 Part 2 Chapter 7 of Canada's Hundred Days. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Gerald Hawkins, Santa Clara, California. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. Recording by Gerald Hawkins, Santa Clara, California. We will let the First Canadian Division again tell its own story. The attack of the First Canadian Division was carried out by the Third and Second Brigades from right to left, respectively, the First Brigade being held in divisional reserve. On the morning of September 2, at five o'clock, the artillery and machine-gun barrage opened and the infantry at once began to move forward into what proved to be a day of bitter fighting. The Third Brigade, at the time of the opening of the attack, had two battalions holding the line, the 15th, recruited from the 48th Highlanders of Toronto, and the 14th, the Royal Montreal Regiment, the two remaining battalions, the 16th, Canadian-Scottish of the West, and 13th, Montreal Highlanders, carried out the assault on the Drogor-Cueilon line, and were then to be leapfrogged by the 15th and 14th, who were to capture Bois de Bouches, Bois de Lausanne, and Cagnacourt. The Second Brigade, on the left, were attacking on a one battalion front, and were using two battalions, the 7th of Vancouver, to capture the Drogor-Cueilon system on their front, and the 10th of Alberta, to carry the attack as far as the western outskirts of Bussie. The First Brigade was to continue the attack from this point and secure the crossings of the Canal du Nord. The attack proceeded rapidly, and according to plan, up to the time of the capture of the Drogor-Cueilon line on the divisional front, in spite of a very heavy enfilade fire from the right flank, southwest of the village of Cagnacourt. The tanks, of which there were eighteen operating on the divisional front, did great service in the capture of the Drogor-Cueilon system. Strong resistance was met by our troops east of this trench line, and the attack slowed up very considerably. The battle devolved upon platoon, company, and battalion commanders, and it was only by the initiative and determination of all ranks actually engaged in the foremost lines that the enemy was slowly but surely pressed back. On the right the chief obstacle was flanking fire from the south. On the left, the strongly fortified village of the Yer-Le-Cagnacourt, and an isolated factory on the R.S. Combré road, were the center of resistance. By four o'clock in the afternoon, with the assistance of batteries of artillery attached to battalions, and under cover of machine-gun and Lewis-gun fire, our line had been established east of the villages of Cagnacourt and Villarellec-Cagnacourt. A supplementary barrage was arranged for six o'clock that evening, and under cover of it the infantry again advanced. By this time the leading battalions of the First Brigade, the third recruited from Toronto District, and the fourth, Central Ontario, had become involved in the fighting. The struggle for the capture of the Boussie switch and for the sunken roads leading south from Boussie was long and desperate, but by individual perseverance our troops, at eleven o'clock that night, had reached a line running roughly north and south, just west of the village of Boussie. The third brigade had suffered very heavy casualties during the day, and were therefore relieved during the night by the First Brigade. The fourth battalion going into line with the second battalion, Eastern Ontario, in support, and the first, Western Ontario, and third, in reserve. At dawn, therefore, of September III, our line ran along the railway, and rode east of Wadibush, as far as the Boussie switch, and then due north to the R.S. Combury Road, with a defensive flank thrown back along this road for a distance of nearly two thousand yards. After a day of intense hand-to-hand fighting, this was a result of which the division was proud, in spite of the fact that the enemy was very strong numerically, as witnessed the two thousand seven hundred forty-six prisoners captured in forty-eight hours of battle, and that he fought desperately, a fact amply proved by the five hundred dead in the area in front of the drocore coin on line, and around the villages of Cognacourt and Villere de Cognacourt, in spite of these obstacles and the high number of machine guns with which the enemy was armed, the line reached by the leading troops of the First Division was well in advance of that reached by the flanking divisions. In fact, throughout most of the day, the division had fought with both flanks in the air, although troops of the sixty-third British division succeeded in reaching Inchie that evening. The infantry was well supported by all other arms of the service. The artillery, both in its concerted barrage fire and in the work of its advanced batteries, was responsible for the creation of many openings in the enemy's defenses. The attached machine gun batteries operating with the leading infantry had many opportunities of inflicting casualties on the enemy opportunities that were seized and made the most of it. The tanks, too, were a great factor in the forcing of the drocore coin on line. After our artillery barrage died down, however, every one of the eighteen tanks became a casualty. So