Chapter 5 HUN HELPERS

On the sixth day after the first gas attack on the Canadians at Ypres, we took up a new position in a hedge about three-quarters of a mile north and a quarter of a mile east of Ypres, and about a thousand yards from the German trenches. We galloped like mad over the shell-swept road, taking just exactly an hour and a half to get the guns placed and blazing.

We had four guns when we pulled into this position, but were latterly reinforced by two more from another battery, their sisters having been smashed and the crews bayoneted, including their commanding officers, and like friendless children they came to us looking for a home and were gladly taken in, thus increasing our battery to six guns.

The hedge of the thickly growing thorn bushes ranged to the height of four feet, making it incumbent upon us to continually assume a stooping position when walking, involving a crick in the back for a good part of the time while there, but the bush was as thick as could be and formed an admirable shelter.

The beauty of these hedges in blossoming time is charming and the buds were now coming out, their fragrance filling the air with sweet nectar. To our right was a large farmhouse, of two stories and a gable roof, and the nearest gun to the house was not over 30 feet off. The house was occupied by a farmer, his wife and two young children, a boy and a girl.

The farmer's demeanor toward us was that of a systematic grouch and his appearance did not belie his disposition-as surly and sulky looking as a whipped criminal. He would stand in the doorway, watching us continually, as if he feared we were going to steal his house from over his head, and about the only thing he would say was to warn us not to destroy the hedge. But our love for the shelter, to say nothing of our love for the fragrant blossoms, made this injunction needless.

Over on the other side of the house, 40 feet to the right of it, was another hedge behind which was a French battery of .75's. This battery had been through the Marne and they were veterans of the finest order, the very cream of the French artillery service, and their Captain was an educated gentleman, speaking English as fluently as his native tongue. They had come up from the Champagne district to reinforce the position at Ypres and their battery also consisted of six guns, each gun capable of 24 shells a minute.

In appearance these guns are the last in the world to give one the impression of supreme efficiency; when we saw them coming down the road we wondered what they could be and were amazed when informed that they were the famous .75's that had made the work of the French guns ring throughout the world; we couldn't at first bring ourselves to believe that these were the famous guns until we saw them at work, because there is nothing in the general aspect of the piece to make one think that they are any better, if as good, as our old field pieces.

The secret of these magnificent guns lies in the buffer and in the ability of the muzzle of the gun to cool off; after discharging 24 rounds they are just as ready to discharge another 24 as when they started, while in the case of our pieces we have to let them cool, and 15 or 18 per minute is the limit of our effort, because any more would cause them to jam from the heat. There is no gun on earth that can compare with the .75's.

Our ammunition was supplied to us at this spot over a road running between our wagon lines, half way between Flamingad and Breevland, about a thousand yards away, but they had to go in a roundabout way, traveling fully 800 yards out of the direct route on account of the ditches. It was a physical impossibility for the horses to bring up sufficient ammunition for the guns during the night, and they had to make the perilous trip many times during the day, and with the German shells pounding the road every foot of the way, their fire being guided by the wireless directions from their planes, the number of horses that had their lives smashed out on this road was something enormous. At one spot is the famous Hell's Corner, so named because of the fierce fire that continually rained upon it, and here I counted 40 dead horses, as fine looking animals as ever were harnessed. Such is the toll of war.

On the day that we arrived, our attention was drawn to an Algerian who seemed to be an inmate of the house. He could speak some English and seemed to spend most of his time cleaning his revolver. On the first afternoon I asked him why he was there and to what regiment he belonged.

"The Algerian-African troop."

"I understood they were in the trenches," I said. "Are you with the infantry?"

"Yes," he replied, "I am."

"Are you wounded?"

"No."

"Then why are you not with your men?" I insisted.

"I was lost in the retreat," he answered.

"Why don't you go and look them up?"

"I did, but I can't find them."

Then he asked me if we were getting ammunition up.

"Oh, yes, lots of it," I said.

"When are you going to fire?"

"Oh, pretty soon," I said.

"What are you going to shoot at?" he asked.

I told him we were going to plug the German trenches and the buildings around there, that we had orders to blow them up as they were filled with machine guns. He grinned from ear to ear, saying, "Good! Good! Shoot them all! Which ones you shoot first? I want to see them fall."

