XXXIV THE CANADIANS AT COURCELETTE

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September 21

In a scrappy way I have told something about the way the Canadians fought for Courcelette. It is worth more than that as an historic narrative. From first to last, beginning with the dawn of Friday, September 15, and going on now, beyond the village, against German counter-attacks, these men from the West have shown themselves very gallant, and hard and quick in fighting qualities.

There was a body of French Canadians among them, dark-eyed fellows, of the same type as the French people among whom they found themselves by the odd chance of fate, like some of the French Chasseurs Alpins who have been fighting on our right, lithe-bodied men, with muscles like whipcord, full of individual character, and an old tradition of warfare behind them, war against nature and wild animals, away from town life.

The enemy was not sure what men he had against him down below Courcelette. I think it was to get this knowledge that he sent out a number of his bombers just before the Canadian attack was to be launched. I have already told about the sergeant who saw them coming, and about the boy by his side who was buried alive by a shell, and lived to tell me the tale with a strange smile in his brown eyes, as he leaned on a crooked stick, some old tree stump he had picked up to support him when he was weak from loss of blood. He was one of the French Canadian boys. The German bombers came out of the darkness suddenly, and pounced upon a bit of trench, flinging their hand-grenades, and trying to grab some of our men as prisoners. It was just like one of the old raids, better done by the Canadians themselves. They had a short innings, and not a man went back. A Canadian machine-gunner rushed up to his “Lewis,” and killed those who came over our parapets. One officer with twelve bombers accounted for the others.

But it was awkward happening just at the hour when the grand attack was waiting for the word “Go.” It might have disorganised the plan at the outset. The Canadians did not let it make any kind of difference to them. At the exact moment all the waves of men rose, swept over the dead bodies of the raiders, and in a great tide rolled over No Man’s Land. Three Tanks went with them, slower than the infantry, but climbing steadily over the trenches and the shell craters, and prowling around for the places from which there came a spitting fire of machine-guns. They found some of them in the Sugar Factory, and I have told how they sat down there, crumpling the emplacements under their heavy ribs, and pouring out a deadly fire.

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The Canadian infantry had a difficult operation. The ground from the high ridge of Pozières sloped down before them to the edge of the village of Courcelette, where they had been ordered to halt and consolidate while reserve battalions—the French Canadians on the right—came up behind to “mop-up” the captured ground. A German trench ran at an angle from their objective, and as they advanced the Canadians had to take this en passant, as chess-players would say, the flank capturing the trench at the same rate of progress as the centre and right went forward.

It was done. Through machine-gun fire and an inferno of shrapnel and high explosives the Canadians stormed their way down the slope, shouting and cheering as they went, led by officers who urged them on, before falling, some of them, mortally wounded. In the trenches the German soldiers fought stubbornly, flinging their bombs and maintaining a rapid rifle fire until the Canadians were right upon them with the bayonet. At the sight of sharp steel they fought no more, but flung up their hands.

The Canadians had a long way to go to the outskirts of Courcelette, right across open country, and as they went the German crumps fell among them, tossing up great masses—as large as village churches—of smoke and earth filled with flying shell-splinters.

It was on the line outside Courcelette that they stopped at last to dig and gather their strength and take breath. It was late in the afternoon, I think, that the ground behind them was thoroughly cleared, and that the German defence of the Sugar Factory was finally broken with the help of the Tanks. There was a conference between the officers, those who were still unwounded. Men in the ranks asked the same question, and answered it. “Why not take Courcelette itself?”

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The order and the honour of the new attack were given to the “mop-up” battalions behind, with the French Canadians among them, who had been advancing behind the assaulting troops as a clearing and consolidating force. The colonel of the French Canadians tells the story. He is a wiry man, typical of his race, modest, bright-eyed, keeping a sense of humour in spite of all the tragedy of war, such a man as Chaucer knew when Norman-French was spoken in English fields—“a very parfit gentil knight.”

He is proud of his French Canadians. They had a long way to go to get to Courcelette. Nearly three and a half miles to the final line given to them on the other side of the village. “We’re late, we’re late,” said the little colonel. “We must get there in time at whatever cost. French Canadians, forward!”

They were not too late. They came up to the first assaulting battalions—those who had dug in south of the village—just in time to pass through them and lead the new attack. Many men had dropped on the way. The ground was still being torn up by steel ploughs. All the air was full of the scream and whine and crash of shells. Round Courcelette there was a clatter of machine-gun fire from German hiding places. The garrison there was ready for defence.

“Allons donc, mes enfants!”

It is the way in which French officers lead their men to victory or to death.

The French Canadians, with their comrades on the left, swung round in a loop round the southern half of the village, and closed in and invaded its streets.... The capture of Courcelette was one of the astounding things in this battle of the Somme. There were 1,500 Germans in and about it, and the place was stormed by much less than that number. Dug-outs full of Germans were routed out by a few men who could have been crushed and killed by the odds against them. One Canadian boy went down into a dug-out, and after a time—what queer conversation could he have down there?—came out again with prisoners. There were twenty of them, tall, big men, who could have made a meal off this brown-eyed lad who marshalled them up.

Some of the Germans made themselves useful. A wounded Canadian officer captured five of them before too weak to get back to the dressing-station unaided. Speaking French to them, which one at least understood, he ordered his prisoners to make a stretcher for him, enforcing his command by keeping his revolver on them. From some old sticks and sandbags they made the stretcher, and then carried him down.

Two German doctors helped to dress our wounded, and worked bravely and steadily under shell-fire for many hours. One of them objected to having a sentry put near his dug-out. “I am not a fighting man,” he said. “I did not help to make this war. My work is for humanity, and your wounded are the same to me as ours, poor, suffering men, needing my help, which I am glad to give.”

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Beyond the village that night the enemy made seven counter-attacks upon the Canadians. There were moments when even the Colonel thought that things did not look “too bright.” But all these assaults were beaten off, as the Canadians have beaten off other attacks yesterday and to-day, inflicting heavy losses and gaining more ground.

One counter-attack was repulsed by a handful of men in a way that gives a grotesque comedy to all this night scene of war filled with so much death and terror, and human courage strong in endurance. A tot of rum had been served out to each Canadian to give a glow of warmth to limbs chilled in the wet soil of shell craters and to hearts chilled by the reaction which follows fierce excitement. This handful of men were sitting in a German dug-out.

They laughed, and sang, forgetful of the scenes about them. It was as jolly as in a log-cabin of the West, by this dug-out, where a corpse lay very quiet. Again they shouted, and laughed more loudly, giving Red Indian war-cries, and other wild whoops. And that was when the counter-attack began.

It did not get very far. A body of Germans advancing over No Man’s Land to the British lines suddenly heard frightful, blood-curdling sounds. It was as though the tribes of the Blackfeet had come out upon the war-path, yelling as they swung their tomahawks and dancing round the scalps of their victims. The Germans hated to hear such a noise. It was as though all the devils of hell were upon them, laughing diabolically.... They turned and fled.