A Surgeon in Arms

by R. J. Manion

The advance was to have taken place much sooner, but preparations were not complete. Easter Sunday, then Easter Monday became the day decided upon, and 5.30 a.m. of that day was to be the zero hour, or hour of attack.

Promptly at that hour the wonderfully heavy artillery barrage multiplied one hundredfold. Three minutes later the soldiers began going over the top and following the barrage. So complete were the arrangements, and so successful every move, that objectives were taken almost to the minute as planned, and returns coming in to Brigade H.Q. on the immediate front on which our battalion attacked were as optimistic as could be hoped for by the most critical.

A little over one hour after the first wave of Canadians started across No Man's Land, our O.C., Lieutenant Colonel J——, with an orderly room staff, signalers and scouts, started for the German lines to open a battalion H.Q. at Ulmer House dugout, about 600 yards behind the trenches which two hours before this had been the enemy front line. I accompanied the party, for I was to establish a Regimental Aid Post somewhere near the H.Q.

When we stepped out of the tunnel which led from Zivy cave to the center of No Man's Land, we had the misfortune to arrive in a sap—a trench leading toward the Hun lines—which sap at the moment of our arrival was being very heavily shelled by German artillery. As the sides of the sap were no more than two or three feet in height, and as the shells were dropping so close that we were continually in showers of mud from them, our party became broken up, leaving the Colonel and five of us together.

Some two hundred yards on our way we stopped to rest. The Colonel and I were sitting behind a small parapet, our bodies touching, when a shell dropped beside him, pieces of it wounding him in five or six places. He pluckily insisted on going on toward our goal, but soon fell from exhaustion. The problem then was to get him back in safety, for there had been no cessation in the shelling. Fortunately this was accomplished with no other casualties, with great pluck on the Colonel's part, and some slight assistance on the part of his companions.

Major P——, M.C., then took charge, and with most of the original party set out for Ulmer House. Our route this time was slightly altered by dodging the unlucky sap and going directly overland. Stepping around shellholes and keeping well away from a tank stuck in a mud hole to our right, in order to avoid the numerous shells that the Germans were pouring about it, we proceeded on our trip through the German barrage, which was somewhat scattered now.

In passing it may be said that on this immediate front, because of the depth of the mud, the only assistance given by the five or six tanks to the troops was that of drawing and localizing the enemy fire to a certain extent, and so marking out areas of danger that it were well to avoid. None of them got even as far as our first objective, but remained stuck in the thick mud till they were dug out by hand. On hard ground they are no doubt dangerous weapons of war, but in this deep mud their only danger was to their occupants and to those about them.

Our trip across this time was not particularly eventful. Veering this way and that to avoid the most heavily shelled bits of ground, stepping over corpses of Germans, or, what was more trying, of our own Canadian boys, saying a word of comfort to some poor wounded chaps in shellholes, we gradually and successfully made our way across the shell-devastated and conquered territory to Ulmer House. We suffered only two slight casualties, a wounded hand to the assistant adjutant, Lieutenant C——, and a bruised chest to the signaling officer, Captain G——.

A couple of hours later the shelling had ceased so completely that it was comparatively safe for anyone to wander about the field which had so recently been the scene of one of the greatest battles in history. Here and there, in shellholes marked by a bit of rag tied to a stick, we found many of our own boys and the boys of other Canadian battalions who needed attention. Stretcher parties were made up, generally of German prisoners, and the wounded were cleared with all possible speed.

One poor young chap we discovered late in the afternoon in an advanced shellhole, with his leg badly wounded and broken, he having lain there from 6.15 in the morning. Yet he smiled good-humoredly and thanked us gratefully for what we did, asking only for a cigarette after we fixed him up. Field ambulance stretcher bearers and German prisoners under Captain K——, M.C., of No. — Canadian Field Ambulance, worked tremendously to clear the field. Other working parties were encountered at different points, all with the same object.