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No. 4 SHIFTED TO THE SOMME lSaig*ai* Alexindei McUtotock. k (Tm 57th Ov?rsws ftatt. Canadian Gren. OuaidS ftrtjbC, 1917, by the Bell Syndicate, too. uraeo ni UcClintook it an American m of Lexington, Ky., who has seen M in France, too* decorated for wounded, invalided home and w w 'returning to accept a commit - ? 77,, * a the fourth article in the i? the /I rst article he tald of Twining up to the point where he lehed th? front lin 9 ir^ohes. in the 0*4 he putltned the elaborate prepa ? it\oni (or (> bomb raid, and in the in the disastrout raid was de . KKW days after the bombing \ raid, which ended so disastrously 1 for us, our bat till I on wus relieved Wi duty on the front line, and the [p we got w?s that we were to go Dwu to the big show then taking Uce on the Nomine. Our relief was division of Australians. You soe, it sector which we had held In Hel ium was a sort of preparatory school tt the regular fighting over in France. It wasn't long before wo got Into rlut you might cull the big league potest, but in the meanwhile we had i little rest from battlln^JIYlta and le opportunity to observe some things rbicli seem to me to be worth telling bout. Those of you who are exclu trel/ fond of the stirring detail of rar, such as shooting and bolng shot t and bombing and buyonetlng, need nljr skip a little of this. We had an ntirely satisfactory amount of srnoko Dd excitement later. A? soon as our relief battalion had jot In we moved buck to Poperlnghe or a couple of days' rest We were a retty contented and Jovial lot, our ditoon especially. We were all glad to ft away from the strain of holding a root trench, and there were other ad Mtages. For Instance, the altera* Ions of our muster due to casualties ad not come through battalion head Barters, and therefore we had- in our iatoon sixty-three rum ratlins night jjd morning arid only sixteen men. t Wu Good, Clean FlflhtlnQ. Nobody Fired a Shot. ftere was a Canadian Scot In out irowd who said that the only word rhich described the situation was 'f-f-r-r-a-nd I" There was a good deal of jealousy at htt time between the Canadians and be Australians. Each had the same free In the field? four ^Visions. Cither force was bigger than any other irnij composed exclusively of volun eers ever before assembled. While 1 *long to the Canadian army and be leve the Canadian overseas forces the inest troops ever led to war, I 'must *7 that I have never seen a body of &en so magnificent in average phy?* lie as the Australians. And some of hem were even above the high aver se. The man that punched me In the ye In an "cstamlna" In Poperlnghe lade up entirely In his own person for ^ absence of Lcs Darcy from the iMtralian ranks. I don't know Just ow the fight started between the Ana tolians and us in Poperlnghe, but I ?ow that it toot three regiments of toperial troojw to stop it. The most Evincing story I heard of the origin ' the battle was told me by on? of or men, who said he was there when ? tefc&n. He said one of*Hh? Ana* *Uans had carelessly remarked that to British generals had decided It ** time to get through with the slde In Belgium, and this was the **?n why they had sent regular "??PS like the Australians in to r? tYe the Canadians. Then some sensitive Canadian wished to Australians luck and hoped they'd ^ It up as well as they had th? *lr in the Dardanelles. After that ir *wo days' rest was made up prin of hen ling H out of estamlnas en strategic requirements suggest * new base or beating it into esta 7* 8 when it looked m if we could * ** efficient re-enforcements. That wt never stopped for fbrty-elgbt the only places it didn't r??* w?re the church and th? ho? to- rn t?t 4?- this day that th? who ran the ?stamina? ? In ??**u??he will dock behind th? ban If you just mention Canada and Aus tralia In the same breath. ( Put X'ui bound to nay that tt waa good, clean fighting. Nobody fired a shot, nobody pulled u bayonet, and no body got the w^Oflg, Idea about any 1 thing. Ttto Australian heavyweight chumplon wJ>o landod on me wont I right out in the street und saluted one of our lieutenants. We bad Just one satisfying reflection ufter the tight j w??.^y?r ? the Australian battalion : i-'ttajlMitwid us fall heir to the coun t?*ltlick which the Germans sent acftifta to oven np on our bombing raid. Down to tho Somme We began our march to the Soinme by a hlko to' At. Omer, the first British headquurters In Europe. Theu wt> stopped for a week about twenty mile* from Calais, where we underwent a ^ course of Intensified training for open fighting. The Infantry tactics, in which we were drilled, were very similar to thoso of tho United States army, t ho. so which, in fnct, were originated by the United States troops In the days of , Indian fighting. We covered most of the ground around Calais on our stom achs iu open order. While It may seem impertinent for me, a mere non com, to express an opinion about tho larger affairs of the campaign, I think I muy be excused for saying that the war didn't at all take the course which was expected and hoped for after tho fight 011 the Soinme. Undoubtedly the allies expected to break through the German lino. That la well known now. While we were being trained near Calais for open warfare, a very large force of cavalry was being assembled and prepared for the same purpose. It was never used. That was last August, and the allies haven't broken through yet. Kveutunlly I believe