"The Red Watch": With the First Canadian Division in Flanders

by John Allister Currie

It was dawn when the tired battalions made their way into the field in which all that was left of the transports of the four battalions was packed. They had hot soup ready and it was a case of bivouac on the green grass with the heavens as a blanket.

Very soon afterwards General Turner, V.C., and Lt.-Colonel Hughes, his staff officer, arrived. They both warmly congratulated me on sticking it out at the hot corner. General Turner, V.C., told me that the Canadians had been given credit for saving the situation, and that my battalion, though it had been almost wiped out, had not died in vain. He was completely worn out, so I gave him and his officers a place under a piece of tarpaulin after they had had something to eat. They had not had any rest or sleep since Thursday morning, and in a few minutes everyone was fast asleep except the transport men.

I had not been in the Land of Nod half an hour when I was roused by the trample of a horse and the voice of a horseman enquiring for me. I was up in an instant and found a staff officer looking for General Turner. I refused at first to awaken him unless the matter was urgent, but when I was assured that it was, I roused him and he opened his message. It was an order to take the brigade back immediately to La Bryke to go into support of the Lahore division under General Snow, which was to attack that afternoon together with some French troops.

The men were all dead tired and sound asleep on the ground. They had not had any sleep since the previous Thursday night, and now they were to be roused to go at it again, digging in with General Snow.

The Muster of the 48th Highlanders after Battle of St. Julien—212 out of 1,034[ToList]

Rations and ammunitions were issued and off we started. We crossed the Yperlee Canal by a foot bridge and climbed the steep slope once more into the deadly salient. As we passed down to the bridges in Indian file several of our men were struck by shrapnel bullets. When we crossed over the canal we were led to the west of La Brique and halted in a ditch, where we promptly dug in. The Indian guns were in front of us. About an hour after, just as we were well dug in, we were again moved further east and put in behind some hedges and some more Indian batteries. Again we dug in, making a good job of it. The troops in front of us were apparently attacking and the din of the shell and rifle fire became terrific. We all thought we would be at it again in a few minutes, and the men began tightening up their puttees and looking to their rifles and ammunition. Some began eating their rations, for as one poor fellow said they might as well enjoy them because they might not need any more after a few minutes.

The attack in our front died away and pretty soon another order came and we started down behind hedges and ditches back to Wiltje. The Germans were shelling the village for all they were worth and the church was burning, so we gave it a wide berth and slipped in behind the village and proceeded to dig in again. Every few minutes the Huns would start shelling Wiltje and we would come into their "Zone of influence." The shells that missed the roofs of the houses from the north would pitch over into our lines and we had to duck and count ten when we heard them coming.

While we were being jolly well shelled in these trenches an incident occurred which was of extraordinary interest. I remember reading when I was a boy how at the siege of Toulon, while Napoleon was dictating a message to a young soldier named Lannes a British shell struck the parapet and threw sand all over them and also on the written message. The writer coolly shook the sand off the paper, remarking that they would not need any sand to blot the ink. This soldier showed such bravery that he subsequently became a Marshal of the Empire. That afternoon after we were dug in I was dictating a message to Sergeant Venner of my signalling staff who had his telephone in a "dig in" alongside of mine. He was half way through when a big "coal box" shell exploded a few feet away emitting a terrible stench, a cross between marsh gas and camphor balls.