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 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS 
 FIELDS
 
 MAPLE LEAVES IN 
 FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 BY 
 
 HERBERT RAE 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 ADMIRAL SIR ALBERT MARKHAM, K.C.B. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SMITH, ELDER ^ CO. 
 
 15, WATERLOO PLACE 
 
 1916 
 
 All rights resett'td
 
 TO 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL A. W. CURRIE, C.B. 
 
 1st CANADIAN DIVISION.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The writer of the following pages has done me the 
 honour of inviting me to act as sponsor to his book, 
 by adding an introduction. 
 
 Having read the contents very carefully, I have 
 arrived at the conclusion that an introduction, 
 especially from my pen, is absolutely unnecessary; 
 and I am confident that the readers of this book, 
 before they have read many pages, will cordially 
 concur with me. Nevertheless, I have gladly and 
 willingly consented to do so. 
 
 In the first place I would like to offer my con- 
 gratulations to the author, for the charming and 
 appropriate title he has selected for his book. No 
 better name could have been chosen; none more 
 suitable. 
 
 The " Maple Leaves " will, I feel sure, never 
 wither, but will always flourish, fresh and verdant, 
 
 vii
 
 viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 for many years to come over the " Fields " of the 
 English-speaking people in every part of the 
 civilized world. 
 
 Personally I am glad to associate myself with 
 anything emanating from a Canadian source. I 
 am proud to number many Canadians among my 
 friends at the front, for all of whom I entertain a 
 profound respect, love, and admiration; and I am 
 therefore delighted, and honoured, in being afforded 
 the opportunity of assisting in the launch of this 
 latest Canadian venture on the stormy sea of 
 literature. If I can in any way help in giving it 
 a fair wind on its first voyage, it will be a great 
 pleasure to me to do so. 
 
 Although all the names in this work are fictitious 
 (including the author's), many of the persons 
 mentioned are well known to me, and I can there- 
 fore more fully appreciate the jokes and witticisms 
 herein related, better, perhaps, than others who 
 are not so well known to them. The book is, 
 practically, a narration of the experiences of some 
 of the members belonging to the first Canadian 
 Contingent that crossed the Atlantic to aid us in 
 this world-wide war.
 
 INTRODUCTION k 
 
 It is the story of Canadians by a Canadian, and 
 is well and graphically told. It is written in a 
 light and humorous style. It touches briefly on 
 the formation of the Contingent in Canada, its 
 organization at Valcartier, its training on Sahsbury 
 Plain, until eventually it was turned out, a finished 
 article, ready to fight on the battle-fields of France 
 and Flanders. 
 
 How splendidly they have fought is a matter 
 of universal knowledge and admiration. 
 
 This should be sufiicient introduction, but the 
 book does more. It not only draws our attention, 
 very strikingly, to the gallant fighting qualities 
 and capabilities of our brave Canadians, but it 
 also depicts in a most interesting fashion their love 
 of fun, their quaint humour, their caustic wit, their 
 typical whimsicalities, their endurance while under- 
 going hardships and privations of no ordinary 
 character, their fortitude, and, above all, their 
 determination to exhibit to the world at large, and 
 to our enemies in particular, their loyalty to the 
 Flag, and their intention to uphold and maintain 
 the integrity of the Empire. 
 
 The dash and heroism they have displayed ai'e
 
 X INTRODUCTION 
 
 here pictured modestly, with much pathos and 
 with considerable abiHty. 
 
 It is not for me to enlarge on their noble and 
 gallant achievements, but I would like to draw 
 attention to the incident related on pages 74 
 and 84 as illustrating the spirit and the pluck that 
 prevail and animate the men, as shown in the 
 heroism and death of Private Brown. 
 
 That touching event will last for all time as a 
 glorious epic of Canadian history ! 
 
 The book must be read to be appreciated; and 
 I have no hesitation in acceding to the author's 
 request of bestowing on it my benediction — for 
 what it is worth — and of commending it to the 
 notice and patronage of the reading public. 
 
 A. H. MARKHAM. 
 September, 1916.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 DEDICATION 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. NEWS OF BATTLE - 
 II. FROM WEST TO EAST 
 
 III. THE OLD COUNTRY 
 
 IV. LA BELLE FRANCE - 
 
 V. OLD TIMERS AND TENDERFEET 
 VI. THE GLORY OF WAR 
 VII. FLOUNDERING IN FLANDERS 
 VIII. THE CITY OF DISTRESS 
 IX. THE ROAR OF BATTLE 
 X. THE DOINGS OF SOME DETAILS 
 XI. " AND RESTED THE SEVENTH DAY 
 XII. OUT TO GRASS 
 
 XIII, THE SERIOUS SIDE OF WAR 
 
 XIV. THE (iREY MAN 
 
 XV. GATHERING IN THE SHEAVES 
 XVI. ALL IS VANITY 
 
 PA«tE 
 
 V 
 
 vii 
 
 1 
 
 18 
 
 32 
 
 59 
 
 71 
 
 90 
 
 120 
 
 139 
 
 159 
 
 179 
 
 191 
 
 207 
 
 216 
 
 231 
 
 243 
 
 258
 
 MAPLE LEAVES 
 IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 NEWS OF BATTLE 
 
 So it had come at last: the last rehearsal was 
 finished and the curtain finally rung up. We 
 dwellers on the coast could only hold our breath 
 and wonder. There was a murmur in the air, and 
 the east wind, as it came to us from across the 
 mountains, carried with it a faint whisper, the 
 subdued rattle of the Europe? n millions arming. 
 
 Were we to be in it, too ? 
 
 In Grant and Dover Streets, where we wandered 
 unable to sit still in the office, men were dis- 
 cussing this problem. For on the Old Country's 
 decision everything depended; no one doubted 
 where Canada's duty would lead her. There were 
 those of us who were " broke," and they were 
 indeed happy; a steady job, while it lasted, meant 
 a respite from their difficulties, immunity from 
 importunate tradesmen, and plenty of excitement ! 
 
 The married men in those days had many hcart- 
 
 1
 
 2 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEKS FIELDS 
 
 searchings: the single men might be taken before 
 them, or their wives might object to let them go. 
 
 The newspapers seized the opportunity and 
 gleaned a golden harvest. Special editions ap- 
 peared by the half -hour, and were as rapidly bought 
 up. Militia officers, not yet in the glory of their 
 war-paint, paraded the side-walks in twos and 
 threes, or paused in groups to exchange ideas. 
 They were authorities, pretending a knowledge 
 which they probably did not possess, while the 
 mere civilians hung breathless on their remarks. 
 The clubs were crowded with anxious business 
 men, too excited to talk business, and the bars 
 conducted a feverish trade; while new-born tacti- 
 cians and budding strategists consumed a wealth 
 of " hooch," and propounded schemes which 
 became more involved and impossible, with each 
 libation poured down their thirsty throats. 
 
 In the office the telephone was seldom silent. 
 Godley of the Cape Police and Gates of Strath- 
 cona's Horse, dropping in to see Murphy of the 
 Sherwood Foresters, delighted the stenographer by 
 the cheeriness of their greeting as they hammered 
 on the office door. 
 
 Are you going to Europe ? Where can I volun- 
 teer ? Is there any use wiring Ottawa ? Nobody 
 waited for an answer. Belgium was in flames, 
 that was enough; the Empire must declare war or 
 be classed for ever with the yellow races. 
 
 Gates and Godley, wandering into the telegraph-
 
 NEWS OF BATTLE 3 
 
 office, collided with Waldie of the " Rifles," sUnking 
 out unobtrusively, but with a satisfied hght of 
 accomphshment in his eye. " Just been wiring 
 to Calgary about some oil shares," he murmured 
 by way of explanation. 
 
 " Damned Uar !" muttered Gates as they watched 
 him walk down the street. " He's on the Ottawa 
 racket too." 
 
 " What are you going to say ?" asked Godley. 
 " ' Ex-policeman desires appointment as Colonel in 
 Canadian Mihtia. Experience of three campaigns. 
 Formerly in employ of Cape Government. Speaks 
 Kaffir and Dutch.' How would that go ?" 
 
 " Might get you a job of night-watchman in 
 a concentration camp," answered Gates. 
 
 Coming out of the office they bumped into 
 Pollock of the Gordons hurrying in, so preoccupied 
 that he did not see them. 
 
 " Whither away, gentle stranger ?" asked the 
 imperturbable Godley. " Wiring money to Calgary 
 for oil shares ?" 
 
 " Oil shares be damned ! I'm wiring to tell my 
 wife to come home; she's up the coast," answered 
 Pollock as he dashed into the office. 
 
 " I wonder," said Gates, as he and Godley 
 strolled down the street, " if there are any honest 
 men left in the city, or if they're all liars." 
 
 Then came the announcement, the glorious 
 stirring news: war had been declared. Belgium, 
 crushed beneath the heel of the invader, with its
 
 4 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEKS FIELDS 
 
 bloodstained smoking ruins, was to be avenged. 
 For the timid ones there was food for thought. 
 H.M.C.S. S'pindrift disappeared into the night; 
 our two other naval units, the Lark and the Linnet, 
 were said to be far away in the south. Of course, 
 this was probably only a rumour, but as such it 
 did not tend to add to the cheerfulness of the more 
 timid. 
 
 There were stories of a German squadron off the 
 coast, and we all agreed that the Olympic Hotel 
 and the Universe Building, with its eighteen stories, 
 would make a splendid target. 
 
 There were our submarines, thanks to the fore- 
 sight of the man at the head of affairs; and hot- 
 foot from the East big guns to command the outer 
 harbour were hustled along the ringing metals. 
 
 During the day we walked the streets, and the 
 nights we spent in searching out old uniforms, 
 cleaning revolvers, and greasing boots. These 
 were anxious moments, too, for those who paused 
 to think, and for those who had friends and relations 
 in the Old Country. " Where was the Fleet ?" 
 " What of the food-supply ?" 
 
 But, though we were at war, few in the city 
 realized the real import of the matter. A short, 
 sharp campaign, the German Navy swept from the 
 seas, a victorious British army in Flanders, and 
 a triumphal entry into Berlin — that was our idea. 
 The knowing militia officers, self-constituted 
 oracles, said at most a nine months' affair, and
 
 NEWS OF BATTLE 5 
 
 smiled in a sympathetic manner as though pitying 
 the poor Germans. Others were even more opti- 
 mistic, as the news from the East flashed through 
 the message: 
 
 NAVAL BATTLE IN THE NORTH SEA. 
 
 GREAT BRITISH VICTORY! 
 
 THIRTY-TWO GERMAN WAR VESSELS SUNK ! 
 
 This news, and other items as startling, filtered 
 across the Continent, and the specials fell from 
 the news office like leaves in autumn, and for every 
 leaf a nickel, and for every nickel a lie. But no 
 one cared so long as the lies were good and com- 
 forting. 
 
 All this time the recruiting- officers were busy, 
 and would-be warriors swarmed in to swear to 
 bear true allegiance to His Majesty. It was like 
 an oil boom, or the subdivision of a new town 
 site; offices sprang into existence, crowds waited 
 at the doors, and, inside, the investors made their 
 deposits. This was no idle punting in oil shares 
 or mining stock; it was a solid investment in flesh 
 and blood, with the fortune of an Empire and the 
 future of a great Dominion in the balance. 
 
 In Grant Street the " Jocks " drove a roaring 
 trade. With keen business ability, inherited from 
 generations of impecunious cattle-stealing ancestors, 
 gradually toned down to meet more modern com- 
 mercial requirements, they stuck out their shingle
 
 6 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 in the main thoroughfare. As in a well-run depart- 
 mental store, they believed in window-dressing, and 
 four stalwart kilties on the threshold bore witness 
 to the excellence of the goods purveyed inside. 
 
 Further east the Fusiliers, with equal enterprise, 
 sought for those who, always " agin the Govern- 
 ment " in times of peace, are just the opposite in 
 times of war. Green or Orange, it matters not; 
 these little tiffs are soon forgotten when the Hun 
 is at the gate. 
 
 On the Campus, in the dignified seclusion of their 
 ancient armoury, sought rather than seeking, was 
 the old regiment. 
 
 Day by day the recruits swarmed in. Such 
 recruits were surely never seen before. The woods 
 disgorged them, the mountains shook them clear; 
 they deserted from the ships and the harbour, 
 they hit the ties from across the great divide. 
 The mines, the camps, the canneries and the 
 orchards, all sent their share. 
 
 The Doctor, persistent, profane, particular, 
 measured their heights and chests — this for a 
 matter of form, for scarcely one but exceeded the 
 requirements prescribed by many inches. But 
 there were fingers gnawed off by frost-bite, and the 
 axe had taken its toll of many toes, and these 
 deficiencies had to be carefully sorted out and 
 weighed in the balance. 
 
 Pete Sornson from Fort Charles was deficient 
 of a hand, and kept the stump carefully concealed
 
 NEWS OF BATTLE 7 
 
 behind his back, until told to spread his fingers 
 out. That ditched him ! Andie Mack from 
 Squamish, with a wooden leg, the result of a badly 
 primed dynamite cartridge, kept the fact con- 
 cealed until told to take his trousers down. Private 
 Purdy, late of the Argyll and Sutherland High- 
 landers, who had suffered from blistered knees on 
 the banks of the Modder, insisted on seeing ten 
 spots where there were only five. Fresh air and 
 exercise was his portion, until such time as he was 
 sober enough to see his way through the eyesight 
 test. 
 
 There were lumbermen and railwaymen, pro- 
 spectors, surveyors, bankers, brokers, stokers, 
 teamsters, carpenters, and schoolmasters. Many 
 had not seen a city for months, and they were 
 frequently drunk; but the material ! Grosvenor 
 the much harassed adjutant's eyes sparkled as he 
 looked at them. " Guardsmen every one of 
 them ! Doc, you silly old ass ! what do you mean 
 by ploughing that man ?" 
 
 " He's got flat-feet." 
 
 " Flat-feet be bio wed ! He walked two hundred 
 miles to join !" 
 
 The great majority were Canadian or Old 
 Country born, but there were Americans, who 
 were not too proud to tight, Australians hanker- 
 ing after a contract and muttering about their 
 " Union." There were Russians, Frenchmen, 
 Indians, and Servians.
 
 8 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEES FIELDS 
 
 Japanese and Hindoos also presented them- 
 selves, but regarding them we had no instructions. 
 
 " What are you doing here V This to a grizzled 
 veteran of juvenile appearance, but doubtful age. 
 
 " I want to 'list." 
 
 " I thought you were in Egypt with Wolseley — 
 at least, you wore the medals at the last Paardeberg 
 dinner." 
 
 " Well, I haven't got them on now. What's the 
 age limit ?" 
 
 '* Forty-three." 
 
 " Well, I'm just forty-two." 
 
 " Then you must have been a drummer-boy at 
 Tel-el-kebir." 
 
 Thus the work went on. The Colonel swore 
 them in, the Doctor sweated, and the Adjutant 
 danced on everyone all round. Then a serious 
 mandate came through from the East, the all- 
 powerful East, where the wise men sat and where 
 all our eyes were turned. No married man was 
 to join the Expeditionary Force without first 
 obtaining his wife's permission. In certain cases 
 I do not doubt that this was easily procured, but 
 in others — No ! Yet the women were not slow to 
 do their part, and in the light of after-events some 
 must remember this. A few words on a scrap of 
 paper, a stroke of the pen, that was all. 
 
 Few, I expect, thought what it would mean, yet 
 many women must be proud to-day, to think how 
 they gave their all.
 
 NEWS OF BATTLE 9 
 
 Most of the men wanted foreign service; a few 
 stuck out for home defence. Theirs was the 
 harder lot; ties of family or business kept them 
 where at the moment they least desired to be. 
 Some hoped to come later; others knew that they 
 must stay. 
 
 The officers waited near the door of the drill 
 hall, catching the likely ones as they sauntered in. 
 Captain John Wallace, long, lean and leathery, 
 spoke to them in dulcet tones, as befitting one who 
 combined a city councillorship with the sale of 
 water frontage. 
 
 A good soldier, John; he might have been a 
 Jesuit, and would have made a hit as a private 
 detective. We called him " Honest John " when 
 we got to know him better, but as he stood at the 
 armoury door, and filled the ranks of his company 
 with all the best men; his brother officers referred 
 to him as the " Pirate " and the " Thief." 
 
 Corporal McQueen, poet, philosopher, and 
 thinker, six feet three of measured humour, aided 
 and abetted him in his nefarious practices. Cor- 
 poral McQueen ought to have been rejected on 
 about twenty-seven different medical grounds, 
 including old age and club-feet, but Honest John 
 said — No ! 
 
 Everyone was busy. The smartest men were 
 snapped up the moment they set foot in the hall. 
 The best seemed to go into the machine-gun team, 
 already known as the suicide club. The pioneer
 
 10 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 sergeant was on the look out for carpenters; the 
 sergeant cook for French chefs. 
 
 Enter a stetson hat, a sunburnt face, two grey 
 eyes, a red knotted handkerchief, and a bunch of 
 muscle. The apparition salutes with the snap of 
 a steel trap and stands smartly to attention, 
 answering to the name of Edwin Fearless. 
 
 " Where do you come from ?" inquires the 
 dehghted Captain Grosvenor, joy shining in his 
 eyes. 
 
 " Mexico, sir. Been running a bit of gaspipe 
 for Villa. He called it a machine-gun." 
 
 " Any previous experience ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir: Cambridge Bugshooters, French 
 Foreign Legion, and Natal Carbineers." 
 
 " All right; you'll report to the machine-gun 
 squad." 
 
 Exit the hat. 
 
 Enter a six foot two of ancient edifice, gone at 
 the knees, spavined and stringhalt in both hind- 
 legs. 
 
 " Where do you come from ?" 
 
 " Ladies' bathing beach. Point Jackson." 
 
 " The devil ! What do you do there ?" 
 
 " Save lives." 
 
 " Sure you don't mean souls ? All right; report 
 to the medical detail." 
 
 Any old thing does for the poultice wallopers. 
 They and the sanitary squad are the despised and
 
 NEWS OF BATTLE 11 
 
 rejected of men. Never mind, the time will come 
 when the destructive combatant forces will look 
 to the constructive ability of the medical unit, 
 and thank the gods that there are men there with 
 knowledge and determination, sufficient to pick up 
 the pieces and snatch bodies from the firing -hue. 
 
 We now walk about openly in uniform. This 
 is a great improvement. Only a few months ago 
 we had slunk down under cover of the night, to 
 help in quelling the coal strike. Butchers we were 
 called, and the small boys — ay, and some of the 
 larger ones, too — shouting after us in the street, 
 named us hired assassins. But that was months 
 ago; and some of these same miners are the first 
 to enlist. 
 
 Lieutenant Puddiphat, hovering in the shadow 
 of the gateway, suddenly observes an acquaintance, 
 — a recalcitrant street-car conductor and a noted 
 stump-orator with sociaHstic tendencies. 
 
 " Hullo, Rakes, you here ?" 
 
 " Yes; why not ?" 
 
 " Oh, I thought you weren't in favour of this 
 sort of thing. This is going to be war, and I 
 thought war wasn't a plank in your platform." 
 
 " Not a war in the ordinary way; this is different. 
 I'm just as keen as you are to get after Kaiser 
 Bill." 
 
 The days passed with hard work, and every night 
 the tired officers returned home, meant we were
 
 12 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 nearer the end. Gradually, as the days wore on, 
 order arose out of disorder. The hour of departure 
 was now drawing near. Outside on the square, 
 of&cers were drilHng their companies. The sig- 
 nallers, climbing to the summit of the Universe 
 Building, exchanged views with their confreres on 
 the parade ground below. The machine-guns 
 coughed and spat at cavalry, infantry, and other 
 units, always advancing in mass formation at a 
 diverse number of yards' distance. The medical 
 detail marched and counter-marched, and tied up 
 devastating wounds and set fractures in front of 
 an admiring audience of small boys, hobos, and 
 Chinks.* 
 
 At nights there were the marches through the 
 city by Grant Street and down to Indian Bay, 
 and the return to the drill-hall with the band 
 playing the old regimental tune, 
 
 " The ninetietli is going away, 
 And what will all the ladies say ?" 
 
 and so on with blaring trombones, and all sorts 
 of complications threatening in the near future. 
 
 There were more things to be thought of than 
 going to Germany, for in those days we never 
 imagined that we were going anywhere else. 
 Troops had to be sent to different places along 
 the coast, and garrisons provided for various 
 
 * Canadian for " Chinaman."
 
 NEWS OF BATTLE 13 
 
 strategic points. Behold Captain John Wallace, 
 Lieutenant Bob Beaufort, and the Doctor, depart- 
 ing in the sma' hours of the morning, on board of 
 various barges, with mysterious consignments of 
 cargoes, for " somewhere " up the coast. The idea of 
 war, the sealed nature of the orders, did not in any 
 way aSect the spirits of the three officers and sixty 
 other ranks. A delightful day for a cruise, and 
 the knowledge that this for many days might be 
 their last look on the waters of the Sound. Other 
 troops went up north to places on the coast, and 
 detachments left for the interior to guard the rail- 
 way line. 
 
 The Jocks stole a march on us, and received 
 their orders to leave for the East before us, so we 
 went down to bid them hon voyage. Very fit 
 they looked as they marched to the station, through 
 a crowd such as the city had never seen before. 
 We were all jealous that they should go first, but 
 we knew, by that time, that we were to follow in 
 two days, so it was merely au revoir. All through 
 the Empire these same scenes were being enacted, 
 troops marching to tuck of drum, men cheering, 
 women crying, and all with eyes turned on the 
 common objective, Berlin. 
 
 Then our turn came. From the armoury down 
 Grant Street to the Depot the old regiment marched. 
 Major O'Shea was in command of the overseas 
 contingent, an old campaigner and the most gallant
 
 14 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 of officers. The Colonel rode beside him, doing his 
 best to smile, but all too sad not to be going with 
 us. For surely those who were left behind had 
 the harder part. To us who were going away, 
 there was promise of new scenes and new excite- 
 ments, perhaps for some of us honour and glory; 
 but for those we were leaving — what ? With the 
 band playing " The Girl I left Behind Me," we 
 entrained. 
 
 And so Eastward. We had our last look for 
 many days on the waters and the mountains of 
 the West. 
 
 Outside on the platform the band played and 
 handkerchiefs fluttered. We bade our last good- 
 byes, the train began to move ; we were off. East- 
 ward through the snows, the pine forests, and 
 passes of the mountains. Eastward across the 
 rolling miles of golden prairie, and along the north 
 shore of mighty Lake Superior. Our faces set to 
 the rising sun, with " Berlin or bust !" as our 
 motto, freighted with a little bad, but much good, 
 we passed on our way. 
 
 Major O'Shea was in command of the train, and 
 in addition to the old regiment were drafts for the 
 Engineers and Army Service Corps. We now 
 began to see what manner of man our O.C. was. 
 Everything was in order ; daily the whole train was 
 inspected, and the men were instructed from the 
 start in arranging their kits and keeping their
 
 NEWS OF BATTLE 15 
 
 quarters clean. Once a day the troop train halted 
 at some town by the way, and for an hour we 
 route-marched. 
 
 Never were such well-behaved troops. Trouble ? 
 — there was none. 
 
 " What sort of imitation saints are these we've 
 got on board the train V demanded the Adjutant, 
 in a speculative mood, at one of the stops by the 
 wayside in the mountains. " No drunks, nothing ! 
 Never saw such queer soldiers." 
 
 " They're not in it with the old Clyde Militia. 
 Why, we used to have to turn the fire-hose on to 
 them, to sober them up !" said Mackintosh, our 
 redoubtable Quartermaster. 
 
 Our wonderful record was broken, however, 
 when we arrived at Cariboo Cut. I regret that 
 there was one who strayed from the path of total 
 abstinence. He was undoubtedly Scotch — at least, 
 judging by his accent and the smell of his breath. 
 He had got beyond the hiccoughing stage; so, as 
 the train gradually pulled out, he was quietly 
 dropped off the back step of the last car. That 
 was enough ; no better punishment could have been 
 devised. Pack-drill, fining, anything would have 
 passed unnoticed, but nobody wanted to be left 
 behind. " Berlin or bust !" 
 
 Corporal McQueen, who, for all his twenty-seven 
 bodily deficiencies, had succeeded in convincing 
 everybody as to his indispensability to the success
 
 16 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 of the transcontinental trip, was very much to 
 the fore. At every stopping-place he was the first 
 on the platform, and could be seen gravely march- 
 ing up and down, with some small child, preferably 
 a girl, in his arms. His small charge he fed with 
 candies, while he flattered the mothers in a manner 
 entirely his own, and had a ready answer for any 
 flippant remark from the bystanders. 
 
 At every station, when the train halted, the 
 citizens came to cheer us on our way. The girls 
 gave us fruit and candies, aiid here we were be- 
 sieged with gossip. Ten thousand Australians 
 were coming across the continent immediately 
 behind us. The Indian army was also going to 
 Europe that way. We heard of great British 
 victories, the Germans hurled back on their own 
 frontiers, the French in close pursuit. 
 
 We now began to talk of the Germans under 
 new names; we called him the gentle Hun, and 
 referred to him familiarly as our friend the Bosche. 
 In fact, we were rapidly acquiring the air of war- 
 worn veterans. 
 
 In the cars it was very much as any other trans- 
 continental journey. We fed very frequently and 
 very well; we played poker when time permitted; 
 but for the most part we were busy getting to 
 know our men and brother officers. 
 
 After some pleasant easy days we were decanted 
 out on a railroad siding, at the mercy of a French 
 Canadian officer in rubber boots. We were told
 
 NEWS OF THE BATTLE 17 
 
 that we had arrived at Valcartier. We got an 
 impression of fir-trees and heather, and a grey 
 dawn struggUng through a cHnging mist. We fell 
 out of the train and fell into rank, in a state of 
 sodden depression, and here we waited for news 
 and orders.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 FROM WEST TO EAST 
 
 In the early morning we entered the city of tents, 
 for surely it was right to call it a city ? Even in 
 Canada, the country of mushroom growths, this 
 must have constituted a record, for in less 
 than two weeks the ground had been cleared and 
 the timber felled to make room for a camp of 
 nearly 50,000 men. It was at once manifest that 
 someone with an imagination had been at work. 
 Rows and rows of tents stretched on all sides, and 
 disappeared finally into the distance, horse-lines 
 hung on the flanks, and marquees were every- 
 where. As we marched down over the hill the sun 
 behind us was just rising, driving the mist before 
 it, and shining on the white-peaked tents. Bugles 
 were sounding reveilU ; in the Highlanders' Unes 
 the pipes were playing, and the whole camp was 
 beginning to hum into activity and life. The 
 Union Flag near a large house on a bluf! showed 
 where headquarters were. 
 
 Private Macmickle was so overcome by the 
 spectacle that he promptly threw a fit, and the 
 Doctor, as the cry of " Stretcher-bearers !" went 
 
 18
 
 FROM WEST TO EAST 19 
 
 up, could be heard muttering all manner of pro- 
 fanities at the wretched wight, who had dared to 
 come up for medical examination although possess- 
 ing such abnormal tendencies. 
 
 Thus we entered on the next phase. This was 
 a time of doubt and uncertainty — doubt because 
 the war might be over before we arrived in Europe, 
 and uncertainty because we might not be the ones 
 selected to go. During these days the transport 
 officer. Lieutenant Cousins, who shared a tent with 
 the Quartermaster, could be heard lamenting every 
 German failure and bemoaning any British success, 
 so frightened was he that he would arrive too late ! 
 
 We found that it was intended to send a division 
 to Europe. Many of us were not exactly certain 
 what a division really meant, and at least were 
 by no means familiar with all the intricacies of 
 ammunition columns, divisional trains, first-line 
 transport, and army veterinary corps. Some of 
 us had not even heard that such things existed. 
 
 As a division was leaving it was only natural 
 that a Western Brigade would be formed, and 
 with the conception came the consummation. The 
 regiments composing this brigade were named after 
 the four western provinces. We in our unit were 
 now busy trying to forget whether we were 
 " Rifles " or " Irish " or " Rangers " or " Fusi- 
 liers " ! The last unit to join us came from the 
 mountains. They marched into camp in pith- 
 helmets, and looking as if they had marched across
 
 20 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEES FIELDS 
 
 the Sahara Desert. Talk about Enghsh ! they 
 might have been enlisted in Oxfordshire. The 
 Quartermaster and the Doctor, our two Scotsmen, 
 had one look at them and went over to discuss the 
 question with the Jocks. It was almost more 
 than they could bear. Ex-imperial officers swarmed 
 in their ranks, D.S.O.'s were rife among them, and 
 they wore medals from many previous campaigns. 
 
 Gradually we began to settle down as a battalion. 
 The English are always hard to assimilate, as they 
 have a tendency to cling to everything except the 
 present, and to praise up everything except their 
 immediate surroundings ! Nobody paid much 
 attention to the grumbling however, and certainly 
 nobody troubled. Colonel O'Shea was in command 
 of the battalion, and we were no mean part of a 
 unit which later was to make history in its own 
 little way — the Western Brigade. The Brigadier 
 came from the West, and gradually we began to 
 lean on him as on the anchor-man in a tug-of-war 
 team; and as we slowly took the strain, we felt 
 we had him behind us, always ready, always 
 willing, to help us in every way to support the 
 heat and burden of the day. 
 
 In the Pompadours we were a mixed community. 
 The Colonel and the Major were Canadian veterans 
 from Paardeberg. Few of our senior officers but 
 had seen service in some distant clime and country. 
 The medals we carried embraced everything from 
 the Louis Reil Eebellion to the last Boxer rising.
 
 FROM WEST TO EAST 21 
 
 And it was not only in war that the officers had 
 gleaned their experience, for most of them had also 
 in the sterner times of peace followed many trades 
 throughout the world. Few were the occupations 
 they had not adorned by their presence, from 
 selling life assurances to washing gold in the beds 
 of our northern rivers ! Some had tended bar, or 
 cooked on the C.P.R.; others came from the 
 Mounted Police or from fruit farms on the lakes. 
 
 With the men it was in no wise different. Our 
 greatest scamp had a University degree, the face 
 of an Adonis, and parted his curling locks in the 
 centre. The leading exponent of the ancient game 
 of crown and anchor had the refined appearance 
 and austere demeanour of Procurator in the Holy 
 Synod. Our strongest man was a one-eyed Russian, 
 the most cheerful a Greek. The Padre's batman 
 was a professional boxer, the post-corporal an 
 actor. In minor items of equipment, such as 
 fingers, toes, and ears, we were at times extra- 
 ordinarily deficient ; our best shot was the sergeant 
 cook, and our premier bayonet-fighter in private 
 life was a bird fancier. Any slight omissions in 
 appendages and extremities from frost-bite or 
 careless use of an axe did not in the least detract 
 from our efficiency as a whole. I have heard us 
 accused of being rough, so much so that when we 
 first went to Belgium evil-minded people said, 
 " What has the poor stricken country done to 
 deserve this ?" In any case we were certainly
 
 22 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 tough, and after all we were the first, and therefore 
 the more wilUng. 
 
 First thing the Canadians had to learn was to 
 shoot, and in the clear mountain air it was easy. 
 In a few days a gigantic mammoth of a digger had 
 scooped a trench several miles in extent, and with 
 this to protect the markers while observing the 
 targets, the largest rifle-range in the world had 
 sprung into existence. I say this without fear of 
 contradiction. I was once told how many more 
 targets there were there than at Bisley, but I 
 forget now. Somebody had been at work, some- 
 one with a big mind and the faculty of getting 
 things done. Here whole regiments could shoot 
 at one time, and all day the crack of rifles could 
 be heard as we learnt to use our weapons. 
 
 There were field-days over beyond the river, 
 where we, now called the Pacific Pompadours, held 
 a position against the rest of the Western Brigade, 
 and fell back fighting to the last, with the expendi- 
 ture of much blank ammunition and almost one 
 casualty ! 
 
 It was the Padre — brave and gallant warrior ! 
 He had heard that in falling back the regiment 
 had left one of its number, suffering from a sprained 
 ankle or some such malady, in the hands of the 
 enemy. Mistrusting the attitude of the prairie 
 farmers (who were attacking us) towards the 
 Geneva Convention, the reverend gentleman deter- 
 mined on a rescue, or at least on rendering first
 
 FROM WEST TO EAST 23 
 
 aid. Leaping lightly on his horse — the Padre has 
 left his first youth behind him, but his soul is still 
 young and he only turns the scale at two hundred 
 — he galloped in pursuit, quite forgetting that the 
 emblem of the defending force, a white band of 
 a blameless clerical existence, was tied around his 
 hat. The enemy naturally took him for a cavalry 
 charge, a clerical counter-attack, and as he rode 
 ventre d terre a withering fire was poured into him 
 from the hedge lining the road. He lost his hat, 
 he probably lost his stirrups, and certainly his 
 horse bolted, but he kept his head and won through 
 in the best spirit of the Church. Whether he 
 found his man or not, I do not know, but he was 
 busy, picking rifle-wads out of his ears and hair, 
 for days afterwards. 
 
 The doctors had a great surprise in store for us. 
 We were to be inoculated ! We were all of us 
 prepared for this, more or less. (This advisedly.) 
 Our medicine-man had been gently sewing the 
 seed among us for some time, assuring us it was 
 nothing, and that the health of the army depended 
 on it. There was, however, a cold calculating 
 glint in his eye that belied the honeyed sweetness 
 of his words. I must say the doctors had it down 
 to a pretty fine point. We were led like sheep 
 to the slaughter in droves. Special batches of 
 ruthless medical men stood over us, and with arms 
 bared and iodined, the cold steel was shoved into 
 us. It was remarkable to notice how nervous
 
 24 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 everyone was; men who afterwards faced every 
 form of death from rifle bullet or shell quailed 
 before this simple inoculation. Thus was the 
 mystic rite performed, our own doctor standing 
 by and gloating over our sufferings, and acting as 
 a type of unbribable policeman to see that none 
 escaped. Of course, we were very ill, some of us 
 for quite six hours. Some of us had violent head- 
 aches, found afterwards, however, to be due to the 
 spirits we had poured down to buck our spirits up. 
 
 Captain Smith was really quite ill. For two 
 days he lay and tossed on the bed of sickness, 
 groaning in agony; then, summoning up courage, 
 he staggered to the mess. His gaunt frame and 
 sunken cheeks were witness of the sufferings he 
 had endured, while he described to a gaping crowd 
 of Hsteners his harrowing experiences. 
 
 *' Kemarkable thing, how ill it makes you, 
 painting a little yellow stufi on your arm with a 
 brush," he concluded unctuously. 
 
 " But didn't they shove a needle into your 
 arm ?" questioned Lieutenant Bridges. 
 
 " Needle ? No, certainly not. What would 
 theydo that for?" 
 
 '' To give you the juice, of course. The dope's 
 in a syringe like a six-inch hypodermic, and when 
 they get your range they squirt it into your arm 
 through a hollow needle." 
 
 " But, I assure you they did me differently:
 
 FEOM WEST TO EAST 25 
 
 they painted some brown stuff on to my skin, 
 and then I was very sick," repeated the gallant 
 warrior. 
 
 " Why, that's only iodine !" yelped Lieutenant 
 Bridges, as the mess-tent rocked to the shouts of 
 our merriment. 
 
 " Then I've not been inoculated at all ! Waiter, 
 whisky-and-soda ! Damn ! the camp's dry." 
 
 " Yes, that's what gives inoculation a bad 
 name," muttered the Doctor as he left the tent in 
 disgust. 
 
 Yes, the camp was dry — dry as the Sahara. The 
 decree had gone forth that no hard drinks were to 
 be bought, sold, or imbibed, within the camp 
 limits. Had we been going to wage war in Canada, 
 this might have been an excellent restriction. As 
 it was, we had no crime, but we were going to 
 Europe, the birthplace of Scotch whisky, English 
 ale, French wines, and Belgian beer, and everyone 
 was gradually saving up a glorious thirst. 
 
 We were gradually shaking down to military 
 disciphne, but the spirit of the West, with all 
 its freedom and democracy, was still in our 
 blood. 
 
 Private Ballsome, for instance, strolling into the 
 orderly room requesting to see his commanding 
 oflicer, gazed reprovingly at the Sergeant-Ma j or 
 when sternly commanded to come to attention, and 
 extended a patronizing hand to Colonel O'Shea.
 
 26 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 " Good-morning, Colonel. I wonder where it 
 was we met before. Let me see, was it at the 
 Cowboys' Club or at the Liberals' picnic last year 
 at Skolitchan ?" 
 
 Fortunately, through the Colonel's composition 
 there ran a vein of humour, but the Sergeant- 
 Major had to leave the tent for fear of exploding. 
 
 Private Ballsome was really hard to please. 
 Captain Wales, sitting outside his tent enjoying a 
 few moments' respite from bringing up his flock 
 in the way it should go, suddenly became aware of 
 his portly presence. 
 
 " What am I to do with this ?" queried the 
 mystified Ballsome, as he produced a web equip- 
 ment for inspection. 
 
 '' Wear it, of course," answered his O.C. com- 
 pany. 
 
 " But I can't, sir; it hurts me !" wailed the 
 plethoric private. 
 
 Then there was Captain Bourdass. The only 
 trouble about him was that they couldn't get a 
 horse quite big enough for him. Finally the enter- 
 prising transport officer resurrected a Clydesdale 
 elephant capable of supporting the Tower of Babel. 
 Beside this a soap-box was placed and the Captain 
 invited to ascend. But the soap-box collapsed 
 like a ladies' band -box, and, as there was no 
 hydraulic lift obtainable, the venture had to be 
 given up.
 
 FROM WEST TO EAST 27 
 
 Then there were reviews, which occurred with 
 elaborate frequency, when we marched past with 
 serried ranks and endeavoured, with praiseworthy 
 enthusiasm, to keep in line and look to the right. 
 We had sudden calls to gigantic meetings, when 
 we were exhorted to take our hands out of our 
 pockets ! This became a sort of watchword, and 
 so preyed on the mind of one Colonel that he 
 walked about for several days with two sticks, in 
 order that his hands could be kept occupied, and 
 everyone thought that he had a sprained ankle at 
 the very least. 
 
 And every now and then we were visited by the 
 Duke,* and everyone felt the better for his coming. 
 A real soldier, he appreciated our difficulties and 
 was quick to notice the success of our efforts. 
 Always qaiet, courteous, and thoroughly human, 
 his influence was felt from one end of our camp to 
 the other. 
 
 There were pleasant times at the big camp. 
 Days when we marched through the forests of 
 maple and fir, or which we spent on the rifle-range. 
 Nights when we sat round the camp-fire and sang 
 our battalion songs. Would I could repeat them 
 now ! But all the time there was the doubt and 
 uncertainty, the lingering thought that some might 
 be taken and others left. We lay on our beds of 
 fir branches, speculating on our chances ; the super- 
 
 * H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught.
 
 28 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 numerary officers wandered about morosely and 
 furtively; and everyone longed for the day to come 
 when for the time being we would see the last of 
 Canada. 
 
 Then the news came we were to go as a division. 
 The four brigades were to be shipped to Europe 
 with all the supernumerary officers, and everyone 
 sighed with relief. The transport was to march 
 before us, and we were to see them no more. Ours 
 would be under the hungry eye of the senior 
 horse-thief, the transport officer. He had with 
 some difficulty obtained the services of a transport 
 sergeant, a robber second in degree only to him- 
 self. This worthy had been asked, when he 
 applied for the post, if he knew anything about 
 horses ? 
 
 '' No; but I guess I can manage them. I once 
 drove a steam shovel." 
 
 He was duly installed in his new position, when 
 for several days he wandered round armed with an 
 oil-can and a spanner ! Finally the one was kicked 
 into the river by a recalcitrant mule, and the 
 other lost. 
 
 We embarked on board the Columbian, and the 
 next day proceeded out of dock and anchored 
 upstream. Here we gazed on the famous battle- 
 ground, the historic plains of Abraham, where our 
 present allies had formerly been our enemies. 
 
 Now we had time to survey our quarters. Never
 
 FROM WEST TO EAST 29 
 
 had troops been so luxuriously treated. Warrant 
 officers and practically all the sergeants had state- 
 rooms. 
 
 " I want my morning tea at seven, and please 
 put a hot- water bottle in my bed, James," re- 
 marked one grizzled sergeant, addressing the state- 
 room steward. 
 
 " What price trooping it through the Red Sea !" 
 remarked Sergeant Johnstone. " We didn't have 
 fancy bed-quilts and clean sheets !" 
 
 " Some war !" was the unanimous comment. 
 
 We floated down the broad bosom of the mighty 
 river to Gospel Bay. Here were collected most of 
 the convoy, for we were a late arrival. Now we 
 commenced to be of good cheer, for we began to 
 feel that we would not be sent back; we were 
 really to get away. Thirty-one transports were 
 assembled, laden with Canada's first contribution 
 to the great European struggle. 
 
 In three long lines the convoy sailed across the 
 Atlantic. Cruisers guarded us on either side, and 
 kept a watchful eye in case of attack. But nobody 
 troubled themselves much, for we all knew that the 
 Navy was running the show, and that it would be 
 all right. 
 
 We were busy. Physical jerks in the morning 
 accelerated the liver and loosened one's joints. 
 There were parades and lectures, boat-drill and 
 inspections. Every man had a bunk ; and the food
 
 30 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 was excellent. The ban of the tented city was 
 Hfted. We had been a dry camp, but fortunately 
 we were not a dry ship. We engaged in exciting 
 contests on deck at shovel-board. It didn't 
 matter who won, as both sides stood drinks. We 
 watched the other ships in their long Hues. We 
 played at Kriegsfiel in the evenings, and in the 
 afternoon, the hour before dinner-time, we had 
 lectures. Lieutenant Pillows on machine-guns — 
 every one a world-beater. The portly Major Hill 
 on scouting — one wondered how he would crawl 
 through the grass himself in the way he so graphic- 
 ally described. Sundry medicine-men from the 
 hospital, who shared the ship with us, on sanita- 
 tion and sickness. Well, it was a pleasant hour 
 of slumber, and if the lecturers did at times wake 
 us up, you could hardly blame them 1 
 
 For the rest the Adjutant and company officers 
 spent hours a day trying to draft a nominal roll. 
 The Adjutant was a worried and harassed man, 
 and the roll was said to be purely nominal. The 
 Doctor, in a den smelling evilly of carboHc and 
 castor-oil, was visited by a monumental sick 
 parade, anxious to escape from physical jerks. 
 Fresh air and exercise on the top of half a pint of 
 jalap appeared to be the universal prescription. 
 Private Mavis, leaving the austere, unsympathetic 
 presence, with an overload of castor-oil on board 
 and a stern reminder not to come back again 
 playing the old soldier, remarked to some of his
 
 FEOM WEST TO EAST 31 
 
 pals: "I know him; he's a horse doctor, not 
 a hospital doctor. A blooming vet ! He runs 
 a hvery barn at home." 
 
 On the whole, as with every voyage, we ate too 
 much and slept too fully, and we were not sorry 
 when we sighted the Millchase Light and knew 
 we would shortly cast anchor in Westport.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE OLD COUNTRY 
 
 We left Westport late at night, and after an 
 uneventful train journey, arrived in the early 
 morning at Barlington. From here the way led 
 upwards by easy steps to the high ground, through 
 villages with thatched roofs and white waJls. The 
 larks were singing and the sun shining, as we 
 finished our march and arrived at what was to be 
 our home, and the scene of our trials and labours 
 for many a month. 
 