I pointed out the ones my battery was going to demolish and his big white teeth were exposed in another grin, as he nodded approvingly, and walked off.

That same afternoon my gun leveled the buildings assigned to me for demolishment and knowing beyond all shadow of a doubt that they were filled with men and machine guns, I watched through the glasses to see the gray-clad inmates popping out of the doors and windows. Judge of my astonishment! Not a solitary soul left the building my gun had destroyed. I watched each one of them in turn and in turn was awarded nothing for my pains. From others, however, hundreds of men rushed and as they scurried away our guns shrapneled them, dropping them by the score.

A sort of a subconscious connection between my conversation with the Algerian and the effect of my gun fire found lodging in the back of my head, but it was not until later that it became a direct consciousness. Another thing that set me thinking was what seemed to me to be an undue familiarity between this Algerian trooper and our farmer; he had the entree of the house, apparently could go and come as he pleased, drinking coffee with the inmates, sleeping there nights and making himself generally at home. I didn't think much of it at the time, but later events made these trivialities very significant indeed.

The bombardment was now commencing to have its effect on me, and McLean and I were both tired out; we were dead beat and looked around for a quiet spot where we could rest. Billy McLean was my especial pal ever since I had set foot in France.

"Here is what the doctor ordered," he said, as we went off down the hedge a bit and came to a little opening in the bush into which we both crawled. It requires no effort for a man who has been sustaining the sound, shock and work of a bombardment, to fall asleep anywhere, any time, and we were soon Murphyized, as Mac expressed it.

The rain now commenced falling heavily and in the midst of our slumbers, an orderly happened along and woke me up. I gave Mac a shove and he too woke up. We were drenched and made for the barn. We found the Old Man there with a lantern and told him we were going up in the loft, but he scowled and said we were not to go. "To hell with you!"-and up we went, finding five or six of the boys there taking advantage of the lull to snatch an hour's sleep. We quickly followed suit, getting hold of some straw and grain bags for a bed, and resumed our interrupted slumbers.

In the midst of our dreams "S.O.S. Stand to!" was ordered, but we did not hear. One of our fellows, as we later learned, came running up to the farmhouse and asked the farmer if he had seen any of our men.

"No," he scowled, "there are none here."

When we had our sleep out we made for the guns. It did not take us long to see that a pretty thorough strafing had been going on, yet so dead beat to the utter exhaustion point were we, that we had failed to hear them.

"Where the hell were you fellows?" asked one.

"Asleep up there in the barn," said I; "why didn't you call us?"

"I did, I asked that old blankety-blank and he told me he hadn't seen any of you fellows around there."

"Well," said I, "he knew that Mac and I were up there, because we told him we were going, although he didn't want to let us go."

Here the incident dropped and was forgotten for the time. That afternoon Fritz attempted to come over our way and on a "Stand to" we jumped to the guns and drove him back, sending across 200 expressions of our good will in record time. Then we "stood down." Following this we went through the usual routine of cleaning up our pet and making her ready for the next visitation, and while working away, friend farmer came along with one of his cows, a large white animal, leading it with a rope and permitting her to graze. He walked along in front of my gun where it stopped and grazed awhile; going in like manner in front of each of the guns. Then he led the animal over to the other side of the house, where it grazed in front of the French .75's.

In the meantime we were working hard, getting our pets in shape, and someone asked who would volunteer for water. We were all dirty, thirsty, greasy and tired, and I offered to go. I ambled over to the farmhouse, stopping to speak to the Captain for a moment on the way, when I heard a shell explode; it had demolished No. 2 gun.

"Stand to!" yelled the Captain; then to the farmer, "Take that damned cow away." He hurried the cow off and put it in the barn, but he had no sooner gone than Kr-kr-kr-p! Kr-kr-kr-p! and the Captain and I were knocked off our feet. The water bottle was broken and I did not take time to get another but made for the guns. They were hammering our batteries thoroughly now and I was told to take shelter. I ran over to the farmhouse and asked the farmer's wife for a cup of coffee,-to sell me a cup, which she refused; in fact, her husband would not permit any of us to enter the house again. Then a smothering fire smashed the French battery, the destruction being so accurate and complete that it was done while I was asking and being refused the coffee! Just leaving the house, I met one of the French captains. "Did you notice anything peculiar in the farmer's actions?" he asked me; "I mean, with his white cow?"

