On the Fringe of the Great Fight

Excerpt

PREFACE

On April 22nd, 1915, the writer, in company with Major Rankin, saw the Germans launch their first gas attack near St. Julien upon the section of the line held by the French colonial troops and the first Canadian division.

This book was written primarily for the purpose of recording this as well as some of the other experiences of the first Canadian division as seen from the unusual angle of a scientist, in the course of 18,000 miles of travel in the front line area. It had the secondary object of giving the average reader some insight into what goes on behind the lines, and the means employed to maintain the health and efficiency of the British and Canadian soldiers in the field.

No attempt has been made to deal with the work of the real fighting men on land and in the air; others far better qualified than I are doing that.

If the book has no other merit, it has, at least, that of being literally true.

ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT

ON THE ROAD TO A GREAT ADVENTURE.

It began with a wish. That takes me back to a pleasant day in early August, 1914, and a verandah at Ravenscrag, Muskoka—a broad, cool, verandah overlooking dancing dark waters. A light breeze stirred the leaves and gently wafted to us the smell of the pines and the woods, mingled with the sweet odours of the scented geranium, verbena, and nicotine in the rock-girt garden. But my mind was far removed from the peacefulness of my immediate surroundings: the newspaper I held in my hand was filled with kaleidoscopic descriptions of the great European tumult. Unconsciously I voiced aloud the thought that was uppermost in my mind: "I would gladly give ten years of my life if I could serve my country in this war." "Do not say that," warned my hostess, looking up from her magazine, "for everything comes to you on a wish," and nothing more was said of the matter at the time.

That day was a very quiet one with our little house-party. We made our usual launch trip through the lakes but nobody talked much. Each was busy with his own thoughts, wondering what England could do in the great emergency. Could she, or could she not, save France from the invading hosts of Germany? And deeper in each mind was the unspoken fear, "Perhaps it is already too late to save France—perhaps, even now, the question is 'Can England save herself?'" The great depression in men's minds during those early days of the war when the bottom seemed to have dropped out of life and men strove to grasp at something upon which to reconstruct a new system of thought and life and work, had enveloped us like a chill evening mist.

Those were ghastly days. While France, Russia and England were feverishly mobilizing, the brave little force of Belgians was being steadily rolled up by the perfectly equipped German war machine and the road to France hourly becoming easier. England had commissioned K. of K. to gather together a civilian army of three million men, and Canada had called for one division to be mobilized at Valcartier Camp, a place somewhere in the Laurentian Hills near the city of Quebec....