 Moorland West ! To most of us the name is 
 synonymous with mud and rain, with night- 
 marching and trench- digging; but when first we 
 saw it on that October morning the prospect was 
 very pleasing. The low rolling down, and the 
 patches of wood, some fir and some hard, was not 
 unlike our own prairie. Most of us had not 
 expected to see in all England such a stretch of 
 open country. We camped on a slope. At the 
 bottom, in a small fix-wood, was our transport. 
 They had arrived at the same time as we did, after 
 crossing the Atlantic in another boat. The trans- 
 port officer, smelling of compressed fodder and 
 
 32
 
 THE OLD COUNTKY 33 
 
 dubbin, was rushing around as fretful as a ferret. 
 The horses had stood the sea voyage wonderfully, 
 very much better than some of the men, but then 
 they did not have leave in Westport like the 
 humans ! 
 
 Our messing was in the hands of different con- 
 tractors. The one, at whose hands we suffered, 
 probably thought we were a species of herbivorous 
 animal that fed mainly on Brussels-sprouts. We 
 received that harmless but unexciting vegetable, 
 day in day out, until we began to feel that we were 
 about to turn into some form of green cabbage 
 ourselves. I shall never forget this species of 
 frightfulness, and can only hope that the contractor 
 spends the rest of eternity eating Brussels-sprouts. 
 He gave us altogether a wrong impression of 
 England. We got to believe that the English 
 were inseparable from sprouts, that they were a 
 national custom, and we were quite surprised 
 when, later on, we went to other parts of the 
 country to find that there are quite a variety 
 of edible vegetables which the inhabitants are in 
 the habit of eating. 
 
 After the Brussels-sprouts, the next article of 
 consumption that attracted our notice was un- 
 doubtedly the beer. We had our regimental 
 canteens, and they were a great success. In the 
 mud and misery that we were to suffer in the days 
 following, the canteens played a loyal part, and 
 were responsible for very little crime. In any 
 
 3
 
 34 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 case the beer was good, and when, for the first 
 time, we buried our noses in the dark brown foaming 
 depths of a yard-long tankard, we felt that the 
 British nation was worth fighting for, if it was 
 founded on such good material. 
 
 While on the subject of crime and matters of 
 discipline generally, there was a certain miscon- 
 ception in the minds of many folk in the Old 
 Country concerning the first Canadian division. 
 A well-known paper printed what was considered 
 an excellent joke, and one which amused us greatly 
 and probably did a lot of good. I refer to the 
 sentry incident: 
 
 Sentry. " Halt ! Who goes there ?" 
 Answer. " First Grenadiers." 
 Sentry. " Pass, first Grenadiers; all's well." 
 Sentry. " Halt ! Who goes there ?" 
 Answer. " What the Hell is that to you ?" 
 Sentry. " Pass, Canadians; all's well." 
 Without entering into controversy on matters 
 which I am, above all things, anxious to avoid, I 
 humbly submit that this was no doubt a truthful 
 description of an incident which possibly occurred 
 once; but I do not think these incidents were 
 frequent. 
 
 There was another matter. On leave one was 
 perpetually having it said, what a fine body of 
 men the Canadians were, but what a pity it was 
 that they had such poor discipline. I think that 
 the very people who said this frequently had very
 
 THE OLD COUNTRY 35 
 
 little understanding of the persons they were 
 criticizing. In the ranks of the first division were 
 many men who not only had plenty of money at 
 their command, but who had never in their lives 
 been subjected to any form of discipHne or re- 
 straint. The Canadian on leave, whether he was 
 a full-private or a General, patronized the finest 
 hotels and dined at the best restaurants. To our 
 rank and file, it was incomprehensible that because 
 he might be dressed as a private he should be ex- 
 cluded from various pleasures which he was in 
 the habit of enjoying at home. In consequence of 
 this our other ranks were much more in evidence 
 than those of other units, and accordingly came 
 in more for criticism. This choice of environment 
 was perhaps not to be wondered at, when one 
 considers that over a hundred commissions in 
 Kitchener's Army were given to men in one regi- 
 ment alone, within a few weeks of landing in 
 England. Furthermore, we perhaps suffered from 
 the reaction after the total abstinence of our camp 
 in Canada. Again this is a matter that lies beyond 
 the scope of my endeavours, and is therefore to 
 be avoided. 
 
 The good people of England were also to a certain 
 extent responsible. Their hospitality, which is 
 proverbial, was in our case so lavish that it, in 
 itself, was at times the cause of some of our lapses. 
 On looking through the records of the first division, 
 one must be struck by one fact, and that is, the
 
 36 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 absence of all serious crime. Drunks there were, 
 and glorious ones at that, but drunks there will 
 always be as long as men are men and not tame 
 guinea-pigs. " Overstaying pass " and " absence " 
 also occurred with frequency, but this was due to 
 the fleshpots of London. Insubordination and 
 other more serious crimes were practically un- 
 known. 
 
 We were faced with another difficulty. The 
 plain near our camp was dotted with small woods. 
 Coming as we did from a country, where the forests 
 are so vast that years of lumbering have scarcely 
 nibbled the outside margin, it was difficult to make 
 the men understand how sacred a thing a tree is 
 in England. The whole tactical situation of 
 Salisbury Plain was in danger of being destroyed, 
 and woods which had served the purpose of con- 
 cealing attacking forces in many an historic sham- 
 fight were on the point of complete disappearance. 
 The Pompadours naturally supposed that when 
 the firewood ration was short, the best thing was 
 to go out and cut down the nearest stick of timber, 
 by way of making up for the deficiency, for which 
 they were in no way to blame. 
 
 As on the boat, we commenced the day with 
 physical jerks. This brought us in contact with 
 the dawn. Since the campaign commenced, we 
 have become rather specialists in dawns. Now I 
 can see beauty in a sunset, and have often watched 
 the sun sinking in the west and the gradual changing
 
 THE OLD COUNTRY 37 
 
 play of colours, the crimson and the gold. But 
 I never could see anything attractive in the dawn. 
 Yet during these last few months I have seen the 
 sun rise on all sorts of occasions, and in all sorts 
 of weathers, and always with a sinking at my 
 heart, a breakfastless feeling in my interior, and 
 the knowledge that I would be better in my bed. 
 The man who once described the early morning 
 as the best part of the day was either in his cups 
 and on his way to bed, or ought to be certified as 
 a lunatic. I have no sympathy with him. 
 
 The most unhappy man on these occasions was, 
 undoubtedly, the Doctor, for half an hour before 
 the physical jerks parade commenced, it was his 
 duty to leave the Quartermaster snoring placidly 
 in the tent, and braving the cold, the mud and 
 misery, minister to the sick, the halt and the lame. 
 These for the most part were those gentlemen who 
 failed to understand that there was any benefit, 
 moral or physical, to be gained by an early-morning 
 indulgence in violent exercise, and sought exemp- 
 tion therefrom by the simulation of disease. 
 
 The Doctor was frequently not at his best at 
 these early-morning seances. In fact, many of 
 his extensive clientMe no doubt found him a trifle 
 unapproachable and unsympathetic, but the morn- 
 ing parade did not suffer any diminution in numbers 
 on account of the laxity of his vigilance. 
 
 The Quartermaster and the Doctor, as behoved 
 two members of an alien race, shared a tent
 
 38 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 together. Across the road behind them lay a 
 battahon of Highlanders, and they would lie on 
 their beds of an afternoon and listen to the pipes, 
 and wonder how life could be possible in anything 
 but a regiment of Jocks. 
 
 " Come in. Doctor, and lace the flaps tight; let's 
 strafe these English," the Quartermaster would 
 shout through the canvas. " Listen to that 
 piping. I'll bet that piper comes from Argyll- 
 shire; I can tell that from his grace notes," as 
 " Scotland the Brave " floated in on the evening 
 breeze. 
 
 They were not the only aliens. There was a 
 proud and haughty Welshman who mispronounced 
 his nationality by terming himself a Kelt. 
 
 " You mean a Celt; you're not pretending you're 
 a salmon," remonstrated the Quartermaster. 
 
 " Yes, it's bad form to spell it with a K," re- 
 marked the paymaster. 
 
 This furious Welshman was a real Sir Galahad. 
 Thirsting with an eagerness to be out Hun-killing, 
 he left the Pompadours, like ho many others, to 
 seek for pastures new in Kitchener's Army, and 
 when the first Canadians had been for over a year 
 in Flanders he was still wasting his sweetness upon 
 the desert air of Salisbury ! We who were fond of 
 the Pompadours amused ourselves in our spare 
 time in writing him sweet-scented epistles from 
 Belgian farmhouses and French esta7mnets, asking 
 him how he did, and if he intended spending the
 
 THE OLD COUNTRY 39 
 
 rest of his life in England. " Daddy, what did 
 you do in the big war ?" 
 
 We were much troubled by consequential indi- 
 viduals who went on leave to London and returned 
 wrapt round with an atmosphere of importance 
 and mystery. They would draw us secretively to 
 one side, and with a grandiose air of solemnity, 
 impart to us certain items of invaluable worth, 
 which they guaranteed to come " straight from 
 the War Office, old chap." They would tell us 
 exactly when we were leaving for France, and 
 whether we were to go as a division, or in separate 
 brigades or battalions. It mattered not to them 
 that their information varied from day to day, 
 and that in every instance it proved to be in- 
 accurate. With praiseworthy enthusiasm they 
 kept us going with false rumours, until we sickened 
 of them and finally paid them no attention. 
 
 These were not the only rumours that we were 
 heartened up with. There were the Russians, 
 those visionary warriors who came from Archangel 
 and entrained at Aberdeen, where Strathithan 
 whisky comes from, and hit the trail for the south. 
 Of course this was no myth, for snow had been found 
 in the railway carriages, and where could snow 
 come from but from Russia ? This hallucination 
 was just about as vivid and ridiculous as the Angels 
 of Mons, and yet it found its believers. But we 
 were getting used to rumours; in fact, during our 
 military lifetime we had been brought up on
 
 40 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 rumour, and loving the lying jade, had lingered 
 in her presence. Japs, Hindoos, and Australians 
 had, in our heated imagination, chased one another 
 across the C.P.R. railroad tracks on their way to 
 Europe. We heard that somewhere in the wilds 
 of Salisbury Plains the great war was being run. 
 That in a deserted farmhouse, or deep-dug cellar, 
 the mighty chiefs who held the destinies of the 
 Allies in their sway had their permanent habita- 
 tion, and that there somewhere, almost in our 
 midst, the glorious schemes were perfected which 
 later were to culminate in the complete victory 
 of our arms. Verily we must have appeared to be 
 healthy infants to require so much sustenance and 
 entertainment. 
 
 At first we may have believed these fairy-tales; 
 perhaps they heartened us up, for I never yet 
 heard a rumour that was not pleasant. But later 
 we paid no attention to them, until finally the only 
 persons to trouble about them were the Padres 
 and the mechanical transport. 
 
 We had, however, other things to think of than 
 rumours. The weather, which had at first wel- 
 comed us with balmy breezes and soft sunshine, 
 now failed us, and with downpouring rain the scene 
 completely changed. The main street of our camp 
 became a running watercourse; the grass dis- 
 appeared as if by magic, giving place to a chocolate- 
 coloured coagulum which we learnt to know as 
 mud. It entered into our lives; we splashed
 
 THE OLD COUNTRY 41 
 
 around in it outside, we found it in our food; it 
 clung to the outsides of our glasses when we went 
 to have a drink; our bodies were plastered in it 
 and our minds polluted by it; it became part of 
 us, eating right into our souls. 
 
 Captain John Wallace, stuck in the mud with 
 the wet slime almost oozing over his gumboot- 
 tops, demanded of the landscape, as he struggled 
 vainly to release himself, " What's the good of 
 England, anyhow ? Why don't we hand it over 
 to the Germans ?" 
 
 The mud was not allowed to interfere with our 
 training; from early morning until sunset we were 
 kept busy. Things we thought we knew, and had 
 already practised to satiety in days past, had all 
 to be gone over again. Gradually the meta- 
 morphosis was setting in; we neglected to smoke 
 cigarettes on church parade. We learnt that in 
 saluting our officers we were not losing all sense 
 of self-respect. We even gave up chewing-gum 
 when standing at attention. 
 
 I well remember an imperial officer when one of 
 our sentries presented arms to him, at the same 
 time sedulously chewing a wad of gum. " Has 
 that man not finished his dinner yet ?" he de- 
 manded of the sergeant of the guard. 
 
 " Yes; he's just having a chew !" 
 
 " A chew ! Chewing what ? Tobacco ?" 
 
 " No, sir; gum." 
 
 "Gum!"
 
 42 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 As the winter got worse the sick parade grew in 
 proportion. Yet it hardly assumed the dimensions 
 of that of another unit camped near to us. There, 
 the indefatigable Medical Officer on one occasion 
 started in at 7 a.m. There were four hundred 
 and eighty on sick parade, and by five in the 
 afternoon he was still going strong. At that hour 
 he began sending out S.O.S. calls for medical 
 assistance, and appealed to our own unfeeling 
 quack, " You know, I don't think these men are 
 all really sick; I'm almost certain some of them 
 are pretending." 
 
 " Pretending nothing is an epidemic; you've 
 struck — a plague." 
 
 " Really, but how alarming ! Of what nature ?" 
 
 " Good-nature on your part and damned laziness 
 on theirs. I never permit the parade to be bigger 
 than thirty ; if there are any more, I go sick myself 
 — that settles them." 
 
 Undoubtedly our medicine-man had no heart. 
 
 Our own little Hippocrates I found one day 
 engaged in strafing the medical powers. He had 
 reported a man as suffering from rheumatism, and 
 had duly received a notice on A. F. B. X. Y. Z. 
 that no such disease was known to the medical 
 authorities. They were, however, wonderfully 
 pohte, and remitted him a Hst of diseases to choose 
 from. 
 
 " What the Hades am I to do ?" he murmured, 
 reading through the menu. " Anthrax, bubonic
 
 THE OLD COUNTRY 43 
 
 plague, smallpox, typhoid, heartburn — thank God 
 for heartburn ! Sergeant, enter up Private Griggs 
 as suffering from ' heartburn,' and write a humble 
 note to the mandarins apologizing for a wrong 
 diagnosis. Though, how the Hellespont heart- 
 burn could give him pains in the knees and ankles, 
 I'm hanged if I know !" 
 
 Then there was leave — our one respite from 
 mud and continuous parades and night-marches. 
 What we would have done without it, I don't know. 
 Lieutenant Glendover took to his Welsh hills; the 
 Doctor and the Quartermaster departed to places 
 with unpronounceable names in the far north; 
 Major Beverley made for the quiet domesticity of 
 his native village in Devon; but for most of us 
 there was one magnet, and one only — London. 
 
 London appeared very good to most of us, and 
 its goodness was not only in the outer aspect. 
 We put quite a lot of good Canadian money in 
 circulation in the confines of the West End. From 
 the Bank of Montreal to the Savoy Hotel everyone 
 that we had ever known in Canada was certain to 
 be met sometime or another. 
 
 Jeff McCree, late of Dawson City and presently 
 platoon commander, was hugging the Frivohty bar 
 as he ordered another round. His hat, to give 
 more room for his head, was perched far back 
 from his brow, when to him floated in an imperial 
 unit in the shape of a very immature infant in a 
 silk-hat, an eyeglass and a boiled shirt.
 
 44 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEES FIELDS 
 
 " Excuse me, sir, but at Oxford we wear our 
 hats so." The infant was in his cups, but even so 
 he would hardly, had he known Jeff's reputation 
 as one of the hardest hitters in the Klondyke, 
 have dared to alter the position of the hat. With 
 the air of a connoisseur he slid Jeff's hat forward 
 on his head. For my part, I stood aghast, and 
 my heart was sore for the infant. I expected Jeff 
 to make a meal of him at once, but instead he 
 responded with good grace, thanked him for his 
 tip, and inquired if the infant would have a drink. 
 
 " I don't mind if I do, some claret and lemonade, 
 please." 
 
 " Claret nothing !" retorted Jeft\ " You blow in 
 here, teach me how to wear my hat, and order half 
 a pint of Condy. I wear my hat as your Oxford 
 crowd do ; now you're in with this bunch, so it's up 
 to you to stay with it. A rum-and-brandy please, 
 miss, for this gentleman here with the glass eye." 
 
 The infant accepted the proposed drink. The 
 situation may have appealed to him, yet I hardly 
 think it likely. I imagine he began to have a 
 glimmering that in his short and sheltered life he 
 had never encountered quite these same people 
 before. They paid scant attention to him, how- 
 ever, and spoke of strange things he had never 
 heard of, in a language which at times he was not 
 quite familiar with. He guessed that, having 
 unwittingly stumbled into a camp of roughnecks, 
 he had bitten off more than he could chew: but
 
 THE OLD COUNTRY 45 
 
 being game, he tried to stay with the jackpot he 
 had landed himself into. 
 
 " Have another snort ?" said Lieutenant Madden 
 of the Pompadours, as the infant put down his 
 glass. He accepted, despite the fact that the first 
 had made his hair curl, and almost cough the roof 
 off his head. 
 
 The infant passed away peacefully a few minutes 
 later, and we laid him to rest on a sofa against the 
 wall. As we reverently closed his eyes and placed 
 his silk-hat and nosegay on his youthful chest, 
 Jefi remarked: " We don't mind learning from 
 these people over here, and I reckon there's a lot 
 they can teach us, but why don't they send us 
 better instructors ?" 
 
 " I guess he'll have some head when he returns to 
 mother in the morning," said Lieutenant Madden. 
 
 " Well, he died game, boys, let me tell; 
 He had his boots on when he fell; 
 So what the H , Bill ? What the H • ?" 
 
 After all a tent is not such a bad thing to live 
 in in winter, but we were not sorry when the time 
 came for us to move into huts. One day we shook 
 the mud of Moorland West off our feet and moved 
 across the plain to Sparrow Crest. Here we were 
 more comfortable, but the mud was not less omni- 
 present or sticky. We felt it was always a step 
 nearer France, and were correspondingly elated. 
 Here a new disappointment awaited us. Cerebro-
 
 46 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 spinal meningitis made its appearance in the camp. 
 First one and then another went down with it, but 
 the epidemic never assumed dangerous proportions ; 
 two or three in a battahon was the highest figure, 
 but we knew we were on the edge of a volcano, 
 and that this might delay our departure. 
 
 If they ever present the Pompadours with colours, 
 there are three things which ought to be recorded 
 thereon among the battle honours: mud, cerebro- 
 spinal, and a wreath of Brussels-sprouts. So far 
 these have been the greatest of our trials in the 
 present campaign 1 
 
 At Sparrow Crest we lived in huts. The officers 
 divided into right and left half battafions. The 
 right half, under Major Meldrum, made a great 
 parade of righteousness, especially in the mornings. 
 They sprang from their couches with extraordinary 
 verve and abandon, and generally had their break- 
 fasts finished while the left half was still rubbing 
 the sleep out of their eyes. Major Meldrum was 
 the restless, driving spirit that propelled them 
 from their blankets — he and the Padre, who was 
 always a perfect nuisance in the morning. They 
 must both have possessed uneasy consciences. 
 
 " Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." 
 Well, the Major wore his on his shoulders, and 
 the Padre, no doubt, was hoping to wear one 
 later on in the sweet by-and-by. It was martial 
 law with a vengeance; complaint and grumbhng 
 were ahke useless. Once the Major's hawk-like
 
 THE OLD COUNTRY 47 
 
 face appeared round the corner of the cubicle, it 
 was as well to yield to the inevitable. 
 
 Not so in the left half. Tiny Pillows, our 
 machine-gunner, who turned the scale at two 
 hundred and forty, was always the first up. He 
 would sit for half an hour on the side of his bed, 
 wondering whether he should get back between 
 the blankets and mumbling about " world-beaters." 
 Whether he was thinking of his guns or some new 
 white hopes, we never knew. Lieutenant Brom- 
 field and the T.O.* were always early astir, but 
 they were both so thin that their beds hurt their 
 bones. The rest of us lay peacefully snoring, until 
 an outburst of profanity betrayed the fact that 
 the Medical Officer was out and making a hasty 
 toilet prior to browbeating his malingerers at 
 morning sick parade. He generally pulled the 
 Adjutant out of bed before leaving, when a free 
 light would ensue across the bed of the Quarter- 
 master, who, like the dormouse in " Alice in 
 Wonderland," slept through it all. Then the 
 Medical Officer would retire to meet his babes, 
 attired in a pair of gumboots and a cavalry great- 
 coat. What he wore underneath we never quite 
 fathomed. I imagine it was not much, and 
 probably insufficient to bear the scrutiny of a kit 
 inspection. The Quartermaster was always the 
 last man up. He arrived so late that on one occa- 
 sion the Commanding Officer was feign to ask him 
 
 * Transport Ollicer.
 
 48 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 if he wasn't developing bedsores by being so long 
 in bed ? 
 
 At Sparrow Crest the training proceeded un- 
 interruptedly, except for cerebro-spinal fever. And 
 as hut after hut was quarantined our spirits sank, 
 and we saw before us months of isolation. But 
 fortunately the evil lifted, and finally there were 
 no new cases, and we breathed again. 
 
 We tilted with bayonets at imaginary Bosches 
 in the shape of sacks of straw. We had our various 
 musketry courses, and we marched with full equip- 
 ment ; we dug trenches at night, which were sighted 
 by the simple process of sending an officer forward 
 for two hundred yards with a flashlight. The gentle 
 irony of the situation we did not then appreciate, 
 but I have often wondered since how long that 
 officer would last during the real thing. 
 
 The left battahon had gone out in the afternoon 
 to dig themselves in in the dark, and at midnight 
 the right half were to attack. 
 
 There was still an hour of fight remaining, so the 
 officers of the left half, under the shelter of a spinny, 
 employed it to cook themselves a meal of flapjacks 
 and ham and eggs. Captain Wales conducted 
 operations. Lieutenant Allonby, his palate tickled 
 by the delicacy of the repast, became inquisitive. 
 
 " Where did you learn to cook, old thing ?" 
 
 " On the C.P.R., on a dining-car; there were 
 three of us, all ex-imperial officers. There was 
 Simons, who used to be in the 12th Hussars; he's
 
 THE OLD COUNTRY 49 
 
 now a Brigade Major in K.'s. And Bruce, who 
 went back to the Scottish Rangers." 
 
 "What; did you know Simons? Why, he and 
 I were time-keeping in a construction camp on 
 the Grand Trunk in 1910," said Madden. " He'd 
 a great way with the Austrians; wonderfully 
 persuasive with price of lead-piping." 
 
 " I knew Bruce, too; he used to be up at Kelowna. 
 Supposed to have a ranch, but he'd got the whole 
 thing mortgaged higher than a kite," remarked 
 Bridges. 
 
 " Yes, and when his uncle came out to look the 
 place over we stocked it for him. I lent him a 
 cow, and Lindsay sent over some hens. The old 
 man was quite pleased, and went away thinking 
 that Brucy had become a reformed character," 
 said Hume, with his mouth full of flapjacks. 
 
 " I don't know what we're going to do when this 
 cruel war is over. I'm going to go bust so high 
 the pieces will never come down. I suppose I'll 
 have to dig in a drain, or some such back-breaking 
 healthy form of sport," said John Wallace. 
 
 " What about West Point lots ?" 
 
 " All right in time, my boy; but just for the 
 present the public are a bit shy," answered the 
 honest one. 
 
 *' I'm afraid there won't be another coal-strike 
 to keep you going, Madden." 
 
 " Strike be hanged ! I'm going back as assistant 
 purser on the Vancouver Hong-Kong run." 
 
 4
 
 50 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 " Oh, that's a rotten run; it's as bad as the 
 North Atlantic. I'm for Sydney, New South 
 Wales. Mixed bathing at Manley Beach is good 
 enough for me," said Hume. 
 
 " Where's Monty ? Monty, you old stif! ! 
 Hume says Manley Beach is all right. What do 
 you know about it ?" 
 
 " Oh, pretty fair," assented Lieutenant Mont- 
 gomery. " He doesn't know any better. I re- 
 member once meeting a lady in George Street, 
 Sydney." 
 
 " Fall in, left half battalion !" shouted Major 
 Hill, adding quietly: " When Monty starts his 
 Australian reminiscences it's time for honest men 
 to get to business." 
 
 We dug ourselves in, through the chalk, and 
 manned our trenches as midnight approached. 
 
 The right half, commanded by Major Meldrum, 
 a bloodthirsty Irishman with a fine eye for country, 
 had left camp some hours behind us, and after 
 a night-march of some ten miles proceeded gradually 
 to develop an attack against us. 
 :^^ Captain Younger fell in with our first-line scouts, 
 who were some three hundred yards in advance of 
 the left half, and mistook their withering fire for 
 that of the main body. With undying heroism he 
 led a bayonet charge over a quarter of a mile of 
 broken ground, and fell nearly dying of exhaustion 
 when he rushed the trench. He was the first man 
 home, and although his time was over fifty-two
 
 THE OLD COUNTRY 51 
 
 seconds, we considered it a very fair achievement, 
 considering the badness of the country and the 
 weight of his pack. 
 
 " Are you entering for the quarter-mile at the 
 battahon sports ?" the Medical Officer inquired 
 gently as he revived him with medical comforts 
 in the support trench. As most of Younger's 
 company failed to arrive at all, we crossed them 
 of! as casualties, due to the accuracy of our rifle 
 fixe. Captain Cope executed an inspiring envelop- 
 ing movement, and succeeded in enveloping him- 
 self to such an extent that, after waiting for him 
 and his merry men for over an hour, we decided to 
 put them down as " officially reported missing, 
 believed to be lost." We found them two miles 
 along the road on the way home, trying to find 
 their way by the stars, an unprofitable occupation, 
 as the whole sky was obscured by clouds. Cope's 
 crowd, however, took it out of us on the road 
 home. They had done no digging, neither had 
 they charged across the open; so while we were 
 somewhat tired, they were still fresh. Further, 
 they marched at the head of the battalion. 
 
 It was a very disgusted crowd of officers who 
 assembled in the mess at 4 a.m. for nightcaps. 
 Even the left half, who felt that the merit they 
 had achieved in the early part of the evening 
 scarcely warranted being marched off their legs 
 by Captain Cope's warriors later on, were in a state 
 of digniiied dudgeon.
 
 52 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEES FIELDS 
 
 " What did you think you were doing, Cope — 
 running a Marathon ?" came the obvious question 
 from Captain Younger. 
 
 " I suppose you were in a hurry, in case you 
 got lost again," said Major Hill. 
 
 " No; I merely wanted to see if you dead-beats 
 knew how to march. You'll never be able to 
 afford to ride, so the sooner you learn the better." 
 
 And so to bed. 
 
 All the time was not taken up by training; we 
 had our lighter moments also. In the mess in the 
 evening Lieutenants Madden, Montgomery, and 
 Lindsay used to put on stunts for our entertain- 
 ment. We had Zeppelin raids, when the airship, 
 consisting of two chairs and a section of table, 
 floated round the anteroom. The intrepid aviators, 
 hovering on their giddy perch, dropped bombs, 
 consisting of empty beer-bottles, on the heads of 
 notabilities thousands of feet beneath them. Or 
 it was a shipwreck, when the sun-grilled mariners 
 navigated the vast unending waters of the mess- 
 room floor on an upturned table, searching for a 
 sail through a telescopic whisky-bottle, and 
 clamoured vainly for drinks. There the ancient 
 mariner shot the albatross which flapped down 
 from the top of the piano. We tied it to his neck, 
 and ate it finally at mess on the morrow under the 
 heading of pheasant ! 
 
 There were sordid dramas from real life, when 
 Uttle Alice, dressed in a table-cloth and her mother
 
 THE OLD COUNTRY 53 
 
 in curl-papers, waited for the drunken father 
 outside the gin-palace door. Then there was the 
 poisoning act, when the foully wronged heroine, 
 Lieutenant Lindsay, caught the villain, Lieutenant 
 Montgomery, in the act of inserting No. 9 pills in 
 her whisky-and-soda ; and rushing to the windows, 
 discovered the lights of her lover's (Lieutenant 
 Madden's) motor-car coming up the drive. The 
 car was a soap-box and the lights one candle. It 
 acted quite well, as the lamps in the anteroom 
 were all turned out to make this seem more realistic. 
 
 Then there were other nights when we went 
 over to the Jocks on the top of the hill, and 
 danced reels to the music of the pipes; or the 
 Saskatoons gave a dance, and we did the light 
 fantastic until an early hour in the morning, and 
 rolled on to parade without troubling our beds 
 at all. 
 
 Then we were reviewed. We had been reviewed 
 on so many occasions that we were really becoming 
 dizzy with the process. The Duke of Connaught 
 reviewed us in the early days of our career ; Earl 
 Roberts did the same by us at Moorland West; 
 the King had reviewed us once before, and was to 
 do so again. 
 
 The Division looked well, and undoubtedly did 
 well, as we marched past in front of His Majesty. 
 We were equipped down to the last detail, and 
 showed that despite the wind and weather wc had 
 profited by the weary months of waiting on the
 
 54 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEKS FIELDS 
 
 dreary plain. Horse, artillery, and foot marched 
 in front of His Majesty, rank on rank in khaki. 
 There are worse things than the war, and many 
 of us thought so that day as we passed by the 
 saluting base, the Royal Standard flying over- 
 head and the trim khaki figure taking the salute 
 from the moving thousands of the 1st Canadian 
 Division. 
 
 Our time in England was rapidly coming to a 
 close. Everything pointed to an early departure. 
 Lecturers came and spouted at us, telling us of 
 the trenches. Worthy men, they no doubt knew 
 their business, but they left us somewhat mystified, 
 and with an impression of shot and shell, loud 
 explosions, and sudden death. However, we hoped 
 soon to see for ourselves; and if our intelligence 
 failed to grasp the details, our imagination stood 
 us in good stead and filled in the defects. 
 
 Meantime we were preparing. Our kits needed 
 a lot of consideration. Thirty-live pounds per 
 officer, including bedding, is hardly sufficient to 
 go honeymooning on, and our effects needed a 
 lot of whittling down. Some of the officers were 
 glorious sights, hung round with automatic pistols, 
 binoculars, water-bottles, periscopes, wire-cutters, 
 electric torches, haversacks, amputating knives, 
 can - openers, corkscrews, oyster knives, range- 
 finders, cameras, compasses, flasks, marhngspikes, 
 and other fancy trinkets ! The old campaigners 
 had httle or no kit. What there was, was done up
 
 THE OLD COUNTRY 55 
 
 in a couple of sandbags, and consisted mainly of 
 two blankets and a waterproof sheet. 
 
 Every item was gradually weighed in the balance, 
 and as the time grew shorter the amount of baggage 
 found wanting gradually increased. One trinket 
 after another was discarded, and we gradually 
 began to look less like Christmas-trees. We cast 
 envious eyes on the medicine-man, for he had a 
 whole Maltese cart to himself, and evidently meant 
 to keep it so. He was for ever quoting the Geneva 
 Convention business to sundry mess presidents, 
 and others who desired to smuggle in contraband 
 under the shelter of the Red Cross. 
 
 To one and all he turned a deaf ear, even to the 
 Bishop, whose ideas of campaigning seemed to run 
 to feather-beds, bedsocks, and family Bibles. The 
 worthy man had collected together enough hospital 
 comforts to start a ladies' seminary; and despite 
 the unapproachable and almost antagonistic atti- 
 tude of the Medical Officer, succeeded in carrying 
 most of his effects with him to France. Later on 
 our wounded had frequent cause to bless our man 
 of God, whose activities took such a practical 
 course in alleviating their sufferings and ministering 
 to their wants. 
 
 Then the last day came. We wandered about 
 as disconsolate as cats at a family flitting. The 
 mess had ceased to exist, our huts were gutted ; but 
 we were glad — glad to be going. The uncertainty 
 of the future was everything; the certainty of the
 
 56 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEKS FIELDS 
 
 past few months had been too terrible. The mud 
 of Flanders could not be worse than the mud of 
 Salisbury; the sudden death by bullets was not 
 to be compared with the silent, insidious onslaught 
 of cerebro-spinal ; and there would be no Brussels- 
 sprouts. I presume the authorities had some 
 object in view when they moved us in the dark- 
 ness: concealing the movements of troops, most 
 likely. 
 
 We had something to eat — not that I remember 
 what it was — in the undecorated mess-room, and 
 quietly assumed our equipment. We gazed for 
 the last time on the bare interior of the hut that 
 had been our dormitory for so many months, 
 seeing if anything had been left behind, then 
 ploughed our way silently and thoughtfully through 
 the mud to the parade ground. 
 
 We were off. Behind us lay the silent huts and 
 all the dull routine of our novitiate. In front lay 
 the unknown, with all its hopes and fears, its 
 dangers, pleasures, and perhaps its glory. At the 
 corner we ran into the transport of the Assiniboias ; 
 they were early in difficulties with a trace broken 
 and a limber sunk axle-deep in the mire. " Bill 
 Minor," our transport officer, knew one better 
 than this; in the afternoon he had nosed out a 
 track over which our limbers travelled without 
 mishap. We entrained quickly, and the train 
 started almost immediately. At Bridgeport we 
 surprised the embarkation officer with the rapidity
 
 THE OLD COUNTRY 57 
 
 with which we got on board. He told us that for 
 days he had been dreading our arrival; he had been 
 informed it would take ages to embark the Cana- 
 dians, yet our Brigade defeated his best record 
 by quite an appreciable amount. He really thought 
 we had been maligned. 
 
 Horses, waggons, stores, everything slid on 
 board with precision and exactitude, as though 
 we had rehearsed the movement for years. 
 
 Of the voyage across there is little to narrate. 
 The Captain and officers of the S.S. Cambridgeshire 
 did all they could for us, and there was a trump- 
 card in the shape of a head steward who ministered 
 to our wants unmindful of the Licensing Bill. 
 The weather was all that we could wish for, and 
 the hostile submarines, if there were any, reposed 
 sulkily on the bottom. We had none of the luxury 
 that characterized our passage across the Atlantic ; 
 yet this, in itself, was merely a sign that we were 
 gradually getting down to things. Both officers 
 and men slept on the bare boards, yet we slept 
 sound and dreamed not at all. 
 
 Private Gallagher provided the only piece of 
 excitement. Selecting a convenient hatchway, he 
 contrived to fall through it into the black depths 
 of the hold. He ought to have broken his neck, 
 but, instead, sustained a compound fracture of his 
 thigh-bone. The Medical Officer nearly hanged 
 himself with a rope in going to his assistance, and 
 the hero of the adventure was certainly the first
 
 58 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEES FIELDS 
 
 officer. I had often heard of the adaptabiHty and 
 ingenuity of the mercantile marine, and certainly 
 it was more than demonstrated on this occasion. 
 The care with which this indefatigable sailor 
 rigged up a stretcher on a crane and hoisted the 
 injured private from the bowels of the ship was 
 worth going a long way to watch.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 LA BELLE FRANCE 
 
 We arrived at Pierreville in the afternoon, but it 
 was dark before we were permitted to land. The 
 authorities improved the shining hour by issuing 
 to us Teddy-bear coats, mittens, and sundry 
 woolHes. This resulted in our resembling closely 
 a Polar Expedition, without the icicles, but it was 
 cold enough, in any case, without them. 
 
 Fatigue parties were told ofi, under the watchful 
 eye of Major Hill, to help with the unloading, 
 while the rest of us sat around in our hairy coats 
 and admired one another. We marched from the 
 wharf in the darkness. Private Skinner falling into 
 the dock in his anxiety not to be left behind. We 
 pulled him out on the end of a rope, and managed, 
 amid the multifarious garments provided by a 
 generous and all-seeing Government, to find him 
 a change. 
 
 Of Pierreville we saw little. A French sentry 
 or two, a dark street, a bridge across a canal, the 
 back view of a brewery, and we were at the railway 
 station. A Canadian infantry battalion must bulk 
 
 more largely on the landscape than its British or 
 
 59
 
 60 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 French equivalent. With the best will in the world, 
 it took us all we knew to get crammed into the 
 very limited accommodation provided for us. 
 " Hommes 40 " may have been all very well in the 
 Stone Age, when the freight-cars in question were 
 undoubtedly constructed, judging by their dilapi- 
 dated prehistoric appearance, but they were cer- 
 tainly not designed for lusty, overfed Canadian 
 foot-soldiers. They were geniune antiques, how- 
 ever, and within their narrow confines the Pompa- 
 dours, in every imaginable position of cramped 
 restraint, journeyed to the war. 
 
 The officers were provided with carriages as 
 cramped as were the men's. The smart and eager 
 ones having rammed their platoons safely into the 
 rabbit-hutches at the back, promptly pinched these, 
 and spreading themselves out, glared at all would-be 
 intruders. 
 
 " Where the Hellifer are you going to swing your 
 hammock. Doc. ?" said the Quartermaster, as he 
 and the Medical Officer discovered the state of 
 affairs. 
 
 " Anywhere but with these Enghsh robbers; 
 they've conquered most of the world, and yet 
 they're not satisfied, but must needs go out of 
 their way to steal all the best seats," enjoined the 
 infuriated vendor of pills. 
 
 " Hullo, Maxims, are you looking for a home 
 too ?" The Mackintosh had just found Tiny 
 Pillows wandering around disconsolate, with two
 
 LA BELLE FRANCE 61 
 
 yards of bread under one arm, and two useful 
 bottles under the other. 
 
 '' You ought to be popular wherever you go, 
 with all that dope; did those carriage thieves in 
 front refuse you admittance ?" asked Lieutenant 
 Hume. 
 
 " Not on your life ; they wanted to adopt me, 
 but I'm not traveUing with that crowd — they're 
 too thirsty." 
 
 " You come with us and join the total abstinence 
 brigade, an offshoot from our old moral reform 
 club. Mac here is the president," advised the 
 M.O. " Where's Whisthng Willie ?" 
 
 *' Throwing a cat fit over some of his horses; 
 he can't get them shoved into the space he's got. 
 They're not hke men; they've got minds of their 
 own," said The Mackintosh. 
 
 " I saw one of Cousins' mules, trying to kick him 
 in the wind just now. Luckily, he's built at an 
 angle, and the ungrateful animal scored a miss," 
 remarked Major Rawlins. 
 
 " That's the worst of commanding a ruddy detail. 
 You either get forgotten altogether by the silly 
 old Adjutant, or come up last and find someone 
 has swiped all the accommodation," grumbled the 
 Doctor. 
 
 " Yes; the next war I come to, I'm going to be 
 a parson or paymaster. I'll bet they've pinched 
 the two seats next the Colonel," said the Quarter- 
 master.
 
 62 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEES FIELDS 
 
 " Major, you've got plenty of medals — you look 
 like a soldier; go and frighten that rabbit-faced 
 citizen over there with the tin horn, and arrange 
 a coupe for me and ' Pills,' " suggested Pillows. 
 
 " Yes; and you'll find us in the pub over there 
 — the ' Bleu Vache ' ; when you've put the deal 
 through, we'll probably be drinking milk," remarked 
 the Doctor. 
 
 Major Rawhns didn't belie his reputation as a 
 rustler, with the result that very shortly the dis- 
 comfited extras found accommodation in an empty 
 freight-car. This with a hberal sprinkling of straw 
 formed such a comfortable domicile, that the eager 
 ones in the carriages next door began to regret 
 their choice of quarters. They made a descent 
 on the freight-car, but were ingloriously repulsed 
 by its occupants, who now found that they had 
 not only space for themselves, but also ample 
 room to spread out their blankets. 
 
 The citizen with the tin horn now got busy, 
 and with much creaking, groaning, and jolting, 
 the train got into motion. The Medical Officer 
 and Tiny Pillows narrowly escaped being left 
 behind in the " Blue Cow," but were saved at the 
 last moment by Lieutenant Ball, who in his woolly 
 coat looked more like a puff-ball than ever. 
 
 We journeyed slowly through the smiling land 
 of France, stopping at frequent intervals, when 
 we obtained hot water with which to wet our tea. 
 We had ample opportunity at the various towns
 
 LA BELLE FRANCE 63 
 
 we stopped at to buy food to supplement our 
 rations. The country people came out and cheered 
 us on our way. On the platforms of the stations 
 we fraternized with the French soldiers and the 
 local inhabitants. 
 
 Lieutenant Cousins enhanced his reputation by 
 pulling off a regular scoop. Had he been still on 
 the staff of the Daily Hustler, he would have 
 attained instant celebrity. One of his pets fell 
 of! the train. Please don't ask me how it hap- 
 pened; I wasn't present when the episode com- 
 menced. How does a horse usually fall out of a 
 waggon ? He may have been of the serpentine 
 class and wriggled through the \vindow; he may 
 have been heavy draft and fallen through the 
 floor; he may even have politely walked through 
 the open door. 
 
 In any case, as we pulled out of a wayside station, 
 there was our little cousin passing from one 
 paroxysm of acute mania into another in the middle 
 of the track, and pulling at the head-rope of the 
 enterprising charger, which three of his assistants, 
 with bent backs and much vituperation, were 
 shoving from behind. As we rounded the curve, 
 the last thing we saw was the transport officer 
 semaphoring wildly, the horse at a standstill, and 
 three lusty privates wiping the sweat out of their 
 eyes and blowing kisses at our tail light. 
 
 In the sanctity of our freight-car we made the 
 acquaintance of the French bread, and the wine
 
 64 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 both red and white. We hung our legs outside 
 and watched the pleasant country as we rumbled 
 on our way. Flat for the most part, and very tidy. 
 Small fields well fenced; country roads running 
 between trim fences; shock-headed willows with 
 stunted bodies; tall, graceful poplars, and the 
 villages sweetly quiet with their red-roofed houses, 
 with white walls and green shutters, clustering 
 round the old grey churches, which were old and 
 grey when the land we came from was not even 
 marked on the map. It is indeed a good land, 
 and a land worth fighting for, and we quite under- 
 stood how it was that people called it La Belle 
 France; and how, with this to fight for, the 
 French soldiers have borne so well the heat and 
 the turmoil of the day. And the good folk cheered 
 us on our way, bidding us " Bon voyage !" and 
 " Bon chance 1" and, above all things, to drive 
 back the Germans from their fair country. 
 
 At night we trundled on through sleeping towns 
 and villages, clattered over bridges, and roared 
 through tunnels; it snowed, and under the bright 
 moon all the land was white. And among the 
 stars there was one that hung in the south, and 
 Lieutenant Hume, who knew nothing of astronomy, 
 called it Venus, and said it was his star. 
 
 " Hot !" said the Doctor, whose feet were getting 
 frozen with the draught which came from the open 
 door where the sentimental Lieutenant sat, and 
 who was correspondingly evil-tempered. " If it's
 
 LA BELLE FRANCE 65 
 
 Venus, I bet Montgomery has an option on it. 
 Stop your infernal star-gazing and shut the 
 door." 
 
 " I feel," grunted the Quartermaster in his 
 slumbers, " like a frozen sockeye; hurry up, some- 
 one, and put me in a can." 
 
 We arrived at Maurice, and shook the sleep out 
 of our joints and picked the straw out of our hair. 
 Of course, it was about 4 a.m. — it always is in this 
 campaign — and of course everyone felt like the 
 devil, and showed it in consequence. Naturally it 
 was correspondingly dark, and everyone fell over 
 everyone else, and the transport fell on the top of 
 everything. 
 
 In the dawn we marched out of the station yard 
 silently, as if we were ashamed of ourselves, and 
 on to the high-road, and so to seek our billets. 
 
