We saw what looked like a whitish wall of smoke about 15 feet high all across the enemy front. The word snapped along the line. We thought they were going to come over behind a smoke screen. We watched it coming slowly across, and when it was about half way we opened rifle fire into it for we figured the enemy would be forming for the attack behind the smoke screen. We wanted to get the lead flying into them as soon as they were out of their trenches. That smoky wall moved nearer and when it got close you could see it was not white at all but a dirty yellow toward the top, shading from that to green down next to the ground. It seemed to hug the earth running and flowing thickly into every low place and follow depressions in the ground. It was thick near the earth and progressively thinner towards its crest. We manned what was left of our defenses pouring lead into that smoky wall, then it was over our trench, and among us, and we knew it was no smoke screen. We began to choke and strangle with it, asking one another what in Hell this could be, when a tornado of machine gun, rifle, and shell fire swept down on us again to hold us close to the ground so we would get the full benefit of the gas treatment. The poison did not take immediate effect except in a couple of cases and these two men had been old dope addicts. During their travels in France, they had secured some more of the cocaine or (snow) or what ever it was that they used to light up on and had started playing with it again. When the chlorine hit them they only lasted a very short time, then snuffed out like candles. I am rather hazy about some of the details but it must have been nearly an hour before some of the men started to show yellowish foam from the mouth and nostrils, then beginning to double up in the throws of strangulation exactly as one drowning. All through that day and on into the next they kept dropping off. It was not so bad if one could keep still and quiet and not go in for any exertion, or movement or deep breathing. As soon as one moved about the foam, boiled up through your throat and nostrils choking you off. We would lie flat on our faces holding onto grass or anything to steady us till the spasms passed and we could get our breath again. Excitement under these kind of conditions accounted for a lot of deaths by strangulation.
When fritz thought that his medical treatment had sufficient time to work he made one final shower of machine gun fire and shrapnel, then they started to come over to what he evidently thought was a place of the dead. I could see them popping up over their trench in hundreds and then down into a slight sag close in front. The old Mark 3 Ross had a sight on the bridge that folded down, and when down a course notch in the top of it giving a point blank range of 600 yards. The adjustable peep sight was useless to us now owing to the condition of our eyes as a result of mustard or tear gas. We used the old open battle-sight aiming a bit low and there were a good many Germans that fell back into the trench instead of jumping down in front for the start across. The first attack got most of the way across. You could see the officers pointing directions to this and that and machine gun crews trying to set up tripod guns so they could return our fire. In that first advance some stragglers got within about 30 yards of us, and there, were drilled full of holes.
Our rifles were coated with a thick furry coat of red rust from the action of the gas. All metal parts first turned a sort of pink or lavender, then changed from that to green, then black, and finally to red rust in a thick coat over all the working parts. They become stiff and hard to work and no small wonder. We would drop the butt to the ground and kick the bolt open with a foot. The straight pull action made this possible. As long as the bolt handle held out you could still do business at the old stand and did. I had four rifles I had collected. There were plenty of spares now. I used these four alternately all that day and some times they were all pretty warm. In addition to the three advances that fritz made against our battalion front there was a long unbroken string of enemy troops passing through the valley to our left at about 600 yards distance. From the apex of A Company’s position I could bring fire on that procession and did not waste any time, but kept at it with all the cartridges I could rustle. There were a lot of discarded cloth bandoliers full of shells lying about in the mud and in odd corners. These we dug out cleaning them off enough to get them through the rifle. They were perfectly good shells too, not a misfire in the lot.
Lieutenant Durand was in command of the position on the left. Wounded in four places he kept at it keeping his platoon right up to scratch. I could tell by the volume of their fire that they were making hay on that endless line of Bavarians that trailed past through the valley to our left like a caribou herd around the east end of Lake Athabaska. Some of those heinies walked as though they were drunk or doped with something. If you ever saw a drunk they too break into a run, and noted the hard bumpy way that his heels strike the ground, as though they could not gauge the distance to earth. That is the way they ran, and at the same time they kept up a sort of monotonous chant while blowing intermittently on some sort of hoarse sounding horn that reminded me of the old conch shells they used in Nova Scotia to call the workmen for dinner. I was told that this horn was a national relic of Bavaria handed down through generations of warriors way back to the time of Attila The Hun and had sounded over many a field of slaughter.
Durand began to worry about his supply of ammunition and sent corp. Pozer a native of Quebec over to our section of trench to see if there was anybody with lungs still working good enough to pack ammunition across to his platoon. Pozer came to me and asked if I would go. I went along with somebody else, I don’t remember who, and being too weak to handle a case we ripped the cases open taking as many bandoliers as we could drag, crossing the open stretch three or four times. Between strangling periodically and flopping in the mud to dodge sweeps of machine gun fire, I was all in at the end of the second trip and sat down to rest and get some breath at the right of Durand’s breast’work. Here I had my last view of Duncan Robertson, my chum who had enlisted with me at Kenora. He was in charge of one of the colt machine guns attached to Durand’s sector. His gun had broken down and he was returning from a trip over to the right of the battalion with some spare parts under his arm. We exchanged grins and he hurried on his way. I heard his gun start to chatter about 10 minutes later but it did not last long. There was a German aero plane swooping up and down, up and down over our lines, spotting for machine guns. As soon as Duncan got well started again, there came over a salvo of shells from the enemy batteries that buried Duncan’s gun in a volcano of death. He was killed instantly, his head and shoulders blown off. He came from Fernlea, Pern Hill, and Isle of Aran. It must be a good place.
After the session of carrying ammunition I was nearly all in and beginning to get sort of dopey, and groggy with a hazy sort of feeling that seemed to be creeping, creeping right into my vitals. I had just survived a spasm of choking and lay on the ground. A man came along with a jug or crock of rum, hailed me, telling me that some of the boys had taken a shot of it and it had helped them. I laid on one elbow and took a drink of that stuff that would have jolted a horse. It was a case of kill or cure, and I was at the stage just then where I didn’t worry much about which way it went. When that slug of (fire water) hit the bottom of my tortured stomach it rebounded and came back as though it had hit a set of coil springs. I threw out about a pint or more of a bright green sort of jelly, having a rough passage for a few minutes, with the yellow foam and froth from my mouth and nostrils shutting off my wind for so long. I thought my heart and brain would burst before I got a gasp and gurgle of breath again. I lay still for awhile after this but soon started to take interest in things again, upon hearing Big Dave Halcrow raving and cursing like a berserker at the breast’work. I woke again to the fact that there was something doing and crawled to the parapet and to the rifles for they were coming over again. There were still some men left to man the rifles and say “no” to them. To the right they swept back the 5th Battalion pouring past us taking our right-hand platoon in their drive. Sergeant Aldritt, who was a sort of athletic instructor around the Y. M’ S. swimming baths etc. in Winnipeg, was manning the machine gun in that platoon that was swamped