ended the fight for the drocore coin on line. There still remained the canal denour to be crossed. Only a gallant deed was done that day, but none finer than that of Lieutenant Colonel C.W. Peck. MP for Schena, B.C. A man well into middle age who commanded the sixteenth battalion, Canadian-Scottish, recruited from Winnipeg to the coast. The sixteenth battalion, as has been seen, was given the task of capturing the drocore coin on line on our extreme right flank, which was in the air. Lieutenant Colonel Peck's command quickly captured its first objective, but progress was held up by enemy machine gun fire on his right flank. The situation being extremely difficult, he rushed forward and made a personal reconnaissance under heavy machine gun fire. Having reconnoitred the position, he returned and reorganized his battalion, and acting upon his knowledge, thus personally gained, pushed them forward and arranged the protection of his flank. He then went out under the most intensive artillery and machine gun fire, intercepted the tanks and gave them necessary directions, pointing out where they were to make for, and thus away was opened for his battalion to push forward. He subsequently gave the requisite support to his men by his magnificent display of courage and fine quality of leadership. He personally led the advance, although always under heavy fire, and contributed largely to the success of the brigade attack. Colonel Peck rallied his battalion at a critical moment by instructing his piper, always attached to his person, to march ahead with him into action, skirling his pipes. The piper was wounded, but another took his place. Some days later this piper in the casualty clearing section at Duessin, when asked how he did, interrupted thus, how his old sigh peck, and on being told he was uninjured, cried, then if he's all right, I'm all right. In its assault on the Drogor-Quinna line on the morning of September 2, the seventh battalion of Vancouver had, as we have seen, a very hard task, and was by the individual initiative and daring of the rank and file that the positions were taken. Thus Corporal Walter Leigh Rayfield, a native of Redmond, Washington, rushed ahead of his company a trench filled with the enemy, banning two and taking ten prisoners. Later he located and engaged with great skill under constant rifle fire, an enemy sniper who was causing many casualties. He then rushed the section of trench from which the sniper had been operating, and so demoralized the enemy by his daring and coolness that thirty surrendered to him. Again he left cover, and under heavy machine-gun fire, carried in a badly wounded comrade. The tenth battalion of Alberta passed through the seventh at Valera Lake Canyacore, but for a time were held up. After an unsuccessful attack, Sergeant Arthur George Knight, a native of Redhill, England, led a bombing section forward under a very heavy fire of all descriptions, and engaged the enemy at close quarters. Seeing that his party was still held up, he dashed forward alone, banning several of the enemy machine gunners, and trench mortar-crews, and directing his fire on the retreating enemy inflicted heavy casualties. In the advance of his platoon in pursuit, Sergeant Knight saw a party of about thirty of the enemy go into a deep tunnel which led off the trench. He again dashed forward alone, and having killed one officer and two NCOs, captured twenty other ranks. Later on he routed single-handed another enemy party, opposing the advance of the platoon. Sergeant Knight, who enlisted at Regina, died of the wounds he here received. In this brilliant action he was assisted particularly by Private Eddie Hume of Calgary. Corporal W. Padgett of the same battalion performed an exceptional bombing feed in front of Canyacore on the same day, breaking up a strong enemy point of resistance. Both of the Combray Road are troops after their initial success had before them an extraordinarily difficult task. The fourth Canadian division, attacked in the first place, drove Corkway online in front of Dury, in itself a veritable fortress. This village is situated on the crest of a slope which here presents all characteristics of a smooth glosses, and across this, each seventy-five yards deep, were three solid tiers of wire. Behind them, and on a higher plain, ran the sunken road from Hendicore to Dury, and in this road enemy machine gunners, ensconced in steel and concrete posts, swept the entire field of approach. Walking over this slope a day or two later a British staff officer remarked that the position was impregnable, had the enemy chosen to defend it. Ah, no, our dead tell the tale. Extraordinary gallantry was shown by the troops. In storming the sunken road, where tank aid was lacking, the seventy-fifth battalion recruited from the Mississauga horse of Toronto suffered very severely, its loss in two days being twenty-four officers and three hundred ten other ranks. The fourth Canadian division, attacked at five a.m. In spite of numerous machine gun nests inside our barrage, good progress was made, and by dint of stiff fighting in many places the droke or quay online in this sector was captured on time. Just beyond the last trench of this system the eleventh brigade, and certain battalions of