 Maurice was our first look of Flanders. We saw 
 a succession of ridiculous windmills twirling their 
 sails in the breeze, and as we marched through the 
 small village, we looked at it with some interest. 
 Everything was there to which we later became so 
 familiar. The fave road, which twisted ankles not 
 yet attuned to its contours; the rows of houses, 
 flush with the main street; their gardens, if existent, 
 carefully secreted in the background. Here were 
 estaminets on which ran sundry legends: " Salt's 
 Beer c'est le meilleur," and which catered for a 
 variety of tastes — French, British, and Belgique. 
 Here was the red-brick church with its decapitated 
 
 5
 
 66 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 tower and the graveyard of clustering monuments. 
 I wouldn't like to be buried there; they seem to lie 
 too thick. Whenever I see the throng of head- 
 sticks, for they are not made of good sandstone or 
 granite which endure, but resemble more closely 
 a series of notices to keep off the turf, I always 
 imagine the feverish, anxious rush that will take 
 place when the final bugle blows. " Odi profanum 
 vulgus et arceo;" give me a grave on our western 
 island, where I can smell the breeze of the Pacific, 
 and hear the surf beating on the shore ; or a seven- 
 foot lot in the mountains, with the black pines 
 watching overhead and nodding in the wind 
 blowing cold from off the snow. There I'll hear 
 the bugle just as clear, and be able to be early on 
 parade without being jostled, bumped, and hustled 
 as I fall in. 
 
 We found our billets and started to grumble. 
 This was our first experience; later on, we got 
 regularly into the way of it. The Brigade strafed 
 us for our shortcomings and goings, and we, who 
 could not strafe back, on account of discipline's 
 force of gravity, resorted to grumbhng. 
 
 New billets always gave us a fitting opportunity ; 
 the best staff under the most perfect of condi- 
 tions would not have pleased us ! There was 
 always plenty of opportunity to find something 
 wrong, and you may be sure we found it. The 
 companies were either too close, or too scattered. 
 The Quartermaster's store was too near, or too
 
 LA BELLE FEANCE 67 
 
 far away. The macMne-guns were not with Head- 
 quarters, or ought to have been with the transport ! 
 
 " Just Uke my ruddy luck," grumbled Lieu- 
 tenant Madden; " they've put me in a billet with 
 an old woman with sixteen kids, and Smith has 
 got a peach of a girl in his bungalow." 
 
 '* Yes, he's already arranged to have French 
 lessons from her," said Montgomery. " Why do 
 I never have any luck ? The old woman in my 
 shack has got a face like a door-knocker." 
 
 Captain Ainslie of the Brigade Staff understood 
 us to the finest point; he knew at a glance when 
 somebody's breakfast lay in a weighty lump against 
 a rebellious liver, and made his visits correspond- 
 ingly short. 
 
 " All right, old man; I'll tell them at Brigade 
 Headquarters. We'll arrange it," and was off, and 
 within an hour, when the liver had thought better 
 of it and got to work, the grumbler had forgotten 
 all about his trouble, so, apparently, had the gallant 
 Captain, as no message came from Brigade Head- 
 quarters. One of the best was Bob Ainshe; in the 
 old days, when the rush was on, he was one of the 
 few who made the Edmonton trail to Dawson City, 
 and the last five hundred miles on his own ! 
 
 The Pompadours were scattered round in various 
 farm-houses, some farther, some nearer to Battalion 
 Headquarters, but none more distant than a mile. 
 They lay amid hop-fields, whose naked poles, 
 standing black against the winter sky and fields,
 
 68 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 looked black and bare, waiting for the touch of 
 spring. 
 
 The Germans had been here, and we got our 
 first news of them from people who had actually 
 seen them. It wasn't very good news, for that 
 matter. They had shot the parish priest against 
 the wall of his church, and one young boy of 
 fourteen under whose bed an old and rusty revolver 
 had been found; that was not all, but as this is 
 not an account of atrocities, let it suffice. It 
 served to increase our anxiety to be up and doing. 
 The war was getting nearer. In the evening we 
 walked out on the road and saw the distant lights, 
 the flash of guns, and we heard them too, faintly 
 booming in the east. 
 
 The days at sea and the train journey had not 
 improved our condition, so we resumed the prac- 
 tice which we hoped we had left behind us at 
 Salisbury Plain, and marched along the country 
 roads. 
 
 At Maurice we made the acquaintance of many 
 strange phenomena, and Major Hill, meeting for 
 the first time the Flemish national monument to 
 thrift and fertility, which stands in the centre of 
 the courtyard of every farm-house, sent instantly 
 to the Medical Officer and demanded that he remove 
 it at once. So the Medical Officer gazed at the 
 manure pile, and in order that the sequence of 
 authority might not be impaired, sent for the 
 sanitary sergeant and gave the necessary orders.
 
 LA BELLE FEANCE 69 
 
 So the sanitary sergeant went to Major Hill and 
 asked for a fatigue party to reinforce the two 
 sanitary policemen, who belonged to that com- 
 pany, and who were unable alone to cope with the 
 nuisance, and mentioned that the Medical Officer 
 thought that the whole company would be required 
 for the undertaking. Then Major Hill exploded, 
 which is a habit indulged in by those of that 
 exalted rank, in common mth the Mill's hand- 
 grenade and other forms of awfulness, and was 
 rude enough to say that he would see the Medical 
 Officer damned first. So the pile remained, and 
 other subsequent piles, and, in the end, even Major 
 Hill appeared to get used to them, and regarded 
 them as features of the landscape, the same as 
 windmills, estaminets, and churches. 
 
 Then we were inspected by the Commander-in- 
 Chief, a great man who said little, but seemed to 
 notice everything. We were on our best behaviour, 
 almost as good as when His Majesty the King 
 visited us, and the men in the rear rank forgot to 
 chew gum; they had long ago got out of the habit 
 of smoking cigarettes on parade. Colonel O'Shea 
 called us to attention, and we presented arms and 
 stood very steady — nearly as steady as Regulars, 
 I imagine. Of course, if you are only a militia- 
 man you can't be quite steady when a real live 
 Field-Marshal, with three rows of medal ribbons, 
 is passing just under your nose; you're bound to 
 let your eyes move, at any rate. It's only natural ;
 
 70 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 you want to size up the man who is running the 
 show, and see what sort of a man he is. 
 
 He seemed to be satisfied — quite pleased, in fact ; 
 and after the Commander-in-Chief and his following 
 had departed, the Colonel told us we were to go 
 to the trenches and learn from the Imperial troops 
 there, all that they could teach us for a week, 
 and then we would come back to Maurice for more 
 training. So that night we went to sleep happy, 
 and dreamed of Pompadours charging wildly with 
 the bayonet, with Colonel O'Shea on the big 
 chestnut with white points at their head, through 
 battalions, brigades, divisions, and army corps of 
 Germans, right through the Brandenburger Gate, 
 and into Unter den Linden, to the very gates of 
 the palace with its copper dome.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 OLD TIMERS AND TENDEKFEET 
 
 We left Maurice at a comparatively respectable 
 hour. That is to say, we weren't pulled out of bed 
 in the middle of the night; we even got time for 
 a good breakfast — an extraordinary act of for- 
 bearance on the part of the authorities ! The 
 mechanical transport came to our assistance, and 
 carried a blanket for each of the men, but all the 
 same we had far too much to carry, as we found 
 out later. A blanket, a waterproof sheet, a Teddy- 
 bear coat, a greatcoat, in addition to the ordinary 
 equipment, and a hundred and fifty rounds of 
 ammunition, may be all right for a mule, but 
 certainly not for a man. Later on we learnt to 
 travel more lightly, but for the moment we were 
 bowed down by the abundance of our possessions 
 and the bounty of a beneficent Government. As 
 we progressed, the sun became quite hot, and the 
 men who were marching in greatcoats soon felt 
 the weight of their packs. 
 
 We passed through a provincial town, where the 
 Army Corps Commander watched our progress, 
 and along the road down which in days gone by 
 
 71
 
 72 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 the Three Musketeers — Athos, Porthos, and Aramis 
 — rode in search of Miladi. The three P's defeated 
 us — the packs, the pace, and the fave. Our 
 Brigade certainly did not make a good showing 
 on this our first appearance as a unit in the zone 
 of war. In the distance we saw the spires and 
 chimneys of Avranches as we marched along 
 between the never-ending poplars, and our men 
 fell by the wayside as the fave twisted and blistered 
 their feet. Presently the poplars ceased, and we 
 were passing between rows of mean two-storied 
 buildings which crowded forward to the street. 
 Women gazed at us from the doorways, and now 
 and then came out and gave us beer. 
 
 This was an industrial centre, a district of brick 
 houses and factory employees; and now we left 
 the main road and turned to one side across the 
 series of cross-roads. It was getting dark. " Keep 
 to your right," shouted the Staff Officers who rode 
 up from behind. " Eight I Right !" shouted the 
 non-commissioned officers. We bumped into a 
 regiment going to rest billets; they were Imperials 
 — the Scottish Light Infantry. " Hullo, Cana- 
 dians !" they shouted to us in welcome. 
 
 " That's my old regiment," volunteered Private 
 McMurdy. " I was with them at Magersfontein." 
 
 A dark building with a spire loomed up in front. 
 It looked like a church, but turned out to be a 
 brasserie with a chimney. 
 
 " If you please, sir, is it true we are to be billeted
 
 OLD TIMEKS AND TENDERFEET 73 
 
 in a brewery ? " asked the polite " War-horse " 
 McMutchkin of Lieutenant Madden. 
 
 " Yes, ' A ' Company and the Headquarter 
 details," answered Lieutenant Madden. 
 
 " Thank you very much, sir; I am glad I belong 
 to ' A ' Company. It's very good of you telling 
 me, sir; I am very much obliged." 
 
 " Here we are, here we are, here we are again. 
 We beat you on the Marne and we beat you on the Aisne; 
 We kicked you out of Armenticres, and here we are again," 
 
 sang the Devonshire Fusihers as they passed us 
 on the crowded road. 
 
 " There was a little hen, 
 And she had a wooden leg, 
 And she laid more eggs 
 Than any chickens on the farm; 
 And another little drink 
 Wouldn't do us any harm," 
 
 sang the Canadians, who, if they were tired, didn't 
 want to show it. 
 
 " Will this be the brewery, sir ?" said the poHte 
 voice of the McMutchkin. 
 
 " Yes," said Lieutenant Madden, " this is the 
 brewery." 
 
 " Thank you kindly, sir; and thank God also, 
 sir." 
 
 I don't think that anyone was sorry. The packs 
 and the multitude of our vestments had certainly 
 told a tale, to which eighteen miles, mostly on
 
 71 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 fave, had added a moral, and as the men filed into 
 their billets they were too tired to grumble. Not 
 that anyone had any thought of complaint; they 
 were all too interested to think of such a thing ! 
 Private Brown was dragged by main force to the 
 Doctor next day. Removal of his shirt disclosed 
 a gigantic abscess below his left arm, right on the 
 line of pressure from his equipment. 
 
 " But how did you manage to march ?" asked 
 the Doctor. " It must have hurt like the devil. 
 Why, I remember I saw you singing.' 
 
 " Yes, you bet it hurt; but singing seemed to 
 ease it." 
 
 " But why didn't you go sick ?" 
 
 " I didn't want to, in case you sent me to hospital, 
 and I want to go into the trenches." 
 
 " Well, you'll have to go to hospital." 
 
 " When, sir ?" 
 
 " Right now." 
 
 " Can't you make it to-morrow, sir, and let me 
 go up to the trenches with you to-night ?" 
 
 " All right; I'll see what I can do." 
 
 Blistered feet there were in any quantity the 
 next day; and strained ankles also; but that was 
 on the morrow ! Meantime the transport had 
 arrived. We could hear them outside. The Padre 
 had an idea that the war has a chastening effect on 
 the minds of the men, and that anyone who goes 
 through it must undergo a gradual moral improve- 
 ment. He used to argue that way at mess, when
 
 OLD TIMERS AND TENDERFEET 75 
 
 the Doctor got tired of gloating over the illegiti- 
 mate population of Scotland and gave him a 
 chance to speak. The Paymaster used to tell the 
 Padre that he was talking rubbish, and would cite 
 the language of his transport as an example. Then 
 the Padre would gird up his argumentative loins 
 and rend the Paymaster, calling him to confess 
 that it might be worse. The Paymaster was un- 
 convinced and couldn't see how it was possible, 
 until Lieutenant Pillows remarked that the trans- 
 port were lambs compared to his world-beaters on 
 the guns, as far as power of expression or anything 
 else went. I used to think that the transport 
 must lie awake at night inventing new and subtle 
 repartees, they seemed to have attained to such 
 a pitch of perfection. On this occasion they were 
 unduly eloquent; they had been on the road for 
 sixteen hours, and had to go back another five 
 miles to their billets ! To them bed looked a very 
 long way off, which, to some extent, must have 
 been responsible for their state of mind. 
 
 Private McMutchkin was doomed to disappoint- 
 ment. The brewery was little more than a shell; 
 certainly there was no beer in it. It had been 
 shelled; the chimney bore evidence of two direct 
 hits. A few empty barrels lay in the cellars, 
 which refused to respond by the slightest splash 
 to the most strenuous shaking. It is always the 
 way out here: first the Germans came along and 
 then the English, and what the one didn't drink
 
 76 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 the other did, so the poor Canadian draws blank 
 every time. Yet not every time, for there have 
 been one or two glorious exceptions ! 
 
 We walked out to look at our surroundings. 
 The transport rumbled away in the distance. To 
 the east of us the German star-shells were shooting 
 upwards in the sky. 
 
 A sudden flash illuminated the sky, and a big 
 gun boomed to our right; here and there a rifle 
 spoke in the darkness, with its short peremptory 
 crack. Over there lay the goal which months ago 
 we had set out to seek; we wondered what the 
 morrow might bring. 
 
 The officers of the Headquarters and " A " 
 Company slept in the office of the brewery. The 
 Padre must have found the floor hard, or perhaps 
 his mind was not at ease; in any case, he was first 
 out of bed, and proceeded to make a perfect 
 nuisance of himself. 
 
 "Show a leg, Mac; come along. Madden, show 
 a leg," came the unctuous tones. 
 
 " Go to Heligoland," said the Quartermaster. 
 
 " Go and say your prayers. Padre," mumbled 
 Pillows, " and if you're certain of your own soul, 
 pray for mine." 
 
 Lieutenant Madden snored on peacefully; he 
 and Lindsay refused to be wakened. 
 
 The Adjutant was not so peacefully inchned, as 
 a boot whistling past the Padre's head bore 
 witness to.
 
 OLD TIMERS AND TENDERFEET 77 
 
 " Why don't you pull the Major out of bed if 
 you want a job ?" suggested the Paymaster. 
 
 But the Major was already there — lean, and 
 hungry, and eager to get to the trenches. Once 
 Major Meldrum rose, sleep for the rest of us was 
 not possible; he had a delicate, persuasive manner 
 with the sluggards, and even the Medical Officer was 
 persuaded finally to yield to force of circumstances. 
 
 Our training was to commence right away. 
 Imperial officers from resting billets and from the 
 battalions in the front line called on us. We were 
 all very keen to learn, and they only too pleased 
 to tell us what they knew. We were to go into 
 the line at the Bois de Perdrix that evening — 
 it was not possible to go by day; so, for the pre- 
 sent, we absorbed detail and asked innumerable 
 questions. 
 
 We went along the road to the village. Here 
 we saw the first effect of shell-fire; the village 
 church had for many months been the target of 
 the German gunners. We gazed in interest at 
 the shell-holes, the rents in the pavement, and the 
 graves torn up. Here in the square, water-carts 
 were filling up at the pump, their drivers sitting 
 by unconcernedly smoking cigarettes. 
 
 The German trenches lay at most a mile from 
 us, seething with every form of Kultur and fright- 
 fulness, and we felt very brave at having come so 
 far. Yet hero were women standing in the doors 
 of houses, and httle children playing in the street;
 
 78 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 estaminets drove a flourishing business and shops 
 displayed their wares — all this well within reach 
 even of German field-guns. And here daily the 
 shrapnel squirted and shells dropped. The destruc- 
 tion centred round the church; otherwise little 
 damage had been done. The houses were all well 
 provided with cellars, and when a shrill, high- 
 pitched scream heralded the approaching shell, 
 everyone promptly went to ground, until such 
 time as the Huns ceased fire, when the interrupted 
 business of the day was resumed. 
 
 Round this village were many British graves, 
 carefully tended, each with its white cross, setting 
 out the name, number, and regiment of the dead; 
 and, as a further precaution, the same particulars 
 are buried in a bottle at the foot of the grave. 
 Here were representatives of those gallant Imperial 
 units who drove the Germans out of the Bois de 
 Perdrix in the fall of 1914, and here were also 
 nameless graves, as a cross bore witness to: " Here 
 lies an unknown French soldier of the 97th Regi- 
 ment." Though unknown, he was not forgotten, 
 as the flowers and ornaments that marked the spot 
 bore witness. Farther down the road was a large 
 mound marked by a simple cross: " Here the bodies 
 of sixty men of the — th Regiment of Bavarians 
 are buried," and a few yards farther, another forty 
 lay in their nameless grave. Truly it had been 
 an excellent kilhng, and their losses out of all 
 proportion to our own !
 
 OLD TIMERS AND TENDERFEET 79 
 
 A private of the King's Cumberlands was passing. 
 " Were you here last autumn when these were 
 killed ?" asked Captain Wales. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; we attacked across that field over there. 
 They held us up a bit at first, but the Highland 
 Borderers came at them through the wood with the 
 bayonet." 
 
 " Did they fight well ?" 
 
 '•' Who ? The Highlanders ?" 
 
 *' No, of course not; we know the Highlanders. 
 I mean the Germans." 
 
 " No, rotten. It was like killing sheep. H we'd 
 only had a few more men, we'd have gone right 
 through them; they were lying all over the 
 place." 
 
 A Captain of the Westmorelands was walking 
 down the road with rapid strides; he seemed 
 unduly elated over something; he paused to ask 
 the exact time. 
 
 " I'm just off on leave. Think of it 1 The 
 Empire to-morrow night." And he was gone. 
 
 " I don't think much of those English ofiicers," 
 remarked John Wallace; "they're always talking 
 of leave. I've come out here to fight, not to get 
 leave." 
 
 " You wait, Johnny, until you've been out here 
 for six months like those chaps," said the Quarter- 
 master. 
 
 " Yes, when you've had trench feet for weeks 
 and all your friends have been killed, it'll be
 
 80 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEKS FIELDS 
 
 permanent leave you'll apply for, and not three 
 days in London," Captain Wales added. 
 
 That evening under cover of darkness we went 
 into the trenches. We were the guests of the 
 Cumberland Light Infantry. From their Battahon 
 Headquarters the way lay along the road beside 
 the wood; here were plenty of bullets, that zipped 
 and chirped as they sped past to find their billets. 
 It was difficult to keep from ducking when an 
 occasional one sang through the air really near to 
 us. Our guide was very encouraging. " Don't 
 hang around here; they've got a fixed rifle trained 
 on this spot. We lost our officer here last week. 
 There, I told you so," as a bullet hummed past 
 and buried itself with a thud in a tree. " Hurry 
 past this corner; they've a machine-gun on this 
 place. We had two men hit here last night." 
 
 A sentry challenged and our guide answered. 
 We were now in the support line. The German 
 star-lights flying skywards from time to time 
 illuminated the scene. Here were sandbags and 
 much wire, and a few sentries at their posts. The 
 remainder of the supporting company were away 
 on working-party duties, busy putting Flanders 
 into sandbags, or spinning the interminable spider's 
 web of barbed wire. 
 
 We passed through a shot-torn hamlet. In the 
 fleeting gHmpses we saw the ruined houses rein- 
 forced with sandbags, and loopholes made eyes at 
 us through a network of wire. A nasty place to
 
 OLD TIMERS AND TENDERFEET 31 
 
 attack, and probably crammed with machine-guns. 
 A palhd Christ hung brooding over the ruins of 
 the village, alone, untouched, amid all the scene 
 of destruction. 
 
 The communication trenches were filled with 
 water, so we walked across the open ; two barricades 
 with inquisitive sentries were passed, and we 
 entered the front-line trench. 
 
 Here all was order. The trench was dry, which 
 was more than we had expected; also it was safe, 
 and, to a certain extent, comfortable. 
 
 " Tell your chaps to keep their heads down. 
 They're a bit bigger than our men," suggested a 
 Captain of the Cumberlands. 
 
 Against the parapet of well-piled sandbags were 
 rifle-rests, and every few yards down the firing- 
 step stood a sentry, watching brother Bosche 
 across the way. Our backs rested against the 
 parados, and standing thus, there was scarce room 
 for anyone to pass. Here and there, excavated amid 
 the sandbags, like rudimentary cave-dwellings, were 
 dugouts for the officers and men to sleep in ; stuffed 
 with straw and supplemented with sundry household 
 furniture, they made fairly comfortable quarters. 
 
 The Medical Officer was of the party, and to his 
 huge delight Private Brown* was also present, 
 forgetful of his arm and full of eagerness ; and while 
 the others were being initiated in trench routine 
 and discipUne, they slipped along the trencli 
 
 * See page 74.
 
 82 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 searching for fresh sensations. Down the trench 
 the Medical Officer was spotted by a youthful 
 subaltern of the Cumberlands, who, being of a 
 humorous disposition, suggested a visit to a 
 listening post. 
 
 " Certainly," assented our quack, vaguely 
 imagining that a listening post had something to 
 do with the telephone system. The subaltern led 
 the way, the doctor, all innocence, following reck- 
 lessly. They crawled through a hole low down 
 in the parapet, along the foot of a water-logged 
 sap, then through a maze of barbed wire, where the 
 Doctor got hopelessly entangled, to the detriment 
 of his nether garments. 
 
 " Funny place to keep signallers," muttered the 
 Doctor to himself, wondering meanwhile what a 
 listening post really was, but loath to show his 
 ignorance. 
 
 " When a flare goes up, grovel," whispered the 
 subaltern, as they proceeded forward cautiously. 
 Presently they reached a stunted willow beside a 
 miniature stream. The Doctor had by this time 
 lost all idea of direction. 
 
 " There they are — over there," whispered the 
 subaltern, indicating an undulating pile of sand- 
 bags dimly visible some forty yards in front. 
 
 " Who ?" asked the Doctor. 
 
 " The Germans, of course." 
 
 " Oh." Then a bright idea striking him: " And 
 where are our trenches ?"
 
 OLD TIMERS AND TENDERFEET 83 
 
 " Why, behind us, of course " — jerking his head 
 in their direction. 
 
 " Do you mean to tell me we are in between the 
 two lines ?" anxiously inquired the Medical Officer. 
 
 " Yes; rather nearer the Germans than our own 
 people." 
 
 " Then what the deuce am I doing here ? I am 
 going home." 
 
 A few moments later the Medical Officer was 
 safely back in the trench, which he preferred, 
 sitting quietly on the firing-step, to taking an active 
 part in any more expeditions. Here he found a 
 private of the Cumberlands who seemed inchned 
 to talk. 
 
 " What's your name ?" inquired the Doctor. 
 
 " Smith, sir — the only Smith." 
 
 " Really, you surprise me. Why ?" 
 
 " Well, I'm rather well known. You see, I 
 always get drunk in billets, so they keep me in 
 the front line by way of punishment for the good 
 of my health. I've not been out for weeks." 
 
 To the Doctor this method of punishment 
 appeared unique, but not more so than the punished 
 one, who, seated on the top of the parapet, evinced 
 a profound contempt for the enemy snipers. 
 
 " Don't you think your health will suffer if you 
 sit up there ? You might get a chill." 
 
 Later on, when opportunity afforded, he inquired 
 of one of the officers as to Private Smith's ante- 
 cedents and idiosyncrasies.
 
 84 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEKS FIELDS 
 
 " Oh, Smith — he's a top-hole chap. Ready for 
 anything. He'll go across to the German trenches 
 and lasso one of them any time you ask him. 
 Always good-tempered and a splendid man in the 
 trenches." 
 
 " But he tells me he's being punished." 
 
 " Punished — yes, always. In billets he's always 
 drunk, damned nuisance, wanting to fight; so we 
 keep him in the front line." 
 
 A Canadian came down the trench. 
 
 " Is the Medical Officer here ?" 
 
 " Yes," said the Doctor from his seat on the 
 firing-step. 
 
 " You're wanted; there's a man badly hit." 
 
 The Medical Officer moved along the trench. 
 
 There it lay, all that remained of one of the 
 best boys in the regiment, the light of an electric 
 torch streaming on his white and upturned face, 
 a small blue mark in the centre of his forehead. 
 It was Private Brown. 
 
 " How did it happen ?" asked the Medical 
 Officer. 
 
 " He said he was to go to hospital to-morrow 
 and wanted to have a shot at the Germans," 
 answered one of the Cumberlands. 
 
 He was quite dead, but on the still, pale face 
 was a look of peaceful satisfaction. 
 
 When we looked at the trenches, and recognized 
 the work whioh had been put in to make them 
 habitable, and thought of the thin line that had
 
 OLD TIMERS AND TENDERFEET 85 
 
 held on for so many weary months in winter, we 
 felt we were beginning to learn. In those early 
 days there were no sandbags, the wire amounted 
 at times to only one strand, and everyone was in 
 the front-line trench. Cooks, parsons, batmen, and 
 paymasters. We had read of the Battle of Ypres, 
 and the thin screen of dismounted cavalry who 
 held the line from Zandvoorde south to opposite 
 Frelinghein, but now, for the first time, we under- 
 stood what it had really meant. And here we 
 found representatives of the famous regiments who 
 had taken part in those glorious early days. The 
 trenches were dry now, and, wrapped like cocoons 
 in a mesh of wire, were comparatively safe; but 
 we thought of the days of the single strand, of the 
 troops standing knee-deep in water, of the trenches 
 sliding and puddling across the map, and the 
 endless anxiety and weary waiting. We hoped 
 we might do as well as those who had gone before. 
 Meantime others of our battalion had been hard 
 at work. Working-parties had been busy wiring 
 and sand-bagging, and when we returned to the 
 brewery, we found the night had not forgotten to 
 take its toll. One officer and one man killed, and 
 two men wounded. It was Lieutenant Beaumont, 
 one of our very best. The first on every parade and 
 duty, and now the first to go. Ask of his fellow- 
 officers and the men under him if you want to 
 know. His name stands large in the little Flemish 
 churchyard, but his epitaph is written for ever in
 
 86 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 their hearts. Private Brown lies beside him, for 
 in the churchyard all ranks are equal. They were 
 our first. 
 
 Later on we became more accustomed to losing 
 our friends, but with the first few it is always 
 hard. 
 
 The next afternoon we went Hun-shooting. Up 
 through the wood we picked our way, along 
 Waterloo Place, and into Piccadilly, then up 
 Shaftesbury Avenue and Tottenham Court Road. 
 Turning to the right in the Euston Road, we 
 arrived at the ruined estaminet. Here the upper 
 floor provided an excellent observation post. 
 
 A hundred yards in front of us lay our own 
 trenches, steeped in the slumber which attends 
 the consumption of a midday meal of Army rations, 
 and beyond them, another hundred and fifty yards, 
 the Hun fine of sandbags. The Colonel with a 
 borrowed rifle, ensconced behind a loophole of 
 sandbags, lay waiting an opportunity. It was a 
 good rifle, as seventeen notches on the stock bore 
 witness to, but the Hun was crafty as a badger. 
 Occasionally a head would show for an all too 
 fleeting second, but that was all. They also were 
 steeped in somnolence. Captain Grosvenor at 
 another angle of the building also drew blank. 
 Hun-hunting was evidently a difiicult amusement. 
 
 That night we visited the Westmorelands. 
 There was a company reHef taking place. No 
 parade or any form of mihtary ostentation. At
 
 OLD TIMERS AND TENDERFEET 87 
 
 the sound of a whistle the men left their billets, 
 and like workmen going to their daily task, wan- 
 dered towards the trenches. In twos and threes, 
 selecting the route that pleased them best, they 
 straggled across country; at the entrance of the 
 trench a sergeant noted down their names as they 
 filed in. It might have been a shift of coal-miners 
 entering the pit-head. The company officers ex- 
 plained the phenomenon by saying that their 
 casualties in going across country in isolated 
 groups in this manner were much less. 
 
 We had a full parade of Cook's tourists again. 
 The Quartermaster, his Highland blood afire, led 
 the way. The Padre, in an unbecoming woolly 
 helmet that looked Hke a melted mitre, and the 
 Paymaster in gumboots, followed him enthusi- 
 astically. 
 
 Here was a shattered convent, just behind the 
 front line, and here the party paused. Zip ! Biff ! 
 Bang ! The Quartermaster jumped a foot in the 
 air, and then remembering about twenty seconds 
 too late ducked, as a cloud of broken brick from 
 the wall just above his head powdered him with 
 fine dust. The Padre smiled. Judging from his 
 sermons, he appears to have plenty of imagination, 
 but it all seems to go when the bullets start to 
 flop around. 
 
 The Doctor is always explaining this matter to 
 us. He maintains that in this war, which h^ says is 
 quite the worst war he has taken part in during forty
 
 88 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 years, there is no such thing as fear. Some people 
 with no imagination can go on under fire inde- 
 finitely, as they don't think what it might mean 
 to have one's spinal cord severed, or to be blinded 
 by a bursting shell. He says that he is constantly 
 thinking out what he calls anatomical relationships, 
 and considering what organs a bullet hitting him 
 in a certain place at a certain angle will penetrate. 
 
 He has undoubtedly a morbid mind, and the 
 Adjutant is threatening to make him take his 
 meals by himself, unless he discontinues this 
 practice. 
 
 In any case, the Padre is wonderful; his soul 
 may be at peace — perhaps that is the reason. H 
 so, the Doctor's and the Quartermaster's must be 
 in a turmoil. The Paymaster, on the other hand, 
 shows a wonderful fortitude. They say he has 
 estimated his chances of longevity by some actuarial 
 system of his own — the flat surface of his profile in 
 proportion to the entire extent of the British front 
 as a; is to a bullet. Nobody knows what he means 
 by this, especially as his profile is anything but 
 flat ; but he is satisfied that if he visits the trenches 
 twice a week during the next five years, his chances 
 of being hit are 1 in 439,625. As an order has 
 just appeared prohibiting Paymasters from entering 
 the front line, his expectations of life would appear 
 to be still more rosy. 
 
 We had spent a week with these two famous 
 regiments, and they had done us proud, en-
 
 OLD TIMERS AND TENDERFEET 89 
 
 couraging us when it was seemly and showing us 
 how best to correct our weaknesses. They found 
 us quick to learn just as they were ready to teach; 
 and the lessons the finest in the world. When we 
 left the Bois de Perdrix our period of apprentice- 
 ship was over; all that remained was to put it in 
 practice. When we left Maurice we had been told 
 we were to return there after our first spell in the 
 trenches, but evidently the authorities were pleased 
 with us, for we were told, to our profound satis- 
 faction, that we had not been found wanting, and 
 were to hold a piece of line of our own.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 THE GLORY OF WAR 
 
 A Highland battalion was coming down the road; 
 we politely drew to one side to let it pass. Of 
 course, we had been initiated, but still we were new 
 to the game, compared to these representatives of 
 the " iron division " ! They had spent the winter 
 up to their knees in the water of the trenches, 
 which slopped around the landscape, and for months 
 they had been gazing across the remains of a para- 
 pet, whose sandbags had disappeared in the mud, 
 and at a few dilapidated strands of barbed wire. 
 These were the gay Gordons. Perhaps at the 
 moment they hardly could be described as gay, 
 but they looked their very best. 
 
 Taking over trenches is always rather a test for 
 those new at the game. There are abundant 
 facilities for getting lost, and for the nervous an 
 excellent opportunity to get rattled; but on this 
 the first occasion that we had taken over a line for 
 ourselves we didn't do badly. I heard the Adjutant 
 damning the Doctor, who might in perfect fairness 
 have damned back, which would not have been 
 subservient to good order and discipline, and 
 
 90
 
 THE GLOEY OF WAR 91 
 
 would certainly not have been polite; although in 
 this case he was perfectly in the right. Six months 
 ago he would probably have told the Adjutant all 
 about it, but in this instance he merely registered a 
 mental note to scarify the petulant one in private. 
 Down the road, behind the battalion, the trans- 
 port could be heard swearing its way towards the 
 trenches. The language was really rather pic- 
 turesque, but the Padre, standing at the dressing- 
 station door, shook his head and said it was 
 shocking. The transport officer was not so careful 
 of his remarks as he might have been; in fact, 
 some of his expressions were rather lurid, but the 
 result was excellent: the transport arrived every 
 time ! 
 
 By nine o'clock the relief was finished, and we 
 wandered up to visit the Battalion Headquarters. 
 The night was dark, but on three sides of us the 
 German star-shells rose and fell. It is, I suppose, 
 due to some physical law that, no matter where 
 one stands in the Hght at night, as judged by the 
 falling starlight, one always appears to be in a 
 salient. I asked our local member of the Church 
 how he explained this, and he mumbled something 
 about the rotundity of the earth's surface, or the 
 conformation of the ground, and at once returned 
 to the subject of the transport's language. The 
 Padre evidently didn't know, and was merely 
 bluffing. 
 
 We strolled up the road, a narrow road, but with
 
 92 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 a wonderful surface — considering what had been 
 required of it during the previous months — a row 
 of willows on our left, a deep ditch on our right. 
 A shadow loomed up, a farm-house and two hay- 
 stacks. A sentry challenged in the darkness, with 
 a rattle of arms and a sharp inquiry. This was 
 the billet of our support company. Outside their 
 first-line, transport limbers were handing out 
 supplies. Not a light showed; there was httle 
 talking, and all to the point. Could this be the 
 same chattering, cigarette-smoking Canadian 
 MiHtia of Valcartier ? 
 
 We went inside. Captain Cope and Lieutenant 
 Bromfield greeted us. They were delighted with 
 their billets, which were better than they had 
 expected. We wandered down the road. There 
 was a lot of rifle-fire, but the work of unloading 
 the limbers went on undisturbed. The sergeant in 
 charge said the shots were all " overs," and were 
 missing the road by yards. Round the bend we 
 came on a shrine, untouched, a few blackened 
 walls, a pile of straw — all that was left of the roof 
 and sides of Dead Pig Farm. Another challenge 
 from the darkness we answered to the best of our 
 abihty, but our interrogator was invisible. 
 
 " Where the devil are you ?" demanded our 
 importunate transport officer, his voice quivering 
 with emotion and a man-eating gleam in his eye. 
 " How the Hades can I advance and be recognized 
 when I don't know where you are ?" The hectic
 
 THE GLORY OF WAR 93 
 
 expressions of the transport officer were not without 
 effect; thus exhorted, a figure emerged from the 
 seclusion of the shrine, which stood by the road- 
 side, and proceeded to go through the process of 
 recognizing us. 
 
 " Pass, friend; all's well/' 
 
 " All's well," sniffed Lieutenant Cousins as we 
 proceeded on our way. "I'm hanged if it is !" 
 
 " I like a sentry who stands right in the middle 
 of the road, and who is armed with a lantern, so 
 that you see him a mile off. This Jack-in-the- 
 box business is rather trying on the nerves," 
 commented the Doctor. 
 
 The Padre was doubtful. He found it was not 
 quite proper; this misappropriation of Church 
 property for such base uses as a sentry-box was 
 hardly justifiable. 
 
 " Absolute rubbish 1" said the Quartermaster. 
 " He's a wise man, and he's paying you and your 
 religion a high compliment. Shrines and crucifixes 
 don't get hit, and well your sentry knows it." 
 
 The Quartermaster was right, as he usually was : 
 amid the wrecks of towns and villages, with houses 
 flattened to the ground and gardens and roads torn 
 with shot and shell, the shrines and crucifixes are 
 rarely touched. Churches may be wrecked, their 
 steeples come toppling to the ground, and their 
 roofs burn, but the high altar will escape destruc- 
 tion. And this is the more remarkable as it is at 
 the cross-roads, where these sacred symbols are
 
 94 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEES FIELDS 
 
 mainly to be found, that the Germans have a 
 pecuHar penchant for dropping their high explosive. 
 
 While the transport officer was nosing his way 
 through the darkness like a well-trained pointer, 
 the Padre and the Quartermaster plunged into a 
 religious controversy. The Padre slumped for 
 stone altars and incense, while Mac urged the 
 claims of John Knox and Jenny Geddes. 
 
 " John Knox may have been all right, but I 
 could never forgive the way the old blighter spoke 
 to Queen Mary. He certainly must have bored 
 her to tears, besides being excessively rude to her," 
 remarked the Doctor. 
 
 Little Willy, ahas Bill Minor, alias Lieutenant 
 Cousins, had just located the Battalion Head- 
 quarters. In front of us loomed a long dark 
 object. This, we were informed, was the convent 
 wall. 
 
 " Good !" said the Paymaster. This was the 
 first time he had betrayed any interest in the night's 
 proceedings. " Where are the nuns ?" 
 
 Here we found the headquarters. Down eight 
 steps, turn to the right through a mackintosh 
 sheet, down two more steps, and we are in the 
 dugout. Bunks down either side stuffed with 
 straw, a stove at the far end, in the centre a long 
 narrow table — at once the orderly room and the 
 mess mahogany. 
 
 Here we find first the O.C, duly attired in 
 gumboots and a Balaclava cap, resting quietly and
 
 THE GLORY OF WAR 95 
 
 reading a newspaper while waiting to go round the 
 trenches. Secondly, Major Meldrum — alert, eager, 
 and implacable, thirsting to carve or capture any 
 German at a moment's notice. He was seated on 
 a box of bombs, and seemed entirely at his ease. 
 Thirdly, the Adjutant, much harassed and over- 
 worked, with the entire orderly-room literature 
 divided between the dugout table and his trousers 
 pocket. 
 
 Enter an orderly. Orderly to Adjutant : " You're 
 wanted on the 'phone. Brigade Headquarters, 
 sir." 
 
 Adjutant: "Damn!" 
 
 Exit orderly. Exit Adjutant. 
 
 The Quartermaster laughs, the Padre endeavours 
 to look shocked, but merely succeeds in shaking his 
 head. The remainder continue their various pur- 
 suits undisturbed. 
 
 Enter Adjutant. Adjutant to Medical Officer: 
 " What the devil do you mean by putting your 
 dressing-station twenty miles behind the German 
 lines ?" 
 
 " I never did." 
 
 " That's the worst of trusting to a pill-seller. 
 I sent your map reference straight into Brigade 
 without checking it up. Now Brigade rings up 
 and wants to know if you've deserted, or if you're 
 spending the summer in Lille. What map did you 
 use ?" 
 
 The inarticulate Medical Officer merely handed
 
 96 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEES FIELDS 
 
 the sheet A 99 to the outraged Adjutant. " Well, 
 why in the name of all the holy gods do you call 
 it A 98 ? For Heaven's sake stick to pills and 
 poultices, and get a man to run your map locations 
 for you !" 
 
 Enter orderly. Orderly to Adjutant: *' You're 
 wanted on the 'phone." 
 
 Adjutant: "Damn!" 
 
 Exit orderly. Exit Adjutant. 
 
 Outside the sound of men marching. A sentry 
 challenges, the party halts. 
 
 Enter Adjutant. Adjutant to Colonel : " Brigade 
 wants to know if we've any skilled telegraph 
 operators in the battalion." 
 
 Colonel: "Notify the companies. We'll soon 
 have nobody left in the battalion at all." 
 
 Enter orderly. Orderly to Adjutant: " You're 
 wanted on the 'phone, sir." 
 
 Adjutant: " Damn !" 
 
 Exit orderly. Exit Adjutant. 
 
 We now leave the headquarters dugout, with 
 its low roof, its straw-filled bunks, the damp floor- 
 boards and smoking stove, and ascend to the 
 ground-level. Here in the shadow of the convent 
 wall is a road, raised above the immediately 
 surrounding country, and here are dugouts and 
 stores, ammunition-boxes, rolls of barbed wire, 
 and entrenching tools. For this is a war of wire 
 and trench, of sap and machine-guns, of much 
 patient waiting and thoughtful pauses.
 
 THE GLORY OF WAR 97 
 
 There is a delightful feeling of security in six 
 inches of convent wall. Every now and then a 
 bullet slaps on the far side with a splash of nickel, 
 and a splutter of broken brick. 
 
 We wander along the wall, stumbling in the dark. 
 Here are the remains of the convent, white and 
 ghastly wreckage in the darkness. We drop 
 through a hole in the wall into the enclosure, and 
 we are in the convent garden. 
 
 Here, in days gone by, the nuns wandered in 
 pious meditation, pressing the daisies with their 
 dainty feet, as they speculated on the mysteries 
 of life and death. We would sooner discuss the 
 vagaries of \vine and song and dance, but that 
 is not the point — nuns are nuns, and we are merely 
 details. Here, beside a flooded communication 
 trench, through some barbed-wire entanglements, 
 we pass across the ever-sacred enclosure. Our way 
 was not without its dangers. Shell-holes filled 
 with water gaped on all sides, while trenches, 
 whether for drainage or communication, yawned 
 at our feet, and were crossed in the fleeting glow 
 of the falling starlight. 
 
 Sergeant Ramrod, who was of the party, was not 
 too fortunate, as a splash in the darkness pro- 
 claimed. He chose what was possibly the deepest 
 part of the trench to disappear into, and was with 
 difficulty rescued. He was mud from the points 
 of his moustache to the inside of his cholera belt, 
 and where he was not mud, he was water. He 
 
 7
 
 98 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 got little comfort, as a voice from the darkness 
 muttered: " There goes that sanguinary fool 
 Ramrod ; always shoving his nose into things 
 that don't concern him." He was advised to 
 retire to the rear, and get a wash and brush-up 
 at the dressing-station. 
 
 We arrived at the front line without any further 
 casualty. Here we found " A " Company. " Come 
 in and make yourselves at home !" the officers 
 shouted as we butted into their commodious 
 chateau. It was all above ground; the east wall 
 of the convent enclosure formed the back, and the 
 rest of the hut was of the lean-to species. Here 
 were Major Berkeley, John Wallace, and Lieu- 
 tenants Puddiphat and Pillows. " What will you 
 drink ? Tea, coffee, cocoa, rum, soup, or bovril ? 
 Sorry they're mostly teetotal, but we haven't 
 arranged our source of supply yet." 
 
 The parson and the Doctor made themselves 
 at home, and accepted the proffered delicacies, the 
 Padre bovril and the Medical Officer something 
 stronger. 
 
 " Has the Colonel found his gumboots yet ? Is 
 he coming round to-night ? How's Grosvenor's 
 liver ?" The clerical and medical professions did 
 their best to answer these questions. Suddenly 
 the door of the hut was thrown open, and a small 
 eager officer entered. " What I say is, ' one man 
 one woman.' Pillows, you Hun ! you've got your 
 feet on my bed !" It was Lieutenant Bridges.
 
 THE GLORY OF WAR 99 
 
 " What's al] that fixing ?" asked the Major. 
 
 " Oh, nothing; only the Highlanders on the 
 right with the wind up. They're crazy, anyhow. 
 They've probably had too much rum." 
 
 The Padre and Medical Officer wandered down 
 the trench. It was dark, but still. On the filing- 
 steps, peering across at No Man's Land, were the 
 sentries, stamping their feet as they stood with 
 their hands in their pockets. From time to time, 
 as the two non-combatants progressed, they were 
 challenged, and their identity inquired into. The 
 Bosche was quiet, but from time to time a 
 rifle-shot rang out, our people answering not 
 at all. 
 