"I told him I hadn't noticed anything peculiar, that I had noticed he had taken his white cow out in front of our battery, grazing her there just before the battery was shot up.

"Did the cow stop in front of your gun?"

"Yes, it stopped before each one of them."

"So it did at ours," he said.

"Merci Monsieur, you will hear from this." And he left in a hurry. He phoned the gendarmes in the city of Ypres and in less than half-an-hour they came. They entered the farmhouse and searched it thoroughly. Upstairs they found parts of a heliograph lamp and a complete telephone apparatus; there was also in his stove a system that had been inaugurated for forcing up a shower of sparks; this apparatus had been found in the houses of a number of spies who had paid the penalty for their work. Then they made a search of the cellar in which were found hundreds of tins of beef and jam, all of which had come from our rations, and then was explained the mysterious disappearance of our grub. There was no trace to be found of our Algerian trooper; he had made a hasty exit.

Friend farmer and his wife were arrested, taken away with the children and placed in the coop, and there the traitorous couple got their deserts-they were taken to the square and shot.

After they had gone we made ourselves at home in the building, and the comforts that awaited us there made us feel almost glad that they had turned out to be spies. Among the rations we found that they had taken stuff that had been purloined from other units as far back as three months before. After a thorough ransacking and a feed that filled us to our heart's content, we made for the battery, being greeted with a fresh outburst on our arrival, and under the fire we pulled our remaining guns away to another hedge 200 yards off, and waited for the storm to settle.

While lying there the brains of one of our geniuses got to working and his ideas were quickly resolved into action. We went down to the barn, took a couple of wagons, taking off the wheels and the poles, and made up three dummy guns and placed them in the spot we had left, and in a few minutes' time we had the satisfaction of seeing Fritz spend three or four hundred good shells on our dummy battery.

A consuming thirst was parching my mouth and I took a chance and ran along the open to the house for a drink. Then it was that the disadvantageous side of our good work with the dummy guns was exemplified; just as I was stepping out of the door, a shell tore a hole in one corner of the building, knocking it out as clean as if it had been drilled.

The customary methods employed by the Germans to get information as to our guns, our troops, our supplies around Ypres, was to send a disguised soldier to the different farmhouses and threaten them with instant demolition by their guns if they did not furnish the information sought for, and thus did Fritz make good his promise to the farmer. By reason of our dummy guns and the strafing they got, and the fact that our guns still were firing, he believed that the farmer had given him a bunco steer, and he lost no time in making good his word.

Remaining in the hedge for a few hours, we dug holes for the guns, covered them with tarpaulins and grass on top, giving them the usual scenic shelter. We did this work in the open but only one man at a time exposed; it was as much as life was worth for more than one to be seen working. That evening, in the midst of our meal at cookhouse,-"Stand to!" and we raced for our pets. When the concert was well under way, Munsey noticed a light three or four hundred yards off that was acting somewhat peculiarly; it would flare up and down oddly and seemed to be in a farmhouse straight at our rear, but not much attention was paid to it at the time. Next morning Munsey and I were in the cookhouse, trying to moisten a couple of hardtack biscuits with what juice we could extract from a piece of bacon rind, when an airplane hummed overhead and the attention of one of our anti-aircraft guns was immediately diverted to the bird. The cookhouse had formerly been a French dressing station, dismantled by the fire of those devils that know no law of God or man, composed of three huts in a row made of half-inch board. While eating, one of our own shells, a shrapnel, that had been sent up at a German stork and did not explode, dropped squarely into the middle of the cookhouse, frightened the cook out of his wits and hit the dixies, scattering them around our feet. "Stand to!" and we made our way carefully, keeping out of sight as much as possible from the watching bird overhead.

When I got to the gun the shell fire was commencing to get dangerously close. "By God, there must be somebody giving our battery away," said Munsey. A number of our men had been wounded at this time and the airplane still buzzing above, made it impossible for us to fire, and we got a "Stand down!"

