Brave Battalion Read online

  Where the battalion came from was less a concern to Leckie and his headquarters staff than ensuring that when it arrived in England its men were fully equipped with uniforms and weapons. With his usual fervour, Hughes was frantically working to properly equip his army against a self-imposed deadline. On August 10, he had let a series of contracts aimed at providing uniforms for 50,000 men by September 21. In factories throughout the country, workers wove wool into cloth while leather makers produced boots and harnesses for horses. The deadline was to be met, Hughes told the suppliers, “even though you have to work night and day until then.”12

  After failing to lure a British armament company to set up in Canada to manufacture Lee-Enfield rifles for the army in 1896, the government contracted Sir Charles Ross to produce his self-designed .303 rifle. When the first rifles were delivered from his Quebec City factory in 1905, problems were immediately noted, most ominously its tendency to jam whenever exposed to rain or mud—all-too-common conditions in battle. But Hughes, who saw standing by the Ross rifle as akin to preserving the nation’s honour, remained its staunchest proponent and placed an order for 30,000 of the Mark III pattern Ross rifle, which had supposedly been modified to eliminate the previous deficiencies. The modifications chiefly entailed lengthening the barrel from 28 inches to 30.5 and increasing its weight from 7.5 pounds to 9.5.

  In the midst of this vast purchasing frenzy, which also included acquiring motor vehicles, horse-drawn vehicles, and more than 7,000 horses, Hughes pursued another fancy by ordering the manufacture of 25,000 MacAdam shovels. Although designed personally by Hughes, he had sought to avoid any perception of a conflict of interest by patenting it under the name of his personal secretary. Drawing from a Swiss invention, the shovel was intended to serve as both shield and entrenching tool. It had an 8½-inch by 9¾-inch blade constructed of three-sixteenths-inch steel that reportedly could stop a bullet at 300 yards. A soldier could jab its four-inch handle into the ground and lie behind the shield for protection. In the shield’s centre were two holes, one above the other. One was large enough to accommodate a rifle barrel while the other was to be used for sighting. Awkward to dig with and heavy to carry, the shovels were immediately unpopular. But Hughes was undaunted. The 1st Division would go overseas lugging 25,000 MacAdam shields.

  With all the attention given to equipping the contingent, there was little time for coherent training. But Leckie and his subordinate officers were little concerned because most of the men had been trained by the militias to active service standards. They were also highly motivated and possessed a strong sense of duty.

  Before breakfast each morning, the men raced by squads up the slopes to a plateau east of the camp. Here they carried out physical drills before sprinting back to camp. The remainder of the day was spent alternatively marching, conducting close formation drills, and skirmishing at platoon and company level. Much time was spent on the two-and-a-half-mile-wide range equipped with 1,700 targets. Each man was required to qualify with the Ross rifle by firing fifty rounds at targets ranging out to distances of 300 yards. While far from being, as Hughes declared, “trained to handle a rifle as no men had ever handled it before,” the troops did become relatively proficient.13 Route marching up and down one side of the river after another was also a daily activity. But only on two occasions was there opportunity for 3rd Brigade to actually conduct a tactical exercise.

  Worse, there being more men and units at Valcartier than intended for the first overseas contingent, Hughes deliberately kept to himself which would be sent in the belief that this would encourage all to give their utmost effort. Soon after the contingent assembled, Hughes had gathered all the officers together. Standing on a little rise of ground with the officers seated on the grass before him, Hughes sternly warned them that none “would be permitted to go overseas in command of men until he had proved himself entirely fit for his responsibilities.” He said each officer holding a command in the division would be brought before a board of examiners, and if he did not meet the required standard of efficiency, he would at once be replaced by one of the surplus officers, “dozens” of whom, he explained, were waiting for each vacancy. The examination never took place … but the suggestion of it … created a most unsettling effect.14

  Not only were officers anxious about facing an examination board, but upon marching into the camp at the head of a full-strength battalion of 1,400 men, some were dumbfounded to see this unit broken up and sent to the reinforcement pool only to subsequently be assigned to a battalion with as few as eleven officers and fourteen ranks from its founding militia regiment. So capricious was Hughes’s hand on the tiller of one battalion, there were three commanding lieutenant colonels simultaneously seesawing for overall authority, while another battalion had four majors vying for second-in-command and the right to ride the single horse provided for that position.

  Although the 16th was largely spared such chaos, its adjutant, Major Gilbert Godson-Godson, arrived at the orderly room one day to find all his clerks suborned to other duties. With orders for the day waiting to be issued, the major began typing only to discover that he had reversed the carbon paper and consequently the impression on the copies was a mirror image. Hurriedly he scribbled along the top of each copy, “To read these orders hold them up to the looking glass.”

  Despite all the hiccups and disorder, the contingent gained a little more readiness with each passing September day. On Sunday, September 20, in “brilliant sunshine” the Canadian Expeditionary Force paraded before the Governor General, Prime Minister Borden, Hughes, and most of the federal cabinet. Thirty-three thousand men formed in lines of double companies across a frontage of 130 yards and moved toward the reviewing stand in a semi-circular movement that required two left wheels to carry off. All nearly collapsed into confusion as the men out on the edge of the wheel had to sprint to keep pace with those at its axis, but panting and gasping they managed to maintain formation throughout the parade.