 It was the Bois de Perdrix, and yet not the same. 
 There, we were serving our apprenticeship; here, 
 we had taken out our papers. We had not been 
 found wanting — rather otherwise, I imagine — and 
 we were at last beyond the incubation stage, and 
 full-blown accredited members of the British 
 Expeditionary Force. There were Imperial troops 
 to right and left of us, but for three miles of line 
 were Canadians and Canadians only. It was a 
 great night for Canada, a great night for the 
 Empire also. 
 
 We were not without alarms, as The Mackintosh 
 knew to his cost. On one occasion in the small 
 hours of the morning, he had wandered up to the 
 front line to inquire into a certain matter of 
 shortages. This was after we had held our own
 
 100 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 particular bit for three days. The matter settled, 
 he was standing in the trench talking to Lieutenant 
 AUonby. The night was dark and without a 
 breeze, but for once the Canadians had the wind 
 up. Gusts of rifle-fire on either side of us broke 
 the stillness of the night; the company to our left 
 suddenly opened up a rapid independent fire, and 
 a sentry on the firing-step beside the Quartermaster 
 suddenly discharged his rifle over the parapet 
 shouting: " Here they come, the sons of Bosches !" 
 
 Down the line went the order, " No. 12 Platoon, 
 stand to !" The firing-step was lined with dark 
 crouching figures peering into the darkness. Off 
 came the covers of the machine-guns. Not a shot 
 was fired. In the darkness of the trench the 
 Quartermaster waited, wondering for hour-long 
 seconds, when the first German would jump over 
 the parapet, and find the third button of his tunic 
 with the point of a bayonet. 
 
 Lieutenant Allonby, standing beside the now 
 uncertain sentry, inquired what he had seen. A 
 moment before he had been positive of seeing black 
 figures wandering along that line of willows. Now 
 he began to be uncertain. Everything was silent. 
 Up went a German star-shell; the row of willows 
 stood out brightly in relief. 
 
 " What the Hades are you doing, old-timer !" 
 said Lieutenant Hooly, strolling into the trench 
 from the right. " Practising your bunch at squad 
 drill?"
 
 THE GLORY OF WAR 101 
 
 " No, you Si wash ! Merely a reed shaking in the 
 wilderness. No. 12, stand down !" said Allonby. 
 
 " Man Jeff, my heart was fairly in my mouth. 
 I wish you'd not do these fancy tricks when I come 
 to call on you," said the Quartermaster. 
 
 A voice floated through the darkness from the 
 left, inquiring, " How do you like standing to, 
 No. 12 ?" Another reedy whisper came from the 
 right, " Have another drop of rum, old dear, to 
 clear your eyesight !" 
 
 Then there were the spies. The Engineers were 
 always seeing them — yes, and other people too. But 
 the Engineers enjoyed almost a monopoly in this 
 particular line. Wonderfully authentic histories 
 they brought in of working-parties sniped at from 
 a short distance, of dark figures creeping away in 
 the darkness, of caches of bully-beef found in de- 
 serted farm-houses, and of discarded civihan clothes. 
 They were always being fired at point-blank range, 
 but somehow the mysterious assailant always man- 
 aged to steal away in the darkness. At their 
 request we detailed search-parties, who wandered 
 about through the mud strafing the sappers, and 
 entirely bored by their optic hallucinations, on 
 which they based the very shghtest belief. 
 
 The activities of this system of espionage was 
 not confined to night. Tales were brought to us 
 of peasant farmers who placidly ploughed the soil 
 with a Mauser rifle shoved down the leg of their 
 trousers. When the end of the furrow was reached
 
 102 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 it was the practice of the ploughman to extract 
 his weapon from his trousers, and shoot the nearest 
 Thomas Atkins in the back ! 
 
 Then there were windmills that semaphored 
 signals across to the enemy's lines; carrier pigeons 
 winging their way with messages; and dogs with 
 despatches tied to their necks. 
 
 Honest John Wallace, formerly of the York 
 City Police, Massachusetts, U.S.A., our little 
 Sherlock Holmes, was of a particularly suspicious 
 nature. Everyone was a spy until found to be 
 otherwise. One night, wandering in the vicinity 
 of Plumbois, he noticed a light shining in a window 
 facing the enemy lines, a light that seemed to 
 signal. At once his interest was aroused, and, 
 like the wise men of old on seeing the star of 
 Bethlehem, he headed in that direction. Through 
 ditches, barbed wire, hedges, and over ploughed 
 fields, he stubbornly plodded onward. The light 
 flashed and flickered; dots and dashes blazed 
 through John's heated imagination. " A spy at 
 last ! and signaUing too !" Muddied, plastered, 
 torn, and wearied. Honest John arrived at the 
 house. Cautiously and on tiptoe he approached 
 the ground-floor windows, from whence the ac- 
 cusing light beamed, and peered discreetly inside. 
 There a man was seated, a man of his own com- 
 pany, quite above suspicion and rejoicing in the 
 name of William Wallace. By a candle he was 
 darning a large hole in the seat of his trousers,
 
 THE GLORY OF WAR 103 
 
 and his arm, rising and falling in front of the light 
 in awkward manipulation of his needle, formed 
 the dots and dashes that Honest John had diagnosed 
 as signals. 
 
 We returned from our first five days in the 
 trenches, on the whole quite pleased with our- 
 selves. We had not been shot at more than was 
 really necessary, and we had not suffered much 
 from " wind." We returned to rest in billets in 
 Plumbois. Reserve billets meant rest and baths. 
 The former welcome, the latter a species of divine 
 interference. 
 
 " We took our bath and we wallowed, 
 For, Lord! we needed it so." 
 
 A hot bath in a vat in a brewery, with oceans 
 of hot water and clean clothes at the finish. We 
 bleaeed the medical authorities and felt like new 
 men. 
 
 The men were billeted in barns. They were 
 becoming quite used to barns — in fact, they were 
 almost specialists on the subject. There were big 
 barns and small barns ; barns that were smelly 
 and others merely musty ; barns with roofs, and 
 barns when the only covering was the stars; barns 
 with live-stock and barns without, but barns all 
 the time. 
 
 The officers were for the most part quartered in 
 farm-houses, and these varied as did the barns. 
 The barns and houses formed a courtyard, in the
 
 104 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 centre of which was the shmy, wobbling manure- 
 heap, where monstrous pigs wallowed, ducks 
 waddled, and hens scratched anxiously. It was 
 always the same : the wealth of Flanders lay in our 
 midst, evil-looking and vile-smelling, hoarded 
 penuriously, to be later on taken out and decanted 
 on the fields. At first we were horrified, but later 
 on we became indifferent. However, the text- 
 books say an open smell is a healthy smell, and 
 there was no doubt about its being open. It 
 flaunted itself in our faces, blew into our nostrils, 
 and at night, though unseen, it was still eternal. 
 It had one good effect, I think: everyone learnt to 
 boil their water. 
 
 The headquarters of the Pompadours was in the 
 village; here they lived in royal luxury with a 
 dropsical heroine, who, faithful to her Lares and 
 Penates, refused to be influenced by hostile shell- 
 fire. Funnily enough, the house was never hit. 
 The ex-Massachusetts detective at once was on 
 the lady's trail. The inference was obvious: the 
 lady was a spy, and the Huns were sparing her 
 house for tb^^ reason! Furthermore, whenever 
 the shelling commenced she retired at once to the 
 cellar. Manifestly there must be a telephone 
 there, and she was signalling outers and bull's-eyes 
 to the Bosche. Honest John bided his time, and 
 the next shelling found him thundering on the cellar 
 door. Here, after a delay, he was admitted. 
 Brushing the lady high-handedly aside, he de-
 
 THE GLORY OF WAR 105 
 
 scended to the depths, from whence ascended the 
 light of a lamp. Here were rows and rows ol 
 bottles, several ponderous casks, but no telephone, 
 only the Doctor ! 
 
 " Hullo, Johnnie ! gone to ground ? Have a 
 glass of sherry wine and a 'am sandwich." 
 
 ** What the devil are you doing here, Doc. ?" 
 
 *' Nothing, darling, only comforting Madam, and 
 trying some of the \dntages." 
 
 Such warfare cannot last for ever, and the 
 Brigadier ordered us to go route-marching. Behold 
 a company of the Pompadours, now war-worn 
 veterans, swinging their rumps through the village 
 of Messe7ia. On the outskirts was halted aii 
 Imperial Territorial regiment, newly arrived in the 
 country. Chucking a mighty chest, the Pompa- 
 dours sniffed. Captain Wales halted his command; 
 they fell out, and oh, the lies they told ! Shot and 
 shell raining on the front-Hne trench, bombs 
 dropping from above, mines bursting beneath their 
 feet. All recounted with a half -contemptuous 
 shrug of the shoulders and an air of self-satisfied 
 indifference. I don't know how many months 
 they said they had stood in the water-logged 
 trenches, or how many attacks they had repelled 
 at the point of the bayonet, or what their casualties 
 had been, but they pulled the Territorial leg 
 from Halifax to Nanaimo and then from Dan 
 to Beersheba. And those new troops stood 
 round in silent, awestruck reverence, for surely
 
 106 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 these must be heroes ! The Pompadours left them 
 on the roadside, silent, stricken dumb. 
 
 " Say, old-timer, you don't half peddle the Bull 
 when you get started," remarked Private Waters 
 as they humped it down the road. 
 
 The Brigadier was not yet satisfied, for he 
 believed in efficiency, so we had to stand to at 
 night. Quietly the order was given, and stealthily 
 the men fell into their places. Limbers were 
 loaded and water-carts harnessed up. No talking, 
 for a wonder ; no one dropped a rifle on the ground ; 
 the orders, softly spoken, were as quietly obeyed, 
 and secretly and silently the companies filed of! 
 hke ghosts in the night to their various positions. 
 We, who had watched with interest the gradual 
 evolution of the last few months, were filled with 
 astonishment. Was it possible that these quiet, 
 self-contained shadows, moving so cautiously in 
 the dark, were the same garrulous, cigarette- 
 smoking militiamen who had assembled a few 
 months previously on Valcartier's plain ? 
 
 And so our rest in billets came to an end. The 
 next night we relieved the Saskatoons. We were 
 getting down to it in great style; the Government 
 equipment had been supplemented in various 
 ways. Here a circular loaf impaled on the point 
 of a bayonet; there two bottles of wine balanced 
 one another round a willing neck; bundles of fire- 
 wood and bags of coal, bedroom shppers, even a 
 bed-quilt, made their way into the trenches, and
 
 THE GLOKY OF WAR 107 
 
 all sorts of cooking utensils, concertinas, and 
 mouth-organs. 
 
 " For Maryland is Fairyland, 
 And he's promised my wife to see 
 When the lads from the West of Canada 
 And our homo is across the sea." 
 
 We returned to our convent wall. The head- 
 quarters burrowed in their dugout, and the Doctor 
 resumed his quarters in the funereal hearse, which 
 stood stuck in the mud hard by. 
 
 " And a very appropriate residence too, for our 
 ' Pills,' " commented the Adjutant, who, being born 
 south of the border, was always making jokes 
 which the Doctor couldn't see. When this type 
 of cheap witticism got beyond all bearing, the 
 Medical Officer would seek out the Quartermaster, 
 and together they would strafe the Enghsh, talking 
 of Sassenachs and hinting at dark deeds, and the 
 Quartermaster would think regretfully of his 
 Skein-dhu and the Medical Officer would rattle his 
 pill-box threateningly in its scabbard. 
 
 The companies returned to their trenches, which 
 they always said the Saskatoons left in a horrible 
 condition ! Of course, no work had ever been 
 done, but then no one ever works but ourselves. 
 The bath-mats had been broken up and used for 
 firewood, and all the pumps were out of busi- 
 ness. And those sons of farmers had tried to 
 drain water uphill, and left food and ammunition 
 lying about all over the trenches. It was ever
 
 108 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 the same : the outgoing battalion was always 
 guilty of every crime of omission and commission 
 mentioned in the decalogue. Well, I expect the 
 Saskatoons were no worse than anyone else, but 
 it was ever so. 
 
 So the routine of trench warfare recommenced, 
 and the front-line trench is the best place to be in 
 in this war. For there everyone forgets to trouble 
 about the war. Everyone in the front line is 
 cheerful, and here one laughs the whole day and 
 most of the night too. The farther back you go 
 to supports, rest billets, the base, and finally to 
 Blighty, the more dismal you become. Cheer- 
 fulness appears to increase in the inverse ratio to 
 safety, and it is the same with grumbling. I have 
 heard an A.S.C. sergeant, who was unable to obtain 
 his morning bath, make more noise about it than 
 a Major of the line who had been sleeping in wet 
 mud for five days. 
 
 Don't let it be thought for a moment that I 
 would belittle the Army Service Corps. That 
 would indeed be biting the hand that feeds us, and 
 that fed us exceedingly well for many months. 
 Now, and always, I salute them ! 
 
 Yes, there in the front line we were cheerful. 
 But there are the wee sma' hours just abune the 
 twal, when the vital tides are at their teeniest, 
 weeniest ebb. Then the sentries, staring across the 
 dripping wire, waiting for the dismal dawn, as the 
 chill creeps into their bones, are apt to let their
 
 THE GLORY OF WAR 109 
 
 thoughts wander. Then the imagination gets to 
 work and conjures up happy images of comfortable 
 beds, eiderdowns, and hot-water bottles. Yes, 
 and more than hot-water bottles, too ! Then you 
 wonder which is the bigger, the hollow in your 
 stomach or the ache in your heart. Then it is 
 that our all-seeing Government steps in and, as 
 a corrective, the rum arrives. 
 
 The morning was cold — cold with the dampness 
 of cHnging vapour. Major Berkeley and Captain 
 Wallace, lingering in the dismal chillness, noted 
 the growing dawn and the gloomy frigidity of the 
 surroundings. The sentries on the firing-step, 
 gazing through the misty drizzle at the sodden 
 wire, were silent ; occasionally one stamped his feet 
 or buried his chin more deeply in his upturned 
 collar. The world seemed sad, slushy, and sunk 
 in a sea of mud and despondency. 
 
 A man passed carrying a pannikin, then another. 
 In the grey east a haggard dawn was struggling 
 with the desolate darkness; then, somewhere along 
 the trench someone started to whistle; the lilt of 
 a song rose in the gloom. Down the trench three 
 figures, grouped round an object on the ground, 
 were laughing. It was a rum-jar, the concrete 
 means of bringing new comfort to sixty-four 
 wilhng souls. " Have some rum, Wallace," said 
 the Major. " Good wine gladdeneth the heart; it 
 goes just right at this time in the morning." As 
 the two officers retired into their dugout, the day,
 
 110 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 % 
 
 already brightening, was glowing in the east, and 
 the whole trench was singing. 
 
 And yet there are those who would do away 
 with the rum ration ! All those blundering, mis- 
 informed busybodies, who would preach total 
 abstinence on the parapet at 4 a.m. have no idea 
 what it is like in a British trench in the small 
 hours of the morning ! I can only assure them 
 they would be better in the firing-line than trying 
 to rob the soldier of his rum. There are no tee- 
 totallers in the trench at dawn when the rum 
 comes round. 
 
 Ever since we had arrived in France, the stimu- 
 lating effect of our surroundings had caused the 
 outgoing mail to increase enormously in extent. 
 Men who formerly had rarely set pen to paper 
 now slung ink, and revelled in indelible pencils, 
 with a zeal worthy of a better cause. On our first 
 arrival at Maurice, the Colonel decreed that the 
 headquarters should superintend and overlook the 
 efforts of the company officers. Behold, therefore, 
 a select group consisting of the man of God, Pills, 
 Pay, and the Quartermaster, and the second in 
 command seated round a cleared mess-table, in 
 the centre of which reposes a heterogeneous pile of 
 correspondence. 
 
 In a lunatic asylum, I understand, it is the 
 custom for the doctors to read the letters written by 
 the patients, in order to obtain an insight into the 
 whirlwind of their inner consciousness. Certainly
 
 THE GLORY OF WAR 111 
 
 in a battalion the characteristics of the rank and 
 file stand out more clearly in profile through the 
 medium of their letters. Men of whom one would 
 have least believed it were found to possess literary 
 abilities of a high order, while the most unpro- 
 mising exterior at times concealed a power and 
 elegance of descriptive eloquence ! We unearthed 
 by this means poets, philosophers, and thinkers. 
 Of course, there was the other side of the picture, 
 and some, of whom great things might have been 
 expected, were found to be scarcely able to hold 
 a pen 1 
 
 There was the simple-minded enthusiast who 
 wrote of the fine time he was having, how he was 
 fit, and hoped everyone at home was well. He 
 was a man to look up to; he never allowed that 
 there was any possibility of danger; unselfish and 
 soHcitous for others' hopes and fears, he would 
 wait until the war was over to tell his story. 
 
 Then there was the morbid liar, endeavouring 
 to create an impression by manufacturing possi- 
 bihties which did not exist. 
 
 " Dear Gwen," he wrote (the Paymaster thought 
 it ought to be " Poor Gwen "), — " While I write to 
 you the shells are screaming overhead and bursting 
 all round us. Sid Allen has just got his. He 
 screamed something terrible when the shell hit him. 
 They say he will die. I just smile at the shells 
 when they land near me. I can hardly see to 
 write, as the sky is dark with the bullets flying
 
 112 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 overhead. The noise is maddening. I do not 
 expect to be ahve when I next write." 
 
 " I hope to Heaven he won't be !" remarked 
 the Paymaster as he laid down the letter. " I 
 wonder how Allonby let that rubbish through. 
 I shall advise him to ' run ' that person for conduct 
 subversive of good order and discipline, and being 
 a damned liar into the bargain." 
 
 " How would ' conduct prejudicial to the good 
 morals of Gwen ' do ?" suggested the Adjutant. 
 
 And this, mark you, when we were still at 
 Maurice, fifteen miles from the firing-line, where 
 we had to go outside the house in order to hear the 
 guns booming in the distance ! Sid Allen, by the 
 way, was suffering from a kick from a mule — that 
 was the only shell that hit him. 
 
 Then there was also the critical scribe, whose 
 letters evinced an entire disapproval of the 
 general conduct of the war, a slavish admiration 
 of the Germans, and conveyed the information 
 that he, at least, would and could run the show, 
 with enormous advantage to the Empire as a 
 whole. He was in many ways a more pestilential 
 form of nuisance than the other. 
 
 They generally chose mothers or elderly aunts 
 to confide their views to, and I tremble to think 
 to what depths of doubt and uncertainty their 
 female relatives must have been reduced, by the 
 communication of these ill-timed expressions of 
 opinion.
 
 THE GLORY OF WAR 113 
 
 " Dear Aunt Kate, — I have not heard from 
 you for three days, but that is not surprising, as 
 the postal arrangements are so terribly mishandled. 
 There is only one delivery of letters a day, and 
 that is at night. Did you ever hear of such mis- 
 management ? I feel certain that the Germans 
 have three or four deliveries a day. 
 
 " My company officer, a very stupid man " 
 (" That's rather hard on Wallace, isn't it ?" mused 
 the Doctor), " is always sending my letters back, 
 as he says they would shock and sadden the Censor. 
 T would use a green envelope if I had one, but 
 unfortunately I have not. 
 
 " We have almost no artillery, and what there 
 is, is constantly being hit by the Germans, who 
 are much superior to us. Our artillery is constantly 
 killing our own men, who are always terrified 
 when our guns open fire. 
 
 ** Our staff is quite incapable. There are spies 
 all over the country. The Engineer officers are 
 always seeing them and being sniped at. Belgian 
 farmers wander about at night behind our lines, 
 pretending to liglit their pipes and signalling to 
 the Germans by this means. Spies also signal by 
 means of windmills, this especially on windy days. 
 
 " Carrier-pigeons constantly fly over our lines. 
 My Captain, who is very ignorant, says they are 
 wood-pigeons. There is no doubt they are used 
 for carrying messages. 
 
 " We have quite lost the command of the air. 
 
 8
 
 114 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 I don't think we ever had it. Our aeroplanes are 
 constantly getting lost, and fly all over the German 
 lines and get fixed at by their air-guns. The 
 splinters of shell fall upon our men below, and by 
 this means thousands have been killed. The 
 German air service is much better arranged. Their 
 aeroplanes never come over our lines at all, thereby 
 showing how much better their maps are than 
 ours. If our guns fire at them they at once come 
 to the ground, so that none of their infantry get 
 hit by the shell fragments. By this means alone 
 the Germans save the lives of thousands of their 
 soldiers !" 
 
 And so on indefinitely, until the Doctor, who was 
 reading the document, gnashed his teeth and 
 foamed at the mouth. 
 
 The cheerful optimist was better reading. 
 
 " Dear Mother " (he scribbled, on a tattered 
 rag of newspaper wrapper), — '' This war is sure a 
 son of a pig, but believe me I shall stick to it closer 
 than mud to a blanket. 
 
 " Yours lovingly, 
 
 " Ed." 
 
 We plumbed all manner of hidden depths in the 
 reading of these letters, and by so doing obtained 
 an understanding of our friends in the rank and 
 file, which otherwise might have been denied us.
 
 THE GLORY OF WAR 115 
 
 Truly the methods of the asylum doctors have 
 something to recommend them. 
 
 It was the 17th of Ireland, and as such honoured 
 by all good Hibernians. Major Meldrum, as 
 befitting one of the ancient order, was early in the 
 front-line trench, and soon, as a result of his 
 labours, most of the battalion were wearing o' the 
 green. In his wake, following down the front line 
 at an interval of half a dozen bays, came the 
 Doctor. Presently, spotting a determined-looking 
 individual, he inquired why he was not adorned 
 with a verdant sprig of shamrock. 
 
 " I'm from Glengarry," came the curt rejoinder. 
 
 " Good for you, old sport," returned the Doctor. 
 " Have some Scotch." 
 
 " You bet ! Here's to Saint Andrew." 
 
 The Major might be armed with a bale of sham- 
 rock, but the Medical Officer was thrice armed as, 
 with three bottles of Johnny Walker, he delicately 
 picked his way down the trench. Here and there 
 he noted a Scotsman — some from Nova Scotia, 
 some from Glengarry, and some from north of the 
 Tweed. Funnily enough,' they seemed to increase 
 in number as he progressed farther, until finally he 
 reached " B " Company on the return right. 
 Here they were apparently all Scottish ! 
 
 " Well, sorr, here's good luck to ould Scotland, 
 and three cheers for Saint Andrew !" This from a 
 brawny warrior in the act of drinking. Taking 
 off his cap, he waved it round his head, and a large
 
 116 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 bit of shamrock fell to the ground. A bullet spat 
 over the parapet and reminded us that our dear 
 friends opposite had other things to do than 
 discuss the various merits of patron saints. 
 
 " Here, I thought you said you were a Scots- 
 man," said the Medical Officer doubtfully. 
 
 " So I am, sorr; one of the best when there's 
 any whisky around ! But for the most part I was 
 born in the County av Cork, and me name's 
 O'Flanaghan." 
 
 About this time we received orders that we were 
 to be ready to support an attack which was taking 
 place on our right. If everything there was suc- 
 cessful, we were to do something ourselves. The 
 events of the battle have now become matters of 
 history. Our own share was practically nil, but 
 such as it was we did nothing to discredit ourselves. 
 We suffered a few casualties, and one that we 
 could ill afford. 
 
 Major Rawlins, at once one of our best and most 
 popular officers, was unfortunately shot while 
 sniping at a German loophole. Perhaps he had 
 not taken sufficient precautions to protect himself; 
 perchance he deemed the Hun a poorer marksman 
 than he really was. With a row of ribbons stretch- 
 ing across his breast he had fought all round the 
 Empire; a fearless, gallant soldier, we laid him to 
 rest behind our convent wall, and felt the world 
 was the poorer by his going. 
 He had a peculiar method of strafing the Hun.
 
 THE GLOKY OF WAR 117 
 
 Armed with a speaking-trumpet, he would hurl 
 defiances across at the distant trenches, mocking 
 our enemies and rousing them to retaliate. The 
 result would be a splutter of rifle-fire, bullets 
 singing over the parapet or burying themselves in 
 the sandbags. By this means the enemy were 
 located and a likely sniper spotted, ready for the 
 Major's answer. Nobody enjoyed trench warfare 
 more than the Major, yet he was always itching 
 to get closer to the enemy. x 
 
 Our funerals behind the convent wall took place 
 always after dark. As we had no communication 
 trenches, it was not possible to get a stretcher out 
 during the daylight. In the dark we gathered 
 beside the open grave, the Colonel and such officers 
 and men who could be spared from duty. The 
 Padre, reading the beautiful lines by the aid 
 of an electric torch, conducted the service. Thus 
 we bade farewell to those who had been our 
 friends. 
 
 While we were at Plumbois we got the casualty 
 return of our engagement fought by the Imperial 
 troops on the Western front. The Colonel made 
 the announcement at mess, after the waiters had 
 withdrawn. He pointed out that our losses had 
 been extremely heavy, and that he didn't want 
 them to be too widely discussed. lie quoted seven 
 thousand as the sum total. I still remember with 
 what concern we received the news. Seven thou- 
 sand appeared a tremendous figure in those days.
 
 118 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 Yet in view of recent losses, what a drop in the 
 ocean ! 
 
 The men in the front line didn't have all the fun, 
 however, and occasionally the support company 
 had their own little excitements. Captains Cope 
 and Hardwick were seated at tea discussing a new 
 parcel from Fortnum and Mason which Lieutenant 
 Bromfield had just fallen heir to, through the 
 kindness of a devoted relative. A bullet flicked 
 through the open window, parting Bromfield 's hair 
 and administering a slight scalp wound, and buried 
 itself in the wall of the room. A few days later 
 they were shelled out of their farm, and had to 
 take refuge behind some haystacks. A haystack 
 always seemed pretty good to me: it was a nice 
 soft protection from high-calibre shells. Even a 
 direct hit was likely to cause very little trouble, 
 and if the gentle Hun set it on fire you could 
 always take cover in the smoke-cloud. 
 
 The last scene I remember along our convent 
 wall, for so it will always be called by the Pompa- 
 dours, was the Doctor in heated controversy with 
 two of our Engineer officers. For two days he 
 had, at the earnest request of the Colonel, been 
 endeavouring to drain a patch of land, the centre 
 of which was occupied by a pool of water, in 
 which the bodies of five dead horses lay. For two 
 days the stretcher-bearers sweated over pumps, 
 part of a gigantic drainage scheme. When I saw 
 him, the Engineers had just pointed out that the
 
 THE GLORY OF WAR 
 
 water, which he fondly imagined was draining away 
 in a deep ditch, was simply running round the 
 field and coming back from where it started ! As 
 nature abhors a vacuum, so the thought of a 
 vicious circle is poison to the medical mind, and 
 the Medical Officer was deeply annoyed that the 
 Engineers were the ones to show him his mistake. 
 " What do you people think you know about 
 drainage ? You don't know everything, although 
 you think you do. This is public health, not 
 public works."
 
 CHAPTEE VII 
 FLOUNDERING IN FLANDERS 
 
 All good things come to an end, and already 
 Plumbois, the convent wall, and our rest billet 
 with the dropsical heroine, were mere memories. 
 We were at Misere, in luxurious billets, being care- 
 fully rested and fattened up for the killing. Here 
 we practised the attack, charging across ploughed 
 fields, which took us up to the knees in the soft 
 mud of Flanders. Excellent exercise, but some- 
 what trying to the wind, where for a month the 
 regiment has held its morning parades on the firing- 
 step of a trench. So to improve our wind we went 
 for route marches — route marches along country 
 lanes with nature awakening to the touch of spring. 
 The hedgerows were breaking into bud, and the 
 woods were bright with primroses and violets. 
 The air was balmy and the days bright, as the winds 
 and storms of March yielded to the sunshine and soft 
 April showers. 
 
 The Mackintosh and the Medical Officer went 
 about with an air of grave detachment, for quartered 
 in Misere was a Highland host. Here were Perth- 
 shire Highlanders, the Ross-shire Rangers, the 
 
 120
 
 FLOUNDERING IN FLANDERS 121 
 
 Highland Borderers, the Renfrew Light Infantry, 
 all engaged in the same occupation as ourselves. 
 In the evenings our two Scotsmen retired to the 
 local pub, where they spent the evening discussing 
 pipe music. Home Rule for Scotland, haggis and 
 Highland cream. 
 
 The Padre was happy. No doubt the spring 
 entered into his blood and inspired him. Daily he 
 came to us with a fresh ebullition of the Muse. 
 These he read, regardless of his audience, to all 
 and sundry — to the Colonel at orderly-room, to 
 the Quartermaster's staf!. One day, for want of 
 better, he was found reciting his latest gem to 
 an audience of one, an old Flemish lady who was 
 deaf and dumb, and who had no knowledge of 
 English ! 
 
 We got to know our allies — the French in- 
 habitants with whom we were billeted, wonderful 
 people of that brave nation, confident in their 
 behef in victory. Here were the patient women 
 whose husbands were away at the war, and the 
 young girls who shook their heads and replied 
 " Apres la guerre " and " Non compris." It 
 was a fine old city, with high gabled houses and 
 a town hall built by the Spaniards, with broad 
 streets and trees on either side. Here the Germans 
 dropped bombs, but never hurt anyone, and the 
 inhabitants, unflurried, carried on their business. 
 And here we spent a week, a week of peace and 
 quiet, but of much hard work, until the Pom-
 
 122 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 padours who had been good before became 
 still better, until it would have been hard to 
 find a better regiment on the whole continent of 
 Europe. 
 
 Who ought to have known better? for we belonged 
 to them; so who has a better right to judge ? 
 
 From Misere the Brigade marched north. We 
 were gradually learning. This march was as 
 much a delight as that from Maurice to the Bois 
 de Perdrix had been a pain. We did the eighteen 
 miles without a hitch; the men marched well and 
 everything went swimmingly. A few fell out, but 
 they were mostly old " sweats," and old soldiers, 
 whose medal ribbons bore witness to the previous 
 campaigns in which they had served. 
 
 Our regimental rule insisted that, before falling 
 out on the march, the men had to get permission 
 from the Medical Officer, who, if he thought fit, 
 might direct that they be allowed to ride on 
 waggons. Our Doctor had rather a sharp way 
 with these, and he evidently had small behef in 
 the graphic account of their ailments and dis- 
 abilities. Nevertheless, on occasions a man would 
 be allowed to ride on a waggon, where he would 
 sit watching for the Medical Officer. In the event 
 of that worthy hovering in the vicinity, the sufferer 
 on the limber would at once assume an expression 
 of the most intense agony until the Doctor had 
 departed, when he would permit his features to 
 relax, and even indulge in a wink at those less
 
 FLOUNDEEING IN FLANDERS 123 
 
 fortunate or with better spirit than himself who 
 trudged alongside. 
 
 Private Bloodstock had brought this accomplish- 
 ment of simulating sickness, to its highest form of 
 perfection. Long, lean, and cadaverous, with the 
 watery eye and the rubicund nose of the habitual 
 booze artist, he had run through the whole price- 
 list of bodily ailments, but found the Medical 
 Officer still unconvinced. He commenced the 
 march in the leading section of fours in the leading 
 company, but gradually and discreetly fell farther 
 and farther to the rear. The end of two miles 
 found him in rear of No. 2 Company, and by the 
 first halt he had gravitated past the machine-gun 
 section, and found himself in the midst of an 
 unsympathetic and critical medical detail. 
 
 " It's a shame asking a fine soldier like yourself to 
 walk, man Bloodstock ; you ought to be on a horse 
 at the head of the regiment," said the McSpeldron. 
 
 " Same old complaint ?" 
 
 " What's it this time ? Housemaid's knee or 
 varicose veins ?" 
 
 The medical sergeant was deep in the middle 
 of a lecture on the evils of booze, as typified in 
 the case of Private Bloodstock, when the transport 
 officer rode up. 
 
 " What's wrong. Sergeant Bowdcn ?" 
 
 " Private Bloodstock unable to march any 
 farther. Wishes to fall out, and ride on a waggon." 
 
 " Where's the Medical Officer ?"
 
 124 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 " Here," answered the Doctor, from the ditch 
 where, in company with the Quartermaster, he 
 had been watching the episode. 
 
 " What's wrong. Private Bloodstock ?" 
 
 " Sore back." 
 
 " What ? Were you in the Navy ?" 
 
 " No, sir; never." 
 
 " Well, how did you get a sore back ? I thought 
 the Navy had an option on sore backs ? You 
 mean sore shoulders or pain down the legs ?" 
 
 "No, sir; sore back," answered Private Blood- 
 stock stubbornly. " I've been sweating blood all 
 morning." 
 
 " No, no, not blood. You mean red wine. This 
 is clearing your system out; you'll be a different 
 man at the end of the march. It's doing you a 
 lot of good." 
 
 " No, sir; it's killing me. I'll die if I keep on " 
 — assuming an appearance of suffering martyrdom. 
 
 " Well, don't pull a face like that; you'll frighten 
 the mules. Let me see. Sergeant Bowden !" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Am I right ? This man has fallen out on 
 every march we've done so far ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Yes, I thought so. Private Bloodstock, you'll 
 
 carry on. Don't fall out again, or you'll find the 
 
 experiment a trifle disastrous. Fall in with your 
 
 company." 
 
 There were several Private Bloodstocks in the
 
 FLOUNDERING IN FLANDERS 125 
 
 regiment. It was their habit to gain the shelter 
 of the transport waggons, where they could sur- 
 reptitiously deposit their rifles on one of the limbers, 
 and by holding on to the back-board, help them- 
 selves along on their weary way. The transport 
 officer, rushing about like a fretful wasp, was 
 for ever on their trail, worrying them and bringing 
 their schemes to nought. The transport sergeant 
 was no less antagonistic: " Come on, you cripples; 
 no joy-riding here." 
 
 Down one side of a broad valley and up the 
 other the Brigade steadily made its way. Every- 
 thing was still and peaceful. A jay, perched 
 on a stumpy willow, whimsically surveyed the 
 moving column, twisting its neck to get the better 
 look. A hare, disturbed, rose lazily from the 
 grass and sped leisurely across an open field; 
 only the long winding khaki snake spoke of great 
 doings and events, as it passed on its way through 
 the sleepy hamlets and past the waving wind- 
 mills. 
 
 And somewhere on the road was the Brigadier, 
 waiting for us to march by. Day or night it was 
 always the same — addressing each olhccr and 
 many of the men by name as we passed; silent 
 otherwise, yet noting every detail, overlooking 
 us as we looked up to him with mutual regard 
 and liking. Truly we were a happy, if a large, 
 family in the Brigade, held together to some 
 extent by our training, to some extent by the
 
 126 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 same common purpose; but the factor that bulked 
 largest in our minds was the extraordinary tie 
 of loyalty that bound us to our Brigadier, and 
 the discipline that went with it, and which he 
 required of us. For with discipline and loyalty 
 you can do anything. 
 
 At the starting-place the Brigade had assembled, 
 each unit arriving with precision and punctuality, 
 and so, as we arrived at the end of our march, 
 the column silently faded away. Here a company 
 turned to right or left, their transport halted at 
 its appointed place on the roadside. Everyone 
 knew where to go and what to do; quietly they 
 departed into the night, and their billets swallowed 
 them up. 
 
 Here in a peaceful rolling country, amid avenues 
 of poplar-trees and the gaunt frameworks of naked 
 hop-fields, the Pompadours reposed. Not that 
 we were idle: training still went on. Companies 
 foot-slogged along the road; that special suicide 
 club, the machine-gunners, practised themselves 
 in methods of assault and defence. 
 
 A new arm of the Service had sprung up recently ; 
 we first became aware of it at Plumbois. Gradually 
 we were undergoing a reversion to type in some 
 of our methods, and returning to the weapons of 
 our ancestors. Squads of men were seen in some 
 quiet selected country field hurling missiles at 
 one another, as though practising slow bowling. 
 These were the bombers, our anarchists, at play
 
 FLOUNDERING IN FLANDERS 127 
 
 with their jam-pots. Soon they were to become 
 one of the most efficient forces in the Army. 
 
 After pleasant days at work, and evenings 
 spent playing football and baseball, we received 
 our orders to march. Like children going on a 
 Sunday-school treat, we assembled at the starting- 
 point. Here were London busses from Charing 
 Cross, the Waterloo Road, PimHco, and the 
 Elephant and Castle. The outside seats were 
 the most popular. Through the quiet and smiling 
 country the long train of motor caravans wound 
 its way towards the firing-hne, leaving behind it 
 a long trail of white dust. Through villages we 
 bumped and jolted; past farm-houses and fields, 
 under avenues of poplars and between green hedges, 
 we bussed it to the firing-line. 
 
 At Malmartre we left our busses and marched. 
 A miUtary band composed of a concertina, half 
 a dozen mouth-organs and two biscuit-tins — the 
 pride of the " D " Company — helped us on our 
 way. Under the leadership of Sergeant Wells, 
 they inspired us to noble deeds by the stirring 
 strains they played. The Western Brigade 
 marched at the head of the Division and the 
 Pompadours marched at the head of the Western 
 Brigade, and Colonel O'Shea rode at the head 
 of the Pompadours on the big chestnut with white 
 points. The best Colonel of the best regiment on 
 the Western front. 
 
 It was evening when we entered the City of
 
 128 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 Distress, and in the golden west the sun was 
 sinking — a fiery ball of red. We marched past 
 the cathedral and turned the corner at the famous 
 town hall. As we took the turning and wheeled 
 into the square, we saw the sad effect that shot 
 and shell had wrought on the graceful lines of that 
 historic building. Here was a city that had been 
 a large and important centre when London was 
 but a village — a site that centuries ago had been 
 the meeting-place of Kings, and that now under 
 a new-born wave of ruthlessness, after centuries 
 of peaceful uneventful prosperity, had again 
 sprung into the limelight amid the roar of guns 
 and the blinding belch of shrapnel. 
 
 The town hall and the cathedral showed ample 
 evidence of the effectiveness of artillery fire, but 
 otherwise the town appeared very slightly damaged. 
 Here and there a house was knocked about, or 
 the dislodged paving-stones showed where a shell 
 had fallen. The square was alive with people; 
 at a hotel the guests were just sitting down to 
 dinner; the shops were just commencing to light 
 up; an air of busy cheerfulness permeated the 
 community. 
 
 We left the city walls behind us in the gathering 
 gloom and proceeded to the east. In the in- 
 creasing darkness as we passed on our way, the 
 dim forms of villages showed blurred and in- 
 distinct. Three names on the map, three Belgian 
 villages and nothing more, but names which were
 
 FLOUNDEEING IN FLANDERS 129 
 
 soon to be burnt into our memories and there 
 remain as fixed points for ever — St. Michel, 
 Boscap, and St. Jacques; and ever upward the 
 road mounted until finally we arrived at Shelled 
 Corner. Here on the ridge we saw the half-circle 
 of German lights rising and falling seemingly on all 
 sides of us. From here the country sloped down 
 on either side of us backwards to the city we had 
 just left, and forwards to where our own and the 
 German lines lay facing one another in the valley 
 beneath. 
 
 Our way lay along the ridge, and we passed 
 several roofless buildings whose shattered walls 
 showed grim and silent in the light of the star- 
 shells. Here the bullets hummed and buzzed 
 across the road, and here we picked our way amid 
 gaping shell-craters and freshly torn earth. 
 
 Wc were relieving the French. For months 
 they had held this far-flung line, holding on to 
 their shallow wireless trenches through the dreary 
 winter's mud and rain. A cellar, deeply buried amid 
 the ruins of a farm-house, formed the headquarters, 
 and from this, communication to the front line was 
 only to be had during the day by telephone. The 
 ground sloping downwards to the front line was 
 destitute of communication trenches. Outside, the 
 moon was just rising, shining on the hardy warriors 
 of France as they formed up before marching 
 away. Many of them spoke English and some 
 had lived in Canada, and from them we gleaned 
 
 9
 
 130 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 much information about our new line and about 
 tbe habits of the enemy. 
 
 The day dawned bright and the country was 
 soon bathed in sunshine. We now had an oppor- 
 tunity of seeing what manner of place we were 
 in. It was a land bare and bleak, with few houses 
 and with fewer signs of population than the smiling 
 pastures we had left. Yet it was by no means 
 unpleasant. Across the valley, and well behind 
 the German lines, a village with white walls and 
 red roofs lay straggling along a road. Over in 
 the German lines a balloon hung motionless, and 
 soon we were to know the reason of its presence. 
 A long-drawn shriek, quickly rising in a swift 
 crescendo, and a shell dropped in the field some 
 forty yards from us. Major Meldrum and Captain 
 Wallace and the Adjutant quickly sought cover. 
 That, however, did not satisfy the observers from 
 the balloon. Three more shells followed the first 
 in rapid succession; they were big ones, bursting 
 with a rattling jar and a cloud of black smoke. 
 Then followed a flight of " whizz-bangs," that 
 brought down the bricks and scattered splinters 
 broadcast. The telephone bell rang. " A " Com- 
 pany in the front line were catching it also ; already 
 they had had several casualties. 
 
 We had been shelled frequently at Plumbois 
 and at the Bois de Perdrix, but there they were 
 only " pip-squeaks " and " whizz-bangs," which 
 nobody paid much attention to. Here, however,
 
 FLOUNDERING IN FLANDERS 131 
 
 it was different, and there was something com- 
 pelHng in the shattering roar of the high explosive. 
 We stayed in our cellar and hoped that if a shell 
 alighted on the roof, the layers of sandbag and 
 brick would be strong enough to sustain the im- 
 pact. Presently the bombardment quieted down 
 and we crept out. This time, however, we kept 
 low behind our ruined walls; for we had had our 
 lesson : that balloon, hanging in the sky to the east, 
 was watching every movement. 
 
 Outside, the sentry in the yard yawned and 
 stretched himself. He alone had remained above 
 ground during the firing, although two shells had 
 landed in the yard, and splinters had fallen all 
 round him. The Eoman sentinel at Pompeii was 
 not braver or more contemptuous of danger than 
 are our sentries of to-day. At cross-roads, with 
 shrapnel bursting overhead, or at the gateways 
 of farm buildings rocking beneath the blows of 
 high explosive, they stand calmly and apparently 
 indifferent, the air heavy with the reek of poisonous 
 gas, and splinters of shell and broken brick falling 
 all around. 
 
 The whole of our front line received a dusting. 
 The reason was not hard to find. The French 
 during the day had lain quietly in their dugouts, 
 appearing as seldom as was possible. We, how- 
 ever, seemed to be always on the move, courting 
 disaster by so doing; for ever the old balloon 
 soared aloft in the sky and sent its messages tu
 
 132 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 the waiting artillery, who were not slow to take 
 its toll of us. In " A " Company Lieutenant 
 Ball was twice buried in the ruins of the parapet 
 only to rise again and shake himself and carry on. 
 On the right Captain Wales had a bullet through 
 his cap as a gentle reminder to keep his head 
 down, and Allonby, of the same company, was 
 wakened by a whiz-bang which suddenly invaded 
 his dugout, but failed entirely to explode. Twenty- 
 five casualties in all was the result of our first 
 day's experience, and the French had had two 
 in the last three weeks; certainly their methods 
 of warfare had something to recommend them ! 
 
 Late that night the Padre and the Doctor were 
 enjoying a stroll. The wounded had all been 
 cleared, and the opportunity appeared fitting to 
 gain a knowledge of the country. Together they 
 wandered back from the firing-lines and found 
 themselves opposite a farm-house some three 
 miles in rear. 
 
 " I'll lead you back across country by the stars 
 if you like. Doctor," suggested the Padre, who 
 had been reading some light astronomical literature 
 in a popular journal in his spare moments. 
 
