The First Canadians in France

A Tommy was doing "sentry go" one evening in front of his battalion lines when an officer approached to speak to him. Tommy kept his rifle firmly on his shoulder, at the "slope," and made no attempt to come to attention or salute. The officer, wishing to see if he understood his duty, demanded:

"What are you doing here?"

"Just walkin' up an' down," Tommy replied nonchalantly, forgetting, or at least omitting that important suffix: "sir."

"Just walking up and down," the officer reiterated, with annoyance. "What do you suppose you're walking up and down for?"

"To see that none of them guys comes in soused an' disorderly, I s'pose," he replied, but without any apparent interest in his occupation.

"Don't you know who I am?" the officer demanded testily, exasperated beyond endurance by such slackness.

"No," Tommy answered shortly. The absence of the "sir" was striking, and the tone implied further that he didn't care.

"I'm the commanding officer of your battalion!" Each word dropped like an icicle from the official lips.

"Holy – Jumpin' – Judas!" Tommy exclaimed, doing the "present arms" in three distinct movements – one to each word; "court-martial fer me!"

It was too much for the gravity of the most hardened disciplinarian. The colonel turned and fled from the spot until he was far enough away that the God of Discipline might not be incensed at his shouts of laughter.

Tommy escaped the court-martial, but he wondered all evening what a sentry really was supposed to do.

It was almost a month after Plantsfield's momentous announcement before the Canadians commenced arriving at our hospital. They came in twos and threes, scattered amongst large numbers of other British troops, but they were mostly cases of illness or slight wounds – and we had little opportunity for comparing the stoicism of our own boys with that of the English, Irish and Scotch who arrived in droves. What would our lads be like when they too came back broken and torn? Would they be as patient and brave as the other British Tommies? Could they measure up to the standard of heroism set by these men of the Bull Dog breed? We waited, we watched and we wondered.

There was only desultory fighting during the month of March, and most of the wounds were from "snipers" or shrapnel.

The first seriously wounded Canadian to reach the hospital was an artillery officer, from Alberta. A small German shell had dropped into his dug-out and exploded so close to him that it was a miracle he escaped at all. When he arrived with his head completely swathed in bandages, and fifty or more wounds about his body, he looked more like an Egyptian mummy than a man. His mouth and the tip of his nose were the only parts of his body exposed to view, and they were burned and swollen to such an extent that, apart from their position, they conveyed no impression of their true identity. It was somewhat gruesome to hear a deep bass voice, without the slightest tremour, emerge from this mass of bandages. It was as if the dead had suddenly come to life.

"Would you be kind enough to put a cigarette in my mouth, sir?" he asked.

One is tempted to believe that after this war the eternal question will no longer be "Woman," but "Cigarette."

"Do you think you can smoke?" I asked him doubtfully.

Something remotely resembling a laugh came from the bandaged head, but there was not the slightest visible sign of mirth.

"I can manage it fairly well," he returned confidently; "my right arm has only a few wounds."

Only a few wounds! And he could lie there and speak calmly of them! He might have been excused for hysterics. The English officers in the other beds smiled appreciatively:

"He's a brick!" I heard one murmur.

The nursing sister, a keen, young woman of ability, looked across the bed at me with a slight smile of pride. She made no remark but as she leaned over her patient to unwind his bandages, a flush of pleasure at his heroism dyed her cheeks. We would have no cause to be ashamed of our own boys. As we stood beside the bed of that gallant chap, the epitome of all that was best and bravest from home, a lump arose in our throats and choked back speech.

With the aid of cocaine, I removed about a dozen small pieces of shell from his chest and arms. His face was mottled with myriads of splinters of stone, and his right eye was practically gone. The hair had been completely burned off his head and in the centre of the scalp a piece of nickel, about the size of a penny and as thin as a wafer, had been driven. One large piece of shell had buried itself in the right leg; half a dozen more smaller scraps were in the left; his wrist watch had been smashed to atoms and the main spring was embedded in the flesh.

"I can't see yet," he explained, "so please watch where I lay my cigarette. I suppose my eyes will come around in time?"