the other two brigades, were to leapfrog and continue the advance, but the approach to the leapfrog line and the ground for a great distance beyond it was swept by a terrific machine gun fire from several angles. Our barrage here had shot itself out in the first phase of the attack, and the only other weapons left were powerless to support further advance of the infantry under the circumstances. The second phase of the attack was therefore postponed until the next morning, but during the night the enemy retired to the far side of the canal de Nord. The eleventh brigade, while waiting to go through, was badly cut up on the R.S. Combré road, where enemy machine gunners lined the trenches on the slopes on either side, just east of the Artois. The tenth and twelfth brigades lost heavily in their advance, coming under enfiléed fire from the flank. But the spirit of the men was unconquerable, and even the walking wounded had no thought but a victory. The Bosch is fighting damned hard, said a sea-fourth Highlander of Vancouver, seventy-second battalion. But our lot have taken three trenches and are still going strong. Beyond Dury the ground slopes back into a depression and then over another bare hillside down again into a rolling valley, commanded from the right by the heights held in strength by the enemy immediately west of the canal de Nord, and north of Marquille, and from the left by the fortified triangle of the three villages, Soudemont, Rumacourt, and Écourt Saint-Quentin. While the hole was swept by the enemy's heavy batteries situated on the east side of the canal, on the commanding eminence of Voici-le-Vergère, whence direct observation was obtained west to Dury, and along almost the entire Cambrai road. In front of these defenses, on the open ground which nowhere afforded cover of any kind, was an elaborate system of trench and wire with permanent machine-gun posts, and it was before these that the division found it could make but very slow progress. Further to the left the fourth British division had a task no less difficult, though different in character. On its immediate front was a high, bold hill, strongly fortified, and its left flank lay down in the valley of the Trinqui River, and amid swamps and marshes. The enemy clung all day in great force to the village of Itang, which was not captured by this division until the following morning. In the first rush forward good progress was made, many prisoners being captured. The men of the division were delighted to find themselves alongside the Canadians. �We helped you Canadians save Arras last April,� said a wounded man of the First Hans Battalion, �and now we are pushing in with you again but to a very different tune.� After the close of the battle, Sir Archer Currie addressed a message of congratulation to the fourth British division as follows. Your task from the beginning was an exceedingly difficult one. You took over in the middle of the battle and advanced steadily each day over very bad ground against most serious opposition, finishing up by what must be for you one of the most satisfactory engagements in which you ever participated. Your success on Monday last was in keeping with your best traditions. The fourth division testified in the most forcible manner to the fine fighting qualities of the troops comprising it. To me it was a peculiar satisfaction to have the fourth division associated with us, because it was with them the first Canadian division received its first instructions in the art of war. Monday's battle was not merely a success. It was a glorious victory. In the hand-to-hand fighting which characterized much of this day's battle, loss among regimental officers and NCOs was severe. Among the wounded were Lieutenant Colonel L. T. McLaughlin of the Second Battalion of Ottawa and Lieutenant Colonel C. C. Harvottel of the Seventy-fifth Battalion of Toronto. Casualties in this fighting were very heavy and was only by the greatest exertions and contempt of danger that our stretcher-bearers were able to bring in our wounded. Thus private John Francis Young was acting as a stretcher-bearer attached to D. Company, 87th Battalion, Grenadier Guards of Montréal. This company, in its advance over the ridge, suffered heavy casualties from shell and machine-gun fire. Private Young, in spite of complete absence of cover, without the least hesitation went out, and in the open fire swept ground, dressed the wound. Having exhausted his stock of dressings, on more than one occasion he returned under intense fire to his company headquarters for further supply. This work he continued for over an hour, displaying throughout absolute fearlessness, and his courageous conduct saved the lives of many of his comrades. Later when the fire had somewhat slackened he organized and led stretcher-parties to bring in the wounded he had dressed. Our medical officers, too, displayed the greatest gallantry, of which the following is an example. Captain Belender Seymour Hutchison, who enlisted at Toronto, went through the Drogor Quay online with his battalion under most intense shell, machine-gun, and rifle-fire. With an utter disregard to personal safety he remained in the field until every wounded man had been attended to. He dressed a seriously wounded officer