It is not difficult to read the story of that early morning struggle. The land is churned in all directions, two of the bigger trees have fallen, and now spread out gnarled branches above the remnants of some artillery dugouts. Pools of water, thick glutinous mud—both are tinged in many spots a dark red-brown—and portions of what were once men, lie scattered around in dreadful evidence.
But for his pallor, one might think that man yonder is still living. He is sitting in an easy attitude, leaning forward, one hand idle in his lap, his rifle against his knee, and with the other hand raised to his cheek as though he were brushing off a fly. But his glassy eyes stare, and his face is bloodless and grey, while a large hole in his chest shows where the enemy shrapnel smote him.
Corpses of dead Germans are piled, in places, one over the other, some showing terrible gaping wounds, some headless, some stripped of all or part of their clothing, by the terrific explosion of a great shell which rent their garments from them. In more than one place old graves have been blown sky-high, and huddled skeletons, still clad in the rags of a uniform, lie stark under the open sky.
Papers, kits, water-bottles, rifles, helmets, bayonets, smoke goggles, rations, and ammunition are scattered everywhere in confusion. Some of the débris is battered to bits, some in perfect condition. Shell-cases, shell-noses, and shrapnel pellets lie everywhere, and there arises from the ground that peculiar, terrible odour of blood, bandages, and death, an odour always dreaded and never to be forgotten. In one German dug-out three men were killed as they lay, and sat, sleeping. Some one has put a sock over their faces; it were best to let it remain there. Yonder, a Canadian and a German lie one on top of the other, both clutching their rifles with the bayonets affixed to them, one with a bayonet thrust through his stomach, the other with a bullet through his eye.
At night the very lights shine reluctant over the scene, but the moon beams impassive on the dead. Burial parties work almost silently, speaking in whispers, and, shocking anomaly, one now and then hears some trophy hunter declare, “Say, this is some souvenir, look at this ‘Gott mit Uns’ buckle!”
“A” COMPANY RUSTLES
When we got into the bally place it was raining in torrents, and the air was also pure purple because the Colonel found some one in his old billet, and the Town-Major, a cantankerous old dug-out who seemed to exist chiefly for the purpose of annoying men who did go into the front line, was about as helpful as the fifth wheel to a wagon. Finally, the Colonel shot out of his office like an eighteen-pounder from a whizz-bang battery, and later on the tattered remnants of our once proud and haughty Adjutant announced to us, in the tones of a dove who has lost his mate, that there were no billets for us at all, and that officers and men would have to bivouac by the river.
Under all circumstances the Major is cheerful—and he has a very clear idea of when it is permissible to go around an order. Also the Town-Major invariably has the same effect on him as such an unwelcome visitor as a skunk at a garden-party would have on the garden-party. Having consigned the aforesaid T.-M. to perdition in Canadian, English, French, and Doukhobor, he said: “We are going to have billets for the men, and we are going to have billets for ourselves.” That quite settled the matter, as far as we Company officers were concerned. In the course of the next half-hour we had swiped an empty street and a half for the men, and put them into it, and then we gathered together, seven strong, and proceeded to hunt for our own quarters.
There is a very strongly developed scouting instinct among the Canadian forces in the Field. Moreover, we are not overawed by outward appearances. In the centre of the town we found a château; and an hour later we were lunching there comfortably ensconed in three-legged arm-chairs, with a real bowl of real flowers on the table, and certain oddments of cut-glass (found gleefully by the batmen) reflecting the bubbling vintage of the house of Moët et Chandon. Our dining-hall was about sixty feet by twenty, and we each had a bedroom of proportionate size, with a bed of sorts in it. Moreover, the place was most wonderfully clean—it might almost have been prepared for us—and McFinnigan, our cook, was in the seventh heaven of delight because he had found a real stove with an oven.
“I cannot understand,” said the Major, “how it is no one is in this place. It’s good enough for a Divisional Commander.”