 The sky overhead was in places obscured by 
 patches of drifting cloud, and the Medical Officer 
 appeared sceptical. 
 
 " Where's the Pole-star ?" 
 
 " I can't quite make out, as the Great Bear 
 seems to be hidden in a cloud, but that must be
 
 FLOUNDEEING IN FLANDERS 133 
 
 Andromeda over there; at this season of the year 
 it is just to the east of the Pole-star. Those stars 
 up there must be part of Cassiopeia; it is supposed 
 to look like a W." 
 
 " Well, whoever said it was a W must have 
 been drinking; it looks more like a dice-box," 
 objected the Medical Officer. " What are those 
 three things down there ?" — pointing to three stars 
 low down on the horizon. 
 
 '* Let me see: those must be Perseus," explained 
 the man of God a trifle uncertainly. " That 
 decides it: those stars are all in the north-east of 
 the heavens at this season, so we're all right. Let 
 us proceed." 
 
 They proceeded some distance in silence, when 
 the Medical Officer again became suspicious. 
 
 " But, Padre, we're going downhill. Now, our 
 quarters are somewhere on the top of the ridge, 
 so by all the rules of the game we ought to go up." 
 
 " Well, but look at Andromeda." 
 
 " Andromeda be hanged ! Do you know that 
 I've been clearing wounded since seven o'clock, 
 and it's now about 2 a.m. Here's a sentry; we'll 
 ask him." 
 
 The sentry didn't in the least know his location 
 on the map — in fact, sentries very seldom seem to 
 do so; but just down the road at the first farm 
 a company was billeted, and it would be possible 
 to ask the officer. The Doctor joyfully, and the 
 Padre reluctantly, repaired thither in search of
 
 134 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 information. A company officer, roused from 
 sleep in the farmer's bedroom, produced a map 
 and showed where their wanderings, and the 
 Parson's astronomical knowledge, had brought 
 them. 
 
 " Why, you're going just in the wrong direction; 
 another mile or two would have landed you in the 
 city." 
 
 " There you are, Padre. The solar system, or 
 whatever you call it, has gone back on you." 
 
 " I wonder if I can have mistaken Arcturus ?" 
 
 " Never mind what you have mistaken; I've 
 got the way now: first to the right and second 
 to the left, and then across the flat. Thank you 
 so much; sorry to have disturbed you." 
 
 The two non-combatants were again out on the 
 road. Passing through a sleeping village, they 
 mounted the road in silence. 
 
 " Halte la !" suddenly rang out from the hedge- 
 side. 
 
 The Padre and the Medical Officer " halted la " 
 as directed and awaited developments. 
 
 " Qui vive ?" 
 
 '* Help ! it's a French sentry," muttered the 
 Medical Officer. '' Say something. Padre, for 
 Heaven's sake, or he'll start shooting." 
 
 " Qui vive?" came the challenge, more peremp- 
 torily than before. 
 
 " Amies Canadiennes," responded the man of 
 God in husky tones.
 
 FLOUNDERING IN FLANDEES 135 
 
 " You're a liar, Padre; we're not women," 
 remarked the Doctor. 
 
 In any case, the answer apparently allayed the 
 suspicions of the sentry, for he called something in 
 the darkness. Presently two other forms appeared 
 out of the night and advanced towards the two 
 wanderers. 
 
 One of the two, evidently a non-commissioned 
 officer, commenced a lengthy harangue, in which 
 the word *' mot " occurred at frequent intervals. 
 
 "I have it," said the Medical Officer. "He 
 wants the word — the password. Try him with the 
 Word of God; it's all we've got." 
 
 Both the Parson and the Doctor denied any 
 knowledge of the word, so nothing remained but 
 to retrace their footsteps towards the village they 
 had recently quitted in charge of an escort. 
 
 " We'll probably be shot at dawn," the Doctor 
 suggested. " I hope the next time you want to 
 practise astronomy you'll take one of the bugle- 
 boys out with you and leave me at home." 
 
 Down the road they tramped, the two Gallic 
 warriors with yard-long convincing bayonets poking 
 in the small of their back. Opposite the door of 
 one of the houses they paused, and one of the 
 guards knocked. After a brief delay they were 
 admitted. Inside was a room; the floor formed 
 the couch of several French soldiers asleep; at a 
 table a non-commissioned officer was writing by 
 the light of a single candle. The guard rapidly
 
 136 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 stated his case, to which the non-commissioned 
 officer Hstened attentively. Presently he turned 
 to the two prisoners and asked in English: 
 
 " Who are you ?" 
 
 " Canadian officers," replied the Padre, adding 
 ingratiatingly: "Very sorry to disturb you, but 
 these gentlemen here with the bayonets were so 
 very insistent." 
 
 " What regiment ?" 
 
 " The Pompadours." 
 
 The soiis-qfficier proceeded to examine the 
 reverend gentleman's badges, but as these were 
 all of the iron-cross variety, he gained little in- 
 formation — they appeared, in fact, to irritate him. 
 The Medical Officer, in a private's British " warm " 
 and a Balaclava helmet, carried no external badges 
 of information. 
 
 " Take ofi your coat." 
 
 The Doctor complied, quite forgetting that in 
 his hurry of bandaging up the wounded he had 
 forgotten to put on his tunic. The French N.C.O. 
 appeared still more suspicious, giving an order to 
 the two guards, who at once assumed a position 
 on either side of the prisoners. He then left the 
 room. 
 
 " Undoubtedly we shall be shot," remarked the 
 Doctor. " How's your pulse. Padre ?" 
 
 Presently the sous-qfficier returned with his 
 Commanding Officer, who courteously commenced 
 to question the prisoners. Through the inter-
 
 FLOUNDEEING IN FLANDERS 137 
 
 mediaty of the sous-officier he demanded their 
 rank, name, and occupation, and appeared satisfied 
 with his investigation. Finally he told them the 
 watchword, and bidding them " Au re voir," wished 
 them " Bon chance." Out on the road the Padre 
 and the Doctor resumed their interrupted stroll. 
 Up the road they met the sentry, to whom they 
 joyfully imparted the magic word, coupled with a 
 small legacy for the provision of red wine. 
 
 The two wanderers parted from their guards 
 with mutual feelings of regret, and, I trust, respect. 
 
 They had gone some distance without a word 
 being spoken on either side. Suddenly the Medical 
 Officer broke the silence: 
 
 " What's that star over there, Padre ?" 
 
 " That, I think, must be the star in the east; 
 if you're a wise man, you'll seek it and go to bed," 
 answered the man of God. 
 
 A week we spent on the ridge — a week of shelling 
 and sacrifice. Always in the east the balloon 
 hung, and whenever we showed, we lost men. 
 Undoubtedly it was no health resort, but though 
 we remained quietly dodging the shells like rabbits 
 in a hedgerow, others were more busy. Overhead, 
 aeroplanes soared aloft like fretful midges. For 
 the most part when two aeroplanes from opposite 
 sides met, they studiously cut one another, but 
 occasionally they so far forgot their society manners 
 as to make an attack. Then the infantry, bored 
 with inaction in the front-fine trench, had a sliort
 
 138 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEKS FIELDS 
 
 fleeting spell of excitement while the hostile planes 
 circled round one another like eagles fighting for 
 an opening. Occasionally one was brought down, 
 and then, if it was a German, a cheer would travel 
 down the trench for miles and miles, until the 
 enemy, enraged at our success, would open up 
 rapid rifle-fire to remind us to keep our heads down 
 and not to gloat over-much. 
 
 The artillery also appeared to have a secret com- 
 pact to ignore one another, and confined their 
 efiorts to making things uncomfortable for the 
 infantry in the front Une. Ours took an unholy 
 joy in shelling the German trench, until the Hun 
 was forced to retahate. Then as the sandbags 
 collapsed and fell tumbhng upon us, and the 
 parapet gradually disappeared in the deafening 
 report of high explosives and the rain of flying 
 fragments, we strafed the gunners, and invented 
 new insults to hurl at them the next time our rest 
 billets took us in the neighbourhood of their 
 batteries.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE CITY OF DISTRESS 
 
 For two days we had been in reserve billets. In 
 the afternoons we had ridden down to the city, 
 and according to our various tastes amused our- 
 selves. " It sure is a live town," remarked Ser- 
 geant Duck Roberts, and he certainly had some 
 grounds on w^hich to base his contention. The 
 inhabitants, who had departed at the time of the 
 great battle, had, many of them, returned. In- 
 different to shell-fire, they pursued their various 
 vocations, and I have little doubt derived a 
 lucrative return from their open-handed aUies. 
 
 There were points of interest in the city with 
 its moat and battlements, its houses faced with 
 timber, and the venerable churches. We spent 
 the afternoon in visiting our friends in the bat- 
 talions quartered there, and dined at the Hotel 
 au Pigeon. 
 
 It was four in the afternoon, and all was 
 still and peaceful. Outside, the men lay basking 
 in the April sunshine or indulging in games 
 of chance and skill. Round the end of tlie 
 farm building half a dozen men were kicking a 
 
 13'J
 
 140 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 football about. A game of quoits, played with 
 horseshoes, absorbed the interest of another 
 quartette. On the ground a group was gathered 
 round the royal and ancient game of crown and 
 anchor. Here and there sundry tattered warriors 
 were repairing the rents in their garments caused 
 by barbed wire, while others stripped to the waist 
 conducted operations of engrossing interest and 
 of a nature reminiscent of the monkey-house at 
 the Zoo ! Even that strict martinet, the sergeant- 
 major, had relinquished somewhat of his habitual 
 sternness, and permitted his dorsal muscles for the 
 time being to relax, as he and the signalling sergeant 
 strolled backwards and forwards in front of the 
 headquarters of the Pompadours. 
 
 Inside, the officers employed the idle afternoon 
 according to their various tastes: the Colonel 
 pursued a scheme of defence; Major Meldrum 
 busied himself with the war diary, and the Adjutant 
 compiled a nominal roll; it was, he said, the 
 twentieth since the formation of the regiment, 
 and showed no signs of being more correct than 
 its predecessors. In a corner, stretched on his 
 blankets, the Medical Officer snored noisily and 
 ungracefully. 
 
 " Grosvenor, would you mind throwing a boot 
 at the Medical Officer; he's disturbing my train 
 of thought," the Major requested. 
 
 The Adjutant complied with his request. It 
 was a good shot, and the snoring ceased.
 
 THE CITY OF DISTRESS 141 
 
 '' We don't mind you sleeping, Pills, but please 
 don't make such a noise about it," remarked the 
 Major. 
 
 The Medical Officer yawned and, rising, left the 
 room. 
 
 The Bosches suddenly appeared to have become 
 active, and to be concentrating their attention on 
 the neighbouring village of St. Jacques. 
 
 As the Medical Officer walked round the corner 
 of the farm buildings the football game had ceased, 
 and the men were watching the bombardment. 
 Certainly it was an exacerbation of spite. Big 
 crumps were falling round the church, and roofs 
 were being lifted, and walls tottered in a cloud 
 of black smoke and brick-dust. The Padre once 
 said there was something noble about a bombard- 
 ment. It may be awe-inspiring — that I am pre- 
 pared to admit — but its nobility I fail to see. 
 The card games ceased and their devotees con- 
 gregated with the footballers to see the fun. Not 
 much fun in seeing a village gradually wiped oH 
 the map, as it went up in the air and smoke, and 
 fell crumbhng in ruins. The church steeple went, 
 flattened by a direct hit, and already two houses 
 were burning. Across the fields some men and 
 women were running ; they were part of the civilian 
 population — the rats leaving the sinking ship. 
 All honour to them; they had stayed by their 
 firesides up to the last moment, hoping against 
 hope that their homes might be spared, and now
 
 142 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 with a few personal efiects they went their way 
 blown as straws before the devastation that was 
 like to destroy their all. As they fled, pufis of 
 smoke appeared above them in the sky. Two of 
 them, a man and a woman, paused in their flight; 
 they seemed to crumple and collapse, shutting 
 up as does a footrule: they were the firstfruits 
 of the German shrapnel. The woman rose 
 and staggered on — evidently she was grievously 
 stricken; the peasant lay where he fell. Other 
 figures detached themselves from the buildings 
 or appeared over the crest of the hill above it; 
 some were running, others seemed scarce able to 
 walk. As they approached, we recognized they 
 were not civilians: their dusky faces and uniforms 
 were those of the French colonial troops. They 
 came to us across the fields, their faces blue beneath 
 their tan, and breathing hard as though from 
 running. Most of them were wounded, and gasp- 
 ing; struggling for breath, they tried to tell us, 
 in a language which our French scholars could not 
 understand, of some terror that lay behind them. 
 
 " Cyanosis," said the Medical Officer, as with 
 a puzzled expression he surveyed their livid 
 
 countenances; '' but how the Hades Come 
 
 inside." He led the way into the spacious cellar 
 that formed the regimental dressing-station, while 
 we outside awaited further developments. Still 
 the hail of destruction fell amid the stricken village, 
 threatening it with ultimate ruin. To our right
 
 THE CITY OF DISTRESS 143 
 
 the Brigade Headquarters were on fire, the thatched 
 roof burning merrily and the sparks driving 
 toward us, borne on the Hght east wind. Some- 
 thing else came to us carried also by the evening 
 breeze. At first a faint, sour pungency, that 
 dried our mouths and set us coughing. Over 
 there to the north-east something was happening, 
 something that we gained a slight suspicion of, 
 from the terror-stricken brown faces of the swarthy 
 soldiers of France, who still continued to arrive 
 in twos and threes. 
 
 Our artillery was not idle; first one battery and 
 then another opened up, barking back merrily, 
 and answering shot for shot. With a rattle and 
 clash a Umber hammered up the road, the horses 
 stretched to a gallop, their drivers bending low 
 and their sergeants urging them on, all heedless 
 of the shrapnel bursting overhead. 
 
 " By God, they're down !" shouted Private 
 McMutchkin as the off wheeler was seen to stumble, 
 and almost to fall. " No, he's saved it, good lad !" 
 as the driver hauled the horse to its feet. Another 
 and another limber followed; this was the food 
 for the guns, and loudly they clamoured for it, 
 calling for more and yet more again. Orderhes 
 rattled along the road on motor-cycles, bearing 
 messages tlii'ough the tornado of flying metal, 
 while here and there signallers, with fine con- 
 tempt of danger, mended the broken telephone 
 wires.
 
 144 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 In the clamour of destruction, amid the wild 
 shriek of the flying shell and the roar of guns, 
 a new sound mingled; it was the sharp rattle of 
 rifle-fire. 
 
 The telephone bell buzzed industriously. Then 
 came the order, " The Pompadours will stand to." 
 With our equipment on, we stood waiting, watching 
 the racing limbers, the flying cyclists, and the 
 wounded black men who still staggered by. The 
 rifle-fire had increased to a continuous patter, 
 and now the shells began to search for our farm- 
 house. Large ones roared overhead, flying on a 
 more distant journey, to fall with a crumping 
 thud on the city behind us. Now the something 
 which had come to us before was wafted to us 
 again, bringing the tears to our eyes, gripping us 
 by the throat, and setting us catching our breaths. 
 And with it came a Highlander, one of our own 
 Canadians, bleeding from a wound in the shoulder, 
 pale and gasping. Never did the bearer of the 
 fiery cross carry tidings so urgent. " The Germans 
 are attacking; they're all over the place; we're 
 being suffocated by gas." 
 
 " Take him away," said the Colonel, as cool as 
 if on church parade, to the Medical Officer. " Let 
 him lie down." 
 
 One after another the companies reported all 
 present and correct, and received their orders — 
 to assemble at a certain cross-roads on the 
 ridge.
 
 THE CITY OF DISTRESS 145 
 
 And now there arrived a sergeant of artillery. 
 A limber was ditched down the road: could we 
 supply the men to carry ammunition to X Battery, 
 who were crying for more ? 
 
 Captain Grosvenor asked for permission to go, 
 and called for volunteers. 
 
 The medical detail, being used to carrying 
 things, stepped forward as one man. " I want 
 men, not camp-followers," declared Grosvenor. 
 This was almost more than the Medical Officer 
 could stand; with difficulty he remained silent 
 under the insult to his gallant band of body- 
 snatchers, but it strained him to bursting-point. 
 
 " Sorry for being rude, Pills," said the Adjutant, 
 and was off with fifty men to carry the sore-needed 
 supplies to the hungering battery. 
 
 Out upon the high-road the Adjutant and his 
 party went to where the fallen limber stuck, 
 hanging over the ditch. Then onwards up the 
 hill, each man with two precious mouthfuls for 
 the hungry guns. Through the tottering village, 
 where brick walls bent and bulged, falling before 
 the storm, and where first one and then another 
 of this strange ration-party fell wounded in his 
 tracks. Upwards to the battery, where anxious 
 officers looked round, waiting for the shell for 
 which they yearned, and sweating gunners swore 
 at their inaction. Just as the Adjutant and his 
 band, bearing their precious burdens, arrived, 
 the Germans appeared, swarming out of a wood. 
 
 10
 
 146 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 It was a target to dream of after a full mess 
 dinner — a target that occurs once in the lifetime 
 of one in a million gunners. Bursting their shrap- 
 nel at the muzzle of their guns, the artillery 
 blew the Germans back into the wood, and the 
 advancing grey swarm melted away as snow in 
 sunshine. 
 
 Down in Malmartre events were shaping them- 
 selves rapidly. Thither the transport had betaken 
 itself, and with it the Quartermaster's store, when 
 the shelling round the north part of the City of 
 Distress became so violent, that it was not possible 
 to remain longer. Quietly, and without undue 
 haste, they made their exit, and found a new site 
 for their energies just west of the cross-roads at 
 Malmartre. During this orderly removal they 
 were much incommoded by a stream of fugitives 
 hurrying from the doomed city. On horse and 
 on foot, in every conceivable type of conveyance, 
 they hastened onward, their faces to the west. 
 The way was crowded by the hastening throng, as 
 is the high-road to Epsom on Derby Day; yet 
 here there was the double force — the attraction 
 of life in front and the destruction of death behind 
 — driving them on their way: vis a fronte and 
 a tergo, and the crowd hurried down the one 
 main artery, scarce pausing to look to right or 
 left, like scared corpuscles in an over-heated 
 bloodstream. 
 
 The Paymaster and the Quartermaster, standing
 
 THE CITY OF DISTEESS 147 
 
 at the shop-door of the new Quartermaster's store, 
 surveyed the moving mob. There were women 
 and children, snatched suddenly from their homes 
 where all their lives had been spent, as plants 
 suddenly torn up by the roots. Some still wore 
 the wooden shoes of their housework, so hastily 
 had the desire to leave come upon them; others 
 arrayed in their Sunday best, of musty black, with 
 artificial blooms nodding in their hats, passed by. 
 Here a stalwart peasant-woman — her skirt looped 
 up to show a pair of passionless thick ankles, 
 her black bonnet with its bobbing jet adorn- 
 ment tilted rakishly above her broad, perspiring 
 face — paused in her onward passage to cufE the 
 handiest ear of her dragging offspring, who, with 
 the apparent heedlessness of childhood, hung back, 
 watching the crowd and listening to the guns, 
 all unconcernedly and with interest. Another 
 woman, with an infant lying half buried beneath 
 the load of a well-packed perambulator, paused 
 to wait on her two small girls who had straggled 
 somewhat in the rear. One couldn't help wonder- 
 ing how often this anxious mother had paused 
 already since leaving home, retarded by the two 
 small maids who dawdled behind her. They also 
 were dressed to kill, or to be killed — what matter, 
 since we are all as good as dead until the war is 
 over ? — but their finery was sadly spoiled by the 
 dust and ruin of the road. A battery of French 
 artillery, the murderous soixante-quinze, came
 
 148 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 trotting through the village, scattering the fugitives 
 to right and left, like hens in front of a motor. 
 The smaller of the two small maidens turned to 
 look and fell sprawling; her sister, still clutching 
 her hand, bent over her, and tried to pull her 
 away from beneath the iron-shod hoofs that 
 thundered down on her. Above the rattle and 
 the jingling rang the shrill screams of the mother. 
 Private Beattie of the Pompadours ran in, grab- 
 bing the two small mites in either hand as the 
 French drivers brought their horses to a stand- 
 still, and the Quartermaster took possession of the 
 perambulator, which he pulled on to the side- 
 walk. 
 
 " See this lady through the village," said the 
 Quartermaster to Private Beattie. 
 
 In the wake of the French seventy-fives followed 
 more refugees: a youth, not yet of military age, 
 guiding by a rope a dog team four abreast, straining 
 in front of a soap-box on wheels, on which sat an 
 aged woman, her knees drawn up beneath her chin, 
 her umbrella grasped in black cotton gloves, her 
 funereal bonnet nodding as her precarious chariot 
 swayed from side to side. Another ancient dame 
 passed on her way seated in a ramshackle peram- 
 bulator. A wizened, toothless return to second 
 childishness. 
 
 There were two-wheeled rigs with tilts, designed 
 for two, but now for the first time found to have 
 a carrying capacity for six or seven ; wheelbarrows,
 
 THE CITY OF DISTRESS 149 
 
 carts packed with humanity, dragged behind 
 enormous, steady, slow Flemish horses which an- 
 swered to the touch of the single-string rein. 
 There were cabs and victorias, piled high with 
 household goods. In one, a fat citizen, probably 
 a shopkeeper, rolled by smoking a cigar and 
 embracing a marble clock, as he sat surrounded 
 by his family. A Canadian limber came along. 
 Tied behind, was an old lady in a crazy four- 
 wheeled cart, like a canoe dragging in the wake 
 of the Mauretania. The courteous driver of the 
 limber, forcing his team through the surrounding 
 hubbub, was quite oblivious to the wails of distress 
 emanating from his tiny consort. He was giving 
 the old lady a lift — that was enough; and now, 
 amid the noise and tumult, turned a deaf ear to the 
 squeals and lamentations that each fresh jolt and 
 swerve, which threatened to precipitate her on the 
 pavement, wrung from the terrified antiquity tied 
 on to his tail-board. 
 
 Another old lady seated in a wheelbarrow, 
 pushed by a bulky peasant, was borne past un- 
 complaining, her legs dangling grotesquely to 
 either side, with a most unmatroiily display of 
 Hmb, encased in grey socks and elastic-sided 
 boots. 
 
 Amid the jostling push were French colonial 
 troops, many of them wounded and many still 
 struggling for the breath denied them by the 
 poisonous gas; French ambulances bearing their
 
 150 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 cargo of sufferers : all with one common object 
 and one single goal in view, they ran, limped, 
 walked, and staggered past the waiting Canadian 
 soldiers. 
 
 Then, to add to the confusion, the German 
 shells commenced to fall around the village, and 
 the jostling crowd, hurrying through, broke into 
 an ungainly run, and a shell, falling square, landed 
 in a house with a flush hit. The Paymaster went 
 across the street to see if anyone was hurt. In 
 the eating-room a family party was assembled, 
 still at the table when death came to them. The 
 father fallen forward on the table, his face buried 
 in his arms, appeared to sleep; the mother, sitting 
 back in her chair, gazed in front of her with fixed, 
 unwinking stare; and in a high chair, leaning 
 sideways on the wooden tray in front of him, was 
 a small boy — a tiny child with flaxen hair, wet and 
 dabbled in blood, his hand still clutching a now 
 useless spoon, and his toys lying beside him on the 
 floor. This, my friends, is the effect of shell-fire. 
 
 The companies had all departed in the oncoming 
 night, leaving the Colonel and the Medical Officer 
 and a few stretcher-bearers and signallers beside 
 the farm-house. 
 
 " Well, Doctor, it's time we were off," remarked 
 the O.C. as he threw away his cigarette. " We'll 
 overtake the companies near the cross-roads." 
 
 The headquarter units emulated the brave old 
 Duke of York and marched towards the top of
 
 THE CITY OF DISTRESS 151 
 
 the hill. At times they encountered stragglers, 
 for the most part French native troops who, in 
 broken French and by the aid of gestures, gave 
 them to understand that all was lost and the 
 Germans were upon them. A few Highlanders 
 there were too, either gassed or wounded; they 
 were more complacent than their dusky allies, 
 and the information they brought that the Germans 
 were in on the left, but that the Highland brigade 
 were breaking the first shock of the attack, was 
 more reassuring. Moreover, the Colonel didn't 
 seem to be flurried, and the Medical Officer was 
 too ignorant of military matters to realize the 
 seriousness of the position, so the non-combatant 
 details trudged along in a state of happy expec- 
 tation. 
 
 They skirted the fiery furnace that had been 
 brigade battle headquarters, and as they rejoined 
 the road on the windward side, Captain Ainslie 
 waved to them from the roadside. 
 
 " Hot times, Ainslie," shouted the Colonel. 
 " How's the General ?" 
 
 " He's moved into the barn as temporary head- 
 quarters." 
 
 A burst of shrapnel swept the road, but nobody 
 was hit. The Colonel gave the order to open out, 
 and in single flight, like so many ducks, the details 
 arrived at the cross-roads. 
 
 By this time things had quieted down con- 
 siderably; bursts of rifle-fire still continued at
 
 152 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 short intervals, but the big-gun fire seemed to be 
 concentrated farther back, probably on the roads. 
 Rapidly the Colonel told us, to the best of his 
 knowledge, what had happened. On our left the 
 French division of coloured troops had been 
 gassed by the Bosches. Confronted by a slow- 
 moving green cloud that crept towards them in 
 billows as an oncoming tide, they believed them- 
 selves suddenly attacked by some new and ruthless 
 type of devil. Amid the havoc of their shot-torn 
 trenches, gasping for breath in the suffocating 
 blast of this relentless green monster, with their 
 officers down, they had fallen back. By the gap 
 thus formed our left flank had been exposed, and 
 now it was the task of the Pompadours, along 
 with the others, to attempt to fill in the blank. 
 
 As we moved along the ridge to take up our 
 position, the Germans kindly showed us their new 
 position by sending up the customary star-shells. 
 They certainly had advanced quite a respectable 
 distance, and were not only on the top of the 
 ridge to our left, but lapping over on the farther 
 side. 
 
 " I wonder what they're waiting for ^ Why 
 don't they go on and take the city ?" remarked 
 Major Meldrum, who now joined us. 
 
 " Yes; there's only a few transport lines and 
 some telephone-wires to hold them up," the Colonel 
 admitted. " Anyhow, now we can see exactly 
 where they are."
 
 THE CITY OF DISTRESS 153 
 
 The Major had arrived, brimful of intelHgence, 
 from the battahon which was to form our left. 
 The new headquarters, just beyond Shattered 
 Shelters, proved to be a wonderfully preserved 
 farm dwelling, with our new line some three hundred 
 yards in front. Three companies proceeded to dig 
 themselves in; the fourth had been left in a defended 
 locality on the top of the ridge. 
 
 While the companies scraped and burrowed like 
 fox-terriers round a rat-hole, a wonderful thing 
 happened. 
 
 A low rumble, coming from our rear, gradually 
 became disintegrated into a well-known variety of 
 sounds. 
 
 Clattering and jingHng, swearing and perspiring, 
 the transport arrived at Shattered Shelters. That 
 famous sleuth-hound, the transport officer, with 
 his unerring sense of smell, had nosed us out ! 
 What his transport went through to get to us on 
 that occasion, and on many others, was best 
 shown by the broken limbers and dead horses 
 that strewed the roads he passed along. Yet such 
 was his knowledge of by-roads, or his accuracy at 
 judging the distance of the shelling, or possibly just 
 his damned luck, he came through night after night 
 and lost neither horse nor man. 
 
 The transport driver's life at best of times is 
 but a sordid existence. They splash round amid 
 a sea of mud and water, feeding their wet and 
 shivering teams. They get kicked by mules and
 
 154 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEES FIELDS 
 
 bitten by unappreciative remounts. They go to 
 bed at dawn and rise two minutes after to com- 
 mence a new day; they are chaffed by the men in 
 the companies, who accuse them of trying to avoid 
 the firing-hne; they are sworn at by road poHce- 
 men, rebuked by company officers, accused of 
 stealing by the ordinary rank and file, and damned 
 effectively, and on general principles, by the regi- 
 ment as a whole. Their feet are always wet; 
 the harness, cracking from want of sufficient 
 dubbin, tears and wounds their numbed and frozen 
 fingers. No wonder they become a trifle un- 
 approachable and misanthropic, and develop into 
 past pluperfect grand masters of the art of light 
 and breezy badinage. During a battle, held up 
 for long hours near a cross-road recently peppered 
 by the Huns' artillery, and liable to be plastered 
 again at any minute; when the roads are blocked 
 by reinforcements; when ambulance-waggons sway 
 bulkily down the centre of the fairway; when 
 panting, steaming ammunition limbers demand 
 priority; when motor-cycles ram their explosive 
 forms into their midst ; when shell-holes gape in 
 the causeway; when shattered equine corpses, 
 with legs stretched heavenwards, send shudders 
 through their steeds; when houses blaze alongside 
 and burning timbers flare across the road; when 
 rifle bullets hum and shrapnel bursts overhead — 
 their occupation is certainly not one to covet. Yet 
 so well were we, in the Pompadours, served by our
 
 THE CITY OF DISTRESS 155 
 
 " first line " that even during our worst moments, 
 it was never necessary to open an iron ration for 
 want of our ordinary meals. 
 
 " All that night we watched the streamers 
 Steal across the northern sky." 
 
 By daylight much had been done, and our two 
 companies had some sort of shelter. Certainly it 
 was not much to boast about; in one place an old 
 trench had been adapted and improved, but for 
 the most part our only protection lay in the hastily 
 dug rabbit scrapes, which had been scratched 
 during the hours of darkness. In front of these 
 was a field of fire of some three hundred yards 
 which ought to have made good shooting, and 
 somewhere, in the hedges and trees over there, 
 lurked the Bosches. His move next: we wonder 
 what it will be? Overhead fly the planes: "Ours 
 or theirs ?" Mostly they seem to be hostile. 
 One hangs motionless directly over us, no doubt 
 summing up the situation, boding us little good in 
 the hours to come. 
 
 News begins to filter in. The Canadian Cale- 
 donians and the Assiniboias have made a charge. 
 During the night, when we were digging in, they 
 were counter-attacking the enemy. We hear of 
 guns lost and recaptured, of good work in the wood 
 and many dead Germans. Of our own casualties 
 so far, nothing; we will hear soon enough. On 
 our right the Jocks are still in their trenches,
 
 156 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 where they broke the left of the German attack last 
 night ; on our left, the Eastern Brigade is linking up. 
 So far our own casualties have been slight — two 
 or three bullet wounds and three men killed by 
 shrapnel. It is the lull before the storm. Mean- 
 time we dig in and make the best of things. The 
 morning passes uneventfully: bursts of rifle-fire 
 at intervals on our left, over there in the wood. 
 There is httle shelling on our front, but in the city 
 they must be having a hot time. High over our 
 heads we hear the big shells roaring on their way, 
 to fall far behind us amid the thick clustered 
 buildings. There is something conclusive and 
 emphatic about the thud of a large shell as it 
 hammers its way home. A thundering bang that 
 once for all ends all argument. It's a short hfe 
 and a busy one, born in an explosion, and ter- 
 minating in a crack of doom. 
 
 Everyone was merry and bright. The Germans 
 had broken through; we didn't know how far they 
 had gone, and, for all we knew, might by now be 
 well on the road to Calais ! But, on our part, 
 we were all right, and every hour made our trenches 
 stronger. 
 
 A few wounded Turcos were found in dugouts; 
 these were brought in and had their hurts dressed. 
 Very philosophic they were, too, as they lay on 
 the blood-stained straw of the dressing-station, 
 smoking our ration cigarettes with Oriental dignity
 
 THE CITY OF DISTRESS 157 
 
 and stoicism. So passed the morning. In the 
 afternoon we had our first disaster. We could not 
 have had a greater. 
 
 The Colonel, anxious to ascertain as accurately 
 as possible the position of the enemy on our 
 immediate front, went out with Major Meldrum 
 and our Buonaparte of Engineers, Lieutenant 
 Macpherson. From the trench they advanced 
 some three hundred yards to where a ruined 
 estaminet offered shelter and an opportunity for 
 observing. On looking through the sashless back 
 window, they found the ground immediately 
 behind alive with the enemy. Germans Uned the 
 hedge stretching away on either side of them. 
 The only thing to be done was to get out as quickly 
 as possible. Hurrying from the building, a fusillade 
 of rifle-shots greeted them from the hedge on either 
 side, and the Colonel fell mortally wounded in a 
 shell-hole. From our first beginning he had looked 
 after the battaUon with watchful care. Our best 
 interests he had ever at heart, and all his thoughts 
 were for the Pompadours. During the early days 
 of our apprenticeship in Canada and England, he 
 had handled us gently and skilfully as we gradually 
 felt the bit. 
 
 It was like some slow, sweet evolution, the 
 systematic formation of our character as a battalion. 
 Gathered from the mountains, forests, the rivers, 
 and the seashore, he found us, the integral portions
 
 158 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 collected from several different units, and patiently 
 and with infinite pains he welded us into shape. 
 The command of the battalion was now in the 
 hands of Major Meldrum, and no better opportunity 
 could have been selected for the exercise of his 
 tireless zeal and initiative.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE ROAK OF BATTLE 
 
 It was nightfall before the Colonel could be brought 
 in. For five hours he had lain in the muddy 
 bottom of a shell-hole within fifty paces of the 
 Germans, receiving such rude care as it was possible 
 to give him, silent and uncomplaining. He left 
 us in the morning, departing from Battahon Head- 
 quarters for the last time to go on a longer 
 journey. 
 
 The Major, Captain Grosvenor, and the Medical 
 Officer had lain down for a few minutes just before 
 the dawn. The time, to be exact, was precisely 
 4 a.m. when the ball opened — the long-drawn, 
 ceaseless roar of a continuous bombardment. The 
 headquarters staff, gathered outside the low farm 
 buildings, found a precarious shelter, praying that 
 that particular spot might be unmarked on the 
 German artillery maps; if not, it was merely a 
 matter of time when their crazy shelter would go 
 up in smoke as the farms around them were already 
 doing. One after another the German guns found 
 the neighbouring houses; each in succession was 
 plastered and deleted from the landscape ! Two 
 
 159
 
 160 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 hundred yards along the road, Shattered Shelters 
 was gradually sliding into the valley amid a 
 debris of falling rafters, tiles, and plaster. All 
 round the headquarters brass-nosed monsters were 
 falling with thunderous impact, throwing the soil 
 broadcast as they rent their craters in earth. 
 The clamour was uninterrupted and incessant. 
 Aloft the aeroplanes, silent and watchful as vul- 
 tures, floated like gigantic birds of ill-omen, drop- 
 ping their signal lights. The Germans had surely 
 a pretty wit when they called them doves ! Perhaps 
 they were thinking of Noah, who, after all, was 
 responsible for the first successful air reconnais- 
 sance. . . . 
 
 Our trenches were suffering badly; from time to 
 time news came to us of casualties : Captain Hard- 
 wick was already down, badly hit ; several men were 
 wounded. And now the German artillery lifted; 
 down below us on the lower slopes and round the 
 devoted village of St. Jacques they were getting it 
 hot. The cross-roads and the main roads sufiered 
 most, for there the tornado of flying iron and shrap- 
 nel was at its height. And now, amid the loud roar 
 of artillery-fire, came the persistent patter of the 
 rifles and machine-guns, and insidiously there swept 
 upon us the yellow crawling pestilential haze that 
 dried our throats and parched our mouths, and 
 caused our very souls to shrivel. The gas floated 
 down among us. 
 
 In the front Hne the three companies waited
 
 THE KOAR OF BATTLE 161 
 
 patiently for their turn to come. The German 
 aeroplanes had done their work effectively, for 
 already the guns had found out our trenches with 
 some success. Just below us, on the forward slope 
 of the ridge, the Jocks were catching it badly. 
 With their trenches blown to pieces, suffocated by 
 the gas and torn with shrapnel, they still held 
 on. Small parties of wounded struggled back to 
 the dressing-station; but still the rest remained, 
 driving back the German infantry who strove to 
 storm their trenches. 
 
 As the morning wore on, the Germans launched 
 more attacks; more gas and more shells; but the 
 men in the trenches on our right were of a race as 
 stubborn as their own, and fell back slowly, fighting 
 all the way. 
 
 Suddenly the hedge that fronted the Pompa- 
 dours' trench across three hundred yards of open 
 was alive with grey-blue figures. 
 
 " Here they come !" shouted Major Hill. 
 " Rapid independent ! Give them hell !" 
 
 Across the open space the attack came, not in 
 dense masses as we had been led to expect, but 
 line on line, like waves in an advancing flood. 
 No wild charge of cheering warriors, and without 
 the glorious rush of battle, they came on methodi- 
 cally and silently, as men with a duty to be per- 
 formed in which they took small delight. It was 
 a magnificent example of their discipline. 
 
 Every man had his greatcoat rolled up ; wc saw 
 
 11
 
 162 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 their water-bottles and their haversacks hanging 
 as if on parade. Across the fields they stumbled 
 forward, running clumsily with their fat legs and 
 ridiculous boots. And behind each line we saw 
 their officers urging them on. From the trench 
 our rifles cracked and machine-guns spat; before 
 the hail of bullets the Germans fell. Soon the 
 field was spotted with fallen figures, some lying 
 still, others trying to crawl away. But still they 
 came on. Now we could see their features and 
 count the buttons on their tunics as they lumbered 
 forward. Down the road towards our lines, 
 blowing what, presumably, was the charge, came 
 a German bugler. A platoon of the Pompadours 
 must have hit the life out of him with a splash of 
 rifle-bullets. Now the wave lapped against the 
 edge of our trench. Suddenly a fat German, 
 with bulging eyes, recognizing death staring at 
 him across the mud-bank, turned to fly. He got 
 his attack of cold feet too late. A bullet caught 
 him on the buckle of his waistbelt, causing his 
 equipment to fly apart as it passed onwards on 
 its way. A huge red-headed warrior, his mouth 
 open and breathing hard from running, got it 
 square between the eyebrows; the force of the rush 
 carried him onward to fall against the parapet, 
 where he lay, the back blown out of his head and 
 with a look of mild surprise upon his face. One or 
 two rushed the parapet, but they were not fighters, 
 and fell like sheep on the points of our bayonets.
 
 THE ROAR OF BATTLE 163 
 
 The attack had failed for the moment, but at any 
 time it might be renewed. 
 
 At headquarters the Major waited for news. 
 The signal-wires were cut; wiremen, sent out to 
 repair them, never returned. Orderlies despatched 
 with messages turned up days after in base hospitals 
 badly wounded, or died before delivering their 
 missives. The thatched roof of the orderly-room 
 was burning ; the end of the low house, hit by a 
 salvo, tottered and fell ^Yith a crash, and the Major 
 and the Adjutant moved into the medical dressing- 
 room in search of healthier quarters. The attack 
 on our immediate front had failed for the moment, 
 but to the right the Highlanders, after two days' 
 furious fighting, were gradually being driven back. 
 Outside the building the bullets pattered on the 
 walls like hail. On the other side, the Germans 
 in a wood to our left had turned a machine-gun 
 on the dressing-station door, and repeated flights 
 of bullets fhcked inside, knocking the plaster from 
 the walls, and rattled on the brick floor. The 
 Major was writing a report of the situation, pausing 
 from time to time to ask the Adjutant, who, 
 sheltering behind the side of the window, gazed 
 into the valley below, if there was any sign of 
 reinforcements. 
 
 From the front line came a message from Major 
 Hill: " Evening's infantry attack repulsed. We 
 arc now being shelled heavily. Our casualties 
 heavy. We are holding on."
 
 164 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEKS FIELDS 
 
 The room was filled with dying and badly 
 wounded men; trampled straw and dirty dressings 
 lay about in pools of blood. The air, rank with 
 the fumes of gas, was thick with the dust of flying 
 plaster and broken brick, and stifling with the 
 smoke from the burning thatch. 
 
 So much for the pomp and panoply of war. 
 In the mess of modern warfare there are few 
 reminders of the majesty of ancient days, except 
 the spirit of the men. In the dressing-station the 
 mess was at its worst, and yet in the stench of 
 that foul atmosphere, reeking with a host of 
 horrors, with the earth trembling and the roar of 
 battle all around, the wounded, lying with the 
 dead, made no complaint. 
 
 "Any sign of reinforcements, Grosvenor?" 
 asked the Major. He and the Adjutant were 
 splendid. Two nights of sleepless vigilance had 
 worn new lines on their faces; they were dirty 
 and unshaven, but still preserved their air of 
 cheerful confidence. The Adjutant, watching the 
 high-road leading up from the city, and seeing 
 no sign of help, answered in the negative. The 
 Medical Officer, remembering a nursery story — it 
 is strange how these things come to one — mur- 
 mured : 
 
 ** Sister Ann, Sister Ann, do you see anybody 
 coming ?" 
 
 In the front line things were rapidly going from 
 bad to worse. The German artillery had again
 
 THE ROAR OF BATTLE 165 
 
 taken up the tune, pounding the flimsy earthwork 
 and bringing death to its occupants. Again the 
 storm hfted, and again the blue-grey uniforms 
 swarmed across the intervening ground to meet 
 the thin but waiting Hue of khaki. 
 
 A wounded Pompadour arrived at headquarters, 
 blood streaming from a cut on his forehead. 
 " The Germans are in our trenches." As he 
 delivered the message, the machine-gun, waiting in 
 the wood, caught him on its whirring blast and 
 crumpled him up on the threshold. Crash ! A 
 shell hit the outside wall with thundering impact. 
 Outside, remnants of the Pompadours and High- 
 landers were retiring, taking what cover they 
 could, loading magazines and firing coolly and 
 carefully. 
 
 The wounded were got out, as many as could 
 limp and hobble; others were hastily borne away 
 on stretchers ; the remainder, who were dying, were 
 placed in dugouts so as to escape the worse death 
 from burning. 
 
 The Pompadours took up a new line, all that 
 was left of them. The Adjutant, as he and the 
 Major moved back along the ridge, remarked: 
 " This is my aunt's birthday. 1 wonder how the 
 old lady's spejiding it ?" 
 
 " I hope more peacefully than we are," replied 
 the Major. " Look at the Doctor." 
 
 The gentleman in question was executing a 
 strategic retrograde movement across the fields,
 
 166 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 taking advantage of every bit of cover that appeared 
 convenient in the shape of hedges and dead ground. 
 With him went his stretcher-bearers, shiggishly 
 meandering across country. The fields across 
 which they struggled were heavily shelled, but 
 luck was with the medical profession, and the 
 party disappeared finally with a funereal dignity 
 behind some buildings. 
 
 The remaining company of the regiment, perched 
 in solitary magnificence in their fortified position 
 on the ridge, had also not had things all their own 
 way. At the beginning of the fuss they mustered 
 a fighting strength of close on two hundred. As 
 with the other companies, they suffered from an 
 alternation of shelling and infantry attacks, until, 
 with scarce two dozen left and all their officers 
 gone, the shattered remnant fell back and joined 
 the ranks of the battaHon on the right. Here 
 were the men of the plains, the farmers from the 
 wheatlands, gallantly maintaining themselves 
 against the various types of German frightfulness 
 that seethed on every side of them. The Prairie 
 Rifles stuck to their ground these days and yielded 
 not an inch. 
 
 By this time the much-needed reinforcements 
 were coming up. The Quartermaster, standing in 
 the doorway of his store on the main street at 
 Malmartre, saw regiment after regiment swing by. 
 
 Blocked by congested traffic, a regiment halted, 
 and the Quartermaster recognized by their bonnets
 
 THE ROAR OF BATTLE 167 
 
 that they were brother Scots. The Glasgow High- 
 landers ! The Quartermaster strolled forward. 
 
