The First Canadians in France

A great wreath of purple leaves lay upon the grave of a young prince, clinging lovingly to the new-made mound. He rested there side by side with his humbler fellows – they had fought and died together. We sometimes forget that a prince is human; he seems so far above us – he lives in a different sphere and appears to be cast in a different mould. But when we stand beside his grave, we realise at last that he was but a mortal like ourselves; that he has lived his life like us – the same desires, the same ambitions and the same need for love. Only one word was entwined, in white letters, with the purple leaves; only one word, but it bridged two countries and two souls – heaven and earth were joined – for the small white flowers clinging together spelled the magic name of "Mother." We may fall unnoticed in the thick of battle, we may be buried with a host of comrades in a nameless grave, but a mother's heart will seek us out, no matter where we lie, and wrap our lonely souls about with the mantle of her undying love.

"You have seen both ends of a battle now – the hospital and the graveyard," Jack exclaimed, as we left the cemetery; "come with me and I will show you what it is like to be in the middle."

"Can't we take a little walk along this road, and see the first line trenches?" Reggy enquired. We were crossing the Menin road again at the moment.

Jack laughed. "Not if you wish to come further with us. If you step out of this shelter in daylight there won't be any Reggy to brighten our trip. No one goes out there in daylight – that is, if he wishes to attain old age."

"But it seems so quiet here," Reggy protested. "Apart from broken-down buildings, I can't see a sign of a war – there isn't a soul in sight but ourselves."

"Jolly good reason," Jack replied. "If you take a peep through the hedge there you'll see the trenches – we're as close as we dare go at present."

Reggy looked disappointed. "There isn't even a gun," he complained.

It seemed as if the invisible gunners had heard him, for suddenly the fields round about us sprang to life and belched forth smoke and shells. Some cannon in the dark shade of the bushes were actually so close that we could see the streak of flame from the muzzle light the shadow. The Germans were not slow to retaliate, and in a few minutes the roar of their guns and the howl and crash of shells added to the general clamour. Fortunately they did not appear to have our range, and the shells fell far afield.

"That's what you brought down upon us – you doubting Thomas," Jack remarked facetiously to Reggy. "You've started a nice row now that will last for hours."

"Isn't this great!" Reggy cried like a pleased child. "I wouldn't have missed this for a million."

"I hope Fritzie will miss you for less," laughed the colonel, "or we'll be short an ex-Mess Secretary."

Reggy vouchsafed no reply to this hope.

"We'd better get along out of this," Jack said; "the Bosches may discover their mistake before long and pour a little shower of hate on us."

We got into the motor and started towards the Dickibusch road. At Jack's request we stopped for a few minutes at the ruins of a large schoolhouse which had comprised one city block. The semblance of a building remained, but the walls stood only in jagged patches.

"These are the remains of our Field Ambulance," Jack explained. "Come inside and see; you will get a faint idea of what the 'Jack Johnsons' did to our hospital wards."

We passed into what had once been the main entrance. The doorway had received one great shell which on bursting had carried the four walls with it. We stumbled along the floor over heaps of brick and mortar; through piles of broken chairs and beds, and, climbing the ruins of the staircase, arrived upon a landing from which we could see the interior of what had once been a large room.

"This was my ward," Jack told us. "You see that big hole in the roof? A big shell came through there, and burst right here." He pointed to a wide, irregular opening in the floor. Every stick of furniture was smashed to atoms. Daylight came through great gaping holes in the walls and floor. The beds were merely nests of twisted iron. The greater part of the ceiling had fallen in and lay in a heap in the centre of the room.

As we walked about we saw that every other ward was in a similar condition. We went out into the schoolyard. There were five or six tremendous excavations in the ground, perfectly round and capable of holding a baby whale. There was no earth heaped up, for the big shells which made these hollows left nothing behind.

We were still standing there when suddenly there arose a noise like the muffled scream of a distant multitude. We stood rooted to the spot, wondering what grim horror this might be. It grew louder and louder, coming towards us at terrific speed.

"For God's sake," I cried to Jack, "what is that awful sound?"

"Look into the field – quick – you will see!"

We all looked. The sound became a roar – a crash, and then about a hundred yards away the earth sprang high into the air in a great black mass intermingled with clouds of smoke and stones.

"Permit me," Jack remarked coolly, "to introduce you to 'Jack Johnson.' Now you can understand a little how those poor boys in the hospital felt when he came crashing through the roof."

"If we stay here a few minutes longer," the colonel remarked, "we may have it brought even more dramatically to our attention."

Jack laughed. "Oh," he cried, "we're as safe here as anywhere – you never can tell where the next will drop."

We were soon to verify the truth of this remark.

