About nine o 'clock the German aeroplanes again came along and took another good look at our position. A white flare was dropped over the bit of trench held by Major Marshall, a platoon of forty odd men with a machine gun and crew, that had again and again raked the German trenches. About twenty howitzers immediately opened fire on that unfortunate trench, and how any of them escaped was a mystery, for they seemed to get the range to a dot. Company Sergeant-Major Vernon, one of my best non-commissioned officers, had his head completely blown off with a piece of shell. Sergeant Angus Ferguson, veteran of India, Egypt and Africa, was shot in the arm and leg. He was left for dead. Later the diabolical Huns captured him, and on his raising an objection to having his leg amputated gave him his choice of that or being shot. They amputated his leg above the knee without even administering an anaesthetic, but he lived to return to Toronto and tell the tale.
A number of the machine gunners were killed and wounded. Lieutenant Dansereau, my adjutant, was struck in the head with a piece of shell and everyone thought he was finished. Word was brought to me to that effect, and I felt as if I had lost my own son. Sergeant Flood of the machine gun section stood by his piece as long as possible, but finally a shell smashed the mount and this piece of trench became untenable. The pitiful remnant of the platoon, now consisting of seven men with Major Marshall, had to find a place to the right of the supporting trenches where they kept on fighting. The Germans had broken through on our left and were trying to force our supporting trenches.
Major Marshall and the few that were left with him spotted a platoon of the enemy advancing in their front about one hundred feet away, led by a man who they thought carried a white flag. He wore a blue coat and looked like a French soldier. They thought at first that it was a bunch of Turcos or of Germans wanting to surrender. They opened fire, and the man with the white disk turned and started running back and they saw that the other side of the disk bore the ominous black cross. He was a marker for their artillery. He did not run far. Marshall had a rifle and bayonet and knew how to use them. On our left Lieutenant Colonel Burland of Montreal took charge of the 14th and fought rifle in hand. He greatly distinguished himself.
All this time a miserable Hun was playing on our trenches from the left rear with a machine gun.
Between our forward position and St. Julien, a short distance northwest of the Poelcapelle Road, a number of farm buildings had been seized by the Germans when the Turcos fled the first night, and they had placed their Maxims in the upper windows and were trying their level best all the time to get us in the back.