Canadian Expeditionary Force - Letter From The Front

Letter From The Front

Desperate Fighting

The sun has risen on many a dead Canadian this morning. You can say that it is very unlikely that braver troops can be found than the Canadians; they have behaved splendidly. Canada can expect a startler re the casualties, but she can be sure she has good fighting material. I have been up all night, and feel very tired. We were shelled out of our last billet and had a narrow escape. I am sitting in the same place, and the same noise is going on and shells are whistling past and shaking the house as usual. A bomb from an aeroplane has just burst by the house, a man wounded and a horse killed, and as I stood at the door to give an order, one of these steel arrows dropped at my feet. This is the fifth day of the battle, almost without interruption. I still have my clothes on, but have been able to get a shave and two feet washes. I breakfasted on hard tack and jam, with a mixture of rum, water, and tea that i had in my water bottle to wash it down. Yesterday I had tea and a box of Sardines. The medical people are splendid, and work hard and lose many. It is a strange sight to see the Belgian peasant women and children fleeing, some too old to walk far, the poor souls! You see an old woman with a few household goods and a few children in a two-wheeled cart, and with a boy and girl in the shafts and perhaps three dogs harnessed under it pulling, while larger children push behind. We brought down an aeroplane this morning. They shelled a town in our rear last evening, and drove the hospital people out of some house, so that two hundred or so wounded had to be taken out and laid in a field. When I went up to...I rode through quite a few batteries all going full blast. There were English, Canadians, Algerians, French, Senegalese, Arabs, Belgian, and Indian troops around. I have had no sleep or clothes off for some days and nights, and the fighting is desperate. My hair is cropped close - yes, I am a beauty - I have no use for brush or comb.

From Officer of Divisional Train, April 23rd, 1915.