 " Which battalion ?" he asked a youthful 
 subaltern. 
 
 " The second. We're going on up there to re- 
 inforce." He pointed in a direction beyond the 
 city. " We make a counter-attack at 3 p.m. 
 You'd better come and watch us." 
 
 The Quartermaster regretted that a previous 
 engagement with the transport forbade him; he 
 also was going that way, but it would be later in 
 the evening. 
 
 Then there were battalions of Indian troops. 
 Tall, turbaned, coloured warriors, fine-featured, 
 and with eyes like sheepdogs. They wore their 
 shirt-tails flapping in the breeze as they stalked 
 forward with impressive dignity. Then came 
 small, squat soldiers, busthng forward, their eyes 
 ghstening in anticipation, and their faces below 
 their broad-brimmed hats reminding the Quarter- 
 master of our own Siwash Indians. These were 
 the Gurkhas. Licking their lips in anticipation, 
 they hustled past, loosening their kukris in their 
 sheaths. 
 
 That evening the Quartermaster and the trans- 
 port officer had some difficulty in following the 
 movements of the battalion. The way by the north 
 end of the town, past Eternity Corner and De- 
 struction Bridge, was hardly a health resort. 
 However, the battalion had to be fed; others might
 
 68 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 fail, but not the lean and hungry transport or 
 The Mackintosh. 
 
 " Come here, Mac, and talk to the long faces in 
 Gaelic; it soothes them," said the transport o£&cer, 
 as the horses commenced to dance a cake-walk 
 into the ditch. At the moment the road was 
 blocked, as other transport waited fretfully whirle 
 the Bosche lashed Eternity Corner with a hail of 
 metal. 
 
 It was dark with a blackness that struck the 
 Quartermaster as being like the inside of a coffin, 
 so inky that even his horses' ears and withers 
 could not be seen. The men dismounted, stood 
 beside their horses, endeavouring to quiet their 
 nervous and excited fidgeting. 
 
 " This waiting is certainly the devil," remarked 
 the Quartermaster, sucking thoughtfully at his pipe. 
 " If the Hun only lengthened his range, he'd get 
 a good bagful." The Quartermaster was certainly 
 right; in the crush of nervous horses and restless 
 mules, extrication would have been impossible. 
 Two abreast they were packed, their axles touching 
 in the centre of the narrow road. 
 
 " Look out, Mac; we'll be off in a moment: 
 the Highlanders are taking a chance. Stand 
 to. Pompadours. Prepare to mount. Mount !" 
 shouted the transport officer. They were off down 
 a small incline and round the blasted corner, the 
 horses travelling far beyond the schedule speed 
 and the limbers swaying behind like sledges over
 
 THE ROAR OF BATTLE 169 
 
 glare ice. Once past the corner they slackened up, 
 and through the outskirts of the city, where 
 recently had been the transport lines and Quarter- 
 master's store, they jingled at a rapid trot. Up 
 the road, where fallen trees half blocked the fair- 
 way and dead horses occupied the ditches in stiff 
 and ghastly attitudes. Then to the right, where 
 in an open field the transport officer halted them. 
 Here they were comparatively safe, as there were 
 no churches near, and no steeple to attract the 
 Hun shells like moths to a candle. 
 
 Here the transport officer and the Quartermaster 
 left the waggons while they set out to find the 
 battalion. The night was young, but though it 
 still wanted some hours until dawn, no time could 
 be wasted. Through St. Michel the two non- 
 combatants hurried to the village of Boscap. 
 Here they found the Medical Officer, standing in 
 the light of an open doorway. 
 
 " Whither away ?" he asked. 
 
 In reply to this question, he related how earlier 
 in the day he had got out rather hastily from the 
 particularly hot corner which at that time was 
 rapidly ceasing to be Battalion Headquarters. 
 
 " You'd better ask at Brigade Headquarters: 
 they are next door. As far as I can find out, the 
 battalion has taken to the hills. I've tried to find 
 them and failed." 
 
 Inside, Ainslie and Theophilus Goodchild, the 
 two Stai? Captains, greeted them.
 
 170 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 " Where's the General ?" asked the transport 
 officer, who seldom spoke to anyone with less than 
 the crossed batons on his shoulders. 
 
 " On the hill in the battle headquarters." 
 From the two hardworked but still cheerful Staff 
 Officers, they obtained a rapid sketch of the 
 progress of events, and were out again on the 
 road. 
 
 "I'm going to report Theophilus for neglect of 
 duty. That's the second time this evening I've 
 asked him for a drink, and that's the second time 
 he's fallen down," the Medical Officer remarked. 
 
 Through Boscap they went, where houses on 
 each side of the street burnt and lighted up the 
 scene of devastation. The Germans were still 
 shelling in a haphazard and desultory fashion, if 
 such a languid description could apply to the 
 series of detonations that shook the night behind 
 them. 
 
 " Hurry over this spot," said the Medical Officer 
 as they came to the end of the stamped-out village, 
 where the road forked. 
 
 It was the parting of the ways, and the Quarter- 
 master and transport officer waged a mighty 
 warfare of words as to their most suitable way. 
 The road to the left led onwards towards where 
 the German hghts pierced the darkness and 
 upwards to the village of St. Jacques. To the 
 right the way seemed lost in obscurity. 
 
 " I don't mind you two starting a debating
 
 THE ROAR OF BATTLE 171 
 
 society, but I wish you'd choose a healthier loca- 
 tion," remarked the Medical Officer impatiently. 
 *' Do you know, there's been a battle going on for 
 two and a half days, and I've had no sleep ?" 
 
 The Quartermaster and the transport officer 
 turned to the Medical Officer to settle the dispute. 
 " The road to the right leads to our old head- 
 quarters. There's nothing there; the Bosches 
 hammered it flat this afternoon. You may find 
 some fragments of my kit there if you care to have 
 a look," he replied. 
 
 " The road to the left goes to St. Jacques; we 
 still hold that," said the lean and Hssom one. 
 
 '' Do we ?" The Medical Officer raised his eye- 
 brows. " What will you bet ?" 
 
 " Well, we did this morning," said the transport 
 officer. 
 
 " That's nothing. By to-morrow we'll probably 
 be blown out of Flanders," remarked the Quarter- 
 master cheerfully. 
 
 " Did you ask at the Brigade who held St. 
 Jacc[ues ?" came the query from the transport 
 officer. 
 
 " Ask ! Wliy, I asked for a drink, and they 
 hadn't anything." Tlic Medical Officer sat down 
 beside two of his stretcher-bearers who had ac- 
 companied him. " Well, I paid my hfc-insurance 
 money four days ago, and, in any case, I've got 
 two chaps here to carry me down if I'm hit. Wake 
 me up when you've finished the argument."
 
 172 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 The Quartermaster wanted to go to the right, 
 the transport officer to the left. 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, flip a coin," murmured 
 the Medical Officer. 
 
 So a coin was tossed, and in the light of a burning 
 building it turned up a tail. It was a French 
 halfpenny; the Doctor swooped down on it and 
 pocketed it for luck. 
 
 The road to St. Jacques wound easily upwards 
 between two rows of poplars; it was strangely silent. 
 A few hundred yards to the left of it the German 
 flares were falling. For upwards of a mile the trans- 
 port officer bustled on ahead; suddenly he paused. 
 
 " What the dickens is this ?" His question 
 broke the silence. A German star-shell revealed 
 two large trees fallen across the road, their trunks 
 effectively stopping all traffic. Beyond were two 
 motor-ambulances, one end on to the obstruction, 
 into which it had crashed running down the road 
 on its return journey. The other motor-ambulance 
 was jammed across the road. On the ground lay 
 the bodies of four Red Cross men. All dead. 
 The waggons were empty. 
 
 " Took the wrong road, I suppose, and got 
 caught by the falling tree in trying to get out," 
 was the Doctor's diagnosis. 
 
 '' All killed by bullets, probably machine-guns." 
 
 Farther up the road were the bodies of three 
 dead Germans, one with a machine-gun beside 
 him. Thus the entire tragedy was revealed. The
 
 THE ROAR OF BATTLE 173 
 
 one waggon speeding uphill found itself under fire 
 from the German lines, and, turning, ran for it, 
 pausing just long enough to warn its fellow who 
 was following. The fallen trees, hit by an unlucky- 
 shot, barred the way for both, and an advanced 
 party of Germans completed the business by 
 shooting down the drivers. The Germans coming 
 up to see the result of their shooting were caught 
 by the avenging bullets of our own men, and died 
 beside their victims. 
 
 " Really, these Germans give me a pain; it's 
 certainly not playing the game shooting Red Cross 
 men," announced the transport officer. 
 
 " You're perfectly right," said the Medical 
 Officer. " I wish you'd go over and tell them so." 
 
 " Well, they carry up their own machine-guns 
 in ambulance waggons," the Quartermaster put 
 in. " I don't see why we shouldn't play them at 
 their own game." 
 
 " Quite right, Mac. You'd cook and eat them, I 
 know, like your ancestors did," said the transport 
 officer. 
 
 " They've probably got a machine-gun turned 
 on us now, so for Heaven's sake shut up and let's 
 get on." The Quartermaster was proud of his 
 ancestry and objected to the transport officer's 
 ill-timed remarks. 
 
 " I know we're lost, but this is Little Willie's 
 picnic, so I'm hanged if I butt in," The Medical 
 Officer was becoming a trifle bored
 
 174 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 Again they started, the transport officer, as 
 before, leading — racing on in front like an ex- 
 pectant lurcher. In the darkness the houses of 
 St. Jacques appeared faintly in front of them. 
 
 '' Where are we going, sir V said one of the 
 attendant stretcher-bearers to the Doctor. 
 
 " To Berlin, I think, under a prisoners' guard; 
 but you'd better ask Mr. Cousins." 
 
 " But that's St. Jacques, isn't it ?" The 
 stretcher-bearer was becoming insistent. 
 
 " It was the last time I travelled this way," 
 answered the Medical Officer. 
 
 " But the Germans took St. Jacques this after- 
 noon," the stretcher-bearer objected. 
 
 " Well, why the blue blazing blankety Hades 
 didn't you say so before ?" the Medical Officer 
 demanded in a tone of extra special asperity. 
 
 They were now about a hundred yards from the 
 village as the Doctor vented the full venom of his 
 wrath on the head of the devoted stretcher-bearer. 
 At this announcement even the transport officer 
 had paused in his onward ffight. A star-shell 
 soared up from the village, revealing the figure of a 
 sentry standing in the middle of the road — a 
 German sentry. The transport officer crawled 
 hurriedly into the ditch. The Quartermaster and 
 the Doctor and the two medical orderlies were 
 already there. 
 
 The Medical Officer was right: the Pompadours 
 had taken to the hills, or, rather, were still on the
 
 THE ROAK OF BATTLE 175 
 
 ridge. Mixed in with them were sundry waifs and 
 strays from other units, and near by two other 
 Western regiments still maintained themselves in 
 their trenches. Imperial units shared their hastily 
 constructed defences with them, repelhng every 
 efiort of the enemy to dislodge them. Everyone 
 was in the line — batmen, pioneers, orderly-room 
 staff, even those manufacturers of harmony who 
 sought a refuge in the band to escape the uncer- 
 tainty in the trenches, were in the battle front and 
 bearing themselves right nobly. 
 
 Headquarters was in a ditch, back of the fuing- 
 line, and there the Major and the Adjutant gradu- 
 ally got in touch with the scattered remnants of 
 the regiment. 
 
 Down in the village of Boscap the Medical Officer 
 had his dressing-station. Thither he returned, 
 accompanied by the Quartermaster, while the 
 transport officer, having nosed out the position of 
 the battalion, proceeded to feed them. 
 
 Of all places during a modern battle, a modern 
 dressing-station is the spot least likely to arouse 
 in anyone the spirit of martial ardour. A clientele 
 derived from the turmoil of shot and shell is liable 
 at times to show signs of alarm and despondency, 
 and a man with a bullet in him is not always the 
 most cheerful of companions. Thus they come to 
 the dressing-station, a cellar gaping amid the ruins 
 of a wrecked farm-house; a dugout under the lea 
 of a wall; occasionally, when times are still more
 
 176 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 strenuous, a haystack or a ditch. On the present 
 occasion the Medical Officer entertained the 
 Quartermaster in an estaminet. To faciUtate 
 matters, a window-sash had been kicked out, and 
 through this opening, stretchers with their bleeding 
 burdens were passed from time to time. Through 
 the main door the more slightly wounded came. 
 The room, lighted by candles stuck in empty 
 bottles or fixed to the mantelpiece in pools of wax, 
 was eloquent with the new use to which it had been 
 brought. The bar was piled high with bandages 
 and first-aid dressings, bottles containing iodine, 
 and rolls of cotton-wool. The floor was splashed 
 with mud and dirt, pools of blood, and blood- 
 stained clothing lay about amid a profusion of 
 dirty bandages and gory dressings. The wounded 
 lay along the wall, uncomplaining but grumbling. 
 They did not appear to mind their bodily ills or 
 injuries, but were full of criticisms and remarks 
 concerning the conduct of affairs and the progress 
 of the engagement. The air was thick with a 
 profusion of aromas, the smell of explosives and 
 stale humanity, the pungency of antiseptics, and 
 through it all the irritation of the gas. 
 
 " Do you think you'll ever be able to taste 
 anything again. Doctor ?" asked the Quarter- 
 master as he seated himself on a broken-bottomed 
 chair in the midst of the mess. 
 
 " I doubt it," answered the Medical Officer, as, 
 with his shirt-sleeves rolled up, displaying a pair
 
 THE ROAR OF BATTLE 177 
 
 of gory arms, he adjusted a bandage round the 
 head of a wounded man. " I've done my best, 
 but at present rum, bully beef, tobacco, and honey, 
 all taste the same to me." 
 
 " Oh, you got the honey all right, did you ? I 
 thought you might find it come in useful." 
 
 " The best yet, Mac. Old Highland Glory there 
 has been feeding all the wounded on it. They 
 like it." 
 
 The Quartermaster surveyed the mess, and 
 smoked in silence. Outside a party halted. 
 
 '* See what that is," said the Medical Officer, 
 addressing a stretcher-bearer. 
 
 " Stretcher case, sir." 
 
 *' Tell them to shove it in through the window. 
 Here, put this man into the next room and get 
 ready to put all the wounded outside; the ambu- 
 lance waggons should be here any time. If they 
 don't hurry it will be daylight." 
 
 Through the window came a stretcher. 
 
 " Hullo, sir, I didn't expect to see you again," 
 said the wounded man to the Quartermaster. It 
 was the subaltern of the Glasgow Highlanders. 
 " Please give me a cigarette; I've smoked all my 
 own." 
 
 The Medical Officer handed him his case and 
 examined tlie damage, while the Highlander 
 smoked in silence and watched his face. 
 
 " Nasty smash, Doctor ? Foot gone, I think. 
 
 How long will it be until I'm fit again ?" 
 
 12
 
 178 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEES FIELDS 
 
 " How did it happen ?" asked the Medical 
 Officer, as he removed the red soaked sock and 
 puttee, and cut away the remnants of a boot. 
 
 "We counter-attacked at 3; my Captain got 
 it right away through the head, and I was laid 
 out by a piece of shell almost at once." Then, 
 turning to the Quartermaster, " You certainly 
 missed it; our chaps did awfully well."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE DOINGS OF SOME DETAILS 
 
 At intervals during the battle the Medical Officer 
 wandered in to see how things were going on at 
 Brigade Headquarters, and to obtain news. Re- 
 turning in the afternoon from one such visit, he 
 was both astonished and enraged to find Private 
 McMutchkin, who had recently been attached to 
 the stretcher-bearers, in a high state of alcoholic 
 inebriety. 
 
 " Sergeant Bowden, how did the War-horse get 
 into that horrible condition ?" 
 
 '' They found a barrel of wine in the room there." 
 The sergeant indicated the door leading to the 
 back of the estaminet. 
 
 The Medical Officer, in a state of high dudgeon, 
 stalked into the room at the rear. As he did so he 
 encountered Private McSpeldron, who discreetly 
 hid a mess-ti]i full of red liquid behind his person. 
 
 " Where's this barrel of wine, McSpeldron ?" 
 the Medical Officer demanded. 
 
 " Here, sir; in this very room, sir," answered the 
 polite Highlander. 
 
 In the room was not one but two barrels. The 
 
 17*J
 
 180 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 Medical Officer turned the taps, and out streamed 
 the blood-red liquid. It flowed over the tiled 
 floor and ran through the doorway into the dressing- 
 room in front, eddying into corners, and bearing 
 on its ruby surface wisps of straw and flakes of 
 cotton-wool. It was as though two arteries had 
 burst, and the Doctor, standing beside the streaming 
 hogsheads, made no effort to stem their flowing 
 life-stream. 
 
 Private McSpeldron, otherwise called Highland 
 Glory, suddenly appeared in the doorway and 
 addressed the Doctor. 
 
 " If you please, sir, you're wanted in the front 
 room; there's a badly wounded man coming down 
 the road." 
 
 The Medical Officer left the wine-casks and 
 hurried into the front room, while Highland Glory, 
 taking his place, deftly turned the taps in the 
 barrels and shut ofl the flowing red wine. 
 
 " It's a peetiful waste," he remarked to himself. 
 " God send there's a wounded man on the road, 
 or the Doctor'll be back here in a minute." 
 
 Good luck favoured the Highlander, for at the 
 front door Captain Ainslie appeared. 
 
 " Hullo, Doctor; you seem pretty well over the 
 boot-tops in it," he exclaimed, surveying the red 
 wine, which now lay to the depth of at least one 
 inch over the floor of the estaminet. 
 
 " Yes, but it's not all blood, old thing — only 
 about half of it."
 
 THE DOINGS OF SOME DETAILS ISl 
 
 " What do you think of this ?" said Theophilus 
 Goodchild, on the occasion of one of the Medical 
 Ofhcer's visits to Brigade Headquarters, while the 
 battle was at its height. 
 
 In the room was a mihtary policeman in charge 
 of a signaller. The signaller had been detailed 
 earlier in the day on a duty which took him far 
 back from the firing-line. There he had found 
 a badly wounded horse which had bolted along 
 the road, and gradually weakening from loss of 
 blood, lay down in a ditch to die. The signaller, 
 to shorten its suffering, shot it through the head, 
 and was promptly arrested by the law-abiding 
 policeman for his unorthodox conduct in that he 
 had discharged fire-arms far behind the firing- 
 line ! 
 
 The incorruptible minion of the law proceeded 
 to return the prisoner to his unit, deaf to his 
 entreaties that his work was there and had to be 
 done, and up the road they came, by Eternity 
 Corner and Destruction Bridge, almost to the 
 firing-line. Such are our military police. Duty 
 before all things. 
 
 That afternoon the Punjab Division attacked. 
 From Boscap the ground fell away gently to rise 
 again in a sloping ridge that extended away to the 
 north. Here in a wood, and amid hedges green 
 with the first colouring of spring, lay the newly 
 entrenched Germans, and here across the open 
 the Indians advanced. In long fines extended to
 
 182 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 several paces they dashed forward, up the gradual 
 slope of ground. 
 
 In the bright warm sunshine, with spring 
 bursting into verdant glory on every side, it looked 
 like a field-day, but as the rifles spat and the 
 machine-guns spattered, first one and then another 
 dropped. 
 
 Some lay where they fell, others struggled 
 slowly back to the dressing-station, and still the 
 thin khaki line went onwards. On the left the 
 French were attacking; blue and a flash of silver 
 as the long keen bayonets dashed to meet the 
 enemy. 
 
 A trifle shy and somewhat hesitatingly the little 
 dusky warriors came to the dressing-station door. 
 Perhaps they wondered how the Canadians would 
 receive them, and remembering a certain Koma- 
 gatu Maru incident, expected that a poll-tax 
 might be charged. No exclusion pohcy was in 
 force in the village of Boscap; the cheery little 
 Gurkhas were promptly fed and had their wounds 
 bound up. With them they had brought their 
 prisoners, lengthy Prussians who walked delicately 
 beside their captors, eyeing them askance and 
 keeping a careful watch on the kukris resting in 
 the sheaths. 
 
 There were wounded among the prisoners, and 
 all looked weary and were very dirty. During 
 those days there were many prisoners, and all 
 seemed pleased that as far as they were concerned
 
 THE DOINGS OF SOME DETAILS 183 
 
 the matter was ended so happily. They were 
 quiet and eager to obey, showing in their move- 
 ments the effect of an iron-handed discipHne. 
 There was one: he was an officer and should 
 have known better, for his behaviour was most 
 extraordinary; he spat at the Medical Officer, 
 when he attempted to approach him, like an angry 
 tom-cat, in a manner altogether unbefitting an 
 officer and a gentleman, if there are any such in 
 the Fatherland. 
 
 The War-horse and Highland Glory were out 
 following up the attack, binding up the wounded 
 in the open, risking a hundred deaths, and fright- 
 ened to return to the dressing-station, from which 
 they had been driven by a stream of vindictive 
 mutterings from the Medical Officer. 
 
 All night long those silent, tireless, and now 
 sober Highlanders laboured, carrying in their 
 wounded burdens and ever returning for more. 
 Towards midnight they brought in an officer, 
 one of the Canadians, whom they found lying 
 patiently, silently in the darkness, unable to 
 move. 
 
 " Hullo, Hume — you here ?" said the Doctor, 
 recognizing a friend. ** Where is he hit ?" — turning 
 to the waiting stretcher-bearer as he saw how far 
 the tide of life had ebbed. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir," explained the War- 
 horse modestly, as he wiped his dripping forehead; 
 " he's hit in the back low down. He's so weak
 
 184 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 he can hardly talk; he's been lying out for two 
 nights." 
 
 There, just below the centre of the backbone, 
 was the little puckered blue mark — a tiny hole 
 through which a spirit was to make its escape. 
 The gentle movement that had revealed the scar 
 roused the wounded man. 
 
 " Hullo, Doctor; I'm badly hit, I fear." 
 
 As he had done frequently before, the Doctor 
 lied, lied with a cheerful smile, to hide the sorrow 
 in his heart. 
 
 " Tell me why it is I can't move my legs, and 
 why my feet are all pins and needles." 
 
 " Shock — only shock; you'll be as right as rain 
 in a day or two." 
 
 The Doctor turned away. In a corner a Gurkha 
 had torn his dressings from his sightless eyes; he 
 also was finding out the truth — finding that the 
 dark night in which he lived was not merely caused 
 by a bandage. 
 
 Out on the road the Doctor, looking up to the 
 cloudless, starry night, heartily damned the war 
 and the men who ordained that such things 
 could be. 
 
 Then he remembered the journey up in the train 
 to the firing-line two short months ago, and there 
 to the south was that same star which then had 
 shone so brightly, and which Lieutenant Hume 
 had called his own. And as he looked he saw it had 
 lost its glory, and was pale with a faded dimness.
 
 THE DOINGS OF SOME DETAILS 185 
 
 Down near the cross-roads, by the village 
 of St. Michel, the ambulance waggons were being 
 loaded up with their living freight. Dressing- 
 stations on either side of the road disgorged their 
 quota of sufferers. Lying along the roadside on 
 stretchers, or seated with their backs against the 
 walls of houses, they silently waited their turn. 
 Each motor ambulance as it came up was filled, 
 and doctors and orderlies worked like stevedores, 
 packing each with its cargo of humanity. Lying 
 and sitting, they started off on the bumping 
 journey to the field ambulances and clearing 
 hospitals. The Quartermaster and Paymaster of 
 the Pompadours watched the scene in silence. At 
 the cross-roads a stream of transport coming up 
 the main road was turning to the right. Two 
 motor ambulances were coming up empty, and 
 two returning packed with wounded men. For 
 the moment the road was blocked with an im- 
 passable jamb of waggons, horses, and men. 
 Right in the midst of this crush of packed human- 
 ity, screaming through the night, a German shell 
 plumped. Down went horses and men together. 
 The scene lighted for the moment by the bursting 
 shell was plunged again in inky darkness, from 
 which came the sounds of struggling man and 
 horse mixed in inextricable confusion. 
 
 The concussion of the shock had seated both 
 the Quartermaster and the Paymaster side by side 
 on the cobbles, but before they had time to struggle
 
 186 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 to their feet, stretcher-bearers were out, bringing 
 in the wounded and clearing up the debris. In 
 this the transport men were not second to the 
 medical services. Dead and dying horses were 
 cut loose, and the transport moved out of those 
 infernal cross-ways. 
 
 Now one of the wrecked ambulance waggons 
 started to burn, its gasoline tank lighted by the 
 bursting shell. The glow of the blazing spirit 
 illumined the scene in lurid detail: the wounded 
 lying where they had been flung by the explosion, 
 the horses struggling to rise, and the anxious, 
 earnest men fighting to save their comrades. 
 
 " Come on. Pay," shouted the Quartermaster, 
 as he dashed in to help. " There'll be another 
 shell here immediately ; let's get these chaps under 
 cover." 
 
 The Paymaster, following in the wake of the 
 Quartermaster, found his hand grasped by a pair 
 of eyes and a red splash where a nose and chin 
 should have been. The remains of a tongue 
 attempted to beg for help, but it was from the 
 eyes — eyes in which he saw reflected a thousand 
 horrors — that the real appeal came. The blazing 
 gasoline, streaming across the road, caught the 
 blankets of men waiting their turn in the waggons. 
 The canvas tilts of the waggons were burning 
 fiercely, and the flames swirled across the road. 
 Other shells following that first lucky hit, whistled 
 overhead, bursting just beyond the cross-roads,
 
 THE DOINGS OF SOME DETAILS 187 
 
 and, still indifferent to the thousand deaths, ex- 
 ploded, blazed, and shrieked around where the 
 work of saving the wounded went on. 
 
 Presently it was done. The wounded were 
 removed from immediate danger, the flames were 
 beaten out, and the cross-roads cleared of the 
 shattered transport. 
 
 The Quartermaster, with a face like a chimney- 
 sweep and nursing a burnt hand, left a wounded 
 doctor, the last burden he had helped to carry in, 
 to the care of his colleagues, and wiping the soot 
 and sweat out of his eyes, turned to the Paymaster. 
 
 " Time we were getting home, Pay; are you 
 ready to start ?" 
 
 The Germans were still lining the roads with 
 shrapnel as they went across the fields, pausing 
 frequently as they were held up by some fresh 
 line of wire or where a ditch had to be jumped. 
 The Paymaster stoutly maintained that he knew 
 the way, but the Quartermaster was several times 
 forced to doubt the accuracy of the statement as 
 some new obstruction brought them to a sudden 
 halt. 
 
 The Germans were shelling the entrance to the 
 city, as the two non-combatants called a halt to 
 discuss the situation. Finally, taking their luck 
 in both hands, they picked an interval between 
 two shells, and dashed across the bridge leading 
 into the city. Here was a scene of desolation 
 disclosed in the dreary dawn. Turning into the
 
 188 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEES FIELDS 
 
 main square, they surveyed the scene of wreckage. 
 In the city around them shells were falling, but 
 in front of them the open space lay silent. A 
 black cat, with wild staring amber eyes, the only 
 thing moving in sight, picked its way delicately 
 amid the uptorn paving-stones, and paused to 
 smell a fragment of shell. Evidently it was fresh 
 fallen and still hot, for the cat sneezed suddenly 
 in the silence. 
 
 " A black cat," said the Quartermaster; " that's 
 for luck." 
 
 " Yes," said the Paymaster. " We're not going 
 to be killed this time." 
 
 In front of them, gradually reddening in the 
 early morning sun, stood the ruins of the church 
 and the town hall. It seemed that here the 
 German spite had concentrated; spires, buttresses, 
 and pillars, all had crumbled and tumbled together, 
 giving the whole a melted appearance as of a 
 gigantic sugar-cake collapsing on a hot day. 
 Great rifts yawned in the causeway, and right 
 in front of the town hall the father of all shell- 
 holes gaped big as a circus. 
 
 All around them, in the fields and woods, men 
 were fighting and dying. Yet here, where the full 
 force of the ruthlessness had concentrated, was 
 the desolation of desolations. Forlorn and for- 
 saken, a modern Carthage. The two non-com- 
 batants, as they gazed on the fallen walls and 
 crumbled causeway, felt the loneliness of this
 
 THE DOINGS OF SOME DETAILS 189 
 
 finished wreck lie heavy on their souls. For the 
 loneliness of the mountains is nothing to the 
 loneliness of a deserted city 1 
 
 The Quartermaster called the cat to him. But 
 it would have none of him, standing amid the 
 wreckage of what had been its home, it lashed its 
 tail from side to side in manifest disapproval — 
 the one creature in the whole of that dead city 
 that declined to flee. 
 
 " All right, pussy; don't blame me if they kill 
 you. I've warned you," said the Quartermaster. 
 
 In the entrance of a house a soldier was kneeling, 
 his face buried in his arm, against the doorpost, 
 his rifle still clutched in his other hand. The 
 Paymaster touched him, trying to look into his 
 face. The rifle, loosened from the nerveless fingers, 
 clattered on to the pavement. He was dead. 
 The cat, alarmed at the sudden sound, disappeared 
 amid the ruins. 
 
 The Paymaster straightened himself up. " Come 
 along, Mac; let's get on. I'm sick of this." 
 
 Onward they tramped through the silent streets. 
 Here the front of a house had been blown out, 
 blocking the road with wreckage. Inside, the 
 dining-table was set for a dinner, the white cloth 
 and folded napkins, the glass and flowers, telling 
 of an interrupted festivity. In front were the 
 bodies of three civilians, one a woman, mowed 
 down in their hurried flight, their few possessions 
 lying beside them in hastily tied bundles. As
 
 190 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 far as could be seen, these three and the soldier 
 were the entire harvest of that ruthless bom- 
 bardment; millions of pounds in weight and cost, 
 and three civilians and one soldier dead ! 
 
 The two non-combatants set their faces west, 
 leaving the city of the dead with its gaping ruin's 
 and battered houses behind; and as they walked 
 along the high-road beneath the budding poplars, 
 the sun rose behind them, and the sad, torn land- 
 scape seemed to smile amidst its tears. It was 
 as though by some strange chance they had come 
 from death to life; the birds were singing in the 
 branches, and the apple and cherry trees were gay 
 with blossom.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 " AND RESTED THE SEVENTH DAY " 
 
 It was the morning of the seventh day. " Six 
 days shalt thou labour and do all that thou hast 
 
 to do, but the seventh " Certainly for six 
 
 days we had laboured, and as the officers of the 
 Pompadours, after seeing to the requirements of 
 their men, dropped into breakfast one after another, 
 they felt that they had done all they had to do. 
 From a six days' nightmare we woke to find our- 
 selves famous — at least, so it seemed from the 
 London papers. Not that^we had been to sleep; 
 that was still to come. Here we were, seated at 
 a round table in the rear of the Quartermaster's 
 store, munching our ham and eggs, and devouring 
 the news in the morning papers, while the Quarter- 
 master and the transport officer hovered round 
 us, and phed us with fresh delicacies and steaming 
 cups of coffee. The transport officer surpassed 
 himself on this occasion, as Lieutenant Allonby, 
 who felt like nothing on earth after a week's pre- 
 carious existence, found to his delight. 
 
 " Have some more ham and eggs ?" 
 
 " No, thanks." 
 
 191
 
 192 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 " Some coffee ?" 
 
 " No, thanks." 
 
 " All right; if you're ready, your bed is." 
 
 Upstairs the transport officer led the way. 
 Here Allonby found his blankets waiting for him. 
 " Now, when you're ready for it, here's a double 
 tot of rum; a bottle of white wine; there's some 
 cigars on that soap-box; and I've the Daily Hustler 
 for you to read." 
 
 The somewhat jaded Lieutenant lay back amid 
 his blankets, inhahng smoke that certainly is not 
 retailed at two for a quarter, as the rum inside 
 him glowed comfortingly. After all, a battle is 
 not so bad if it leads to such an extremity of 
 comfort. The battalion had not been relieved as 
 a single unit, but each company, as it had received 
 its orders, moved down the long road and through 
 the burning villages of Boscap and St. Michel, 
 and through the nocturnal hurricane of the City 
 of Distress. The result was the officers were not 
 in time for breakfast. They came singly or in 
 pairs, but for the most part they came not at all. 
 As the remnants of each company marched in, 
 their officers reported; but in two out of the four 
 companies the reports were brought in by sergeants, 
 as there were no officers. 
 
 It had indeed been a fairly complete clean out; 
 and as the officers met as a battalion mess, the 
 first for many days, the interest in the fates of the 
 absentees was not second even to their hunger for
 
 " AND EESTED THE SEVENTH DAY " 193 
 
 a meal. At first it appeared very bad with eighteen 
 empty places at mess and only five fighting officers 
 surviving. They were absent — that seemed enough ; 
 some we knew were dead. They had been seen to 
 die — that was enough; for them we had no hope. 
 But for the others there was still a chance: that 
 httle spark of promise that always goes with the 
 word of ill-omen — " missing." 
 
 Madden and Bromfield both were killed, shot 
 through the head before the Germans invaded the 
 front fine. Leckie had died, with a bullet in his 
 heart, while shooting calmly and composedly 
 across the parapet. A noted shot, Leckie, at all 
 our western meetings — and in the trenches, for 
 that matter, also. He seldom scored other than 
 a bull's-eye; it was only right, if he had to go, 
 that he should go out thus cleanly and painlessly, 
 who had ever dealt so accurately with his op- 
 ponents. Beaton also we knew of, shot through 
 the head. On one occasion previously the bullet 
 had grazed his head, marking his scalp with a 
 ruddy parting. That time the Bosche shot too 
 high; this time the bullet made more certain; 
 three inches lower, it got him in the centre of his 
 forehead. Then of the others — Tiny Pillows had 
 been seen badly wounded, but still fighting his 
 machine-gun as he hung to its stock, with the gun 
 team all knocked out around him. Captain 
 Younger, his head in a bandage, had stayed in the 
 
 trench he and his men had defended so well. 
 
 13
 
 194 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 We went through the list, taking each name in 
 turn, as we wondered, guessed, and speculated 
 as to their fates. Honest John, Lindsay, and 
 Bridges, were known to be among the wounded. 
 Each had been seen by some of the non-com- 
 batants as they were carried off to hospital. And 
 so the survivors sat at their breakfast, dirty, 
 unshaven and weary, their faces marked with 
 new lines that many days would not suffice to 
 wipe away. 
 
 '' I wish you'd take the Adjutant out and get 
 him a shave." It was the man of God addressing 
 the transport officer. 
 
 " What's wrong. Padre ? Don't you like my 
 whiskers ?" asked the Adjutant. 
 
 " No; they're putting the Doctor of! his food." 
 " Well, you'll have to get used to them. They 
 remind me of South Africa. I'm going to keep 
 them on." 
 
 Bit by bit we pieced the parts of the puzzle 
 together, learning how the regiment, after falling 
 back from their trenches, had gathered together 
 along the ridge, linking up with the still determined 
 Highlanders and the remainder of our own Western 
 Brigade. How the Prairie Eifles and the Saska- 
 toons had remained in their trenches to the last, 
 despite the gas, despite everything. How, with 
 Imperial units coming up to relieve them, they 
 had held on, fighting until the sparks flew and the 
 cows came home to roost. How the Brigadier,
 
 " AND EESTED THE SEVENTH DAY " 195 
 
 our Brigadier, had come among us and told us 
 to keep on lighting, and, when we'd finished that. 
 to fight some more. And we heard how the 
 transport had flitted about from place to place, 
 standing to, ever ready to move, as the German 
 guns found them out, and how the Quarter- 
 master's staff, back in the City of Distress, had 
 left their store at one door as the shells came in 
 at the other. 
 
 Well, it had been a great fight, and we, assembled 
 round the table, were the lucky ones. To us 
 would be the praise, and perchance some of the 
 glory too ; but up there on the ridge, to the north- 
 east, beyond the City of Distress, lay the real 
 heroes — those who had fought so weU and in 
 fighting thus had died, in order that Canada, the 
 Empire, and the world, might yet be free. 
 
 So musing, we went in search of our blankets; 
 and here, as in the case of Lieutenant Allonby, 
 the transport officer had done us proud, and we 
 slept as they say only warriors and the just can 
 sleep. Well, we must have been one or the other, 
 as our slumbers were unbroken. The rum ration 
 has been responsible for saving many lives and 
 cheering up spirits during many a dark hour, 
 but certainly never was a drink so welcome and 
 altogether necessary as on that occasion. 
 
 Late in the afternoon Captain Wales and Lieu- 
 tenant Allonby woke. The Huns were shelling; 
 the village.
 
 196 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 " Really, this is too bad. They might give us 
 a rest sometimes," remarked the Captain. 
 
 " My dear, the Bosche is perfectly impossible. 
 This is pure spite; but as we've got to move out 
 behind the canal, I suppose we had better be 
 going?" 
 
 The Western Brigade was holding the bank of 
 a canal. The Pompadours were in support, play- 
 ing about in the hedgerows like rabbits. Here 
 we dug ourselves in, and daily, as the Germans 
 shelled us, improved our shelter and attained to 
 greater safety. The Germans were by no means 
 bigoted in their tastes: with an open hand they 
 dispersed among us high explosives and shrapnel, 
 while their aeroplanes from the simmering heights 
 of blue above dropped bombs on us. 
 
 Here we made acquaintance of the Ramrod 
 dugout, so called because it was as twisted as a 
 corkscrew and in deference to its inventor — a 
 gallant sergeant, who, when the first shell whistled 
 in the distance, ran to earth like a terrier down 
 a rat-hole. Here his feet could just be seen 
 appearing from the exit, while from the bowels of 
 the earth came noises as of one burrowing strenu- 
 ously. Presently he would emerge like a gopher, 
 and with his nose and eyebrows plastered with 
 mud, take a rapid survey of the surrounding 
 country, only to disappear in a wink if so much 
 as a blade of grass moved or a leaf rustled on the 
 tree. The men got lots of fun out of it. " Look
 
 " AND RESTED THE SEVENTH DAY " 197 
 
 out, Sergeant Ramrod; there's a shell !" — that 
 was enough. The dauntless N.C.O. would at once 
 do the disappearing trick, and the excavation 
 commenced all over again. So deep was he 
 immersed, he never knew if the shells were flying 
 past; and as his antics were about our only form 
 of entertainment, he got many alarms. 
 
 And while we lay along the hedge-bottom, and 
 the shells flew overhead and burst in the soft 
 earth behind us, we read in the morning papers 
 that the Germans were short of ammunition, that 
 they had no copper for the driving bands, and that 
 their shrapnel was composed of glass balls and 
 marbles ! 
 
 "I wonder who this dope's intended for?" 
 remarked full Private Freeborn, late citizen of 
 U.S.A., handing a copy of the Daily Dream to 
 his fellow body-snatcher. Private Lavigne. " Seems 
 kind of absurd to peddle such stuff round here. 
 I've not seen a dud all day." 
 
 "What is it you are talking about?" asked 
 War-horse McMutchkin from the bottom of the 
 ditch where he was idly reposing, his hat tilted 
 over his nose and his pipe stuck in the corner of 
 his mouth. 
 
 " This 'ere Dily Dream ses the 'uns 'as only 
 marbles left to ply with, an' spend the 'ole die 
 peppering us with glass bawls," answered Lavigne 
 authoritatively from the depths of his news- 
 paper.
 
 198 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 " Is that so ? Well, I saw them play marbles 
 with the head of a sergeant in a Welsh regi- 
 ment down the road just now, back of the 
 farm," remarked Highland Glory as he joined the 
 party. 
 
 " It's a terrible pity w^e don't manage to have 
 them that writes this stuf! here with us to count 
 the number of shells that do burst," said the 
 War-horse. 
 
 " I guess they might run off a special sheet for 
 us over here omitting all the eyewash; it gives me 
 a pain. Now they say they're short of gold." 
 
 " You'd better not get taken prisoner, Phil, with 
 those teeth of yours," said Lavigne. 
 
 Highland Glory was both alarmed and angry; 
 he had just returned from Eccles, where he had 
 been sent on a message. Then, being told to wait 
 an hour for an answer, he had strolled into the 
 churchyard, partly because he had none of his 
 pay left to warrant a successful visit to an estaminet, 
 and partly because the blood of his Highland 
 ancestry encouraged him, with morbid fancies, to 
 wander among the graves. In the churchyard, 
 while amusing himself by deciphering the letters 
 on the crosses, he was suddenly confronted by his 
 own name. 
 
 There was no doubt about it. There it stood 
 for all the world to read, complete with his regi- 
 mental number and initials. Horror-struck and 
 filled with a feeling of impending doom, he fled
 
 " AND RESTED THE SEVENTH DAY " 199 
 
 from the churchyard ; and forgetting entirely the 
 answer to the message, he hastened back to the 
 battahon. On the way back he had, on three 
 separate occasions, seen a single magpie — and this 
 in the mating-time, when the fancies of all sensible 
 birds had properly turned to thoughts of love; 
 then, the sudden death of the Welsh sergeant at 
 his side, had completely finished him. Suspicious 
 and filled with strange and horrible beliefs, he 
 refused to be comforted. 
 
 ''I'm not long for this world, anyhow," he wound 
 up his depressing narrative. 
 
 " You'd better go sick, Mac. Tell the Doctor 
 you were gassed. You look blue enough already. 
 Just pretend to breathe a trifle hard," the War- 
 horse advised. 
 
 " Go sick ! And be sent back for a court- 
 martial. I'm not fancying field punishment under 
 our doctor. He'd keep me digging ditches all day 
 long." 
 
 " Why don't yer get on with the Preacher as bat- 
 man, and give out the 'ymn-books on church 
 parade," suggested Lavigne; " that's a safe job." 
 
 " What's all this ? A convalescent camp or a 
 Sunday-school treat ?" It was the Medical Officer 
 who had come up unobserved. " You look pretty 
 sick, McSpeldron; got a stomach-ache ?" 
 
 " Please, sir, I've just been buried." 
 
 " What, by a shell ?" 
 
 " I'm not sure, but think it must have been a
 
 200 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEES FIELDS 
 
 meenister and a burial-party. I wasn't present 
 myself." 
 
 " How could you be buried if you weren't there ? 
 You're going crazy." 
 
 " No, sir, I'm not daft. I'm lying dead and 
 buried in Eccles at the present moment, between 
 a Colonel and a sergeant-major." 
 
 " Have you been drinking ?" 
 
 " Not a drop. Not since that day at Bosky 
 when you wasted all the wine." 
 
 Gradually the Medical Officer arrived at the truth 
 of the situation, and for once a bright idea seemed 
 to strike him. 
 
 " Where's your identity disc ?" 
 
 Private McSpeldron unbuttoned his tunic and 
 searched diligently among the folds of his various 
 shirts for the article in question. It was not 
 forthcoming. 
 
 " I've not got it." 
 
 "No, of course not; you dropped it when you 
 were tying up a wounded man, and somebody 
 found it and tied it on to him." 
 
 " That's just a possibility," answered McSpeldron 
 doubtfully. 
 
 " Possibility ! It's the only true explanation," 
 thundered the Medical Officer, who prided himself 
 on his clearness of perception. " You'd better 
 secure the cross and carry it about with you as 
 a souvenir. Nelson always carried a coffin about 
 with him."
 
 " AND RESTED THE SEVENTH DAY " 201 
 
 "Yes, Mac," remarked the War-horse; *' it's 
 bound to come in useful sooner or later." 
 
 " But the magpies, doctor ? Three single mag- 
 pies ?" 
 