"Come on over," Munsey proposed, "and we'll see what's in that building where I saw the light." We found a family of civilians living there and they were at once very solicitous about giving us coffee. "Never mind the coffee," said Munsey; "we have come to examine the house." The old man seemed quite willing to have us do so and pointed the way upstairs, starting himself to go out the door. Munsey grabbed him by the arm,-"Come along and show us the way." He indicated that we could find the way ourselves, but my mate was insistent and he forced the old man along and upstairs we went.

At first nothing resulted from our thorough search, but Munsey's eye lighted on an Algerian serge lying in the corner of the room, and almost at the same time I noticed some bricks in the chimney that seemed to be loose. An old table in the middle of the room I pulled over to the chimney, tugged at some of the brick that I had noticed, and the whole thing caved in, part of a heliograph outfit falling out. The old fellow made a dart for the door, but was peremptorily intercepted. "Damn you, stay where you are!" I pulled out the rest of the stuff; there was a complete heliograph apparatus, and a little red cap, such as the Algerians wear, satisfying us both that the man doing the work used the uniform of an Algerian.

On leaving the room, carrying the stuff with us and going down stairs, we saw a box against the wall and I heard a funny noise from it as if it contained something alive. I pulled it out and found it full of pigeons. "Who owns these?" I asked.

"An Algerian soldier left them there," he answered.

We then examined the cellar and entire basement, but found nothing further. We took the old fellow over to the gendarme who immediately took charge of him, and returned to the battery where we imparted the news of our find. It was the consensus of opinion that the spy was the farmer himself, and that the Algerian uniform was a blind. We were chatting away, discussing the matter, when the shells commenced flying as thick as peas in a pod; so swift and smashing was the fusillade that for awhile I thought hell's gate had opened wide. In less than no time one of our guns was knocked out and, getting a "Stand to!" we replied as fast as our legs and arms and heads would work.

The excellent quality of the work that Fritz did here made the fellows unanimous that his information came from the farmer. Presently the duel cooled down and we resumed our chat.

About a hundred yards off from the farmhouse where we had found the heliograph and Algerian uniform, was a windmill of the kind commonly seen in the farmhouses of the country, with large wings, and it happened that while firing, one of the boys, Boxer, noticed that the mill was going around in an irregular fashion,-going first one way and then another, and then stopping, and he called our attention to it and we all noticed it, and almost simultaneously with our observation of the mill, four shells came over, knocking another of our guns into uselessness and wiping out the crew, and after we got "Stand down!" and had cleaned up, Boxer suggested that we go over and see what was in the windmill.

Together we went, going first to the house, and found the children crying with fright; some of them tried to tell us something, but we couldn't make out what they were saying. We crossed over to the windmill and a phenomenon indeed met our eyes,-the wheel was turning in the opposite direction from that in which the wind was blowing. We started up the steps and-Ping! Ping! and Boxer fell with an oath and a bullet in his leg. I assisted him to the farmhouse and then scooted over and communicated with the O.C. I also informed a French battery that had been terrifically shelled.

In the meantime a stretcher had been sent for, and Boxer was brought back to the dressing station, where he had his wound dressed, which luckily turned out to be slight.

That night I was filled full of the spirit of adventure and I wanted to visit the windmill again. I got a pal to go with me and endeavored to make it, but the flares were steadily burning and the snipers were so busy we had to lie low. Again I went to the French battery and told the officer commanding of my suspicions about the windmill. A smile of intelligence and gratefulness lighted up his fine face. "Monsieur, we shall see what we shall see," and he ordered a shell into the heart of the structure, bringing it down in splinters. Then we made for the ruins and found the body of a man dressed in an Algerian uniform; I looked him over carefully; he was the artist I had met in the farmhouse at our former station.

There remained still the case of the old man in whose house we had discovered the heliograph and the pigeons. And the gendarmes were again sent for and the Belgian farmer was haled before the officer. With white face and streaming eyes he told the French Captain of the gendarmes that this man had come to him and told him that if he didn't permit him to go into his home, he would instantly signal for the shells and he and his family and buildings would be blown to eternity. The old man was permitted to go, as the French officer was satisfied he was sincere, but that he was utterly powerless to prevent the spy carrying out his plans.