How much would we have given to have been able to assure him of such a possibility! I had grave doubts, but answered as encouragingly as I dared. Reggy came in later to examine the eye and shook his head over it despondently.

"There's a chance for the left eye," he remarked to me, as we passed out into the hall, "but the right eye will have to be removed as soon as he is able to stand the operation."

(Apart from this loss, in the course of time, he recovered perfectly.)

We went into the room of a young officer from British Columbia, who had also just reached the hospital. He was a tall, handsome, fair-haired youth. He rose to his feet, trembling violently, as we entered. He was still dressed and after we had passed the customary greetings I enquired:

"Have you been wounded?"

"No," he replied with a smile, although his lip quivered as he spoke. "I wish I had been. It's rotten luck to get put out of business like this. I got in the way of a 'Jack Johnson'; it played me a scurvy trick – shell-shock, they tell me, that's all."

It might be all, but it surely was enough. There is nothing more pitiable than the sight of a strong, active young man, trembling continuously like an aspen leaf. Shell-shock, that strange, intangible condition which leaves its victims nervous wrecks for months or years, was uncommon in the early days of the war, but with the advent of thousands of guns is much more common now.

We chatted with him for a little while, and then continued our pilgrimage to the larger wards. Nursing Sister Medoc, a tall graceful girl, a typical trained nurse, met us at the door.

"Here's a strange case, Major," she remarked, as she pointed to one of the new arrivals who had just been placed in bed. "He is quite insane and thinks he is still in the trenches, but he refuses to speak."

"He must be insane if he won't speak to you, Sister," Reggy suggested facetiously.

"That will be quite enough from you, young man," she returned with calm severity.

Sister Medoc preceded us into the ward, and Reggy whispered confidentially in my ear:

"Do you know, you can't 'jolly' our trained nurses – they're too clever. Sometimes I think they're scarcely human."

"You're quite right, Reggy," I returned consolingly, "too many are divine."

Reggy looked as if he would have liked to argue the point, but by this time we had reached the bedside of our patient. I addressed a few words to him, but he made no response and returned my look with a fixed and discomfiting stare. I wondered how, if he refused to talk, the nurse could tell he believed himself still in the trenches.

The riddle was shortly solved. Turning on his side and leaning on one elbow, he grasped the bar at the head of the bed and cautiously drew himself up until he could look over the "parapet." He shaded his eyes with one hand and gazed fearfully for a moment or two into the mists of "No Man's Land." Then quickly raising his elbow in an attitude of self-defence, he shrank back, listening intently to some sound we could not hear, and suddenly, with a low cry of alarm, dived beneath the sheets (into the trench) as the imaginary shell went screaming over his head.

As soon as it had passed he was up at the "parapet" again, straining his eyes and ears once more. His nostrils dilated tremulously as his breath came in quick short gasps. His upper lip curled in anger, and in that grim moment of waiting for the German charge, his teeth snapped firmly together and every muscle of his body was tense.

By the strained look in his eyes we knew the enemy was almost upon him – Reggy and I in the forefront. With a wild cry of hate and fury he sprang at us, lunging forward desperately with his bayonet. Reggy backed precipitately against me, but before he had time to speak our assailant, with a shiver of horror, had retreated into his "dug-out."

"Thank the Lord that was only an imaginary bayonet!" Reggy gasped; "I could hear my finish ringing the door bell."

"If we had been real Germans, Reggy," I returned with conviction, "we'd be running yet!"

"Do you think he'll recover?" Reggy asked.

"Yes. The attack is so violent and sudden; I think he has every chance. We'll send him to England to-morrow."

Another month passed. It was the night of the twenty-second of April when this startling message reached the hospital:

"Empty every possible bed. Ship all patients to England. Draw hospital marquees, beds, blankets and paliasses, and have your accommodation for patients doubled in twenty-four hours."

Something unlooked for had happened. We worked like slaves. The hospital grounds soon looked like a miniature tented city. In half the time allotted us we were able to report that we were ready for six hundred wounded.

A despatch rider, covered with mud, whirled up to the door on his motorcycle. A little crowd gathered round him.