The 116th Battalion in France

o. 7 platoon who were quartered in a brewery were particularly loath to leave, but a pile of trouble was in store for the Canadians, and it was quite universally known that on the 9t

of about 5 miles, and although every artifice in the dictionary of camouflage had been used to conceal the hundreds of guns which were hauled in, under cover of darkness, for the attack, Mister Fritz could not

2

rung across the front in a way that only Germans with a dread of British steel know how to do. Such an advance, even without a shot being fired from his lines, would be

h of April to vacate our billets in Houdain and take over a ser

seemed to suspect, and rightly so, that that wood of ours was a good hiding place for troops. (There must have been at least two Brigades in the vicinity, to say nothing of countless ammunition d

we might win much honour and glory by conveying ammunition and trench material to the front line, in the event of a successful attack. These little jobs sound rather tame in comparison with honest fighting, but in reality they require just as much skill and courage. Ask any infantry man which he wou

and support line trenches. Fritz must surely have realized that this was something more than the daily "warm up," which our artillery had been giving

he Souchez Valley, we were soon to see him flying across the lowland which stretches from the easter

rcely daylight, when, like a mighty earthquake, the artillery burst forth,

nly tried to picture the drama that had just begun, and many a prayer

established by the P.P.C.L.I. The order in which our Companies would be used had been previously decided by ballot, for it goes without saying that all four Companies were anxious to be first-"B" Company were the lucky ones, and under Major Moo

d reached[23] the new front line around La Folie Farm, the German artillerymen, who up till now had been chiefly engaged in dragging their guns to safety, were searching the top of the ridge in an endeavour to retard the work of consolidation. They must have sighted No. 8 platoon, for no sooner had our men begun w

crowded beyond capacity, but for the next few days there was to be no rest for anyone until our new line

It looked as if we might get into some of the fighting after all, and with very mixed feelings the inevitable advance party, consisting of 1 officer and 1 N.C.O. from each Company and H.Q., started out in the direction of a certain map location called "Spandau Haus" where

the intricacies of a newly captured position was asking them a little too much after their experiences of the last 36 hours. This is evidently what Divisional Headquarters thought too, for by the time our party had returned to Dumbell Camp, having carefully marked on their maps all the information possible, it was announced that the relief of the 8th Brigade by our Battalion had been cancelled, and that the 60th Battalion would go forward in our place-shouts of joy, especially by

uite aware that the road was one of our only lines of communication, having used it himself, and consequently he was not going to let us put it into good condition for nothing. Every variety of "hate," large and small, and generally in series of four, was th

until one day, a note from Battalion Headquarters announced that we would not become a fighting unit as heretofore decided, but that we would be made into a pioneer battalion and be attached permanently to the 8th Brigade. All this in the interest of[26] the Corps, etc., etc., etc. We were still "chewing the rag" over this latest development when along came the Colonel himself to announce that