CHAPTER XV

We had turned the corner of the road on which we had just witnessed the effect of the big shell – the hole was still smoking – when once again we heard the distant whine. This time there was no need to ask what it meant; we knew all too well, and for an anxious moment or two we wondered whether after its arrival the newspapers would speak well of us, or whether we should be blown into such small pieces that we should only be reported "missing."

It is recorded that sometimes those who are drowning are able, in a few brief moments, to rehearse the drama of their lives. Our lives must have been too complicated for such hasty revision, but as the sound changed from a whine to a shriek, an unearthly roar, and with a crash like the crack of doom the ground opened before us and shot a blinding storm of rocks and mud sky high – when all this occurred far, far faster than I can pen the lines, we had plenty of time to develop a nasty pain in the pit of the stomach, to which the mystic torment of an unripe cucumber is a joy. A great cavity yawned before us where once the road had been, and belched forth clouds of smoke as if the crust of hell were riven in twain. At the same moment, lest our tranquillity should be restored too soon, our own guns opened up with a vicious roar and hurled their screeching shells over our heads like myriads of fiends possessed. Reggy's face was a study in black and white – I couldn't see my own.

"Do you think the Germans see us?" he enquired anxiously of Jack.

"No, I think not," Jack reassured him; "it's customary for them to shell any good road in the hope of picking off a convoy."

"It's a damned uncomfortable custom," Reggy returned earnestly, "and I could forgive them for not observing it for the next ten minutes."

The chauffeur, who had stopped the car dead by using the emergency brake, now released it, and we started forward again. But we had considerable difficulty in navigating the ditch on the side of what had been the road.

We had just moved in time, for a second shell dropped where we had been a moment since, and tore the opposite side of the road away.

"Being between two lines of artillery is a little too much like battledore and shuttlecock," I remarked to Reggy, "with all the odds against the shuttlecock."

"Object to word 'battledore,'" Reggy retorted; "it's too frivolous and pun-like for the present dangerous occasion."

We were now making haste towards a small village a few miles ahead, and we were not sorry as we passed into the poor shelter its brick houses afforded. As long as we were on the open road it was quite impossible to rid oneself of the feeling that the car was in full view of the German gunners.

The streets of this dirty little village were filled with British Tommies, who, still covered with the mud from the trenches, were as care-free and happy as were those fifty miles from the front. They smoked and chatted together in little groups at the entrance or in the courtyards of the miserable hotels, one at least of which seemed to be on every block. As we drew up the colonel enquired of a sentry:

"Can you tell me where the 'Princess Patricias' are billeted?"

We had been informed that this famous battalion, which had reached France just six weeks after us, was somewhere in this neighbourhood. To discover their whereabouts was the real object of our journey. The sentry made reply:

"I believe, sir, there is a battalion of that naime 'ere somew'eres. Hi, Bill!" he called to another Tommy, who was leaning against a near-by door-post; "w'ere is them Canydians wot wos 'ere t'other day?"

"Bill" banked his cigarette by pressing it against the wall and came over on the double to the side of our car. He saluted with that peculiar Jumping-Jack motion so much a part of the real Tommy, and ejaculated:

"I 'eard they was at the next town, sir; it ayn't far from 'ere, but it's a funny naime – Runnin'-hell, er somethin' like."

"Would it be Reninghelst?" Jack enquired.

"Ay – that's it, sir; I knowed they was 'hell' in it somew'eres."

"Just since the 'Canydians' came, I'll wager?" Reggy interjected mischievously.

The Tommy grinned approval of this jest, and volunteered to show us the direction. He stood on the running board of the car and saw that we got started on the right road.

"Straight ahead now, sir," he said, as he saluted and sprang down.

The heavy shelling had died away, and for the next two miles the sun shone on a peaceful country. We had a chance to marvel at the well-ploughed fields, and wondered what venturesome farmers dared work in such a place. It was almost noon and we had begun to think that we had left the war behind us once more, when suddenly the rapid bark of German guns aroused us, and the sharp crack of shrapnel high above our heads caused us to look up. A new sight met our gaze.

Three of our own aeroplanes were hovering directly over the German trenches, and battery after battery of artillery were exhausting themselves in an angry effort to bring them down. The accuracy of the enemy gunners startled us. This time we were not the hunters, and our sympathies were with the aviators. As shell after shell burst, leaving their white clouds to right or left, we held our breath in suspense. Time and again, as the explosion occurred directly under one of our machines, the smoke hid it from view, and, in a tremor of anxiety, we feared to see it dive to earth. But when the smoke cleared away our three undaunted birdmen were still on high, swooping over the German batteries with a persistence and intrepidity which must have been maddening to the helpless Bosches.