1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [116]
Pte. W. J. McKenna, 16th Bn., (Canadian Scottish), 3rd Canadian Brig., 1st Canadian Div.
We were in rest billets in a big barn well behind the line and early in the evening when we were just enjoying tea there was a great commotion outside and we saw hordes of people rushing back – French Colonial troops – civilians with every kind of transport – perambulators, hand carts, barrows, all piled with personal possessions. We soon found out what had happened for the result was an order to ‘fall in’ with skeleton equipment and no overcoats. Extra ammunition was served out, and we had two hundred and twenty rounds. Then we started to march off and did about five miles. It was dark by then and the gas had practically dispersed, but over everything there was the thick smell which affected the eyes, mouth and throat. We lined up in a field and expected to be warned for trench duty but the fates decided otherwise and our battalion was wanted elsewhere. It transpired later on that about two miles behind the original front line which had been vacated by the French Colonials there was a battery of 4.7s of the Canadian heavy artillery. These guns had been abandoned, and the Germans, advancing behind their screen of gas, had taken them. This was our objective. I cannot help thinking that the enemy lost a wonderful opportunity, for surely he could have walked through us like a man could walk through a hoop of paper.
Even by nine in the evening the four and a half miles that ran straight back from the original Canadian left to the canal bank was held in only three places and the gaps between them were wide – two thousand yards, a thousand yards and, longest of all, three thousand yards whose only defence was a single French machine-gun post. Along the rest of the French front, between that one machine-gun and Steenstraat, although the French had formed a straggling line behind the western canal bank, on the enemy side, east of the canal there were no troops at all. The road to Ypres was open. The night was wild with shelling but there was one crumb of comfort. The German infantry had stopped and was digging in. It had been a long twilight but at last it was growing dark and there were seven hours in the allies’ favour before daylight. The misty moon was still in its first quarter and there was still some light in the sky as it rose.
Along unfamiliar tracks, across unreconnoitred ground, runners slogged through the night taking messages to and from the outposts, and the signal that finally reached the Canadians hanging on in the old front line was brief and to the point. It came from their Commander, General Alderson, and it could be summed up in two words, ‘Don’t budge.’ Although he was not a Canadian himself, the men from Canada thought a lot of General Alderson. It was barely two months since the Canadians had come to France and the General’s speech before they first went into the line had earned their respect. Alderson was a man’s man and a soldier’s soldier. He did not beat around the bush, nor did he make the same mistake as the Commander-in-Chief who had caused barely suppressed hilarity during his inspection when he addressed the Canucks as ‘Men and Canadians…’ Alderson spoke to them like a father. He pointed out the perils of the trenches, the danger of ever-vigilant snipers, the stupidity of risking a peep over the parapet from mere curiosity and took pains to point out that dead soldiers never won a battle. He advised his men to lie low and sit tight under shell-fire and to refrain from showing ‘nerves’ by shooting at nothing. And he praised them. He praised their physique, he praised their zeal as volunteers, he assured them of his confidence and his certainty that they would do well. ‘And,’ he said, ‘there is