  With the parade concluded word filtered down that the 1st Division would immediately leave for England. And true enough, within a week, the 16th Battalion marched out of Valcartier. The movement of troops toward the ships had begun on September 26, so when the 16th marched out two days later through snow flurries the divisional area of the camp was a veritable ghost town. To the skirl of bagpipes the battalion marched to the docks and boarded H.M.T.S. Andania, a 13,400-ton Cunard liner capable of 15 knots. After spending twenty-four hours with the troops aboard, Andania cast off from the wharf at noon the following day and anchored midstream to await the rest of the convoy’s formation. Also aboard Andania was the 14th Battalion (Royal Montreal Regiment).

  In a farewell message read to the troops aboard the ships Hughes declared: “The world regards you as a marvel.” On October 3 the convoy, consisting of thirty-two transports escorted by six cruisers, departed Canadian shores at Gaspé Bay in three lines in echelon formation with an interval of one mile between each line. Andania was the fifth ship in the right-flanking line. The “great adventure,” as many of the 16th’s officers referred to the overseas deployment, had begun.

  After the frenetic pace of Valcartier there was little for either men or officers to do during the two-week voyage, but the enforced leisure time served to provide time for socializing that helped bond the battalion. At Valcartier each regiment had mostly kept to itself, except when duty dictated otherwise. This was partially the result of a decision that the companies would each comprise men from a single regiment. “A” and “B” companies were made up of Gordons; “C”, “D”, and “E” of Seaforths; “G” and “H” of Camerons. Only “F” Company was a mix, because the 91st Canadian Highlanders had needed leavening by Seaforths to attain company strength.

  Aboard ship, however, individuals from different companies were thrown together and soon acquaintances between men from different units became common. Cloistered below decks in crowded, stuffy quarters, and fed “indifferent food,” save the occasional platoon tug-of-war
competition or boxing bout, there was little to do but play cards and engage in desultory conversation.

  On the upper decks the officers enjoyed a fine cruise. The mess food was first rate and the lounge comfortable. Highland dancing and French classes were held. Over cigars and drinks discussion returned endlessly to speculation about the likely duration and intensity of the war toward which they sailed. Captain Cecil M. Merritt thought “it would be a war to the death; the Germans would use any and every means to attain victory.” Major Henry Roberts was more optimistic. Once “the wheels of the German war machine were turned backward,” he opined, “the machine would break up.” The Germans, Roberts added, had not considered that they could and would be beaten on the battlefield. That would prove their downfall.

  Captain Hamilton Maxwell Fleming forecasted “appalling” casualties to achieve victory. Infantrymen, the thirty-nine-year-old Vancouverite declared, would have about “one chance in a thousand” of surviving unscathed. Displaying a confident “bearing, always well groomed, with the glow of health on his cheeks … Fleming was Fleming and nobody else.” Despite his confident demeanour, he was also fatalistic, stating without the slightest concern that he would die “early in the game.” Such a fate was inevitable, he said, for “all platoon or company officers, if they did not shirk duty, were bound sooner or later to get ‘smashed or killed.’” The first real test of Canada’s resolve to fight this war, Captain John Geddes offered, would come when the casualty lists were posted at home. Currently the horrendous reports of losses suffered by British and other Allied troops, he said, made scant impression on Canadians. It would take the blood of their own to harden their resolve to make the sacrifices that would be required of the nation. Forty-one-year-old Captain George Ross of Winnipeg, a lawyer in civilian life, predicted a world-wide religious revival after the war if the struggle proved severe enough.15

  Discussion also turned to the matter of cementing the battalion’s identity as a homogenous unit despite its mongrel roots. A battalion badge was agreed—a St. Andrew’s Cross set on a scroll and surmounted by the Coronet of a Royal Princess. That princess the officers decided should be seventeen-year-old Princess Mary, whose father was King George V. Accordingly they drafted a petition to the authorities requesting that the battalion be given the title “The Princess Mary’s 16th Canadian Highlanders.” While these decisions were being made by the officers, two privates, Alexander MacLennan and Norman Cameron, came forward with a proposal for the battalion motto and it was quickly adopted. “Deas Gu Gath,” which translated from Gaelic to English as “Ready for the Fray.” With the badge designed so that the coronet of Princess Mary adorned it, the 16th bet all its markers on its petition being successful. These decisions were all finalized on October 9.

  Meanwhile, below decks tensions were rising between the men of the 16 th and the 14th battalions. Although part of the 3rd Brigade, the 14th was the only one of its four battalions not to have Highland origins. When some of its troops disrupted nineteen-year-old piper Jimmie Richardson’s pipe practice, the news of this assault on their Highland pride raced through the companies. The slender five-foot-seven Richardson had joined the battalion on September 22 at Valcartier. His only linkage to one of the four units was a six-month stint with the Seaforth Cadets unit in Chilliwack where his parents had settled after emigrating from Bell’s Hill, Scotland, so that his father could take the position of the town’s police chief. An amiable lad, Richardson was popular with all the men regardless of which tartan they wore, and everyone vowed that this slight must not go unavenged. A plan of action was quickly agreed; the complete pipe band hurriedly assembled and was escorted by the entire battalion through the ship to where the 14th’s men were quartered. As the 16th stood guard, the “pipers played to their hearts’ contents” with the 14th warily and wisely choosing to offer no complaint.16 Esprit de corps was indeed being born!

