed back, and explained.

The Germans had stopped coming over by this time, but they still held portions of our front line. Out of the five hundred men who took over our portion of the front trenches, only one or two came out, and this is what they told us. They had been shelled for hours and their casualties were very heavy, as their only protection was shell holes. Then Fritzie started to come over, but they gathered in a bunch and bombed him back, and then the mines went up and that finished them. When Fritzie came over the few that were left were half buried and dazed, and had lost their rifles, so they were taken prisoners.

In the second line there were about a hundred of us left. Spud Murphy, our officer, fought till his arm was disabled, but we continued to hold the trench. Bink and Sammy took a bunch of bombers and went up to the advance post; and that left our numbers still smaller. Just then Sergeant Faulkener came in from the strong point wounded in the shoulder. He had tried to keep it a secret, but loss of blood made him so weak that he had to give up. I spoke to him, and he said, "Ain't this hell? I get hit every little scrap I get into." He had been wounded down at Kemmil when Fritzie blew up the trenches there. "Honest John" we used to call him, and he was a good old scout.

The shell fire was still on just as bad as ever. Bob Richardson, our stretcher bearer, was working like a hero, the wounded lying all around him, and often the poor fellows were hit again before he got through binding them up. A boy went past me with a bandage on his head. I said, "Hello, Jack, got a Blighty?" He said, "No, I'm afraid it's not bad enough for that." Poor fellow, he was shot through the eyes, and he didn't know that he would never see again.

That afternoon, in response to an urgent request for help, a company of men from the 29th came in. Towards evening the shelling died down a bit, and the wounded that could walk went out. Carrying parties arrived, and took out those who were badly wounded. Chappie was one of the first to go. That night the Sergeant came along and said, "Goddard and Wilson, go out on listening-post." We looked at the spot where he wanted us to go. Fritzie was landing shells there about one a minute, and there was absolutely no protection. I said "Say, Sergeant, that's suicide!" "I know," said he, "but I have orders to put a post there." I said, "All right, but if I get killed I'll come back and haunt you." Well, over the top we went and we got to the place he had pointed out; we had barely lain down in a shell hole when whiz-bang! a shell landed just in front of us. It covered us with dirt, and we had hardly gotten the dust out of our eyes when whiz-bang! another landed just behind us. "Now," thinks I, "if one comes between those two, our name is mud." It wasn't more than a minute when we heard another coming, and this one landed in the part of the trench we had just left. Shrieks and groans went up, and Wilson and I lay there shaking like leaves. Just then, the Sergeant came out and told us to go back into the trench, and you bet we were glad to do it. We found that the last shell had killed three and wounded six, and no doubt we would have gotten one had we stayed. It's funny how things happen—our Sergeant-Major was badly wounded, and I helped to carry him to a place of comparative safety, but the poor fellow died after his wounds were dressed. We buried the dead as best we could, and then we hung on for two days more. We had no water and scarcely any food, and we suffered terribly, especially from thirst. Our ration parties were all killed trying to get food to us. Bink and some of the boys on the outpost were relieved first, and they brought us water. Poor lads, they had been sitting on an old culvert with water up to their waists. The only sleep we got all this time was during the day when we lay in the mud at the bottom of the trench. We were relieved on the third night, and oh, what joy when the 29th came in and took over the trench! We were "all in," and we staggered back to Ypres throwing away everything we carried except our rifles. When we got to Ypres, we found that we had to go back to where we had started from, so we struggled on. On the way we met a bunch of Lancashire men. "What do you belong to?" they asked us as they passed. "We are all that is left of a Canadian battalion," we replied. "Gorblimey, it's bleedin' orful," said they. Just as day was breaking we hit camp. The Quartermaster gave us a drink of rum, and the cooks had a feed ready, and we got our blankets and turned in. We slept till the afternoon, and then we had to answer a muster call. Two hundred and seventy-two was all that was left of what, three days before, had been a battalion one thousand strong. Tears rolled down our old Colonel's face as he looked at us. "My boys! my boys!" was all he could say. We were only out twenty-four hours, and during that time we read our mail, wrote a few letters, and opened our parcels. There were parcels everywhere, many of them belonging to boys who had been either killed or wounded, and these were distributed among those that remained. We were dead-tired and we were hoping for a good long rest, when in marched a big bunch of reinforcements, and shortly after we received orders to pack up and be ready to move that night. It was raining when we started out, and oh! we did feel rotten to have to go back to that hell-hole again. But the new fellows didn't know what it was like, and we laughed and joked with them. Bob Tait and I were carrying No. 10's rations; and we were "connecting file"—that is, we kept in sight of the platoon behind. It was raining so hard that we were soon soaked to the skin, and we were glad when they stopped at Ypres that night. Bob and I missed the platoon in front, they went into some dugout, so we went in with the rear platoon. We were billeted in what had been an old wine cellar. The house which had been there before the war was blown down, and from the outside it looked like nothing but a pile of bricks. Bob and I were in a little place by ourselves; we knew that it was useless to try and find our own platoon in the dark. We had nothing but a stone slab to sleep on, and it didn't look very inviting to stretch out there in our wet clothes. I was just preparing to lie down when Bob said, "Wait a minute, see what I found," and he held up a bottle of rum. Gee, I could have kissed him!—we had a good drink, and maybe we weren't glad that we carried the rations that night. We had a fine sleep in spite of the artillery thundering overhead. Every now and then a heavy German shell would land right on top of our sleeping-place, but it couldn't break through. The concussion would put out the candles, that was all. That night, the First Division of Canadians and some British troops made their big counter-attack; and took back all the ground that the Germans had taken in the previous nine or ten days.

