How my mouth watered when I realized that I would get a change of diet from the everlasting bully beef and biscuits, commonly known as "hard tack." How pleasant to know that the "cooties" would soon be off me and a new change of clothing on my back. One can only appreciate good food and clean clothes after months of horror experienced by eating bully and biscuits and being tormented by "cooties," or, as we called them, "Wee Scunners."
During the month's furlough I spent in London, I had the time of my life, but as all good days have to end at some time or other, I was soon back in the trenches, and to make things worse, we were on the Somme.
Christmas day I again spent in the trenches, but this time there was no fraternizing, both sides being very bitter and for any of us to show a head above the parapet meant death from a German sniper.
We could never forget the Zeppelin raids, the sinking of the Lusitania, and the despicable treachery of the enemy on every occasion, wherever they got a chance. The Germans proved themselves worse than the lowest savages, and Lord Kitchener said that they were worse than the Dervishes of the Soudan, the fanatics of the desert. Never will a British soldier forget the incident where British soldiers were burned alive, by the orders of Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, and the crucifying of the Canadians at Ypres.
In the spring of 1917 the Germans retreated to a new line of defense, and for three weeks we advanced under cover of the night, throwing out patrols, to try and get in touch with the Germans. This was a welcome change, as there was no firing, and as we were on the move it was less monotonous than being in the trenches. The Germans had destroyed everything in their retreat, farm houses being blown up, orchards cut down, cross roads destroyed, and every trick, the Germans who are past masters in this kind of thing, knew so well how to do. The countryside was laid waste, and I saw hundreds of dead men who had been left behind by the Germans, unburied, and left to rot; most of them had been mangled by shell-fire and it was sights such as these that make men think of the terrible folly of war, and why such things should be.
We have one consolation, and that is, the men of the Allies who were killed did not die in vain, as the objects for which we entered the war have been achieved and the wrongs will be righted.
At last we got in touch with the Germans and dug ourselves in, and then we had another spell of trench duty, until taken away from the Somme and moved up to Belgium to participate in the Paschendale offensive in June, 1917. Of all the fronts I was ever on, Paschendale was the worst. The front included the Ypres salient where fighting had been going on almost incessantly from October, 1914. Neither side made much progress, and during these three years the ground had changed hands many times and was mostly shell-holes. In fact, for miles it was difficult to find a few square yards untouched by shells, and I think that more men were killed in the Ypres salient than any other place of its size in the world. It was impossible to build trenches on this front, and the system of defense was to fortify shell-holes with sand bags, two or three men to a shell-hole. I was in one advance which we made under cover of the biggest barrage thrown over at that time, and when our objective was reached, we manned the shell-holes until relieved.
In September, 1917, I was sent to a bombing school, and went through a course which I passed, and was then qualified to act as a bombing instructor when I arrived back to the battalion. The course lasted one month, and in that time I learned all there was to know about bombs, especially the deadly Mills bomb, with its three and a half to five seconds time fuse. I found bombing more interesting than any other kind of warfare I had yet taken up, and the fact that it was possible to kill or wound a number of Germans with one well-aimed bomb greatly appealed to me. When I returned to the line my rifle was placed as second favorite, the bombs always holding first place in my estimation.
When I arrived back to the battalion, they were at Ploegstreet, or "Plug-street," as we called it, and this front being rather quick, we had a picnic, in comparison to some of the previous places. The trenches at Ploegstreet were well constructed, and fairly dry, and were always considered the best on the British front.
The Germans were 1,300 yards away and a small river ran between their lines and ours. Owing to the great distance between the lines, patrols were always out at night, so as to prevent a surprise attack. Our patrols consisted of a non-commissioned officer and two men, but sometimes a fighting patrol of ten men with a Lewis gun were sent out.