During my early days at St. Dunstan's, I was inclined to brood a bit, and the past was constantly before my mind's eye; but gradually under occupation the past became shadowy, and the future was for me the only reality. Even the scenes through which I had passed in the months I was at the front took on the semblance of a dream—sometimes a nightmare; but it seemed to me that it was not I—the St. Dunstan's student—who had endured cold and wet and forced marches, who had felt the shock of high-explosive shells, the stinging threat of machine-gun and rifle bullets, who had taken part in wild charges over the top, but some other being. However, in the stillness of the night, one incident I had experienced, one scene I had witnessed, kept constantly recurring to my mind with a vividness that kept the World War and my humble part in it a stern reality for me. The affair in question occurred on April 19th, 1917.
Ten days before, on Easter Monday—a red-letter day for the Canadians, but a day black as night for the Germans—the troops from the Dominion had in one swift forward movement swept the enemy from positions which he had thought impregnable along Vimy Ridge. For days after that, we wallowed around in the mud, gaining a village here, a trench there, and driving him from hills and wood fastnesses. All the time we were expecting that he would come back in force to make a mighty effort to regain the territory he had held for over two years against the British and the French. He had apparently proved his right to it, and since September 15th, 1916, had been resting at his ease in his underground dug-outs and capacious caverns.
On the night of the 19th, the battalion to which I belonged had just ended a tour of duty in the front line. We were to be relieved by another battalion of the 3rd Division of the Canadian Corps. There was but one road out, a road which at that time was considered a masterpiece of road-building. Three days had been allotted for its construction. The Imperial engineers contended that the task was an impossible one, but G.H.Q. said it would have to be done, and the Canadian engineers were assigned the work. To their credit, it was completed in the stipulated time.
To retire from the side of the ridge facing the German position, it was necessary to take this road, and, as the crest of it was under almost continuous shell-fire, for safety we were sent over in sections of ten men at a time. This territory had all been in Fritzie's hands, and he knew every inch of it. The road was a vital spot, and more shells were dropped on it than upon any other place of the same area on the Western front. On the top, about two hundred yards away, lay the ruined village of Thelus; once in it we should be comparatively safe.
I was in the last section of my platoon, and at the top I paused to look about me at the scene that presented itself. It was horrible; it was glorious; it was magnificent—it was War. The centre of the road was fairly clear, but at the edges all was chaos. The night was a wonderful one; the moon was shining in all her glory, and pale stars twinkled in the sky. In the bright moonlight I could see all about me dead and wounded men, wounded men who would surely "go West," for, once down, the chance of escape from that hell-hole was slight. Here and there were great W.D. waggons, G.S. waggons, ammunition mules bearing 6-inch howitzer and the smaller 18-pounder equipment—in fact, everything that was in any way connected with the grim business that was being carried on. Here and there, too, through this chaos of war, ration parties wended their way to and from the front line trenches.
Just as we reached the crest of the ridge, that spur of France that had taken such heavy toll from Hun and Ally, we heard a warning shout: "Keep to the edge of the road!" We wondered at the caution. The middle of the road was comparatively clean, while towards the edges it was ankle-deep in sticky mud, and we had been floundering around in a quagmire for the last eleven days. But we soon knew the reason; for while we hesitated up came a battery of guns at full gallop—big howitzers at that. Drivers shouted; horses plunged and tugged at their traces; the guns bounded and rattled in and out of the shell-holes that pitted the road, sometimes seeming to be balanced on only one wheel. It was a thrilling sight, such as comes to the eyes of a man only once in a lifetime. It gripped us all. Poor Sergeant Harry Best, our platoon sergeant, who was near me, relieved the tension by exclaiming: "Get that, Jim! You will never see such a sight again, even if you stayed out here for fifty years. If a painter were to put that sight on canvas he would be laughed at as a dreamer."
I said, poor Sergeant Best! He had seen the sight of his lifetime, but he was not long to enjoy it, for the next trip in, when he was all ready to go to London to take his commission, he was "sent West" by a bomb from a trench mortar. Harry was a little strict, but he was dead fair, and, best of all, a thorough soldier. How is it that nearly all the good ones get, or seem to get, the worst of the deal; they certainly play for the most part in hard luck. But then they take risks that the "safety-first" soldier never takes.