  Mid-morning of October 15, the Andania passed the breakwater and entered Devonport harbour near Plymouth, England. Thousands of civilians thronged the foreshore and a message of welcome from Lord Kitchener, the British Secretary of State for War, was read. Kitchener expressed his confidence that the Canadians would “play their part with gallantry and show by their soldier-like bearing that they worthily represent the great Dominion from which they come.” Then, perhaps out of concern about the “soldier-like bearing” they might demonstrate if set loose in Devonport, the men learned they were to be confined shipboard until the transports arrived to take them to their military camp. That transport took two days to organize whereupon the 16th left the ship and marched “through the grimy streets of the dockyard town” past cheering crowds that seemed bent on taking the packs off the men in what might have been a gesture of assistance but struck them more as attempted thievery. The troops pushed on, defending their packs, and soon boarded a train for the Salisbury Plain. Arriving in the early hours of the next morning, the 16th marched through a cold mist and at dawn stood on a bluff overlooking a broad, undulating plain that stretched off across almost 90 square miles of what was one huge military training ground.17

  The Canadians were soon setting up bell tents grouped into four separate camps that extended over a five-mile-wide area in the western corner of the military grounds. Lt.-Gen. E. A. H. “Edwin” Alderson, the division’s first commander, had his headquarters in Ye Olde Bustard, a small country inn about three miles northwest of Stonehenge.

  Alderson was a fifty-five-year-old British officer who, as a brigadier general, had commanded Canadian troops in South Africa. He had a long history of active service in various Empire hotspots and had recently commanded a division in India. Alderson quickly established a good rapport with the officers and men. If not charismatic, he exuded a reassuring air of confidence and competence. But his relation with Sam Hughes, who had hoped the division could be commanded by a Canadian, was accordingly strained.

  Although Canadians at home often parroted Laurier’s call that they were “Ready, Aye, Ready,” Alderson quickly realized that the division was anything but prepared for combat. Much essential equipment had still not been supplied and there were many shortages of what was in place.

  Making matters worse and greatly hampering training schemes, the weather broke just after the division had arrived on Salisbury Plain. On October 21, a quarter-inch of rain bucketed down and, over the next five days, another inch fell. The Canadians would remain here for 123 days of which 89 brought rainfall that totalled 23.9 inches—double the 32-year average.

  Living in tents that lacked flooring and around which no foot boards had been installed meant that it was impossible for the men to escape the eternal dampness. With each passing day the camp became, increasingly, a flooded quagmire of mud as it was discovered that a few inches below a layer of clay was an impermeable layer of chalk that prevented the water being soaked up. Abnormally low temperatures only added to the general misery. Strong winds buffeted the tents, ripping holes in the canvas that were reopened almost as fast as they could be repaired. Even those that remained intact were unheated and the fabric proved no barrier to the icy winds. During one three-week period, strong gales flattened almost all the tents.

  In the 16th Battalion’s area the mud ebbed and flowed as if pushed by the rise and fall of a tide, now oozing into the tents, now sliming back out again. Boots were caked with clots of the muck and were quickly soaked through. Men desperately dug into their own pocketbooks to shell out for high-cut rubber boots hawked throughout the camp by private profiteers selling them at exorbitant prices. An attempt to use a snowplow to push the mud away and create paths only exposed the chalk, which proved treacherously slippery, and the mud inexorably reclaimed the paths soon after the plow passed through.

  Things went from bad to worse when a gale that had abated during the night of December 3 returned with renewed fury late the next morning. One side of the battalion’s large, seven-poled, mess tent was smashed in while the orderly room tent and many of the bell tents were o
verturned. As the entire battalion was on divisional duty the men were scattered throughout the camp performing one maintenance chore or another. Only a party of about fifty men and two officers was close enough to try to avert disaster. “They rushed,” the battalion historian wrote later, “through the slough of mud and held on to the ropes of the large mess tent hoping to save it from complete destruction, but in this effort the ropes came off the poles and the majority of the party were precipitated backward into the mud banks. The camp as a whole was in a sorry plight—smashed tables, broken crockery, sodden canvas flat on the ground, personal kit and orderly room papers flying in all directions and soaked, bedraggled men holding on to the tents left standing, or running around in an endeavour to salvage part of the wreckage.”18

  Lord Kitchener had promised that the Canadians would be able to move to permanent barracks in huts by the end of November, but the contractors had fallen hopelessly behind schedule. Christmas found more than 11,000 men still living in tents.19 Fortunately for the 16th, the disaster of the December 4 gale prompted its move to a new camp area called Larkhill, where they were able to occupy some recently finished huts. The battalion war diarist noted with satisfaction that these “are more comfortable than tents.”20 They were still, however, “draughty,” which did little for the men’s health.21