 " Bachelors, confirmed bachelors. Now, if you 
 people have nothing to do but discuss sudden 
 death in various forms, we'll do a Uttle camp- 
 cleaning. Fall in." 
 
 The medical detail spent the rest of the day 
 cleaning up the camp, and as The McSpeldron's 
 misfortunes were considered to be directly respon- 
 sible for their laborious duties, he met with little 
 sympathy. 
 
 Here we received a much-needed batch of re- 
 inforcements. They came to us in the morning in 
 all the glory of their new kits and fresh equipment, 
 the possessors of sundry necessary articles of which 
 our battered remnants were short. Prior to being 
 broken up and attached to the various companies, 
 they were fallen out in a corner of a field, from 
 whence they gazed at us across the hedge with 
 apparent interest. With trustful simphcity they 
 spread their belongings about on the grass, and 
 wandered out to hear our various tales. Possibly 
 what they were told lacked nothing in the telling. 
 Then the Germans commenced shelling; the re- 
 inforcements at the first burst of shrapnel took 
 to the ditches and dugouts, and scattered into thin 
 air. Their possessions scattered also, for the 
 Pompadours were amongst them, re-equipping
 
 202 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 themselves, without thought of an indent. Mess- 
 tins, blankets, water-bottles, haversacks, changed 
 owners in a flash, and when the new arrivals 
 returned to look, they found their worldly goods 
 vanished and the Pompadours smiling a smile that 
 was childlike and bland. They had most of the 
 cards up their sleeves, and there they would remain. 
 
 The Medical Officer was busy; he was the only 
 poultice-walloper left on deck in the brigade. 
 Gillette, of the Assiniboias, died at the door of his 
 dressing-station, hit by a falling bomb. Head of 
 the Saskatoons stayed by his wounded, refusing 
 to desert them, and finally became a prisoner; 
 and Featherstone, of the Prairie Rifles, was badly 
 wounded as he attended to one of his battalion 
 on the ridge. Along the canal bank the Saskatoons 
 and Assiniboias lay entrenched, with the remnants 
 of the Highland Brigade; and here for a week 
 they remained, while the guns pounded them 
 and the Taubes circled overhead. 
 
 Battalion Headquarters were in the usual farm, 
 a place fraught with infinite possibilities ; already it 
 had been hit, and its peaked, thatched roof would 
 offer a poor protection at the best of times. For 
 that matter the headquarters had had enough of 
 thatched roofs. So the Medical Officer went out 
 and called his body-snatchers together, and they 
 dug a row of what they called dugouts. The 
 Major and the Adjutant, whom he summoned with 
 pride to view his handiwork, mistook the excava-
 
 "AND BESTED THE SEVENTH DAY" 203 
 
 tions for an embryo graveyard, and asked when 
 the burial service was to begin. So they all 
 retired back to the farm-house, which was of all 
 farm-houses the most dismal. Then the shelling 
 recommenced, and the house was hit again, so 
 they retired to the barn, which was, if possible, 
 more unsafe and dismal than the house. Finally, 
 when things quieted down, they resumed their 
 occupation of the farm-house, while the Adjutant 
 busied himself with his customary nominal roll, 
 which was now merely a skeleton affair, and the 
 Colonel recommended various people for promotion 
 and others for decorations. Then the owners of 
 the house came back and removed the stove, 
 while the Medical Officer strafed them for in- 
 hospitable and scurrilous knaves, and threatened 
 to write to King Albert. As a result there was 
 no means of cooking, and the gloomy kitchen, 
 with its grey walls and dirty floor, looked more 
 like a vault than ever. Then Captain Cope, who 
 was collecting relics, removed the only crucifix 
 from the walls. 
 
 " That's finished it," said the Doctor. " I may 
 belong to the Auld Kirk, but I decUne to stay any 
 longer in the house after you've taken that thing 
 away." 
 
 So the Medical Officer went out and lay in his 
 grave, which he called his dugout; and though 
 he didn't eat worms, he felt like it, and refused to 
 be comforted, and prophesied all sorts of horrors
 
 204 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 and destruction. And the day after the Pompa- 
 dours had been reUeved, that house of gloom \ 
 sustained a direct hit, and collapsed like a pack 
 of cards. 
 
 The transport, retiring to a respectful distance 
 out of shell-fire, found themselves amid what at 
 first looked like some picturesque offshoot of 
 Barnum and Bailey's. Tall, dusky warriors in 
 flowing cloaks of blue and scarlet, with red leather 
 trappings on clean-limbed Arab steeds. These 
 were the French native cavalry. With a dignified 
 air of aloofness, and a predilection for red wine, 
 they strolled about smoking their cigarettes in a 
 calm of silence. The transport officer would have 
 none of them, and doubled the sentries on his 
 waggons, and counted his horses three times every 
 hour. He refused to sleep, bounding out of bed 
 many times at night to see whether these children 
 of the desert had broken like wolves into his 
 sheepfold, until the Quartermaster, who shared a 
 tent with him, threatened to go out and cut the 
 picketing ropes. 
 
 The Pompadours were all a trifle fed up. When 
 a regiment loses three-quarters of its officers, and 
 more than half its men, it is idle to expect that it 
 will show no effects. Besides, we were tired of 
 being shelled, and very tired of standing-to per- 
 petually. The Eastern Brigade was relieved, and 
 the Jocks left their temporary cantonments on 
 the canal banks, but the Westerners still remained.
 
 " AND RESTED THE SEVENTH DAY " 205 
 
 It was a dark night, without moon or stars, 
 when the Brigade finally assembled near the cross- 
 roads of Malmartre, and commenced their march 
 southwards. The route lay by a series of cross- 
 roads, and the hedgerow fighting had ill-attuned 
 our feet to marching, and in the darkness we 
 stumbled in the ruts and wrenched our ankles in 
 the shell-holes. It was hot as a July night, and 
 our packs hung heavy on our shoulders. With 
 the best spirit in the world it would have been 
 difficult to be cheerful ; and then, although we were 
 glad to be out and on the move again, we could 
 not forget all we were leaving behind us, and our 
 friends upon the ridge. Hour after hour we 
 plodded on, and in the close, breathless darkness 
 of night the thirst that we developed was profound, 
 liie men had ceased even to grumble and had 
 fallen silent, and in the stillness nothing could be 
 heard but the tramp of men and rumble of waggons, 
 and once or twice a sudden sound of anger which 
 told of a twisted ankle. Behind us boomed the 
 guns, ours and theirs, and along the distant horizon 
 the star-shells rose and fell. 
 
 Suddenly from nowhere, flooding us from all 
 around, came a burst of song. To us, tired, 
 thirsty, and altogether fed up, it seemed as a 
 burst of heavenly music. Perhaps it was the 
 angels of Mons, come to ground to cheer us up. 
 No, it couldn't be that; they would have played 
 '* Onward, Christian soldiers !" or " Through
 
 206 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 the night of doubt and sorrow " to us. No, this 
 was something different. " Hold your hand out, 
 naughty boy !" It must be St. Peter — that's the 
 way he'd probably talk. 
 
 It was the band of the Eobin Hoods, welcoming 
 us from out the sights and sounds behind us. 
 The effect was magical. The straggled sections 
 of fours closed up, shoulders which had sagged 
 forward beneath their packs braced up, and 
 marching in steady time we swung along the 
 ringing road behind the blare of music. 
 
 As we left the band behind, the melody still 
 came to us fading with the distance, but its effect 
 was with us. The Pompadours had come to life. 
 A glow of friendship filled us for the Eobin Hoods, 
 and the Canadians will not soon forget how they 
 played us down the road and out of that grim 
 and death-smitten city, and sent us on our way, 
 braced up with the finest tonic in the world. 
 Packs were hitched up, mouth-organs appeared, 
 and the Pompadours sang as they marched down 
 into the sleeping city of Malines.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 OUT TO GEASS 
 
 Rest billets: there is something very pleasant in 
 the name. We arrived with the dawn, yet not 
 before our host had risen. 
 
 The Doctor, speaking execrable French, de- 
 manded beer in a thirsty voice, while the Adjutant, 
 already seated in the kitchen, was talking to 
 Madame. That first drink after the long night 
 march — how we gloated over it ! It was not the 
 watery, washy liquid of the estaminets, but, as 
 Monsieur Jules informed us, made on the premises. 
 
 " Encore un autre," said the Medical Officer, 
 with an accent hke a rasp-saw. " I hardly tasted 
 that one. Help ! But I'm tired; that last mile 
 nearly fixed me." 
 
 " What, did you walk all the way ?" asked that 
 rigid teetotaller, the Major, who had condescended 
 to sip a cup of coffee. 
 
 " Yes, every inch. I had a bet with Willie 
 Cousins I'd walk the whole way, so the body- 
 snatchers took it in turn to ride Rhubarb." 
 
 We went to bed in the broad daylight, wrapped 
 in our blankets on the stone floor, the sun shining 
 
 207
 
 208 MAPLE LEAVES IN FALNDERS FIEF.DS 
 
 through the windows and the larks soaring sky- 
 wards outside — and woke in the still peace of an 
 unruffled spring day. 
 
 It was a rich and cheerful country-side, with 
 green fields, and fruit-trees white with blossom; 
 and as we strolled about and waited for the batman 
 to prepare our breakfast, we drew in long, deep 
 draughts of the pure fresh air. We had slept 
 well; our thoughts were all in front of us, away 
 from the troubles of the last few days. 
 
 '' How did you sleep, Pills ?" inquired the 
 Adjutant. 
 
 " Sleep ? Like a corpse." The Medical Officer 
 had an air mattress, which his batman inflated 
 every night. He always maintained that when he 
 couldn't sleep, he loosened the valve slightly and 
 inhaled the fumes that escaped. He said it was 
 like chloroform. His batman had a well-mellowed 
 breath ! 
 
 " Here we can breathe again," said the Adjutant, 
 "' without the taste of gas." 
 
 " Yes; and my sense of taste is coming back, 
 thank Heaven," the Major remarked. It certainly 
 seemed so as the ham and eggs evaporated from 
 his plate. 
 
 " Major, I protest. How am I to keep the mess 
 bills down when you eat six eggs at every sitting ? 
 Look at the Padre with the marmalade. Padre, 
 that's not porridge you're eating," remonstrated 
 the Medical Officer.
 
 OUT TO GEASS 209 
 
 " Well, what about the beer you drink ? And 
 what happens to the Major's rum ration and mine ?" 
 the man of God inquired. 
 
 " Don't ask leading questions, Padre, and go 
 on with your breakfast." 
 
 Rest billets. We were there to rest. At first 
 it appeared so, and then came the order that we 
 were to be ready to move at short notice, so our 
 rest seemed suddenly to fade away. Yet there 
 was Malines — a one-horse town, it is true, but 
 nevertheless a town. It was quite near, so we 
 might have been worse off. Our reinforcements 
 turned out to be extraordinarily good; we had 
 certainly misjudged them when, under the influence 
 of shell-fii-e, we pinched their equipment ! 
 
 The General who commanded the army came 
 to see us and thanked us for what we had done, 
 and our own Generals of Division and Brigade did 
 the same, and we received presents from many 
 sources: one from no less a person than Her Majesty 
 Queen Alexandra. So, gradually, we began to feel 
 we had done something. 
 
 The Medical Officer had large sick-parades. It 
 was always the way in the Pompadours. If the 
 battahon was going to the trenches, or to do any 
 fighting, the sick at once appeared to get well as 
 with a touch of magic; but in rest billets, when 
 the duties of the day called for route marches and 
 kit inspections, they tumbled over one another to 
 be excused off parade. 
 
 11
 
 210 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 *' How can I get sick-leave ?" asked the Pay- 
 master, who was of an inquiring turn of mind, 
 as the Medical Ofhcer entered the mess-room after 
 a strenuous time with sundry personages who 
 appeared inchned to work their tickets. 
 
 " Can't be done," answered the Medical Officer 
 firmly. 
 
 " Tell me. Doctor: what is a nice pleasant disease 
 I could get that would insure my going to 
 England ?" the Padre inquired. 
 
 " You'd better take to drink and have D.T.'s," 
 was all the comfort he got. 
 
 The Major had been put on a diet and presented 
 with a bottle of brown mixture, which he imbibed 
 mysteriously three times a day, encouraged by 
 the Medical Officer. Captain Cope, who was 
 thirsting for promotion, insisted on pressing him 
 to partake of pickles, canned mushrooms, and 
 other horrors to which the Commanding Officer 
 was extremely partial, in order to clear the way 
 in front of him. 
 
 " Have some curried shrimps, Colonel ?" said 
 Captain Cope. 
 
 "No, thank you; I'd like to, but the Doctor 
 won't permit it." 
 
 " Well, how am I to get command of the bat- 
 tahon if you won't ? I'd like to know," remarked 
 the scheming Captain. 
 
 The Quartermaster complained of sleeplessness, 
 and whenever the Medical Officer was around
 
 OUT TO GRASS 211 
 
 showed a shaking hand, which he said called for at 
 least a month's sick-leave. 
 
 The only one, however, to have any success 
 was the Paymaster. He chose the happy device 
 of falling from his horse and complained of severe 
 and racking pains in the back. It was like the 
 ten Httle nigger-boys : one after another the officers 
 of the Pompadours were disappearing. 
 
 The Quartermaster was living in an estaminet. 
 Very peaceful, too. " Au Retour de Tonkin " 
 seemed to encourage the quenching of a thirst, 
 developed in the sweltering Eastern heat. They 
 are original, the names that hang over the doors 
 of these most acceptable rest-houses. There is 
 the " Au Transvaal," reminiscent of a time when 
 we and our gallant allies were not so cordial in 
 our entente as at present 1 They cater to a variety 
 of tastes. Just round the corner from the insane 
 asylum, in a certain provincial town bearing an 
 historic name, is the " Estaminet au Descent de 
 I'Asile," ready to welcome the newly discharged 
 patient, who, doubtless rejoicing in his newly 
 regained freedom, would not be slow to take 
 advantage of its proffered hospitality. 
 
 In another place there is the " Belle Vue de 
 Cimetiere." Here, in all probabihty, the mourners 
 returning from the graveside are intended to drown 
 their sorrows, while at the same time keeping a 
 watchful eye on the sexton putting down the sods. 
 
 Then there was the " Moine Fou." There was
 
 212 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEKS FIELDS 
 
 a difference in opinion as to what this meant, 
 the Quartermaster maintaining the gentleman in 
 question was certainly drunk, while the Doctor 
 asserted it meant crazy ! 
 
 " I think the Doctor is right," said the Padre 
 judicially. " ' Fou ' may mean * drunk ' in your 
 country, but here it has quite another meaning." 
 The Quartermaster was unconvinced; "fou" had 
 always meant " fu'," and would always mean the 
 same thing for all the ministers, and] doctors in 
 the world. 
 
 And so on through a succession of original titles : 
 the " Bon Fermier," the " Bon Chant des Oiseaux," 
 the " Pot au Lait," the " Belle Odour de I'Abat- 
 toir " — truly a varied and interesting collection. 
 They occurred with a frequency and persistency 
 that at first we might have found alarming; but 
 the days of crime due to the wine-cup were prac- 
 tically forbye, whether because we had learnt 
 man's first great lesson — how much he can hold — 
 or because the fermented beverages on retail 
 could not be bought in sufficient quantities, with 
 the small sums of money at our command, to do 
 more than give us a kindly glow. 
 
 All this time we were under the order to " stand 
 to," to be ready to move — an order that cramped 
 our style, and in large part restricted our freedom; 
 and then finally came the summons to be off: we 
 were going south. I am certain that everyone 
 was relieved, for just at the moment nobody was
 
 OUT TO GRASS 213 
 
 inclined to return to the north, which meant the 
 City of Distress. 
 
 Two days later we were marching towards the 
 ruined remnant of what had once been a village. 
 As we approached, excitement was in the air. 
 For a wonder we were marching in the daylight, 
 and as we advanced we met with first one and 
 then another batch of prisoners. Dusty and tired 
 they looked as they came along surrounded by 
 their guards. There were German helmets to 
 burn: everybody seemed to have two or three, 
 and all manner of other mementoes also. 
 
 The stretcher-bearers in the rear of the battalion 
 were singing as they marched along the way. 
 Mouth-organs were going full blast, alternating 
 with the whistling of pipe tunes by our High- 
 landers. 
 
 In a field by the roadside an old lady was spread- 
 ing manure — an old lady with a short skirt dis- 
 playing aged ankles, and feet disappearing into 
 wooden shoes. She evidently met with the 
 War-horse's approval. 
 
 "There you are, boys," he called. "Look: 
 there's the sort of wife you young lads want to 
 marry." 
 
 " Yes, I guess she wouldn't want to go to the 
 movies every other night," Freeborn admitted. 
 
 The Medical Officer and the transport officer 
 had quarrelled. I think one had put the other 
 under arrest for some reason or another. Exactly
 
 214 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 what it was has not yet been established. In 
 the afternoon we fell out in a thin drizzle of rain, 
 to wait some hours until nightfall, when we would 
 move on toward our village. 
 
 The Medical Officer and the transport officer 
 were still at loggerheads. The trouble was prob- 
 ably the water-carts; they never could agree 
 exactly to whom they belonged, or what position 
 they should occupy in the battalion procession. 
 When we moved on again, we met with other 
 transport on the road; battalions were coming 
 down the road meeting us, and in the rain and 
 dark, the difficulty of keeping touch with the rest 
 of the battaHon in front of us was increasingly 
 severe. The climax came when one of the limbers 
 lurched suddenly sideways, and slid gently into 
 the ditch. The air was blue with the barking of the 
 transport officer as the remainder of the battalion 
 disappeared in the dark. The horses scrambled 
 and plunged as they struggled to extricate the 
 limber from the mire, but without result. Poised 
 at a reckless angle, threatening to upset at any 
 moment, it refused to budge. Then help came from 
 a most unexpected quarter. 
 
 " Let's have some ropes, Willie, and we'll pull 
 the ruddy thing out for you." It was the Medical 
 Officer speaking. Ropes were instantly forth- 
 coming and tied to the spokes of the wheels. The 
 medical detail grabbed hold, the horses snorted 
 and hauled, the stretcher-bearers pulled and tugged
 
 OUT TO GEASS 215 
 
 and man-handled the deeply sunk wheels, and the 
 limber was again restored to its proper place in 
 the centre of the high-road. 
 
 " Thank you," said the transport officer. Five 
 minutes later an irritable Adjutant, galloping 
 down the high-road at imminent risk of his life, 
 found the two missing officers, seated on the road- 
 side with their feet in the ditch trying to squeeze 
 a second drink out of the transport officer's flask. 
 
 " Are you going to spend the whole night here ?" 
 Captain Grosvenor demanded querulously. 
 
 " Not now that you've rolled up to disturb our 
 peace," the Medical Officer answered, as he re- 
 turned the flask to its owner and rose to his feet. 
 
 " What about my being under arrest ?" said one 
 of the two officers to the other, as the Adjutant 
 waited impatiently for them to resume their 
 march. 
 
 " What arrest ?" asked the other. " I've for- 
 gotten."
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE SEEIOUS SIDE OF WAR 
 
 The Medical Officer and the transport officer, 
 under the watchful eye of the Adjutant, now 
 resumed their march. 
 
 " Meddlesome fellow this Adjutant man," said 
 the Medical Officer to the transport officer, who 
 was silently shuffling along in the mud. 
 
 The transport officer said nothing. Probably 
 he felt that any remarks he made would strain too 
 far the slender framework of the Adjutant's 
 temper. 
 
 Meantime the Adjutant strafed the Medical 
 Officer and the transport officer indiscriminately, 
 until they finally began to feel like a pair of school- 
 boys caught in some flagrant misdemeanour. 
 
 "I must say. Adj., I don't think your temper 
 improves with the rain. I shall have to ask the 
 medical detail to sing, in order to drown your 
 remarks," declared the Medical Officer. 
 
 " Well, you two may have been quite happy 
 sitting in the ditch there, but what about our 
 kits and rations ?" 
 
 " Kits and rations ! You talk to us of kits 
 
 216
 
 THE SERIOUS SIDE OF WAR 217 
 
 and rations, when two of your smartest officers 
 were lost, and for all you knew to the contrary, 
 might have been lying dead on the roadside; and 
 all you want is kits and rations ! Why, we might 
 have died a hundred times," exclaimed the Medical 
 Officer. 
 
 " Yes," said the transport officer, " and been 
 buried by the robins like the babes in the wood." 
 
 ** If you'd come along and found two decom- 
 posing corpses in the ditch, then you might have 
 been sorry," added the Doctor. 
 
 " I thought you knew the way," said the 
 Adjutant, who now appeared more anxious to 
 mollify the two stragglers. 
 
 " Thought ! He actually thought ! ! Give it 
 up. Leave thinking to the educated classes — 
 myself, for instance, and ' Pills ' here," the trans- 
 port officer suggested loftily. ^ 
 
 "Yes; and how, may I ask, could we be ex- 
 pected to know the way, when the Battalion 
 Headquarters keep all the maps ?" the Medical 
 Officer inquired. 
 
 " Well, you don't know how to read a map, 
 anyhow, so you don't need to grumble." 
 
 This was so perfectly true that the Medical Officer 
 for a few moments was reduced to silence, thinking 
 over a suitable retort. The rain meantime, which 
 had for some hours been falling with a steady 
 drizzle, now attained to a solid downpour. The 
 three officers, followed by the stretcher-bearers
 
 218 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEES FIELDS 
 
 and transport, marched on in silence, splashing 
 through the puddles and conscious of nothing but 
 the general wetness of their surroundings, and the 
 rain which drove against their faces and found 
 its way in a thin trickle down their necks. 
 
 " Certainly the German Emperor has a lot to 
 answer for, bringing me out on a night like this," 
 said the Medical Officer, as a sentry, stationed in 
 front of a nebulous and indistinct farm-house, 
 challenged them out of the darkness. 
 
 In a decayed farm they found the Battalion 
 Headquarters; and in the house the Colonel had 
 taken up his quarters. Companies were scattered 
 round in dugouts, which some maintained to be 
 shell-proof, but which were just as certainly not 
 rain-proof. The headquarter details occupied the 
 various barns and outhouses, where they reposed 
 in different degrees of sodden discomfort. Here 
 they lay on the stone floors amid the wet straw, 
 while the rain dripped down upon them through 
 gigantic holes in the roof. 
 
 The Pompadours were in support, and the 
 orderly-room, in close and earnest communication 
 with Brigade Headquarters, noted down an ex- 
 haustive programme of working and wiring parties. 
 On our left the Highland Brigade, reinforced 
 since the disastrous days up north, were reported 
 to be attacking some letter on the map apparently 
 agitative to the minds of the general staff. Only 
 a letter and a number — nothing more. Certainly
 
 THE SERIOUS SIDE OF WAR 219 
 
 there appears to be no limit to the usages of 
 modern warfare, but really this seems to be carrying 
 the thing too far. The other ranks one has had 
 to get into the habit of regarding as so many 
 numbers; the horses also have their ciphers seared 
 into their hoofs; even the waggons are indexed. 
 But now we have to accustom ourselves to another 
 form of nomenclature. 
 
 A spire seen on the horizon ceases to be known 
 as the Church of Marins: it is now J. 34. A hill 
 seen for the first time in the distance, we are in- 
 formed, is H. 15; a ruined farm-house beyond 
 the Hun trenches is Y. 4. On the present occasion 
 the Highland Brigade are concentrating their 
 attention to a particular spot which doubtless 
 will go down to posterity as U. 2. 
 
 We wonder, when the fight is over and the 
 prizes come to be issued, if there will be a medal 
 clasp with U. 2 written on it ? 
 
 " A rose by any other name would smell as 
 sweet." So, I presume, it's just as satisfactory 
 to be killed storming U. 2, as to be knocked on the 
 head climbing up the Heights of Abraham. Grave- 
 lotte, Austerlitz, Balaclava, Mars-la-Tour, Vion- 
 ville, Borodino, are all fine, rolling, high-sounding 
 titles, and in the mention of them there is some- 
 thing of the rush of battle and the thunder of big 
 guns— but U. 2 ! ! Help ! 
 
 I ask you, does it not sound pathetic, like the 
 chirping of a chick looking for its mother round
 
 220 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 the edge of a Belgian midden ? It rings like the 
 title of one of Ouida's books; on paper it looks 
 like an answer to an algebraic problem; and on a 
 clasp — oh, help ! 
 
 Yet U. 2 has a meaning of its own to our High- 
 land Brigade, and over U. 2 more good Canadian 
 lives were lost than at Batosch, Ticonderoga, and 
 Paardeburg for all rolling grandeur. 
 
 The Highlanders were not alone on this business 
 — the Eastern Brigade were in it, too; and as we 
 sat in sloppy discomfort in our shattered farm- 
 house, the guns — our guns — roared overhead, and 
 rifles and machine-guns cracked and sputtered, 
 as the attack developed, and the whirl of battle 
 rolled forward. Of course, there was nothing to 
 be seen; there seldom is in a modern battle. The 
 more interested among the Pompadours, and that 
 generally meant the newly joined, paced up and 
 down the high-road watching the German fire- 
 works and listening to the guns and rifles. 
 
 " God pity us poor soldiers on a night like 
 this !" murmured War-horse McMutchkin as he 
 pulled his dripping blanket round his neck in a 
 vain attempt at slumber. " What's this they've 
 done, cutting off the rum ration ? I could just 
 do with a hauf yen." 
 
 The perfumed stillness of the spring night, as 
 I have heard it called, was rent with the roar 
 of cannonading, yet the Pompadours slept sound 
 and undisturbed. Two thousand yards away
 
 THE SERIOUS SIDE OF WAR 221 
 
 a very pretty battle was taking place, and out 
 there in the flash of the falling hghts men were 
 dying; but it was not our scrap, so why worry ? 
 Our own part was still to come, so, for the present, 
 let us sleep, dreamless and sound, forgetful of 
 our sodden clothes and the general sloppiness of 
 our surroundings. There will be work, and that 
 in plenty, for us on the morrow. 
 
 The morrow dawned, and with the dawn came 
 the sun, warming us and drying the moisture 
 from our wringing clothes. Under the fruit-trees, 
 gay with the blossom of apple and pear, the 
 orchard had the appearance of a gigantic drying- 
 shed. Clothes and blankets lay everywhere ! In 
 the stream that wandered along two sides of the 
 orchard we performed our toilets, and with the 
 sun our troubles vanished and our hopes rose. 
 
 In front of us lay the village of St. Albert, and 
 as the day wore on, working-parties, armed with 
 pick and shovel, moved down the road to carry 
 out the behests of Brigade Headquarters. 
 
 For most of us, however, it was a day of rest, 
 and of waiting. 
 
 Behind the house the Medical Officer was en- 
 gaged, mixing some choice decoction in a biscuit- 
 box. 
 
 " What horror is that you're playing with ?" 
 asked Captain Wales, as he passed, going in the 
 direction of the orderly-room. 
 
 Bill Mavis, now promoted to the dignity of
 
 222 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 sanitary policeman, sniffed audibly, as he appeared 
 to study the fohage of an overhanging bough of an 
 adjacent apple-tree. 
 
 " Some dope for sick 'orses, that is; 'e's not an 
 'orspital docter — 'e's an 'orse docter." 
 
 " This is the very latest, old thing — straight 
 from the stables," remarked the Medical Officer 
 in answer to Captain Wales's question. 
 
 " I thaut so, a-'andling sick 'orses 'e is," mur- 
 mured the sanitary policeman to the apple-tree. 
 
 " What the devil are you mumbhng about. 
 Mavis ? What are you doing there — looking for 
 birds'-nests ?" 
 
 " No, sir; no birds'-nests in this 'ere tree. I 
 thaut that there might be the dope you give 
 me on board ship w'ere I 'ad a sore back." 
 
 " Go and build an incinerator, and when you've 
 done that dig a garbage pit, and then go and 
 construct a swill sink ; and then, if you're not dead 
 from exhaustion, you can go birds'-nesting. Only 
 
 go." 
 
 " That creature," said the indignant Medical 
 Officer to Captain Wales, " worries me. He's 
 always messing round the horse lines, and when 
 he finds one of them sick he comes for me. I 
 beheve he thinks I'm a vet." 
 
 " Well, he's probably judging by the way you 
 treated him. I shouldn't wonder if he's right. 
 But what's this mess ?" 
 
 " Mess ? Nothing; this is for the respirators."
 
 THE SERIOUS SIDE OF WAR 223 
 
 " What — have I got to shove my nose into 
 that?" 
 
 " Yes, certainly." 
 
 So it was the case. Already within a few weeks 
 of the first gas attack, everybody had been pro- 
 vided with respirators; flimsy, inadequate con- 
 trivances they appear to us now in comparison 
 with the well-conceived apparatus with which we 
 are these days supphed, yet, as it happened, 
 wonderfully efficient. 
 
 These respirators, made of cotton waste and 
 widow's weeds, had to be dipped periodically in 
 solution, and it was this noisome mixture which 
 at the moment our quack was experimenting with. 
 The Doctor was perusing a blue paper held firmly 
 in the right hand, while his attendant minions, 
 armed with sundry wooden boxes and sandbags 
 and a large tin can, added the various ingredients 
 as the different amounts of chemicals were read out. 
 
 Captain Wales was perfectly right: it certainly 
 looked a mess. 
 
 " Um ! I suppose it's all right," the Medical 
 Officer remarked doubtfully. " It certainly does 
 look hke sheep-dip; I wonder if the blue paper's 
 all right ?" 
 
 " It looks a bit queer," Private Lavigne agreed, 
 as he reflectively stirred the contents of the biscuit- 
 box around with a broom-handle. " Private Mavis 
 was a-sayin' " 
 
 " Private Mavis is at present digging a refuse
 
 224 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 pit for saying too much; and if you mention his 
 name in my presence, you'll go and join him. Go 
 and tell Captain Wales we're ready to commence 
 the dipping." Perhaps it was the sun, but the 
 Medical Officer was certainly very short-tempered ! 
 
 The companies filed past, dipping their respirators 
 in the fluid, and the colour in the mournful crepe 
 dyed the contents of the biscuit-tin so that it 
 became tinted like an ink-bottle. Major Meldrum 
 — who was no longer a Major, but a Lieutenant- 
 Colonel — stood by watching, while the men wetted 
 their respirators. Some of the reinforcements 
 may have been at first inclined to wonder at the 
 amount of interest displayed by the senior officers 
 in this process, but those same officers had still 
 very freshly in their minds the memory of those 
 days not yet a month ago. They had seen the 
 insidious ravages of that silent creeping green 
 cloud, and had watched their blue-faced men 
 coughing, gasping, and dying in its suflocating 
 grasp. Surely they had good cause to take an 
 interest. 
 
 That night there were working-parties, and 
 " C " and '* D " Company marched through the 
 village of St. Albert just before dark; and the 
 Bosches, to keep things lively, squirted the main 
 street with shrapnel. Captain Wales, who was 
 leading, ordered the men to double through this 
 zone of unhealthiness, and the Medical Officer, 
 who was following behind with some of his body-
 
 THE SERIOUS SIDE OF WAR 225 
 
 snatchers and a wheeled stretcher, heavily loaded 
 with various articles of his craft, was left hopelessly 
 in the rear. 
 
 " I thought it sed in the Harmy Hact that the 
 rite of march was reg'lated by the slowest soldier," 
 remarked Private Lavigne. 
 
 " So it iss, my boy," assented the War-horse. 
 
 " Well, this ruddy harmy's runaway an' left us." 
 
 " I guess they don't count us as soldiers; we're 
 only details — goldarned corpse-revivers," com- 
 mented Private Freeborn. 
 
 The stretcher-bearers sheltered under the lee of 
 the gable of a house until the rainstorm of metal 
 quieted down — that is, with the exception of the 
 War-horse and Freeborn. On an order from the 
 Medical Officer, they doubled through the ruined 
 village in the wake of the companies, to render 
 such help as was possible in case of accidents. 
 Presently the sheUing quieted down, and the wheeled 
 stretcher resumed its interrupted progress. The 
 street was long and straggling, and in the struggling 
 moonlight showed ample evidence of the treatment 
 that had been meted out to it in the preceding 
 months. Hardly a house appeared to have a roof, 
 and some, in their tottering downfall, lay sprawling 
 across the street. 
 
 The artillery was for the moment silent, but 
 from the left came a contiimous patter of rifle-fire. 
 Occasionally a stray bullet, finding a gap between 
 
 two houses, flicked across the street, but for the 
 
 15
 
 226 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEKS FIELDS 
 
 most part the stretcher-bearers progressed in com- 
 parative security. 
 
 A tall figure suddenly appeared in the middle 
 of the fairway in front, pausing from time to time 
 to look around him or to gaze upwards to the 
 sky. 
 
 '' Hullo, Padre !" exclaimed the Medical Ofhcer; 
 " are you lost ?" 
 
 " No, I'm just admiring the beautiful stars." 
 
 " Oh, then you must be lost." 
 
 " No, I'm just enjoying the night." 
 
 " Gawd ! 'e must 'ave been drinking," remarked 
 the irresponsible Lavigne in an undertone. " Found 
 some rum, 'e 'as." 
 
 " I was just locating the positions of the dressing- 
 stations," continued the godly one; " one never 
 knows when such knowledge will be useful. Where 
 are you to be ?" 
 
 " Please, sir, I feel awful queer," suddenly com- 
 plained Lavigne, confronting the Medical Officer. 
 
 " What do you mean ?" 
 
 " Dunno, sir; I've gone faint all over." 
 
 " Turn round to the light." 
 
 In the pallid light of the fitful moonbeams the 
 upturned face certainly did look white ; furthermore, 
 the sufferer was making a variety of regurgitative 
 rumblings in his throat, which seemed to come 
 from deep down in his interior. 
 
 " My poor boy !" said the kind-hearted Parson, 
 putting his arm round the now tottering private.
 
 THE SERIOUS SIDE OF WAR 227 
 
 " Here, sit down, while I give you a little 
 stimulant." 
 
 Without further invitation Private Lavigne 
 seated himself on a fragment of broken masonry, 
 and idly and expectantly regarded the clergyman, 
 who now produced a metal flask from his hip- 
 pocket. 
 
 Then McSpeldron, from his place between the 
 handles of the stretcher, surveyed the scene in 
 speechless amazement, while wonder at Lavigne's 
 duplicity, and annoyance at his own want of 
 initiation, struggled for mastery in his breast. 
 
 "Here, take a sip of this," said the Padre. The 
 flask changed hands, was eagerly clutched, and the 
 rapidity with which it was carried to the sick man's 
 lips seemed to argue a small degree of faintness. 
 
 " Ugh ! It's 'ot ; it's burning me " ; and the flask 
 fell on the road. 
 
 " What's the brand. Padre ?" asked the Medical 
 Officer as Lavigne struggled to his feet. 
 
 "Spirits of ammonia; I told him just to take 
 a sip." 
 
 " Feel better already, don't you, Lavigne ?" 
 The Medical Officer turned to the now rapidly 
 recovering patient. " How about relieving Mc- 
 Speldron in the shafts? Good-night, Padre; I'll 
 be careful how I accept drinks from you in future. 
 Fall in, Medical Detail; get a move on." 
 
 Just beyond the cross-roads was situated the 
 regimental aid post of the Prairie Rifles. Here
 
 228 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 they found Captain Wales nursing a bullet in his 
 right arm. On entering the village he had been 
 hit by the first burst of shrapnel, but continued 
 to lead his company until he fell in with the 
 Engineer ofiicer who was supervising the work for 
 the night. Having found his objective, and not 
 before, he handed over the working-party to the 
 second in command, and then sought the dressing- 
 station. 
 
 " Hullo, Pills ! This ought to be good for a 
 month or two." 
 
 " Beast !" rejoined the Medical Officer without 
 a trace of good manners. " Some people certainly 
 seem to have all the luck." 
 
 " Yes, it's certainly a peach," remarked the 
 Doctor of the Prairie Rifles, as he finished binding 
 up the wounded extremity. " Missed the bone 
 missed the artery, and ought to be good for two 
 months up the river at least. Think of the river 
 in June, my lad." 
 
 Outside on the road the stretcher-bearers waited 
 with the wheeled stretcher. The McSpeldron grimly 
 reminiscent at the thought of Lavigne's unsuccess- 
 ful endeavour to obtain spirituous comfort from 
 the man of God, while the other sat against 
 the wall sucking the inevitable " as you were " 
 cigarette. 
 
 " S'pose we're 'ere for the next 'arf-'our ? Gone 
 in for a drink, 'e 'as." 
 
 " What would you be wanting now, Alfred
 
 THE SEKIOUS SIDE OF WAR 229 
 
 Lavigne ? What would you say to another drop 
 out of the Parson's bottle ?" questioned the polite 
 McSpeldron. 
 
 Before the querulous Lavigne could reply to 
 this intended insult, the door of the dressing- 
 station opened and the Medical Officer again 
 appeared. 
 
 " Hullo, Lavigne ! I thought you told me a 
 short time ago that you were feeling ill? You 
 must be better if you're able to smoke one of those 
 coffin-nails." 
 
 " I'm still abaht 'arf dead, but " — this with the 
 air of a hero — " I'll try to carry on " — struggling 
 to his feet. 
 
 " Good. Well, what you want is a Httle gentle 
 walk to cool your brow." 
 
 '* 'Ow d'yer mean ?" 
 
 "This. Over there " — the Medical Officer 
 vaguely indicated the country-side which receded 
 in the darkness towards Germany — " our two 
 companies are digging a trench. You will go over 
 there, give Lieutenant Allonby this note, and send 
 back Private Freeborn with an answer. You will 
 remain with Private McMutchkin and look after 
 anyone who happens to get hurt." 
 
 " 'Orl right; but supposin' I die on the 
 way ?" 
 
 " You won't die; but if you do, we'll have you 
 carefully embalmed and give you a grand funeral. 
 I dare say McISpeldron will lend you his cross";
 
 230 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEKS FIELDS 
 
 and the doctor again disappeared inside the 
 dressing-station. 
 
 " 'E ain't got no 'art. I guess Bill Mavis is 
 abaht right: 'e ought to look after sick 'orses. 
 'Orses ? Naw. Sick pigs is abaht 'is mark "; and 
 silently and sorrowfully the deeply injured Lavigne 
 departed into the palpitating darkness.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE GREY MAN 
 
 "This place ought to do all right, Sergeant Bowden? 
 It's the only place we've seen with a roof," remarked 
 the Medical Officer, as the stretcher-bearers came 
 to a halt. 
 
 In the grey dawn the medical detail hovered in 
 a state of yawning expectancy outside a small 
 house, which appeared to be an appendage of a 
 long, low, roofless building facing the main road 
 of St. Albert. Here had been the Bosche, as the 
 loopholed walls and the ornamental trellis-work 
 of barbed wire facing to the west bore witness to: 
 but here had also been the British, and at a more 
 recent date, as the gaps in the defences showed. 
 
 To the east, across half a mile of open country, 
 lay the trenches, stretching like a great wall of 
 China across the landscape. For here the ground 
 was soft, and the trench was no trench at all, but 
 a barricade. It was over and beyond this rampart 
 that the events of the day were to materialize, 
 and therefore the Medical Oflicer stuck out his 
 shingle in the main street, and waited the arrival 
 of his patients. 
 
 231
 
 232 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEES FIELDS 
 
 The Brigade was attacking at dawn, and already 
 the wave of the artillery preparation was breaking 
 itself against the German front line. 
 
 The stretcher-bearers were busy carrying in 
 their various stage properties, which the sergeant, 
 who was always a martinet for neatness, proceeded 
 to pile in well-dressed rows. At the back of the 
 house the crackle of burning sticks betokened the 
 fact that the cook had already lighted a fire in 
 anticipation of a morning cup of tea. Private 
 McMutchkin, armed with a borrowed broom, was 
 sweeping out the new dressing-station, while The 
 McSpeldron and Freeborn bent their backs as they 
 moved the biscuit-box containing the day's rations 
 from the wheeled stretcher to the cook's fire. 
 
 A pallid dawn, with the gloomy clouds reluctantly 
 turning to a mournful grey. A misty, ominous 
 morning, with threatening cloud-banks in the 
 western sky. 
 
 The Medical Officer, standing in the doorway, 
 surveyed the shattered bleakness of the village 
 street in silence. Along the road coming from 
 the trenches three men were advancing, the cloudy 
 mistiness rendering them indistinct in the growing 
 light. Gradually, as they approached, the details 
 became more distinct. Two of the figures were in 
 khaki; the third, walking slightly in front, was 
 dressed in grey of a blurred indefiniteness, which 
 seemed to fade away in the general dulness of the 
 surroundings.
 
 THE GREY MAN 233 
 
 " Ha, a German prisoner !" remarked the Medical 
 Officer; " Sergeant Bowden, tell the cook that we'll 
 be having guests for breakfast." 
 
 The three figures drew nearer, the grey man 
 leading, with his chest thrown out and his head 
 held high. He appeared pompous rather than 
 defiant, and walked with his toes turned far out, 
 as if his boots hurt him. On his head was perched 
 a small brown cap edged with red, and he was 
 enveloped in a long grey coat that bore a strange 
 resemblance to a dressing-gown. A pair of high 
 boots, which seemed many sizes too large for him, 
 completed his costume, and his left hand was 
 bound in a bandage. 
 
 " Good-morning," said the Medical Officer. 
 " Come inside. Where are you taking him to, 
 corporal ?" — this to the N.C.O. from the Assini- 
 boians who was in charge, and who, along with 
 the other escort, was standing leaning on his rifle. 
 
 " To Brigade Headquarters." 
 
 " Well, what about a cup of tea while we dress 
 his wound ? You all look as if it wouldn't harm 
 you." 
 
 " What about it ?" answered the corporal, as 
 they entered the dressing-station. 
 
 Inside, the three guests were provided with 
 seats on a long bench. The German at first 
 appeared undecided as to what was expected of 
 him. He stood in the corner of the room, dressed 
 in his preposterous greatcoat, eyeing the khaki-
 
 234 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 clad figures around him with interest and expecta- 
 tion. His uniform was plastered with mud, and 
 he certainly had a most wonderful black eye. It 
 clung to his cheek, swollen and purple like an 
 overripe damson. For the rest he was unshaven, 
 and had been for weeks, with a long brown beard 
 like an Assyrian king's. 
 
 " Where did you get him ?" asked the Medical 
 Officer of the corporal. 
 
 " Who ? Whiskers here ?" 
 
 " Yes, Whiskers here, if by that you mean your 
 prisoner." 
 
 *' We got him in the trench which the Assiniboians 
 attacked this morning. He was asleep when we took 
 the trench, and woke up to find we'd got him." 
 
 " A cheerful awakening," commented the Medical 
 Officer; then, turning to the prisoner: " Why don't 
 you sit down ?" 
 
 The prisoner indicated that it was not the custom 
 to sit down in his country in the presence of an 
 officer. 
 
 " Nonsense," said the Medical Officer. " You're 
 not in Germany now. What will you drink — tea, 
 coffee, cocoa, or bovril ? You'd better take 
 tea ; I've taught them how to make it." It 
 took time, I confess, to convince the cook that 
 tea is an infusion and not the usual vile de- 
 coction which simmers on the fire for half the day, 
 and tans your stomach into boot-leather." 
 
 The prisoner probably comprehended only a
 
 THE GREY MAN 235 
 
 small part of the foregoing harangue, but con- 
 descended to take tea. 
 
 " Have some rum in it ? I beheve it's a custom 
 in your country." 
 
 At that moment Lieutenant Ridge, our bombing 
 officer, appeared in the doorway, his head in a 
 shng and his uniform in tatters. He smiled 
 cheerfully to the company. 
 