under terrific machine-gun fire. With the assistance of prisoners succeeded in evacuating him to safety. Immediately afterwards he rushed forward in full view of the enemy under heavy machine-gun and rifle-fire to attend a wounded sergeant, placing him in a shell-hole preceded there to dress his wounds. Similar devotion to duty was exhibited by the Chaplain Service, thus Captain Graham, Chaplain of the Thirteenth Battalion, when that unit suffered heavy losses in front of the Upton Wood, went out repeatedly in front of our infantry line, carrying in our wounded from off the wire. He was subsequently wounded. Casualties among the battalion chaplains were particularly heavy during these operations. So ended the great battle. Following its conclusion the Third Army south of us were able to march ahead, rescuing village after village without firing a shot. Everywhere south of us the enemy was falling back. Only to the north, behind the flooded valley of the Scarpe and the Sensei, he clung to his line. CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER VIII of Canada's Hundred Days with the Canadian Corps from Amines to Monts August 8 through November 11, 1918. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, by Mike Venditti, Canyon City, Colorado, mikevenditti.com. Canada's Hundred Days by John Lipsley, Part II, Chapter VIII. After the battle. Fighting went on during September 3, 4, and 5. When the enemy was forced back to the east bank of the canal to Nord, all along the line in the Canadian Corps came into possession of the watery triangle formed by the canal on the east and the Sensei River on the north. On our right, south of the rarest Cambie Road, the first Canadian division had not much difficulty during the day of September 3, pushing forward to the line of the canal, to which the western bank sloped gently down through water meadows, the only shelter being a few narrow low polyards on the bank. From Sands Les Mokwinn, north the area was flooded and the enemy had good protection for his machine gunners in the woods that thickly clothed the steep eastern bank. North of the road, our fourth division had a much harder task and had sharp fighting before the area was cleared. On the divisional right, the 10th Brigade fought its way forward to the canal through the enemy defense system, resting on the three villages of Saumont, Icon St. Quentin, and Romacourt, the latter being captured by the 44th Battalion, formerly Winnipeg but now recruited from Nubrunthwick. These villages had been untouched by war and contained great store of ordnance and material with a complete hospital train, tucked away behind the impregnable Dorcourt quaint line and beyond the area we shelled, he had built up there a great depot. From a distance it looks as though a pocket handkerchief might cover them. They stand intact, the churches rising above the red-tiled roofs, the whole nestling and wooded groves. The sight of these villages amid green fields is more eloquent than anything that has gone before of the success of the battle. Over here, as in former years the Bosch had settled down for the winter, he had filled them with his materiel of war. But intact though they seemed from a distance, on entering there is evidence on every hand of the process of ruin, for hardly is the enemy driven out than he pours upon them the whole fury of his rage and disappointment. From across the canal guns great and small keep up a ceaseless canonade, and for days gas hangs heavy. In their narrow streets a beautiful spire is that of the church of Ecor San Quentin. But even as one admires a shell hits fair and square and it disappears in a cloud of dust. Nevertheless, the fields are still green. Soldiers gather pumpkin in the village gardens. It is an astonishing experience to pass into these lush pastures to remount the blight and the taint of no man's land. Ecor San Quentin must ever figure in Canadian history as the village where Canadian troops first rescued the unhappy, imprisoned French people. Viva la Canadians, viva la brave Canadians. It was a glad cry from the heart, soon to grow familiar to our ears. But it was first heard at this village. Twenty-six persons for four years, held in slavery, hid for several days in one small cellar, when the order had gone out for the villagers to be evacuated, half-starved, emaciated, but very happy and vulnerable when we found them. Their deliverance was actually affected by Major General E. W. B. Morrison, General Officer Commanding Canadian Royal Artillery. A young girl, a slender brunette, embraced him, kissing him on either cheek. In me, she cried, my general, the French people salute our saviour. With saddened hearts, these poor folk passed back through the desolation of no man's land, where they had been want to visit the feasts and feast days of neighbouring, smiling villages. Cagnacourt and Dury, Chesterie and Vizanet Torres, now not to be distinguished from the general ruin. The Eleventh Brigade had some hard fighting, mopping up along the Canal Bank, where enemy posts held out substantially. Brigadier General Odium finally cleared up this situation after he had made a personal reconnaissance, during which he was wounded slightly. Our Twelfth Brigade had a very difficult task, in the