A Surgeon in Arms

by R. J. Manion

In our rounds we visited all that remained of Thelus and saw some of the many captured guns. One of the most interesting visits we made was to a cave at Les Tilleuls, near Thelus, which was being used as H.Q. for another battalion as well as H.Q. for C Company of our own. Here Lieutenant J—— greeted us warmly but failed to tell us the details of his own exploit, which has acquired a fame it well deserves and for which he received the Military Cross. Here is the story:

Lieutenant J—— was second in command of C Company, the C.O. being "Old Pop," who was killed early in the fight, the command of the company devolving upon his subordinate. He is a boy of twenty-two, a bank clerk in civil life, as mild, gentle and good natured a lad as one could find in a day's march. He had led his men on till they obtained their objective, and then he and a corporal who were scouting about came to this cave with its long, winding staircase. They threw down a couple of Mills bombs, drew their revolvers, and went down, to be confronted in flickering candle light by one hundred and five German officers and men, all armed.

Bluffing that they had a large force upstairs, they covered and disarmed the 105 Germans, took them prisoners, and, hunting up an escort for them, sent them to the rear. Those are the cold, bare, undecorated facts. And then to complete as pretty a bit of work as was done at Vimy Ridge, Lieutenant J—— took a German carrier pigeon that he found in the cave, tied to its leg a message giving the necessary essentials, and finishing with the words, "everything bright and cheery," he freed it. It found its way to our battalion H.Q. at Ulmer House, where we had the pleasure of reading the note!

To stand at the mouth of this cave and look about on all sides as far as the eye could see, and to know that all that shell-racked ground was won in a few hours by the citizen army of Canada made one feel a legitimate pride in being a native of that land. And the stories which kept dribbling in for days, as we held the line, of the gallantry of this man or the nobly inspiring death of that one, were of deep interest to us all.

Of our own battalion we lost on the 9th, 217 men out of a total of 657, and ten officers—not counting two who were slightly wounded—out of twenty-two of us. Three of our officers were killed outright: "Old Pop;" Lieutenant Beechraft, an American lawyer from Michigan, who often said to me with a confident smile: "The Germans have not yet made a shell to get me." And he was right, poor Tom, for I saw him lying dead that day on the field with a German rifle bullet wound in his head. The third of our officers killed was Major Hutchins, a man well past fifty, who had recently joined us and who had taken a Lieutenant's position of platoon commander in order to serve at the front. This was his first fight, and he was killed by a shell while leading his platoon across No Man's Land. All honor to his gray hairs, and may they ever be an inspiration to younger men!

One of the best stories of this battle concerned a Canadian Brigade on our left under the command of Brigadier General H——. This brigade on April 9 took all its objectives except one very difficult hill, No. 140, nicknamed, because of its shape, the Pimple. The General of the division sent word to Brigadier General H—— that he was going to send in some British troops to aid him in capturing this hill. Brigadier General H—— is a bonnie fighter, an Anglo-Indian who has been living some years in British Columbia, and he has a temper much resembling an Irish terrier's. He curtly sent back word that his Canadians needed no assistance. Knowing him well, the General of division good-naturedly replied that if General H—— succeeded in taking this difficult hill they would give him the title Lord Pimple. The next day the division received the following message:

Have taken, am consolidating, and will hold Hill 140.

(Sgd.) LORD PIMPLE.

The main facts of this story can be verified in the official records of this division.

I have a vivid recollection of General H—— when he was Lieutenant Colonel in command of the —th Canadian Battalion. I had been sent there to relieve the regular Medical Officer who was away on leave in England. Lieutenant Colonel H—— was also away on leave during my first few days' service with his battalion.