Medicine, Military; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, Canadian
To stand at the mouth of this cave and look
about on all sides as far as the eye could see,
and to know that all that shell-racked ground
was won in a few hours by the citizen army of
Canada made one feel a legitimate pride in
being a native of that land. And the stories
which kept dribbling in for days, as we held
the line, of the gallantry of this man or the
nobly inspiring death of that one, were of
deep interest to us all.
Of our own battalion we lost on the 9th, 217
men out of a total of 657, and ten officers--not
counting two who were slightly wounded--out
of twenty-two of us. Three of our officers
were killed outright: "Old Pop;" Lieutenant
Beechraft, an American lawyer from Michigan,
who often said to me with a confident
smile: "The Germans have not yet made a
shell to get me." And he was right, poor Tom,
for I saw him lying dead that day on the field
with a German rifle bullet wound in his head.
The third of our officers killed was Major
Hutchins, a man well past fifty, who had
recently joined us and who had taken a
Lieutenant's position of platoon commander in
order to serve at the front. This was his first
fight, and he was killed by a shell while leading
his platoon across No Man's Land. All honor
to his gray hairs, and may they ever be an
inspiration to younger men!
One of the best stories of this battle
concerned a Canadian Brigade on our left under
the command of Brigadier General H----.
This brigade on April 9 took all its objectives
except one very difficult hill, No. 140,
nicknamed, because of its shape, the Pimple. The
General of the division sent word to Brigadier
General H---- that he was going to send in
some British troops to aid him in capturing this
hill. Brigadier General H---- is a bonnie
fighter, an Anglo-Indian who has been living
some years in British Columbia, and he has
a temper much resembling an Irish terrier's.
He curtly sent back word that his Canadians
needed no assistance. Knowing him well, the
General of division good-naturedly replied
that if General H---- succeeded in taking this
difficult hill they would give him the title Lord
Pimple. The next day the division received
the following message:
Have taken, am consolidating, and will hold Hill
140.
(Sgd.) LORD PIMPLE.
The main facts of this story can be verified
in the official records of this division.
I have a vivid recollection of General H---- when
he was Lieutenant Colonel in command
of the --th Canadian Battalion. I had been
sent there to relieve the regular Medical Officer
who was away on leave in England. Lieutenant
Colonel H---- was also away on leave
during my first few days' service with his
battalion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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