marshy area between E. C. St. Quentin and the Sensei River. The Eighty-Fifth Battalion Nova Scotia in particular suffered heavy casualties fighting its way through swampy ground, here bisected with ditches and swept by the fire of any machine gun posts north of the river. They finally cleared the area, with the capture of Paulol, a village signature at the juncture of the Canal du Nord in the Sensei, which from here east is canalised. But we were up against a dead wall. The enemy had blown up all the bridges on the night of October 2nd and 3rd, says Sir Arthur Currie, and was holding a commanding position on the eastern bank of the canal, with a large number of machine guns. His artillery was very active, more especially from the north, and it was impossible to send bodies of troops by daylight over the long and bare slopes bordered by the canal. Our left flank was now very exposed to artillery fire from the north, and the nature of the ground we were holding, the strength of the obstacle in front of the core, and a resolute attitude of the enemy forbade any attempts to further exploit our success. It was necessary to repair minutely the details of the operation required to attack successfully the canal du Nord line. Accordingly, no further attempts were made at this time. In the night of September 3rd and 4th, the 2nd and 3rd Canadian divisions relieved the 1st and 4th Canadian divisions respectively, and the 4th British division was relieved by the 1st British division, which had come under the Canadian core on September 1st, and had been concentrated after that date in the Montchai-les-Prés-vis-en-Artois-Guay-Meph-Aria. The left flank of the core was again very long, and in accordance with the policy adopted by the 1st British division, was transferred in the line from the Canadian core to the 22nd core. I handed over command of that sector, extending from Paulel exclusively to Tang Inclusive, and facing north to this G.O.C. 22nd core at midnight, September 4th and 5th. The enemy had flooded the valley of the Sensei River, and all the bridges had been destroyed. Our engineers were very actively engaged in an effort to lower these floods and rest the control from the enemy. On a right flank, the 17th core was engaged in heavy fighting, in and around Mosul routes, and all the attempts to cross the Canal du Nord at that point had been repulsed. A thorough reconnaissance of our front had shown that the frontal attack of the Canal du Nord line was impossible. The eastern bank of the Canal du Nord was strongly wired and was generally much higher than the western bank. The whole of our forward area was under direct observation from Oisele Vigore, and the high ground on a northern flank, and any movement by day was quickly engaged by hostile artillery. No battery positions within range sufficient to carry on the preparation of the attack, or to support it were available, and any attempt to bring guns forward of the general line, builders says Concorde Brisee, were severely punished. The battery positions south and west of this general line were subjected to intense gas shelling every night. The Canal du Nord was in itself a serious obstacle. It was under construction at the outbreak of the war, and it had not been completed. Generally speaking, it followed the valley of the river Artgage, but not the actual bed of the river. The average width was about one hundred feet, and it was flooded as far south as the lock, eight hundred yards south west, Oisele Vigore. Just north of the core southern boundary, south of this end, to the right of the core front, the canal was dry. Its bottom was at the natural ground level, the sides of the canal consisting of high earth and brick banks. The attack of the Canal du Nord could not therefore be undertaken singly by the Canadian Corps, but had to be part of a larger scheme. This required considerable time to arrange, and, until September 27th, no changes developed on the core front. The obstacle which had stopped our advance also made our provisions very strong defensively, and advantage was taken of this fact to rest and refit the divisions. As much of the core artillery as could be spared was withdrawn from the mine to rest the men and horses. The line was held very thinly, but active patrolling at nights since sniping were kept up. A complete program of harassing fire by artillery and machine guns was also put in horse nightly. The core heavy artillery Brigadier General R. H. Massie carried out wire cutting, counter battery shoots, and gas concentrations daily in preparation for the eventual operations. Light railways, roads, bridges, and water points were constructed right up to the forward area and the bridging material which would be required for the Canal du Nord was accumulated well forward. Ammunition dumps were established at suitable places. Detailed reconnaissance of the canal and trenches were carried out by aeroplane and also by daring patrol and all available documents regarding the canal construction were gathered with a view to repairing the plans for the future attack. On September 13th, Major General then Brigadier General F. O. W. Loomis took over command of the 3rd Canadian Division from Major General L. J. Lipset, who went to command the 4th British