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

by John Allister Currie

Sergeant Miller, who was close at hand, jumped up and with an electric torch we started to search the line to find out who was wounded. In the second digin on my right we found Corporal Kells very nearly gone. A large five-inch shell had fallen in his "digin," slicing a large piece of flesh off the calf of his leg and stunning him. Fortunately the shell had not exploded. He had almost bled to death when the peculiar heavy breathing of a man suffering from bleeding attracted my attention. We bound him up and had him taken back to the dressing station. He subsequently died from the shock.

One morning about daylight I was wakened in my narrow cell by a lot of earth tumbling down on my face. I fancied a shell had fallen on my parapet, and after clearing the dirt out of my eyes and ears I lay awake listening to the seventeen-inch Austrian batteries which were shelling some place very heavily. The guns were apparently in a position not far from Pilken. I could hear the "Kerr-Rump" of four guns of a battery firing in rapid succession, then a pause, and I could hear the huge projectiles go roaring on their deadly mission till the sound ceased. I waited for the report so I could count the time to find out how far away they were ranging, but I noticed a very strange thing. I could hear no report from the explosion of the shell. Evidently it was falling too far away for me to hear it. A few days later we learned that they had been shelling Dunkirk, some twenty-odd miles away.

The second day we were at the bridge, the Germans were searching diligently for us with their shells when I was called to the telephone which was located in the next hole in the ground to mine. I found Corporal Pyke in charge of my wire. Pyke was a brave cheerful lad, a splendid operator and telephone expert. He was thoroughly posted in wireless work and used to rig up an attachment to our telephone by means of which he could read all the wireless messages that came over the wires from the ships of the Navy in the Channel to the naval batteries that were working behind our lines which were called the Admiral Churchill batteries. If there were any German wireless men in the neighborhood they could also get these messages. Pyke could hear the Germans working on their lines but could not get their code.

As I hopped over to see who wanted me, and crawled into the telephone hole in the ground a shell came whizzing past and ripped the earth from the parapet about a foot above Pyke's head. He never even ducked, but quite coolly remarked as he shook the dust off, "That sod is rather thin, Colonel. I guess it was only about six inches."

The urgent message that I was called to take was something to the effect that clean socks, underclothes and a bath would be ready for my battalion at a certain date.

I told headquarters to cut out commercial messages for a few days.

Our batteries were earning a great reputation for themselves. They were posted on the bank of the canal and alongside of them were some of the batteries of the Indian Division. Our guns were in action one evening when the major of one of the Indian batteries came along inspecting his observation wires. He watched the drivers of one of our batteries (Morrison's) take a limber of ammunition up to its guns through a perfect hailstorm of shells. He remarked to me that the Canadian gunners were magnificent, and that they did not have six drivers in the Indian Army that were as well trained and as good at their work as the Canadian boys who were driving the limber we were looking at. That was a high compliment from a regular officer as the Indian army knows its trade.

On the afternoon of the 28th, while the Germans were trying to destroy the Canadian batteries with heavy seventeen-inch shells, a German aeroplane came along flying low to check up the big gun practise. We were getting very tired of these German visitors so I ordered my battalion to fire on the flyer, using one thousand elevation and leading the birdman about five times his own length. In a few minutes we had the satisfaction of seeing him turn back with a tail of fire streaming from his gasoline tank. We had got his tank and he was on fire and trying hard to make the German lines. He fell in our lines and the aviator and observer were made prisoners.

Aeroplane activity in that section ceased for a time. The fighting, however, never let up night or day.

On the evening of May 2nd we were ordered to co-operate with British troops in our right who were heavily attacked with gas. There was a dull, heavy atmosphere and everything seemed favorable for the German poison plan. Our guns, however, were ready and they opened a fierce bombardment with shrapnel over the German trenches. It was here the shell incident described at the beginning of the chapter happened. A gentle shower came which dissipated the gas. Three times their infantry climbed out of their trenches and started to charge across the space intervening between the lines. The iron voices of the bursting shells blended into one note as the deadly spray of lead swept entire sections of them away. There was little left for the rifle fire to do.