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

by John Allister Currie

The chirpiest soldier in the whole outfit was Signalling Sergeant Calder, who was one of the shortest men in the regiment. The breadth of his shoulders and the burr on his tongue got him enlisted in the first instance. As he was stringing the wires to the trench he had to duck several times. "Here is where I shine by being a 'sawed-off,'" he informed me. We were soon in touch with commandant headquarters, and from Major Marshall I learned that our forward trenches were still untouched. As the night closed in the Germans redoubled their shelling of St. Julien. The charred church spire was lit up with the high explosive shells, and several fires broke out in the village and made the night hideous. Shrapnel broke constantly overhead spraying our trenches and several men were wounded. Several poor wounded Turcos had taken refuge in our trench. One of them, an under officer, informed Lieutenant Dansereau that the Turcos would stick with the British till the last. He added as an aside that he wished Algiers was as prosperous as Egypt. So much for this son of the desert who in this terrible hour envied the Fellah of Egypt who was permitted to follow his ordinary avocation as farmer, in the midst of all these warlike times, undisturbed by conscription or his British rulers.

As dawn came the German fire increased and my adjutant pulled a note book out of his pocket and began writing in it with a big blue pencil. I asked him if he was going to try and send a message through to headquarters. "No, sir," he said. "I am afraid I will not come out of this alive, so I am writing a message to my friends, I have reconciled myself to death."

I told him I felt sure that we were going to come out all right, that I had a "hunch" that we were, and that some time we would read that memo together under happier circumstances, and it would bring back memories of the Valley of the Shadow of Death through which we were passing together.

He shook his head doubtfully, and when I laughingly showed him a German horseshoe which I had picked up on the field when we first saw the gas and which I still carried in my overcoat pocket, he smiled but was not reassured.

However, the fact that he felt that we were both going to be wiped out did not dampen his courage. Strange to say my prophecy about his last message came true, for we read it together and laughed over it in Montreal, Canada, months later as I had predicted.

Before dawn several of my runners or signallers returned from brigade headquarters with the story of the fight around the farm house where General Turner, V.C., and Major Wright of the engineers had rallied the cooks and orderlies to the defence of the place. They told us how the 16th Battalion, the Canadian Scottish under Lieut.-Colonel Leckie and the gallant 10th Battalion under Lieut.-Colonel Boyle, had hurried from Ypres to the aid of their comrades. These two battalions reached the reserve trenches in front of Wieltje about eight o'clock, when they were ordered on to 3rd Brigade Headquarters and preparations made for them to counter attack the advancing Germans who had seized the wood northwest of St. Julien.

The counter attack was launched at midnight, the 10th on the right in two lines, and the 16th on the left. Major Lightfoot led the front line of his battalion, the 10th.

"Come on, boys," he said, "remember you are Canadians." The line advanced with great spirit, less than two thousand Canadians against a hundred thousand Germans. It was the biggest bluff in history but it won. On and on went the Canadians, 10th and Highlanders, one moment with the bayonet the next moment firing. The Germans, who were busy digging in south of the wood, saw the Canadians coming in the twilight, and only waited to fire a few shots and then they started to run. Lightfoot was down, but the line went on. Major McLaren fell, but the lines never wavered. They drove the Germans into the wood and clear through it on the other side. If there had only been plenty of supporting troops the German victory would not only have been stayed but the charging Canadians would have gone through the German army that night.

The British howitzer battery which had been lost was retaken, the French guns were recaptured and a great victory was in sight.

When the Germans were caught they began to throw down their arms and cry for mercy. The gallant Canadians gave it, but in the hot rush of the charge they did not wait to disarm their foe. The second lines merged into the first and the fight in the dim forest became Homeric. Then the cowardly Germans whose lives had been spared, plucked up their courage. They picked up their rifles and began like the Arabs in the desert to shoot the men in the back who had spared their lives. Colonel Boyle went down, killed almost immediately. He had led his troops on through the forest by voice and example, armed only with a riding crop. The Germans were driven beyond the northern edge of the forest. The charge by this time had spent a good deal of its force, and as the flanks of the charging lines were not protected, and men were falling on every side, it was deemed advisable to withdraw to the southern edge of the wood and occupy the line of shelter trenches which the Germans had begun to dig. This was one of the most gallant charges in the annals of the Empire. The fame of the gallant charges of the Canadians in St. Julien Wood will live forever in history, engraved in letters of gold.