A Comforting Staff Officer
“At last came the night when we were to go ‘over the top,’ across No Man’s Land, and have a frolic with Fritz in his own bailiwick. I am endeavoring to be as accurate and truthful as possible in these stories of my soldiering, and I am therefore compelled to say that there wasn’t a man in the sixty who didn’t show the strain in his pallor and nervousness. Under orders, we discarded our trench-helmets and substituted knitted skull-caps or mess tin covers. Then we blackened our hands and faces with ashes from a camp-fire. After this they loaded us into motor-trucks and took us up to ‘Shrapnel Corner,’ from which point we went in on foot. Just before we left, a staff officer came along and gave us a little talk.
“‘This is the first time you men have been tested,’ he said. ‘You’re Canadians. I needn’t say anything more to you. They’re going to be popping them off at a great rate while you’re on your way across. Remember that you’d better not stand up straight, because our shells will be going over just six and a half feet from the ground—where it’s level. If you stand up straight you’re likely to be hit in the head, but don’t let that worry you, because if you do get hit in the head you won’t know it. So why in hell worry about it?’ That was his farewell. He jumped on his horse and rode off.
“The point we were to attack had been selected long before by our scouts. It was not, as you might suppose, the weakest point in the German line. It was, on the contrary, the strongest. It was considered that the moral effect of cleaning up a weak point would be comparatively small, whereas to break in at the strongest point would be something really worth while. And, if we were to take chances, it really wouldn’t pay to hesitate about degrees. The section we were to raid had a frontage of 150 yards and a depth of 200 yards. It had been explained to us that we were to be supported by a ‘box barrage,’ or curtain fire from our artillery, to last exactly twenty-six minutes. That is, for twenty-six minutes from the time when we started ‘over the top,’ our artillery, several miles back, would drop a ‘curtain’ of shells all around the edges of that 150-yard by 200-yard section. We were to have fifteen minutes in which to do our work. Any man not out at the end of the fifteen minutes would necessarily be caught in our own fire, as our artillery would then change from a ’box’ to pour a straight curtain fire, covering all of the spot of our operations.