Division. The former was succeeded in command of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade by Brigadier General, then Lieutenant Colonel R. P. Clark. The direct observation from Oyse Le Viguerre, to which the core commander alludes was very annoying to our troops. The Arezcambre Road was still the main line of our communications roads to the north being shot up by the enemy batteries now commanding are left flank from north of the river, for miles back. While the secondary roads further south had been blown to pieces and it took time to repair them, a lorry could not pass along the Canberra Road without being subjected to shellfire and high explosive. But nothing could daunt these lorry drivers. The personnel of the Army Service Corps men bringing up ammunition and the drivers of ambulances the road was strewn with wrecked lorries. But they carried on their task, driving steadily at the speed of not more than five or six miles an hour, picking their way among shell holes in the paves and giving no more heed to the dangers encompassing them than if they were teeming in their own hometowns. And this was not all. With the quieting down of the battle, the Air Force with the core was reduced to the artillery observation buses and a few scouting machines. The enemy took advantage of this to send over an occasional circus, which for the time held command of the air in this sector. Late in the afternoon of a September day, one of the East made its appearance from the direction of Duvay. Flying high above the plateau just west of the canal, against the leader a lone fighting plane whose wings bore the familiar red, white and blue circles of the British RAF, launched his attack. Fast and high he flew. But the enemy was higher still, attacking the enemy leader from an angle below. He fired off his machine gun, missed and swung around. But at that instant the enemy caught him with a volley. And his machine gun burst in flames slowly, fell. And before it fallen far, our gallant airmen jumped out and began to fall faster, faster, still faster than his machine, which followed him as might a leap floating gently to the ground. He fell into a swampy place and was buried from human kin. Encouraged by this success, the entire circus swooped low down on a Cambry Road, flying westward just over the tops of the trees, machine gunning as they went. Then when they reached the crossroad to Dury, they swung off south, down the Dorsher Quintrench system. But a few feet above the ground, blazing away into our men crowding there in support, our arches and even field batteries directed on them. A tremendous fulsade, and our men could be seen firing their rifles, but only one shot seemed to take effect, and any machine limping off like a wounded duck back over the canal. The rest of the circus passed out of sight south. But it was not always thus. Old Joey, a slow-flying artillery observation plane, was loafing along, one day, along the canal to Nord, when down on him swooped an enemy fighting machine. Of far greater power and speed, Old Joey pursued his course unperturbed until Hiney was upon him, then swung smartly around, bringing the only gun to bear, and in a minute Hiney went crashing. We had time to count the spoils since August 26, the Canadian Corps and the British Division's fighting hundred had encountered and overwhelmed no less than 11 enemy divisions, while four other divisions had been engaged partially and identification secure developments of three more. Five complete trans-systems were taken and the captured area approximated 56 square miles, with an average penetration of 12 and a quarter miles. 10,360 prisoners of all ranks were captured in 22 villages while the material was great beyond reckoning. Chief Bing, two 4.1 inch long naval guns, 89, heavy and field guns, 1016 machine guns, 73 trench motors, two search lights, and one helio, besides wagons, horses, and vast quantities of ammunition and engineering supplies. But war is not all victory. There is the agony and sacrifice, busy across this rolling plane or our burial parties, and it is not only the hun they bury. Some of our men lice dark and huddled under lee of enemy machine gun posts. Others still hang in the fastness of the wire. Long lines of red cross lorries move to the rear, far across the seas from Cape Brenton to Vancouver Island from the international boundary to remote northern outpost. Soon we'll flutter little yellow messages bringing sorrow and anguish to quiet firesides. But they have not suffered in vain by their exhortations and their sacrifice. They have brought the war appreciably nearer as close. There's a melancholy scene down the Cambry Road through this and Etro's pastury. On the left, and visitor the card not on the right, all this desolate. There's a typical no man's land landscape. Countryside is pitted with shell holes and scarred with trenches. Avenues of trees along the road show only blasted stumps. There's not a green thing. Everywhere is the debris of war. The litter and the ruin, broken lorries, shattered remnants of an armored car, the twisted rails of a light railway, scrap iron, of all descriptions, ammunition boxes piled high. These things cumber the roadside. Everywhere are horses in various stages of decomposition. Here and there arose of our dead, waiting burial parties. Overall is a brooding stench of decay and stale gas. End of Part 2, Chapter 8, recording by Mike Venditti. MikeVenditti.com. Part 2, Chapter 9 of Canada's Hundred Days. