Posted As Missing

Chapter Four

As the truck of wounded German soldiers swayed along the uneven road, David watched several as they battled motion sickness. Three who had taken positions hanging over the tailgate reminded him of the Atlantic crossing and the seasick soldiers lining the rails.

To some the sea voyage was torture, but to me, it was such an enjoyable experience.

He continued running pleasant thoughts through his mind to avoid thinking of the pain.

Thirty-four transport ships, the largest army ever to have crossed the Atlantic, they told us. The people in Plymouth were so surprised to see us; they had no idea we were coming. Guess that's the purpose of censoring our letters and cards.

Again he scanned the crowd of wounded soldiers in the back of the truck, looking at all the different uniforms.

Seems they're like us, many different regiments and battalions, many different uniform styles. Wonder if there are any here from Josef's — from my battalion. They wouldn't recognise me, anyway. Of the eleven hundred in the British Columbia Regiment, how many do I recognise? We're all the same, an army of ants, especially now wounded and looking inward. If they're like us, their hospitals are too crowded to take any who can move on our own.

He thought of the long process of disembarking the tens of thousands of soldiers and then transporting them to camps on Salisbury Plain. His pain returned again acutely as he thought of the four dismal winter months, training in mud, cold and rain.

But the trip to Stonehenge and the ones to Bath and Bristol, he diverted his mind back to more pleasant times, those were delightful breaks from the training, from the dripping tents and the crowded, fetid huts. They call me a private, but I've absolutely no privacy. The pain returned.

Marching off the Plain in early February, now that was a great experience. We felt so proud, so disciplined as we headed to the trains. Amazing what a few months of training can do.

He thought about the crossing from Avonmouth to St-Nazaire.

We had no idea where they were taking us, but the food sure improved once we arrived in France. God! That British stodge was horrid. Three days in the railway freight cars and only five hundred miles. Three days on a Canadian train will take you six times as far and a lot more comfortably.

He winced at the pain as he smiled at his memory of the soldiers pronouncing Ypres as Wipers when they arrived to join the British First Army.

I have to remember not to smile for a while, but the Brits were even worse with the pronunciation.

I guess they were desperate for reinforcements; we went straight into it, into the trenches. We had no battle to prove ourselves, but it still gave us confidence knowing we were trusted to hold the Front Line. What a relief to finally be moved back from the trenches at the end of March. That break at Estaires made me feel almost human again.

After the break, on the 15th of April, the Canadians took over the Allied Front Line to the northeast of Ypres. Following the launch of a German offensive on the 22nd, the division became deeply involved in the Second Battle of Ypres and in the first effective use of chlorine gas in battle.

That was so awful. David winced with the pain of both his wounded face and his memory. Watching all the troops along the left side fall when the yellow clouds came. They had no warning, no way to fight it. So many of them. So many. He shuddered.

The Canadian 7th Battalion was to the right of the French Colonial troops in the front line trenches when the Germans launched their first gas attack. Both groups took heavy losses, the French retreated, but the Canadians stood their ground. Word quickly spread around their trenches: "If another gas cloud comes, piss in your handkerchief and breathe through it. The chemicals in your urine will neutralise the gas."

So strange, desperately needing to pee but daring not to lest I needed it. Then the idea to piss in an empty Maconochie tin and save it. God! That Scottish stew was horrid; even piss would improve it. I wonder how Fritz is eating. Surely, it can't be as bad as Tommy's rations.

The Germans had begun advancing toward the four-mile-wide gap that had been left by the French retreat. The Canadian 8th Battalion, from its position in reserve, was immediately mustered and ordered forward to push the Germans back and hold the line.

Mid-evening of the 22nd, David had taken a grazing shrapnel wound, and he was moved back to have it sutured and dressed. Because he was fresh from a day's rest, he answered the call for volunteers among the lightly wounded, to join the members of his battalion's Headquarters Company when they moved forward late on the 23rd to reinforce the 8th Battalion and assist them in holding the line near Saint-Julien.

They had scrambled to hold off the Germans in the face of further gas attacks, without additional reinforcement and with no support on either flank.

I wonder how the rest of them fared. So many had already fallen. So few left.

His pain grew sharply.

Let me get back to thinking of the mountains, of climbing... Pleasant thoughts.

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