 " Hullo, Doctor ! Can you fix me up ?" 
 
 " Certainly ; only I would suggest a tailor's 
 shop. What happened ?" 
 
 ''Oh, we were a prehminary bombing attack, 
 and got rather roughly handled; I know I'm 
 wounded in the back, and I think in the side too, 
 and I had my clothes nearly blown off me." 
 
 Lieutenant Ridge on a chair, and the prisoner 
 on the bench, had their wounds bound up at the 
 same time. 
 
 " Where do you come from ?" asked the smiling 
 Lieutenant in faultless German. 
 
 " From over there " — indicating the trenches. 
 
 " Yes, no doubt; so do I, for that matter. But 
 which part of Germany ? What city ?" 
 
 " From Blankenburg in the Hartz Mountains." 
 
 At once the Lieutenant's thoughts went back 
 to a period many years before. He remembered 
 a certain small boy who had lived in a small country 
 town in Germany and attended the local school. 
 
 " What is your name ?" 
 
 ** Heinrich Schenck."
 
 236 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 " It can't be, and yet it must," murmured 
 Lieutenant Eidge: " the son of the watchmaker." 
 And again he remembered how, during the days 
 at the commencement of the South African War, 
 and more especially during that time which was 
 known as the black week, he had felt the pangs 
 of utter loneliness. How the stupid, clumsy 
 German youths around him had rejoiced at the 
 check which the British arms had received, and 
 how the schoolmasters had made no effort to hide 
 their own and their charges' jubilation over the 
 series of disasters on the Modder and at Colenso. 
 There was only one sympathizer in the town to 
 whom he could talk during those bad days, and 
 that was a certain Heinrich Schenck, the son of 
 a watchmaker. Well, that was many years ago, 
 and there seemed very little resemblance between 
 the dirty, frowsy German infantryman, nursing his 
 wound and sipping his cup of tea, and the idle, 
 jaunty Heinrich in the gorgeous Berlin raiment 
 who had been at once the delight of the girls of 
 Blankenburg and the despair of his parents. 
 
 The Lieutenant wondered, could this be the 
 same Heinrich who alone in the town showed him 
 any kindness during the black week ? When even 
 Georg, the little Danish ally who used to cover 
 his copybooks with wonderful drawings of Danish 
 cuirassiers hewing their way through crowds of 
 Prussian infantry, gave up his favourite pursuit 
 and occupied himself drawing entirely imaginary
 
 THE GREY MAN 237 
 
 and utterly grotesque Highlanders retreating before 
 faultlessly attired Dutch farmers. Georg was never 
 impartial in his drawings; the Danish cuirassiers 
 had always been depicted with regular features 
 and wonderfully symmetrical figures, so the Boers 
 appeared in turn clean-shaven, with their nails 
 neatly manicured, and their boots carefully black- 
 ened. The Highlanders, however, shared the lot 
 of their German predecessors, although, whereas 
 the latter showed a tendency to rotundity and 
 shortness of limb, the former ran rather to a half- 
 starved lankiness. In any case, the result had 
 been unfortunate for the lonely schoolboy. Georg, 
 honoured and feted in the ranks of the enemy 
 whom he had formerly ridiculed, and forgetful of 
 his alliance, added greatly to the weight of his 
 afflictions. It was then, the Lieutenant reflected, 
 that Heinrich, divining the utter loneliness of the 
 small exile, came to his assistance, going out of his 
 way to do him a kindness. 
 
 Heinrich and little Marie. For the moment he 
 had forgotten Marie. 
 
 " When am I going to be shot ?" It was the 
 prisoner who spoke. 
 
 " Shot ?" answered the Lieutenant. '* Shot ? 
 Why, what do you mean ?" 
 
 The prisoner seemed at first uncertain as to 
 how he should answer this last question; finally 
 he ventured: " Our officers told us the British 
 killed all their prisoners."
 
 238 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 " And are your wonderful officers always correct 
 in everything they tell you ?" remarked the Medical 
 Officer, who had overheard this part of the con- 
 versation, and rather prided himself on his know- 
 ledge of the German tongue. 
 
 " No, not always." 
 
 " Well, it may interest you to know that you're 
 not going to be shot. Your troubles are now over, 
 and presently you will be sent to Great Britain." 
 The Medical Officer never would allow that such 
 a place as England existed. " You'll get three 
 square meals a day and the joy of living in the 
 Isle of Man. Think of it ! Douglas and the 
 Christy Minstrels, and Pierrots on the pierhead in 
 the evening, and the trippers looking at you 
 through the bars as you wander round the bullpen. 
 You'll just be in time for the summer season. 
 Allow me to congratulate you. Your chances 
 of dying of old age are much rosier than 
 
 mine." 
 
 " Shut up. Doctor, and let me get a word in," 
 said Lieutenant Ridge. " How is Fraulein Marie 
 Momme ?" 
 
 "Fraulein Momme? Why, she is quite well; 
 but she is no longer Momme, she is Braumuller." 
 
 " What, do you mean to say she married the 
 innkeeper ? Poor Marie !" 
 
 " Did you know her ? It was considered a good 
 match. She had no money; he had plenty. They 
 are rich, and she has four children."
 
 THE GREY MAN 239 
 
 " Yes, and he was fifty-six inches round the 
 waistbelt — more German frightfuhiess. Heavens ! 
 he was an ugly swine." 
 
 The prisoner was rapidly getting over his first 
 appearance of alarm, and betrayed a certain 
 interest in Ridge's remarks. 
 
 " Well, tell me, what of her father, Herr Momme ? 
 Does he still make the same wonderful cherry 
 tarts that he used to ?" 
 
 " No, he's dead since four years." 
 
 " And she very imprudently married the barber, 
 I mean the publican. Poor Mariechen ! We used 
 to get up at 4 a.m. and gather cherries for her 
 father's tarts. I was very much in love those 
 days," the Lieutenant murmured. " Do you 
 remember your lessons in EngHsh from Frau 
 Goette ?" he added aloud. 
 
 " What English lessons ? How comes it that 
 you know ?" 
 
 " Know ? Why, the British Army knows every- 
 thing. Didn't you know our intelligence system 
 was perfect ?" 
 
 " Yes, but how do you know about Frau Goette, 
 Herr Braumuller, and the rest ?" 
 
 " That is all part of our system." 
 
 " Ah ! So," answered the German. 
 
 " Now tell me. Who's winning this war — we 
 or you ?" 
 
 " I think we win." 
 
 " Why do you think so ?"
 
 240 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 " Well, our officers tell us so, and our papers 
 say the same thing." 
 
 " But you surely don't believe either the one or 
 the other ? What do you think yourself ?" 
 
 " Well, one doubts at times very much." 
 
 " Look at these soldiers here." The Doctor 
 was busy bandaging up a wounded man, but on 
 hearing Lieutenant Ridge's remark, paused and 
 listened to the conversation, filled with pride at 
 hearing his stretcher-bearers thus classified as 
 soldiers. " They all look as though they are 
 enjoying themselves. Remember, they are all 
 volunteers." 
 
 " Yes," said the Medical Officer, as he finished 
 the bandaging, " have a look here " — pointing to 
 the rations for his twenty men and lying like a 
 stoat. " That's a day's rations for eight men. 
 Look at that beef, the finest sirloin steak." In 
 turn he demonstrated the bread, the butter, the 
 bacon, and jam. 
 
 " Here's the daily paper printed yesterday 
 morning in London, and we get letters every day. 
 Can you beat that ?" 
 
 " No, we do not do that; we only receive letters 
 twice a week, and I have not seen a paper for a 
 fortnight." 
 
 " Then you aren't exactly enjoying the war 
 over there ?" the Lieutenant continued. 
 
 " No, that, not. But how comes it that you 
 know all about Blankenburg and the people there ?"
 
 \ 
 
 THE GEEY MAN 241 
 
 " Ah, that I told you is all part of our noble 
 intelligence scheme," remarked the Lieutenant, 
 rising. " Say, Doc, is my back bound up suffi- 
 ciently to allow me to return to the fray ?" 
 
 " You're not returning to any fray," answered 
 the Doctor, dwelling ponderously on the necessity 
 for anti-tetanus and a trip to Blighty. 
 
 *' Well, but I'm all right," remonstrated the 
 wounded one. 
 
 " Yes, you're just fine for a base hospital and 
 a trip across the Channel. When you're floating 
 about on the river with a nice girl, you can think 
 of me in a cellar, among all this smell and mess. 
 " There's your ticket; I've given you a red one, 
 so they'll fuss round you a bit more." 
 
 Finally the Lieutenant consented to have the 
 way to the field ambulance pointed out to him. 
 
 " I'll look in at Brigade as I pass and give Ainslie 
 and Theophilus the glad hand." 
 
 The prisoner and his escort had already taken 
 their departure, and Lieutenant Ridge was about 
 to follow. 
 
 " Say, Doc, think I impressed Fritz by my 
 knowledge of his home town ?" 
 
 " Somewhat. How did you do it ?" 
 
 " I happened to be at school there. Eighteen 
 years ago I and that whiskered gentleman were 
 great friends." 
 
 " I don't think much of your taste." 
 
 " Oh, he was shaved in those days." 
 
 IC
 
 242 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 '' Well, you are a priceless humbug; you might 
 have told him." 
 
 " I don't feel much inclined to tell a German 
 anything these days, except what would probably 
 shock you if you heard it." 
 
 " Pity we couldn't have let him loose and 
 sent back to his pals. He'd have seen what a 
 splendid bunch of stretcher-bearers I have." 
 
 " Yes, that spiel of yours about the rations 
 and the morning papers fairly got him going." 
 
 " Yes, if he told them about our grub, they'd 
 be following the rats across to our trenches in search 
 of better rations." 
 
 " Well, good-bye. Pills." 
 
 " Good-bye, old thing. Give my regards to 
 Leicester Square and my love to all the fair ones." 
 
 Down the village street Lieutenant Ridge over- 
 took the German prisoner, marching along stolidly 
 in front of his escort. 
 
 " Let me see: you were exempt from military 
 service on account of flat feet and varicose veins ?" 
 
 " Yes, but how ?" 
 
 " Never mind, Heinrich; apres la guerre," 
 answered the Lieutenant as he departed on his 
 way.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 GATHERING IN THE SHEAVES 
 
 The Padre had arrived at the dressing-station, and 
 proceeded to unpack a collection of sandbags wdth 
 which he was burdened, displaying a variety of 
 canonical comforts, hot-water bottles, sleeping- 
 socks, Bibles, and the like. He was in rather a 
 perturbed state of mind. He wanted to go up to 
 the front hne, but certain considerations deterred 
 him. In his pocket was the latest blossom of 
 his genius — a poem about the Kaiser, and he had 
 no desire to fall into an unappreciative enemy's 
 hands with it in his possession. 
 
 " What's it all about. Padre ?" said the Medical 
 Officer. " Read it to the wounded chaps here; 
 it will do them good." 
 
 The Padre consented to comply with this 
 request, and produced the priceless gem. After 
 a few lines the Medical Officer halted him abruptly. 
 
 " That's enough for the present; you'd better 
 stop, or all the wounds will go septic." 
 
 " Well, may I give it to one of the wounded to 
 take with him to hospital, and then, when things are 
 quieter, he can send it back to me," said the Padre. 
 
 243
 
 244 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 None of the wounded were having any, so the 
 man of God was in a hopeless dilemma. He 
 wanted to go to the trenches, but feared what 
 might happen to him if an enemy, lacking in a 
 sense of humour, found the manuscript in his 
 pocket. 
 
 " Nothing for it, Padre, but to learn it oE by 
 heart and swallow it," the Medical Officer re- 
 marked. 
 
 Finally a compromise was reached; the Padre 
 retained his manuscript and remained in the 
 dressing-station labelling the wounded, and direct- 
 ing the ambulance cars outside. At this he is 
 singularly adept; he must have served his novitiate 
 in the New York Pohce. Also he is good at the 
 labelHng business, and the clear, firm hand with 
 which he writes his sermons, for he is a clergyman 
 and not a meenister, had entered up a multitude 
 of woe. 
 
 Meantime the fight progresses. Colonel Meldrum 
 at the corner of Yew Street, seated behind a straw- 
 stack, directs the operations, for at the moment 
 the Officer Commanding the Assiniboians has been 
 laid out. Down on the road beside the stack are 
 the remains of four men killed by a shell. The 
 enemy are paying a lot of attention to this road; 
 evidently they expect that reinforcements will go 
 up that way. Shells fall all around, big ones 
 that blast their way into the ground with a mighty 
 roar and much black smoke.
 
 GATHERING IN THE SHEAVES 245 
 
 " That's a dud," remarks the Adjutant as a 
 shell hits the stack, failing to explode. Half a 
 ton of straw, loosened by the bufiet, falls on the 
 head of the telephone operator as he crouches in 
 the lee of the stack, burying him and his instru- 
 ment. The signaller is quickly resurrected, and 
 discovered with his telephone still to his ear. 
 Nothing must be allowed to interfere with the 
 telephone service. 
 
 Another dud strikes the stack, this time burying 
 the Quartermaster, who has ventured so far to 
 see the Colonel about a pea-soup ration, in an 
 avalanche of straw. He is with difficulty un- 
 earthed, and as he again finally attains to the 
 light of day is heard to mutter: " John Macintosh, 
 you've been seeking excitement all your days. 
 Now you've got it, how the hell do you like it ?" 
 
 The Brigade has been attacking since dawn, 
 the Assiniboians in the van, the Pompadours sup- 
 porting them and aiding them with working 
 parties. The phone rattles busily; communication 
 has already been established with the new front 
 line that has been so lately German. The ob- 
 jective has been attained, but at a considerable 
 cost. 
 
 The bombers of the Pompadours will most of 
 them bomb no longer. Lieutenant Ridge, when 
 he came down to the dressing-station with his 
 uniform blown to ribbons and wounded in several 
 places, was almost the only survivor — he and
 
 246 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 Corporal Robertson. The corporal, when he saw 
 that none of his own regimental anarchists re- 
 mained on deck, transferred his activities to another 
 unit, and remained with them bombing until the 
 regiment was relieved. 
 
 Private Pollock of the Assiniboians, w^alking down 
 the trench alone and unarmed but for a hand 
 grenade, his rifle being smashed by a wandering 
 bullet, found six Germans leaning on their rifles 
 waiting to surrender. There must be some lan- 
 guage of universal understanding, or maybe it 
 was the look in the private's eye, for at a nod 
 the six rifles were dropped and six docile Teutons 
 preceded the indomitable Pollock down the trench. 
 
 Outside the dressing-station the tramp of feet 
 is heard. A body of men appears, the transport 
 officer at their head. 
 
 " What's this ?" says the Medical Officer from 
 the door of the dressing-station. 
 
 " Stretcher-bearers," says the transport officer 
 briefly. 
 
 Half the transport is there and all the cooks, 
 with the sergeant chef at their head. 
 
 " May I take them up ?" says the Padre, as he 
 finishes labelling a wounded man. 
 
 " Certainly," says the Medical Officer. " Kather 
 you than me. It is going to be very objectionable 
 up there. I'll give you Corporal Elliot to show 
 you the best way. But what about your hymn 
 of hate ?"
 
 GATHERING IN THE SHEAVES 247 
 
 " Buried, my boy, in a safe place." 
 Another party appears at the dressing-station; 
 these are the stretcher-bearers from the field 
 ambulance under Captain McCallum, bursting with 
 enthusiasm and anxious to clear the front-line 
 trench. The Padre departs for the scene of 
 activities. No Cook's tour this, but a better use 
 for his energies than a sheaf of sermons. 
 
 Up the main road and round the corner into 
 Yew Street, where the Colonel is still directing 
 operations, the Padre marches at the head of his 
 party. The telephone service still works un- 
 interruptedly. The Germans are throwing a lot 
 of metal around, and Yew Street is still the un- 
 healthy locality it was during the earlier part of 
 the day; but the Padre on his mission progresses 
 steadily. The Colonel and the Adjutant wave 
 salutations to him and his stretcher-bearers. Here 
 are a few wounded coming out, helping one another 
 along, limping down the road and picking their 
 way cautiously among the shell holes. There is 
 the usual sprinkling of kits, some splashed and 
 stained with blood, showing the places where men 
 have already fallen wounded or dying ; but gradually 
 the features of the landscape are losing themselves 
 in the falling darkness. 
 
 A large white wall looms up in the dark, 
 stretching away in the gloom to either side. It is 
 the great wall of China, the original British trench. 
 They say the Guards built it during the winter
 
 248 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 months. Certainly, if this is so, it is a memorial 
 to their handiwork. 
 
 This was formerly our advanced position, but 
 now we are far beyond. Here is Captain Cope; 
 his company is in support. The Padre counts his 
 company; two are missing, he is informed by 
 Corporal Elliot. Two shrapnel wounds; no doubt 
 already in the aid post, being bound up and 
 awaiting shipment to England. The enemy are 
 still busy, and dusting the barrier with shrapnel. 
 Captain Cope and the holy one bend their heads 
 before the blast. It is a marvellous demonstration 
 of the art of accurate artillery fire. The Bosche is 
 to be congratulated. No doubt he has registered 
 on the parapet daily during the long winter months, 
 and this is the culmination of his efforts. Cer- 
 tainly he has attained to a very pretty pitch of 
 proficiency. Just at present, however, the Padre 
 is filled with anything but admiration as he hugs 
 the sandbags, his head bent as in an act of devotion, 
 while the German shells burst just above the 
 parapet ! 
 
 The timing is wizardHke in its accuracy; the 
 number of the shells is legion; but strange to say 
 practically no one is hurt. The bursting fragments 
 rain upon the sandbags, but mostly fly beyond. 
 Heaven be praised for the good work of the Guards 
 Brigade ! 
 
 Beyond the barrier is a communication trench, 
 or was in the days gone by. But here the con-
 
 GATHERING IN THE SHEAVES 249 
 
 centration of hate has wreaked its will, and 
 what remains of the trench gives little or no pro- 
 tection. Scattered along its channel are a few 
 wounded, patiently awaiting their turn, and here 
 the Padre's work begins. Among the mess of 
 broken dugouts and disembowelled sandbags is 
 strewn a welter of broken ammunition-boxes and 
 shattered rifles, kits, bombs, and rations. Packs 
 lie here with discarded greatcoats, thrown away 
 as the troops pressed forward to the attack. Here, 
 with the wounded. He the dead. Not lying where 
 they fell, but hastily placed on one side, the bodies 
 lying on the smashed-up rampart of the trench, 
 and forming a flimsy covering, at least in daylight, 
 from the enemy's sight. 
 
 The Padre as he walks, crawls, and creeps 
 forward, reflects on the utter ruthlessness of things. 
 A year ago at this very hour he was seated comfort- 
 ably on the veranda of his Western home, a day 
 of satisfactory priestly work to his credit, rounded 
 off by a satisfying meal. At this very moment 
 he was, no doubt, inhaling the full fragrance of 
 his post-prandial cigar, and gazing dreamily and 
 appreciatively at the glowing sunset tints on the 
 peaks of the eternal mountains across the placid 
 bay. Then in his well-weeded garden, gay with 
 the luscious tints of laburnum and lilac, everything 
 was peace and quiet. Troubles he had none, 
 beyond a natural anxiety as to the direction in 
 which the fervid activities of the Methodists and
 
 250 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 Presbyterians might turn, and the worry caused 
 by a gradually increasing waist measurement. 
 
 Now here he is at the hour when, by well-estab- 
 lished precedent, every self-respecting priest would 
 normally be digesting his dinner, crawling like a 
 cat amid a host of horrors, that assail and stagger 
 all his senses at once. Yet, as he pauses, waiting 
 for his stretcher-bearers to close up, he would 
 not change places with that plethoric well-fed 
 divine of a year ago ! Yes, Padre, this is better 
 work than presiding at mothers' meetings or 
 attending choir practice, and when this present 
 fight is over you will be all the more fitted to 
 return home and engage in the pursuits of peace. 
 Then when you face your flock arrayed in white 
 vestments, to minister to their spiritual welfare, 
 you will perhaps think of this your present band 
 of sufferers, and how, with your clerical khaki 
 plastered with mud and stained with blood, you 
 brought them help and comfort in the shot-torn 
 trenches at St. Albert. But, for the moment, 
 the Padre is pure materialist. His thoughts are 
 not of the good he is doing — that is all part of the 
 day's work; but there is an all-satisfying, self- 
 sanctifying understanding that is with him, per- 
 meating his whole being. His waist measurement 
 is four inches less than it was at the same time 
 last year. 
 
 The communication trench behind him, the 
 Padre arrives in a fire trench. Here Lieutenant
 
 GATHERING IN THE SHEAVES 251 
 
 Allonby meets him, and suggests a guide. Lieu- 
 tenant Allonby has had more narrow escapes than 
 anyone, and, according to all the rules of the game, 
 should have already gone the way of all flesh, and 
 yet is still very much alive. 
 
 " I'm glad to see you're still going strong, 
 Allonby," remarks the Padre, to the Lieutenant 
 sitting in the bend of the trench. 
 
 " Yes, Padre; I seem to be one of the lucky ones." 
 
 " Is this the front-line trench ?" 
 
 " No; there's another. We took it from the 
 Germans this morning, but it's unhealthy." 
 
 The Padre's stretcher-bearers are now busy 
 gathering in the wounded, and as party after party 
 of four returns down the dilapidated communica- 
 tion trench the Padre finds his forces gradually 
 diminishing. Finally he is left with Corporal 
 Elliot and eight bearers. Following the guide 
 provided by Lieutenant Allonby, he proceeds 
 onwards. Here the dead lie thick, Germans 
 mostly. They fill the remains of the trench, and 
 are littered on the sides. To follow the trench 
 means walking on the dead; so the guide, followed 
 by the Padre, crawls across the open. The Hun is 
 very active; rifle grenades, which burst before you 
 know they are there, fall about promiscuously 
 and with shattering report. The Padre hugs the 
 ground when the German flares go up, and is 
 finally in the forward trench. Just beyond is 
 X. 19, and up there is an old German communica-
 
 252 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 tion trench, half held by us and half by them. 
 Across the interval is a hastily built parapet, 
 and over this our bombers and the enemy engage 
 in a friendly game of tennis ! At the present 
 moment the score stands at vantage in, as the 
 Germans appear to have run out of grenades. 
 The Padre's bearers are quickly provided with 
 burdens, and the Padre, as he sees them disappear, 
 walks along the trench. Here lies plenty of 
 material for him to get to work on; the object 
 of his visit is for the purpose of burying the dead. 
 A rehef is in progress. The Assiniboians and the 
 Pompadours are leaving this hard-won trench, and 
 the Mansion House Rifles are taking over. At 
 an angle in the trench the Padre finds three sorely 
 wounded men lying on stretchers. He sits on a 
 box of small-arms ammunition, and watches the 
 relief go by. What shall he do next ? The 
 stretcher-bearers are all gone; and there is still 
 much work to be done. At the point where he 
 sits, amid the ruins, things are fairly quiet for the 
 moment, but all around rages a tempest of noise. 
 To right and left and over in front of him are the 
 German flares, illuminating, in their fleeting bril- 
 Hancy, the white faces of the wounded men. The 
 bank of tumbled earth beside which he sits was 
 once the front of a German trench; now it is the 
 back of ours, and over beyond this hes another 
 something — trench, locality, or position — where 
 the fight is still raging. The relief is finished,
 
 GATHERING IN THE SHEAVES 253 
 
 the Assiniboians have moved down the trench, but 
 the Padre and his wounded still remain. His 
 guide, as is the way of guides, has also departed. 
 
 " W^ere do you think we are, Corporal Elliot ?" 
 the man of God asks. 
 
 The corporal modestly disclaims any knowledge 
 of his whereabouts. The Mansion House Rifles are 
 farther up the trench, but for a hundred feet the 
 trench is deserted except for the dead and wounded, 
 the Padre and the corporal. Suddenly a machine- 
 gun rattles in the dark, and up the trench a rapid 
 independent fire commences. " Here they come !" 
 shouts a voice in the darkness, and at once the 
 whole line is a flashing, sputtering blaze of rifle- 
 fire, all except the silent empty gap, in the centre 
 of which the Padre sits. 
 
 These are terrible longdrawn seconds, waiting 
 for the foremost Hun to arrive, leaping lightly 
 over the parapet. How wdll they treat him in 
 the German prison ? He wonders how he will 
 put in the time waiting to be exchanged. Will 
 he be exchanged ? Perhaps he won't be taken 
 prisoner. What about Prince Rupprecht of 
 Bavaria ? Undoubtedly this is dirty work at 
 the cross-roads with a vengeance. 
 
 And what about Lieutenant Blair's letters ? 
 Who will be there to destroy those incriminating 
 documents, written by half a dozen fair but different 
 hands, supposing he and the Lieutenant should 
 both appear on the casualty list ? At least his
 
 254 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEKS FIELDS 
 
 poem is safe — that can't be held up and used as 
 evidence against him. 
 
 Gradually the firing is quietening down; to 
 right and left of him the noise of rifles is dying 
 away. A cheery voice hails him from along the 
 trench; it is Captain McCallum from the field 
 ambulance arriving with his party of bearers. 
 
 That night the Saskatoons moved forward to 
 the attack. A deep ditch filled with barbed wire 
 lay between them and the enemy, but this a party 
 of the Pompadours had spanned with crazy wooden 
 bridges. Across these slender footboards the at- 
 tacking force moved under heavy fire, for the 
 taking of G. 51 or W. 22, or whatever the unknown 
 quantity might be. Here every dustheap had its 
 machine-gun, and the storming party melted away 
 before the driving storm of lead. But not before 
 the object had been achieved, and another two 
 hundred yards of hard-earned progress made. 
 The dawn found the Saskatoons hanging on to their 
 newly-won trench, while the artillery from behind 
 plastered the landscape, ringing them in with a 
 saving belt of slaughter. All that day the Pompa- 
 dours remained in their trenches, pounded by high 
 explosives under a hail of shrapnel. Casualties 
 there were and many, and of these some we could 
 ill spare. Lieutenant Allonby, who had been 
 with the battalion from the beginning, was among 
 the first to go, as he walked along the trench 
 cheering his men as they hugged the saving sand-
 
 GATHERING IN THE SHEAVES 255 
 
 bags. In the afternoon Captain Grosvenor was 
 hit. In search of information, he had gone up to 
 the front line through communication trenches 
 which were but that in name. This was almost 
 the worst loss the battalion could have suffered. 
 Thus at St. Albert the Pompadours lost three more 
 of their original officers — Grosvenor, Wales, and 
 Allonby. Certainly the Colonel and Major Cope 
 might feel that the sands were running out and 
 the score piling up against them. 
 
 In St. Albert the Padre was at a loss. In the 
 first place the dressing-station had disappeared. 
 Some broken rafters, a pile of brick, the fragments 
 of a stretcher, showed where the regimental aid 
 post of yesterday had been. And there, buried 
 under the pile of debris, lay the priceless gem of his 
 imagination, his unsung hymn of hate. Mani- 
 festly it was so ordained, and thus a divine inter- 
 ference had tumbled his hopes with the falHng of 
 the house, burying his poetic fancies in a downfall 
 of brick and mortar. Well, there it lay and there 
 it will remain. 
 
 " The meek shall inherit the earth," murmured 
 the Padre as he went his way. 
 
 Round the corner, at a strategically selected 
 distance from the cross-roads, was the dressing- 
 station; here the work was progressing in full 
 swing. Over the lintel of the door of the thatched 
 cottage the sign " Patet Omnil)us " shed an air 
 of classical mysticism on the interior. On a board
 
 256 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDEES FIELDS 
 
 beside the door hung the non-committal notice, 
 " Business as Usual until the Next Flitting." 
 The Parson entered the house of suffering, but not 
 of mourning. 
 
 Eound the room were seated the wounded men 
 waiting to have their hurts dressed, while in the 
 centre the Medical Officer and the sergeant were 
 bending over a stretcher case. 
 
 *' Cheer-oh, Padre ! Glad to see you back," 
 said the Medical Officer. 
 
 " When did you move in here ?" 
 
 " Just before the jolly old Germans hit the last 
 spot." 
 
 " That was lucky." 
 
 "Not luck; Sergeant Bowden was entirely to 
 blame. I think he's got second sight." 
 
 "How's that?" 
 
 " He always knows when the shell is coming 
 that's going to wreck the happy home; it was 
 the same of the last show. When he suggests 
 quitting we flit P.D.Q. This makes five times, 
 counting the last show, that we've got out as the 
 shells came in at the other end of the building. 
 This time he got his hunch rather late, and we 
 lost some of our stuff." 
 
 " I don't think much of this place," remarked 
 the Parson as he surveyed the plaster walls and 
 the thatched roof showing in places between the 
 broken laths. " It's hardly bullet-proof." 
 
 "No; it's rather like a bandbox. I'd swop it
 
 GATHEEING IN THE SHEAVES 257 
 
 for a haystack any day; but there's a good cellar 
 across the road and some dugouts in the garden." 
 
 A stretcher case was coming along the road, 
 and as the Medical Officer finished binding up the 
 wounded man in front of him, the new arrival 
 was in turn placed before him. A leg was frac- 
 tured just above the ankle, but the owner appeared 
 entirely happy. On the stretcher beside him, tied 
 carefully to prevent them breaking away, were 
 three German helmets. 
 
 " Can I take my helmets with me ?" asked the 
 man on the stretcher. 
 
 " Of course you can," the Medical Officer 
 replied. 
 
 " Thank you. Doctor; I worked for them." 
 
 17
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 ALL IS VANITY 
 
 Back in Laroche the Pompadours were comfort- 
 ably occupying billets. Here they had arrived 
 during the night from St. Albert, rather the worse 
 for wear and with their ranks sadly thinned. 
 These nocturnal meanderings always recoiled on 
 the head of the Quartermaster, who was responsible 
 for seeing to it that the night's lodgings provided 
 for the regiment left nothing to be desired. 
 
 Everybody was always tired and dirty. March- 
 ing in to rest in the hot breathlessness of a summer's 
 night induces a dustiness and stickiness which, 
 combined with sore feet and thirst, are not con- 
 ducive to a glow of brotherly love. On these 
 occasions the medical, machine-gun, and signalling 
 officers were always the most aggressive ; they were 
 more trouble than the whole of the rest of the 
 battalion. It was a part of the ethics of the 
 Pompadours, as pertains in all well-conducted 
 regiments, that the officers would not see to their 
 own comfort until the men under their command 
 were all safely housed for the night, as well as 
 circumstances permitted. Of course, this was 
 
 258
 
 ALL IS VANITY 259 
 
 easy for the company officers; their men always 
 had their billets allotted first, and the officers 
 commanding, on arrival, after a cursory glance 
 and a comprehensive and meaningless snif!, left 
 their subalterns to carry on, and departed to their 
 rest. With the poor old, often forgotten, always 
 neglected details it was different. At times herded 
 together, at times scattered through half a dozen 
 town-sites, broken up in fragments and jammed 
 in anyhow at the last moment, their officers fumed, 
 snorted, and at times swore, not at, but about the 
 Quartermaster, forgetful of their upbringing, and 
 with merciless disregard to their own finer feelings. 
 There was always a feud between the signal- 
 lers and the poultice - wallopers. The Medical 
 Officer suffered from delusions of persecution, and 
 thought they were perpetually trying to put one 
 over him. He objected strenuously when, for 
 reasons of internal economy, the signallers and 
 medical forces were herded together, and on these 
 occasions their blue and white arm bands had the 
 same effect on him as a red rag to a bull. He 
 would arrive at the village where the regiment 
 was to billet in a tempestuous condition of dusty 
 clamminess, with sore feet and a five-dollar thirst, 
 and some time after midnight announce in strident 
 tones that the medical forces were present and 
 correct, and demand that they be put to bed 
 instantly. H the Quartermaster was absent, his 
 sergeant would endeavour to rise to the occasion
 
 260 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 and handle the situation with becoming grace. 
 The Medical Officer would suffer himself to be 
 conducted to the billet. Here he would bid his 
 men wait outside while he surveyed the proposed 
 resting-place, and rapidly summed up its possi- 
 bilities for comfort. Whether it was warm and 
 dry, stuffed with clean straw, sufficiently ventilated 
 and giving ample accommodation, was all the 
 same; the quartermaster-sergeant would run over 
 its manifest advantages as if offering a residence 
 for sale, and not a shelter for the night. It made 
 no difference if it had been the Empress Hotel: 
 he would have been dissatisfied. 
 
 ** Not fit to herd pigs into. Where's the Quarter- 
 master ?" Then the strafe would begin. 
 
 Generally, however, the Quartermaster, with 
 Highland cunning, gave the gentle answer that 
 turned away his wrath. A voice would greet the 
 Medical Officer as he arrived, pitched in the tone 
 of gentle solicitude. 
 
 " Is that you, Doctor ? Man, I'm glad to see 
 you; I was just waiting for you." 
 
 The medical detail would be halted, and the 
 Medical Officer would suffer himself to be led 
 away for the moment from the path of duty to the 
 Quartermaster's quarters. Here a bottle of wine 
 would be produced and a tumbler. The Medical 
 Officer would be encouraged to drink. Meantime 
 the quartermaster-sergeant would steal out under 
 cover of darkness and lead the medical unit to their
 
 ALL IS VANITY 261 
 
 resting-place. A few minutes later, the bottle 
 being no more, the Medical Officer would remember 
 his flock. 
 
 " What about billets, Mac ?" 
 
 " I'll show you them." 
 
 The Quartermaster would lead the way out into 
 the road. 
 
 " They must have moved on," the wily one would 
 say in tones expressive of mild surprise. " We'll 
 go and have a look." 
 
 The stretcher-bearers would be found, some 
 with their blankets spread, some already asleep, 
 turning in for the night. On these occasions the 
 billets were always " fine," " Buckingham Palace 
 couldn't be better," and the Medical Officer would 
 depart to his couch glowing with self-satisfaction 
 and righteousness, and mellowed with wine and 
 filled with a profound belief in the Quartermaster's 
 capabilities. 
 
 Life was very much complicated those days by the 
 scientific warfare we were indulging in. The gas had 
 added greatly to the possibilities of the situation. 
 
 The orderly room telephone buzzed busily one 
 morning. 
 
 " Someone to speak to you, sir," announced the 
 telewagger on duty to the new Adjutant, who at 
 the moment was wrestling with the customary 
 multiplicity of returns that attend the first day out 
 of the trenches. The Adj utant grabbed the earpiece.
 
 262 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 "Yes; what's that you say? I can't hear. 
 Oh ! memorial prayers. Hold the phone half a 
 minute. I'll send for the parson. No ? What ? 
 Vermin sprayer ! Oh, I understand — for the 
 blankets. Shut up, you blighters ! You might 
 let a fellow hear himself speak." This to Lieu- 
 tenant Black, the machine-gun officer, and Philomel 
 of the signals, who had entered the orderly room 
 and were engaged in the usual futile discussion 
 regarding their respective billets. 
 
 "You might try again; I couldn't hear. No; 
 only some hoboes here who know no better. 
 What's that ? Sprayer ? Yes, I've got that — • 
 what's the other thing ? You might spell it." 
 Here the austere Gilbert possessed himself of a 
 writing-pad, and exhaustively noted down the 
 spelling of the word that was troubling him. 
 
 " What's it for ? Well, hadn't you better speak 
 to the Doctor? No; that's right. No; he never 
 knows anything. Thanks very much. All right. 
 Good-bye." 
 
 " What's that you're saying about me ?" de- 
 manded the Doctor, who had entered the orderly 
 room and overheard the last remark. 
 
 " Nothing, Pills. Only corroborating what they 
 said at the other end." 
 
 " What did they say ?" 
 
 " Only that you knew nothing much about 
 anything." 
 
 " Who dared to say that ?"
 
 ALL IS VANITY 263 
 
 '' Only the Ordnance Officer." 
 
 " What, Maclntyre ? When I think of all I did 
 for him when he was ill ! The ungrateful wretch !" 
 
 " Well, that's probably the reason." 
 
 " You wait, Gilbert, until the next time you're 
 sick." 
 
 " What do you know about — let's see, what's 
 the word ?" (Here the Adjutant consulted 
 A.B. 153 B.) " Vermoral sprayers." 
 
 " Spell it." 
 
 The Adjutant compHed. 
 
 " Oh, vermoral ! That's an antiseptic, used for 
 the mouth and nose," answered the Medical Officer, 
 anxious to hide the fact that he knew nothing of 
 the matter. 
 
 " In what cases ?" 
 
 "Oh, any sort of cases. Sore throat, catarrh, 
 tonsillitis — any old thing." 
 
 " What is vermoral ?" 
 
 " One of the coal tar series," the Doctor answered 
 readily, grasping at a straw. 
 
 " Will you let me spray your throat with it ?" 
 asked the machine-gun operator, joiniiig in the 
 conversation. 
 
 " Certainly not. You keep on with your job 
 spraying the Bosche, and leave intellectual matters 
 to myself." 
 
 " Well, have you ever used it ?" 
 
 " No; it's an old-fashioned drug, and now hardly 
 ever used."
 
 264 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 " Doctor, I think you're a first-class liar," 
 remarked the Adjutant judicially. " A vermoral 
 sprayer is a new form of frightfulness for spraying 
 the front-line trench." 
 
 " What with ? Liquid fire ?" asked the Medical 
 Ofiicer, reaHzing that his bluff had been called. 
 
 " No, Hquid water." 
 
 "For the flies?" 
 
 " No, for the gas. Vermoral is not a substance; 
 it's a man's name." This last was hazarded by 
 the Adjutant, who, having a tall score chalked 
 up against our medicine man, was anxious to make 
 the most of his present opportunity. 
 
 '' Well, I'll have one installed in the orderly 
 room and keep you under the spray," the Medical 
 Officer repHed as he hastily left the room. 
 
 A few minutes after, the Medical Officer was 
 hastening down the road on his horse ventre a 
 terre, to ask of the authorities that he be kept 
 better informed of new inventions in future, so as 
 to obviate a recurrence of the ghastly display of 
 ignorance to which the orderly room had just been 
 subjected. 
 
 Later in the day we dipped respirators again, 
 and as each man came up with his bundle of 
 engine-room waste in the funereal crepe, the water 
 was blue and the men's hands and faces were 
 blue; but bluer by far was the air, for the Medical 
 Officer had not forgotten his discomfiture of the 
 morning at the hands of the Adjutant.
 
 ALL IS VANITY 265 
 
 They were happy days in Laroche for the light- 
 hearted, for a short two miles along the shaded 
 poplar road lay our best-beloved Beaufort, at once 
 the pleasantest, most picturesque and desirable 
 of the cities we had visited. The serious-minded, 
 however, found much to do. Of the combatant 
 officers who had come with the battaHon to France 
 three short months before, only two remained 
 with the battaHon, Colonel Meldrum and Major 
 Cope. The latter had just been promoted, and 
 very fussy he was too about his title. The trans- 
 port officer was always treading on his toes, by 
 addressing him as Captain, and being threatened 
 in return with arrest and all the summary penalties 
 of the law. Not that the transport officer was 
 much with us at this time. Ever since we had 
 known him he had always rushed about like a 
 fevered March hare, but just lately his movements 
 had been more frenzied than ever. Rumour spoke 
 of some frantically conceived deals in horseflesh, 
 and the Quartermaster wandered around discon- 
 solate and with his brow gathered in clouds of 
 wrath. The transport officer appeared to have 
 perpetual business elsewhere, and the lying jade 
 told of visits to exalted quarters. 
 
 " I'll pull his head of! like a lEy," the Quarter- 
 master threatened, " if he gets rid of any more of 
 our horses for the skates he's taking on at present." 
 
 The Quartermaster was very bigoted in these 
 matters. He was a close personal friend to each
 
 266 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 of the horses, and used to talk to them intimately 
 in Gaelic. In his spare time he was always to be 
 found messing about the horse-lines, and the mules 
 even were friendly to him. Those lop-eared 
 misanthropes, who did more than their share of 
 the hard work, seemed to have an understanding 
 with him, quite apart from anyone else. The 
 Quartermaster alone was suffered to approach their 
 hindquarters with impunity, and to him it was 
 vouchsafed even to lift up and examine an injured 
 hoof, without having his brains plastered round 
 the transport lines. The Adjutant suggested to 
 the Quartermaster that they probably belonged 
 to the same clan, but he was always making un- 
 profitable remarks. 
 
 The Padre used to say that a mule has no pride 
 in his ancestors, and no hopes regarding his 
 posterity ! We always thought this a very brilliant 
 remark, and used not to credit it with being original, 
 but the Bishop maintained it was. 
 
 At times the Quartermaster would talk so affec- 
 tionately and pathetically to his four-footed friends, 
 that the Medical Officer would feel quite de trop. 
 At these moments he would go over and talk to 
 his own steed, the fairest of the fair. Him the 
 Medical Officer called by the name of Rhubarb, 
 but whether this was on account of his colour or 
 because of his effect on the Medical Officer's liver, 
 we could never be certain. His other horse, the 
 humble associate of Rhubarb, whose duty was to
 
 ALL IS VANITY 267 
 
 pull the Maltese cart, was named Ginger. This 
 was no doubt on account of his associations; 
 certainly his somnolent efforts in the advancement 
 of the medical adjuncts of the battalion along the 
 fave roads hardly justified the choice of name. The 
 Quartermaster's stud — for, despite establishment, 
 he never descended to less than two chargers — he 
 christened appropriately Mulligan and Jam-pot. 
 
 We must have been getting suspicious these 
 days, or perhaps it was because of a tale which 
 was going around. A certain battalion was said 
 to have a horse of ill omen, and each officer in 
 turn, who had him as a mount, came to a violent 
 end. So certain was this that four of his unfor- 
 tunate riders had already met the same fate. In 
 the Pompadours we could only notice that at 
 Misere our late Colonel's horse had sickened and 
 died, and just before going in to St. Albert to 
 attack, Grosvenor's horse was killed by a shell. 
 The Quartermaster used to regard Jampot and 
 Mulligan with grave solicitude. He was always 
 sending urgent messages to the Medical Officer to 
 come to the horse-lines to examine their pulses 
 and take their temperatures, if he thought them a 
 trifle distrait or dejected ! Not that the Medical 
 Officer knew anything about horses, but there is 
 no doubt that had he professed to recognize any 
 untoward signs of approaching dissolution in either 
 charger, the Quartermaster would have goncsick 
 instantly.
 
 268 MAPLE LEAVES IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 These memories are \vritten of things which 
 happened, as it now seems, long, long ago. The 
 summer has gone, and after it the winter has 
 followed in its course, bringing with it in its train 
 mud and cold and discomfort. To-day the Pacific 
 Pompadours are still at the first line, pacific only 
 in name. They are now a war-worn regiment, 
 but they are just as keen, just as cheerful, just as 
 useful as when they met the gas at St. Jacques 
 and fought through the days at St. Albert. Few 
 who are mentioned here remain with them, but 
 there is still one there — one whose every thought 
 has been with the regiment and every wish for 
 its welfare. Just as earnestly as he has fought 
 the Germans so he has fought the doctors, and 
 returned from spells of rest, induced by wounds, 
 more earnest for the fray than ever before. 
 
 We who have known the Pompadours through 
 all their ups and downs, in periods of rest and during 
 the hurricane of war, can never think of the regi- 
 ment, never speak of the days gone by, without 
 at the same time remembering with a feeling of 
 pride to have served under him, honour to have 
 known him, and pleasure to have been with him, 
 our leader, chief and friend, the Colonel. 
 
 BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, ENGLAND.
 
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