Bob and I woke up next morning and had our breakfast, and after awhile we wandered out around town. Some German prisoners were coming down the road, and we stopped and spoke to them. One who could speak a little English said, "Too much shell." They were very hungry; one of them spotted a piece of biscuit beside the road. He grabbed it up and ate it like a dog. All at once we heard a shout, and turning we spied Bink and Charlie Pound. When they got up to us they said, "Where the devil have you fellows been? We want our rations." They seemed quite peeved and they hadn't worried a bit about losing us. It was not having their rations that bothered them.

Well, that night we went back to the same trenches that we had left just three nights before, only this time we marched on the Ypres-Menin road. This is the worst road in the salient; the Germans sweep it with their machine guns every night, and it sure is wicked. Of course Rust had been over it months before and knew all about it. He told us that the bullets come about a foot from the ground, and if a fellow gets one in the leg, he will get hit again before he can crawl away. We were nicely started down the road when all at once the machine guns started to crackle. I took one jump and landed, rifle and all, in a ditch full of water. Most of the boys came with me, but I couldn't help laughing at some of the reinforcements. They took refuge behind trees, just as if a little tree would stop a machine gun bullet. Of course we told them, but not till one or two of their number got hit did they realize their danger. The Germans were shelling the trenches that we were going into, and now and again they would send over some high-explosive shells and sweep our road with shrapnel, so we had a few more casualties.

Well, at last we reached the trenches, and McMurchie and I stopped to help a fellow that was hit. By the time we got in our boys had relieved the 29th, who had been holding it ever since we left. Well, just as Mac and I jumped into the trench, we heard some one say to our Sergeant, "The officer wants you to send a couple of men for the bombing-post on the road; the two that were holding it have just been killed." Donnslau turned around and spied us making tracks up the trench. "Goddard and McMurchie, you will take charge of the bombing-post at the end of the trench: Sergeant Oldershaw will show you where it is." Mac was ticked to death, and I followed him looking as happy as I could—but, say, I wasn't feeling a bit heroic. We went on the post and Fritzie shelled us there for two days, and it sure was a marvel that we didn't get hit. I remember, we were lying on the cobblestones in the middle of the road—the idea being to stop any Germans that might be sneaking down that way. Sometimes when things got too hot the Sergeant would call us into the trench and let us stay there for awhile. While in the trench we would go around whistling; and he was always cooking up tea or something. We always burned candles for this, and when our supply ran out he went and borrowed from the officers. Nothing seemed to bother him, and he would watch the shells bursting overhead—big black shrapnel and "woolly bears." When the latter burst they make a noise like a ton of bricks being dumped, and Mac would watch them with a smile—once when we were sitting in the mud, and I suppose I was looking about as cheerful as a dying duck in a thunderstorm, Mac remarked, "In spite of orl 'is trials and privations, the British Tommy remyns as cheerful as ever." He brought it out just like a Cockney, and I just had to smile. Shortly after this along came "Fat." He and Bink had been up at the culvert, and they were supposed to be on their way out, but poor old Fat was so stiff with the cold that he couldn't walk. We offered to fetch him a snort of rum, but he said he wouldn't take it. I suppose he had promised some darn girl back home, and he would die rather than break his word. Well, we gave him some hot tea, took off his socks and rubbed his feet; and I got him a pair of my dry socks. After awhile we coaxed him to eat a little, and we joked with him, till at last he gave a bit of a smile—and soon we heard his familiar "Tee he, tee he!"—he had the funniest laugh I ever heard. Well, he stayed with us till we were relieved.

A funny thing happened up the trench that same day. Marriot and some of the other boys were sitting in one of the bays of the trench cooking some Maconachie rations, when bang! right through the parapet came a shell. It went between Marriot and the next chap, and the shock must have been awful. Marriot rushed into the next bay, and meeting our Sergeant he spluttered, "Oh say, old chap, ain't I a lucky devil? All those fellows in the next bay are blown to hell, and I escaped." The Sergeant rushed around to find the bay empty except for the shell which hadn't exploded, but was reposing quietly in the bottom of the trench and Marriot had been too excited to notice. Maybe he didn't get chipped about it afterwards. That night we were relieved by the Coldstream Guards; and say, Jack, they are soldiers! They came in like clockwork, every man knew his place, and exactly where to go. They fixed bayonets on entering the trench and there was no confusion. They had taken over the trench almost before we knew it.

How glad we were to be relieved no one knows but those who were there. We were not sorry to see the last of Hooge. They gave us about a week's rest and then we went back to our old trenches at ——. It was quiet there, and for awhile we had it pretty easy. Just after taking over these trenches we were treated to a great sight. Our aeroplanes made a general attack all along the British front from the coast to the Somme, and they burned all the German observation balloons. We stood and watched them come down in flames, and it was great. Mind you it meant a lot to us; while they were watching us there couldn't be a stir behind our lines but we would be treated to a salvo of shells. In fact, we had orders not to move around in the daytime. But after the balloons were gone we could go about with comparative freedom. Even one man would attract the attention of these German eyes. Our old boy, Charlie Pound, was a runner or dispatch carrier between the front line and Headquarters, and he often came up to see us when we were in the line. One day he said, "There's a fat Fritzie in that balloon that I'd like to get my hands on; he must have a grudge against me, for he shells me every time I go down the communication trench." So Charlie was tickled to death when that particular balloon was brought down.