In conversation with us later, the farmer told us that the Algerian had brought pigeons with him; that he had written notes, put them in the little cup fastened to the bird's foot and sent some of them off, the others remaining in the box when the Algerian went upstairs. "I could hear the bricks falling, but he called to us not to come upstairs," went on the old man. "Shortly afterwards a man dressed in the uniform of a British soldier came, and he too went upstairs; he was carrying a bag. When he came in he asked if I wanted coffee and I answered 'No.' When he came in the Algerian called down to send him up, and he too went up. Presently the British soldier left and a few minutes afterwards your battery started firing. Then out ran the Algerian, saying he was going to the windmill and warned all of us on pain of losing our lives, not to come near the mill. That is the last I saw of him, Messieurs, until this evening when I see his dead body.

"I am heart and soul with you, Messieurs; I know what you are doing for us and for Belgium; but you can see that I had no chance whatever to communicate with you; my life would have been the price, and what would have become of my family? If there had been anything I could have done, Messieurs, I would most gladly have done it, but I couldn't do anything, and the spy would have accomplished his purpose just the same had I made an attempt."

It was now about 6:30 and on our way back to the gun pit we met a woman who seemed to be in the depths of despair, accompanied by a little girl. The woman was weeping bitterly. Our nerves were on edge and we were suspicious of everybody; trickery, deceit, traitor-work seemed to be in the very air itself, and we made a resolve that we would shoot anybody, man, woman or child, whom we saw loitering around our guns who had no business there; that very day the O.C. had sworn that he would ask no questions, but would shoot on sight. The woman's story was pitiful in the extreme.

"Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do! My home is gone! My husband is gone! My children are gone! And for what?"-wringing her hands and gesticulating wildly. "For what, Messieurs? For being quiet, inoffensive, loyal people!"

In my clumsy fashion I succeeded in somewhat calming the poor creature, and she proceeded a little more coherently.

"Well, Messieurs, a man in Algerian uniform came to our house this morning. He asked permission of my husband, who was a loyal Belgian, to use our house-for what? To do spy work. My husband ran for a gun and warned him off. He said, 'You had better think it over; if you don't let me use your house you have not another day to live!' In spite of this, my husband presented the gun at him and he made off, but as he was leaving he called back, 'Do not on any account leave the house today, any of you, or you will be killed.'

"We watched him and saw him go towards the hedge, and two or three men with bags met him, and they made off in the direction of your battery. Then, then-Mon Dieu! How can I tell it!-a shell came and destroyed our home, killing my dear husband and my two babies."

And again the poor woman burst into a paroxysm of weeping and sank to the ground in an utterly exhausted condition, moaning aloud in the despair of her misery. Her little daughter was screaming in terror at the plight of her mother, and we all set about to comfort them as best we could, but ah! God! how comfortless our words.

The thought that perhaps the child would be quieted if she had something to eat suggested itself to me, but I had nothing except my iron rations, and our orders are very stern that under no circumstances must these be consumed except at the time designated, namely, when our supply wagons are destroyed and cannot reach us, and the order is issued from headquarters that we may use them. These rations are 16 ounces of bully beef, two hardtack biscuits, some tea and sugar in small wax envelopes. Each man must carry his own iron rations at all times and the penalty for eating them without orders is 28 to 90 days, first field punishment; therefore, I was taking a chance, but I hadn't the heart to resist the pitiful wail of that kiddie, and I felt that the risk I took was amply repaid by the cessation of her childish grief. The mother also had had nothing to eat all day, and she partook of some of the nourishment and was the better for it.

There was nothing more for them that we could do and they departed, the poor creature with an expression in her eyes that plainly said, she didn't know where on earth she was going, and cared less.

This was only an individual instance of the tens of thousands of blasted and stricken homes and families, resulting from the rule or ruin policy of the German "man of God."

Half an hour after they had departed a train of ammunition wagons came galloping up, the driver telling us that in passing Hell's Corner they were given an exceptionally heavy dose by Fritz. "His aim the nicht was damn puir, however," said one of the Scotch drivers; "he never gave us a scratch; but I noticed on the road a woman wi' a little bairn, a wee thing, hardly higher than your knee, and as we were racing by them, a shell exploded on the side of the road, right alongside o' them, blawin' the puir things to their doom."