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit thelibrivox.org. Canada's 100 Days by John Livesay. Part 2, Chapter 9. No Man's Land. On September 3, the day after the Drew Court client line is smashed, the first echelon of Canadian corps headquarters moves up from Noir-Vian to Nouvelle-Vitasse. We follow the headquarters of the first Canadian division, and that in its turn had taken possession of a captured enemy headquarters. Two miles east of Nouvelle-Vitasse lies the village of Wankor, row-lying on the banks of the Cougure. And between them is the valley where our troops in support are crowded. A secondary road, in shocking bad condition, runs east from Nouvelle-Vitasse downhill through this valley and so up over the Wankor ridge to drop down into the valley of the Sensi at Ché-dice, continuing its switchbacks over one ridge after another through Hendencourt and Riencourt to Cayant. From the eastern suburbs of Arras, through its entire length to Cayant, the road bisects no man's land, which here therefore has a depth of twelve miles. That is the segment of total destruction and does not include the tattered fringe west of Arras and east of the canal de Nour to Cambrai. About a thousand yards east of Nouvelle-Vitasse, where this road debouches from the slope into the valley, what is little more than a track turns off to the right, passing up over the Heneil ridge in a general southeasterly direction. Like so many roads in the district, this track, by the wear of centuries, has become so worn down as to present the characteristics of a sunken road or defile. A few hundred yards toward the ridge, the enemy had here established his divisional headquarters with an elaborate system of dugouts on the west side of the road, protected by the high bank from all but plunging fire. The disadvantage of taking over enemy dugouts in any situation, at all, is that the defense is exposed in reverse, or in other words, enemy shells may explode right in their mouths facing that way. Nothing of the kind indeed happens here, but it is a fact worth bearing in mind as a constant feature of our advance. In the old days of trench warfare, when we thus captured and consolidated an enemy trench system, we proceeded at once to dig shelters on the opposite side, as being less exposed. But in the advance that was now beginning, and was to gain more and more impetus as the weeks went by, there was no time for anything of the kind. Not until we cleared the entire trench system and began to billet in inhabited villages did our men get any kind of comfort or shelter. For the most part they slept in the open field, each man scooping out for himself a shallow shelter, digging a pit at the bottom for drainage. This track leading up to core headquarters is a villainous mudhole, and in the days to follow, the most distinguished visitors, including high French officials and or army commanders, come to congratulate the core on its achievement, as well as parties of Canadians from London, are all too apt to mire their cars in its treacherous bottom. The dugouts do not accommodate all the staff, and some of its higher ranks live and work in armstrong huts erected along the sunken road. But most of us are under canvas, the whole camp being neatly camouflaged with particular view to the aspect from the sky. We remain in this hideous spot, the very heart and core of no man's land, most of September. For days on end it rains. Tens are crowded close on every available piece of high ground, but the floor of each must be sunk below the surface. And in effect, becomes little better than the bottom of a shell-hole. Canadian engineers are soon at work laying duck-walks along the road, but whole sections disappear at night, passing seripidiously into these tents to afford an uneasy footing above the standing water. Such mysterious depredations daunt the indefatigable engineer not one wit, and about the time we move on to Quion, the camp presents a neat and ordered appearance, with a solid road-bed built up from the ruins of the neighbouring villages. In early September, however, a worse situation cannot be imagined. Haina is a fairly regular visitor at night, and no lights are allowed. The bugle call and the dreary cry of Lights out, Lights out, is as regular as dinner-hour. It is impossible to take two steps in the dark without falling into a shell-hole or stumbling over wire. Very early in the morning, Fritzi has an uncomfortable habit of waking us up with a fuselage, and during all these weeks he continues sending long-range shells into arras, plastering the railway station and yards. At set intervals there is a wine overhead, and long after comes the muffled sound of an explosion. Back behind the camp, on top of Henniel Ridge, is the corps' wireless plant, where signals is at work day and night. From here, a wide view of the surrounding country presents itself. North-east, across the valley, Monchilapyr, stands out a sentinel. At sunset, a few misshapen tree trunks, stripped of their foliage, etched sharp against