The scout at this time was not equipped with a pistol, bomb or other convenient means of offence or defense in order to enable him to crawl easily and quietly through the mud, grass and pools of water. His sole companion was a long Ross with bayonet fixed. The breach and trigger mechanism soon became a solid ball of mud when worming along like an alligator through the soup. We used to squeeze a plaster of wet mud onto the bayonet in order to prevent its glitter from betraying us while in the enemy wire or in the vicinity of their flare lights. I now started off over the top of the rising ground in front, and was crawling down its far slope when a German flare showed me the outline of the bean patch across my path. I was now in dry stiff grass that seemed to make a very loud noise whenever I moved forward. Was there a post at the out end of it? I decided to listen for awhile and not hearing anything suspicious I went on to the edge of the patch lying in under the edge to listen again. I could hear someone crawling quite close. I flattened to the ground to catch the light filtering through from the far side of the patch. About 30 feet from me a German crawled past on his way to his own lines. I was uncertain as to how many more were at the point he crawled from, so I did mighty little moving and a lot of listening for a few minutes then went on to its end, took its width, and later its bearing with compass from the top of the rise in the ground I had passed on the outward trip. I often wondered if this was the first close contact of Canuck and German in the field. I know it was for the 1st Division but probably some of the Princess Pats had an earlier contact.
Fritz used to use search lights in those days to sweep our lines at night and the ground in front. These lights were mounted on an affair like an extension ladder used by city fire departments. This in turn was mounted on a small truck that ran on a narrow-gauge rail track following the course of his communication trenches. If a shell landed close to this outfit he could telescope the extension ladder affair and hurry the whole works by rail to a safer spot.
The night following my trip to the bean patch was wet with a fine drizzle of cold rain. Knobel planned to make a long patrol led by himself. Two nights before we had placed a ladder across the creek about 100 yards from our front. This had been used as a bridge for two nights. Some of us had suggested that it be removed each night after using it so that it, and the path across, would not show up to the aero planes in daytime and give away our line of travel, but this had not been done. Now on the third night we had just got nicely over and started along the old ditch when we heard a noise ahead. A large stone or lump of mud fell into the ditch with a splash and following this we could hear the clump, clump, and swish, swish in the grass as someone hurried away from there. Somebody was evidently watching our bridge for a purpose. We carefully crept forward a bit to where we could get the light showing over higher ground on each side and in front. On this work you hug the low places and any movement can be detected in the light at the skyline around you. We began to size things up. On either flank as far as you could see there was the usual amount of night rifle fire by the sentries and the usual amount of flare lights rising and falling. But in the section occupied by the cabbage patch or bean patch there was neither night firing or flares. Only silence, darkness and a thickening drizzle of rain. Then the search light started to sweep back and forth, away to the north back on the south, but it always paused for a space when it came to our sally port in the wire and our ladder bridge over the creek. We put two and two together deciding that the big German patrol that was in ambush for us that night could have the rain all to themselves and we went elsewhere that night.
Later on we lost one of our scouts by rifle fire while out on the left flank of our battalion on night patrol. Our left flank was in what they call a re-entrant or a deep concavity in our line and the unit next on our left had somewhat of an enfilade view of our left sector. I believe it was the 7th Battalion in there at that time. We had notified platoon commanders and sentry groups of the patrol but through some mistake the post of the 7th opened fire on us and W. Naylor one of our number, was hit in the groin by a rifle ball and due to the severity of the wound died a few hours later.
I got a taste of shellfire here one day at the time of the battle of Neuve Chapelle or the (Blunder of Neuve Chapelle). The Imperial troops at that point were to make a frontal attack on the German line and if successful in getting forward, we were also to follow it up and roll up the part of the line to the left of them on our front. During their attack we were busy putting over rapid rifle fire thickened up by our colt m. g. along with the 13 pounders and the lone 60 pounder. The attack at Neuve Chapelle fizzled out against great odds in artillery and other arms and we came in for reprisals from Fritz in the shape of shellfire from his field batteries. I was in the south end of a trench bay next to a traverse and in the opposite end of the bay was a man named Peacock. Both of us were plugging away at rapid fire as per instructions. Peacock was taking aim through a loop hole with his finger on the trigger when a shell took away the whole of the breast’work between us. I got a wallop on the back of the neck with a sandbag half full of hard-baked clay that could give points to Jack Dempsey. When I got the mud out of my eyes and things started to clear so I could see, there was Peacock’s rifle still in its place in the loophole but with the bolt full back open, only half of the loophole was there and none of the breast’work to the right of it. Peacock presently came running around the traverse on hands and knees at a good speed in a very dazed and shaken-up condition from concussion. There was a man about 15 feet behind us who had been stooped down to go into a small dugout entrance. A sandbag full of hard clay hit him in the stern and drove him in head-first nearly breaking his neck. We were beginning to get a light taste of what was in store for us over the next three years as a steady and daily diet. We had several casualties. I think the total was about 18 in this unit.
We will leave the night prowling now for a bit, and follow the doings of observers and snipers in the daylight hours. Our first eight days on the line completed we went back in billets in reserve for a few days at the town of Estaires, roughly about eight miles to the rear.
From here, we of the scouts took our lunch with us in the morning and mounting bicycles, rode back to our old sector in the front line to snipe and do observation work during the daylight hours. There was an old pinnacle, a fragment of a convent tower that had stood just behind where our front line now was and near the right flank. Into the chinks and mortar on the west side of this we drove spikes and to these attached ropes and hung a ladder up which one could climb to the top of the slab of wall. The part left standing was perhaps 10 or 12 feet wide and 35 to 40 feet high. On the top of this there lay some loose brick and these we arranged as a head cover to screen us from the enemy and form a rest for a telescope while taking observations. A long and lanky sandy-complexioned kind of guy by the name of Carson was detailed along with me to climb up and continue the work started on the telescopic panorama. There was a raw March wind, blowing quite hard, and the top of the old unsupported slab of wall wavered and trembled so that the quiver of the telescope lens made it hard to distinguish detail at all. My eyes ran water with the cold and ones hands got so numb in a few minutes it was impossible to control a pencil. We had no assurance that we could not be seen from distant points on the flanks due to the curvature in the front lines. We spent part of two days sketching from there and were not troubled by rifle or shell fire though we did a lot of moving up or down to relieve one another on account of the cold. Knobel went up there the next day and he was fired on so he decided not to use that o. p. for a little while at least. We had several other observation posts in ruined houses along our front. We used to snipe from the same places too. In one of these the upstairs floor had been blown out by shell explosions all accept a small section in the n-e corner up under the eaves. In this corner we had our o. p. and sniping post. The sills or girders of the top floor were still there and to one of these we attached a rope, which hung down to the entrance of the wine cellar in the basement. These old French and Belgian wine cellars were built strong, and deep, with arched or vaulted roofs, and were very seldom smashed in by shellfire from the lighter class of guns. At our roost under the eaves we would hold forth and snipe etc. Fritz got suspicious then whizz-bang!! Over he would send a couple or three shells. We would run across the floor girders, slide down the rope and into the cellar. Of course the first shells had done