they will break through, but in my opinion men who are drawn for service in the first half million of our new Americnn army will be veterans in Europe before tho big break comes which will wreck the Prussian hope, of success in this war. And If we of the U. S. A. don't throw in the welgh? to beat the Prussians now they will not be beaten, and In that case the day will not bo very far distant when we will have to beat them to save our homes and our nation. War is a dread ful and inglorious and ill smelling and cruel thing. But if we hold back now we will be in the logical position of a man hesitating to go to grips with a drunken, savage, shrieking, spewing maniac who has all but whipped his proper keepers and is going after the onlooker. However, I wish we had had two months more of weather on the Somme. There might have been a different story to tell. Simplified Medicine. We got drafts of recruits before we went to the Somme, and some of our wounded men were sent back to Eng land, where we had left our "safety first battalion." That was really the Fifty-first battalion of the Fourth divi sion of the Canadian forces, composed of the physically rejected, men recov ering from wounds and men Injured in training. The Tommies, however, called it the "safety first" or "Major Gllday's Light infantry." Major Gil day WHo Our uuttuuou surgeon. He was Immensely popular, and he achieved h great name for himself. He made one realize what a great per i sonal force a doctor can be and what ' an unnecessary elaboration there Is in the civil practice of medicine. Urtder Major Gllday's administration | no man In our battalion was sick if he i could walk, and if he couldn't walk there was a reasonable suspicion that ; he was drunk. The major simplified j medicine down to an exact science of j two forms of treatment and two rem ; edies ? "number nines" and whale oil. ; "Number nines" were pale oval pills, i which, If they had been eggs, would '[ have run about eight to an omelet for | six persons. They Had an internal effect which could only be defined as 'dynamic. After our men had become I acquainted with them through per | sonal experience they stopiied calling ! them "number nines" and called them ? "whiz-bangs." There were only two j possibilities of error under Major Gil , day's system of simplified medicine. - One was to take a whlz-bang for trench feet and the other to use whale ? oil externally for some form of dlges tional hesitancy. And in either case no permanent harm could result, while the error was as simple of correction as the command "about face." Blighty was therefore not very popular with our battalion, blighty being the trench name for the hospital. , Two weeks and a half after we left Belgium we arrived at Albert, having marched all the way. The sight which met our eyes as we rounded the rock quarry hill outside of Albert was won derful beyond description. I remem ber how tremendously It impressed my pal, McFarland. He sat by the road side and looked round over the land scape as If he were fascinated. "Boy," said he, "we're at the big show at last." Poor fellow ! It was not only the big show, but the last performance for him. Within sight of the spot where he sat wondering he later fell In action and died. The Bcene which so impressed him gave us all a feeling of great awe. Great shells from a thousand guns were streaking and criss-crossing the sky. Without glasses I counted thirty-nine of our observa tion balloons. Away off in the di^j tance I saw one German captive bal loon. The other aircraft were un countable. They were everywhere, ap parently In hundreds. There could have been no more wonderful pan orama picture of war In its new aspect. Oar battalion was in and out of the town of Albert several days waiting for orders. The battle of Courcelette was than In progress, and the First. gscood and Third Canadian divisions w era holding front positions at terrf* t)ie coat, in i no Itrtil jmri u* wt'urixti, ! Witt, we "weut In" opposite the fa mous Hoglna trench. Th? butllegrountf was Just mile* and miles of debrt? and shell bote*. Before we went to our posttlou the officers Mint noncoma wore taken In by scouts to get the lay of the land. Those trips wore called "Cook's tours." On one of them 1 went through the town of Poslereu twice and didn't know It. U hail u population of 12.000 before the war. On tho spot where It had stood not even a wholo brick wuo left. It seemed. "Boy," Mid ho, "we're at the big show at last." Its demolition was complete. That was an example of the condition of the whole country over which our force* had blasted their way for ten miles since the previous July. There w ete not even landmarks left. The "Cook's Tour." On the night that we went In to Inspect the positions we were to hold, our scouts, leading us through the flat desert of destruction, got completely turned round and took us back through a trench composed of shell holes con nected up until we ran Into a battalion of another brigade. The place was dreadful beyond words. The stench of the dead was sickening. In many places arms and legs of dead men stuck out of the trench walls. We made a fresh start after our blunder, moving In single file and keeping In touch each with the man ahead of him. We stumbled along In the darkness through this awful laby rinth until we ran Into some of our^ own scouts at 2 a. m. and found that" we were halfway across No Man's Land, several hundred yards beyond our front line and