From the description furnished by the driver, I was convinced it was the poor woman and child for whom I had taken the risk of punishment, and I could not help thinking what a blessing it was that death had come to them in the way it did, so soon after her inextinguishable sorrow.

Another evidence testamentary of the industry of the German agents came to us that very night from the driver. After the wagons were loaded up at the wagon lines, someone undid the locks of the wagons and on the way to the guns the shells dropped out from time to time, scattering over the cobble stones, causing them to lose more than half of their precious loads.

"Aye," said the Scotch driver who had told us about the woman and her child, "and a French battery coming up behind us, the horse kicked one shell that we dropped, and I'm damned if it did na' explode and blaw the puir beggars to the deil. By the Lord! They're doing gude work!" Good work, indeed, Fritz, but your day is coming!

Next morning about ten o'clock we got a "Stand to!" as a bombardment had begun and Fritz had started coming over. We stopped him, but no sooner had we ceased firing than Kr-kr-kr-p! Kr-kr-kr-p! Bang! Bang! coming down so fast that we made off for shelter at the cookhouse. While there, Munsey thought he would like to have a look at the situation generally in the surrounding country, through the medium of a hole in the side of the cookhouse up near the roof and he hopped on top of a box and looked out in the direction of Ypres. The most notable object there was the town clock, and he had not been looking long before he noticed the hands moving this way and that; he watched closely and then called, "Come here, fellows, quick. Come and watch the clock!" We all jumped to a point of vantage and watched, and in few minutes we were satisfied that the shell fire that was raining upon us was being directed by the hands of the clock. We observed that when the long hand moved right, the rain of fire would increase; when it moved left, it decreased; each jump of the hand five minutes meant 25 yards increase or decrease, as the case might be. Every time the small hand moved one minute right, it meant three yards right; two minutes, six yards, and so on; and the same if it veered to the left. And when both hands turned at once to 12:00 o'clock we deduced from their fire that some object was registered and when that was done the large hand would go all the way around and the fire would increase to a regular hurricane; if it went half way round, it would decrease. The small hand going all the way round, the fire ceased.

We watched intently for some time, keeping our eyes glued on the movement of the hands in conjunction with the fire, and then the matter was phoned to headquarters. A result of their combination guns and clockwork was the destruction of one of our pieces and two of the French battery. Another battery observer had noticed the clockwork at the same time that we were watching it, and the gendarmes were notified; they made a trip to the top of the tower in double quick time, finding there a man in a British uniform and one in French uniform; the man with the British uniform wore a French cap and he in the French had a British cap. They were taken and confined in the basement of a ruined building and a guard set.

That night I was sent to the trench headquarters to do guard duty and next day, about 11:00 o'clock in the morning, I was standing in the doorway of the farmhouse where the pump had blown in on Scotty, and I was accosted by two men who were walking rapidly. They asked me where a certain Algerian Regiment was lying and I directed them, after giving them a drink of water and a biscuit. They also asked me what those headquarters were, and a number of other questions. However, no suspicion of there being anything wrong entered my mind, as they spoke perfect English. They left and had just turned the corner to cross a pontoon bridge over Yser Canal, going toward the front-line trenches, when three French guards came running like mad. They asked me some questions excitedly, but it was some time before I could make out what they wanted.

Finally I got it through my head and told them and they raced off. The men who had accosted me were the two prisoners who had been taken in the clock tower at Ypres, as I heard subsequently, but they did not get away with their nervy trick; they were taken and paid the price.

That same night a bunch of the 48th Highlanders, of Toronto, were on our right, and dug in in the bank, but there was considerable water in the bottom of their holes, while ours, compared to theirs, were beautifully dry. The Kilties came along, searching for blankets and whatever they could get, and we spared them whatever we could. Then one of them spotted a farmhouse, the occupants of which had been shelled out because they would not comply with the orders of a German agent, and had lost their home in consequence. They went in and helped themselves to straw and came out loaded down with armfuls of it. I decided to follow suit and went over, just reaching the barn, when Kr-kr-kr-p!-the first shell that came going right amongst them, setting the barn on fire and wounding several of the 48th. Their presence had been made known by a secret service agent, as it is one chance in a hundred thousand for a shell to hit so desirable a target at the first shot. The aim was excellent and the work accomplished by the shell was splendid-from a German point of view.

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