the western glow, mark the ridge of Nouvelle Vitasse. For four years, this desolated strip, east of Arras, has been the battlefield. We are situated indeed in midst of the original Hindenburg line. In the dim days of creation there might have been such a scene as this, the earth void and formless, but to it are added the despair and the melancholy of the blotting out of what once was a smiling countryside. Villages dotted these hills, but where once was the village park, now only are the maimed and blackened stumps of trees, and below a rubble of brick and charred timber. Even the street outlines have disappeared. Bothless necessity of military roads has cut straight through the debris. The soil is a good light loam on chalk. Generations ago, so it seems, these broad uplands were intensively cultivated by their thrifty peasant proprietors. Now the most careful search fails to reveal the mark of a plow or any trace of the hand of man. It is as if a malignant subterraneous power had fretted the surface and robbed it of all form and meaning. Pocked marked by shell holes, great and small, scarred by deep trench systems old and new, each sunken road lined with the foul mouths of dugouts. These once bright fields are as inanimate as a corpse, shrouded in ceramins of rusted barbed wire. Dreary, desolate, and gray, it is a landscape that crushes the imagination and torments the spirit. In all these years of trench warfare there has been only this nothingness in front of the heroic defenders, overhead screamed messengers of death plowing up the land around them. The filthy trench and verminous dugout was their sole alternative. It is incredible that they should have endured, have fought on, have abandoned themselves to such a life in such a place for an idea. With no hope, no prospect of alleviation or change saved through death and the hospital caught. In their myery squalor they could not see the bright dawn of today. Yet they took everything in trust, they grumbled, they suffered, but they endured, they fought on. This frayed fringe of battle stretches from Flanders to the Vosges, varying only in comparative terms of ruin. The Hun may take of the life, but not of the character of the French people. There is something cosmic in their mute unconscious resistance. Not so much of the men, nor of the admirable women and children, but of the soul of a nation that suffers, but does not despair. In this brooding area are to be marked the distinctions between the waning and cessation of life. Before us all has gone, but in Arras still is some sign of life, and further back the villagers, their roofs untiled and windows unglazed, carry on the daily task, dulled even to a sudden burst of long-range shelling, or the rain of blind hate from a starry sky. This no-man's land is a technical term of the war whose significance can be captured only through the imagination. Here once a village flourished, mill-wheels turned, and hither creaking wagons drew loads of grain. Here processions wound up the village church, gay for the marriage festival, or white-bannered for the solemn pledge of youth and maid. Here wended also the decent funeral-cortage. Here on his appointed day, Monsieur Le Maire made his oration on France and her free spirit. Here the good citizens chatted at evenings upon the benches in the square, and here worthy pupils, duly garland, received their modest honors. It is necessary to reconstruct these humble scenes to appreciate the devastation. The areas of such villages are wiped out. Their familiar features have vanished. Which two are their children? Some are dead. Some cower in cellars at the fringe of no-man's land. Some have been taken by the hun, homeless and afraid. Here are fair lands of France. Here to the cry of the plowmen, the yoked oxen strained, and in due season the binder reaped of the earth her abundance. Ordered stacks peopled the valleys, and into their fastnesses drove the threshing machine. In and out of that pleasant scene ran the shuffle of children's feet and the bright thread of children's laughter. All are obliterated. Blotted out are the villages and the countryside. There remains the anguish of a people that would not be subdued. And in its hoarse note of defiance there mingles as bitter as seed from the trodden grape, the pitiable note of stricken childhood. Four years of war is an immeasurable span in the life of a child. It is an implacable generation France is rearing on this borderland. The scene is on the road from Valenciennes to Mons, long weeks after. Our troops streaming forward, crowd against the left ditch, another current trickling westward. It is the French evacuees returning from liberated Mons to seek their homes, but much against the wish and advice of the civil authorities. A woman, old and bent, is pushing a two-wheeled cart, piled high with bedding, all she saved when evacuated. A sturdy lad is yoked in front, throwing his weight on the rope. We ask some questions. And where are you going? Back to our home once here, he cries joyfully. Back to our home in Wencourt. In Wencourt, these two must pass through the Drewcourt-Criant line. End of Part 2, Chapter 9, recording by David Lawrence in Brampton, Ontario, January 2010. End of Canada's 100 Days, Part 2, by John Levse.