likely to be utterly wiped out In twenty seconds should the Germans sight us. Fine guides we had on this "Cook's tour." At last we reached our proper position, and fif teen minutes after we got there a whlz-bang, a low explosive murderer, burled me completely. They had to dig me out. A few minutes later a high explosive shell fell In a trench section where three of our men were stationed. All we could find after It exploded were one arm and one leg, which we burled. The trenches were without trench mats, and the mud was from six Inches to three feet deep all through them. There were no dug outs, only merely miserable "funk holes," dug where It was possible to dig them without uncovering dead men. We remained In this position four days, from the 17th to the 21st of October, 1916. There were reasons, of course, for the difference between conditions In Belgium and on the Somme. On the Somme we were constantly preparing for a new advance, and we were only temporarily established on ground which we had but recently taken after long drumming with big guns. The trenches were merely shell holes con nected by ditches. Our old and ubiqui tous and variously useful friend, the sandbag, was not present Id any capac ity, and therefore we had no parapets or dugouts. The communication trenches were all blown in, and every thing had to come to us overland, with the result that we never were quite sure when we would get ammunition, rations or relief forces. The most awful thing was that the soil all about us was filled with freshly burled tnen. If we undertook to cut a trench or enlarge a funk hole our spades struck Into human flesh and the explosion of a big shell along our line sent decom posed and dismembered and sickening mementos of an earlier flght shower ing among us. We lived in the muck and stench of "glorious" war, those of us who lived. The German OuQout? and What They Found. ' Here and there along this line were the abandoned dugouts of the Ger mans, and we made what use of them we could, but that was little. I had orders one day to locate a dugout and prepare It for use as battalion head quarters. When I led a squad In to clean It up the odor was so overpow ering that we had to put on our gas masks. On entering we first saw two dead nurses with oar ghastly flash lights, one standing with her arm around a post, Just as she had stood when gas or concussion killed her. Seated at a table In the middle of the place was the body of an old general of the German medical corps, his head fallen between his hands. The task of cleaning up was too dreadful for us. We Just tossed In four or fiv6 fumite bombs arid beat It out of there. A few hours later we went Into the seared and empty cavern, made the ?roof safe with new timbers and noti fied battalion headquarters that the place could he occupied. During this time I witnessed a sceoe. which, with some others, I shall never forget An oW chaplain of the Cans. dlan forces cam# to cmr trench section ?toktaf the jfmvf <>f tn> aon. which hud Ikn'ii marked for htm on h rude map by un officer who hud aeeu the young mini's burial. \\'e managed tu And the H|K>t. and tit t lio old chaplain's request wo exhumed the bvnly, Some of uh suggest ?hI to hi III that he give un the Identification marks ami retire out of range of the shells which were bursting all around ua. We argued that It was unwise for him to remain In danger, hut what we really Intended waH that he should ho saved the horror of seeing the pitiful thing which our ?pa den were about to uncover. "1 shall remain," was all he aalil, "He was illy hoy." It proved that we had found the j right body. One of our men tried to cleur the features with his handker- ! chief, hut ended by spreading the handkerchief over the face. The old chaplain stood beside the body and His Voice Rose Amid the Noise of Bursting Shells. removed his trench helmet, baring hia gray head to a drizzle of ruin that was falling. Then while we stood by silent ly his voice rose amid the noise of bursting shells, repeating the burial service of the Church of England. I have never been so Impressed by any thing in my life as by that scene. The dead man was a young captain. He had been married to a lady of Bal timore Just before the outbreak of the war. The philosophy of the Brltlsh^Tom mles and the Canadians and the Aus- ] traiians on the Somme was a remark able reflection of their fine courage through all that hell. They went about their work paying no attention to the flying death about them. "If Fritz has a shell with your name and number on It," said a British Tom my to me one day, "you're going to get it, whether you're in the front line or seven miles back ; if he hasn't, J you're all right." Fine lighters all. And the Scotch kilties, lovingly called by the Germans "the women from hell," have the re spect of all armies. We saw little of the poilus, except a few on leave. All the men are self sacrificing to one another in that big melting pot from which so few ever emerge whole. The only things it is legitimate to steal In the code of the trenches are rum and "fags" (cigarettes). Every other pos session is as safe as if it wore a pat ent lock. The fifth article of this remarkable persona! narrative will appear soon. It is entitled : No. ft? Wounded in Action. This article describes the terrible flgbt, the dead and dying, the Iom of a pal and the flnal falling of McClintock In No Man's Land. 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