THE PINEHURST OUTLOOK
Germany. .
THE LADIES FROM HELL
In the front lines of the Ypres salient
-was the Third Brigade made up of
Canadian Highlanders, whom the Ger
mans, since that night have nick-named
"The Ladies from Hell." In this Bri
oade!. were men from parts of Nova
Scotia, Montreal, from Hamilton, To
ronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver.
To the left of these lay the Second
Brigade of Infantry. These were men
for the most part from the West. There
was the Fifth, commonly known as the
"Dissappointed Fifth," from Begina,
Ioose Jaw and Saskatoon. There was
the English, nick-named by the Germans
"The Little Black Devils from Winni
peg." The Tenth, the famous "Fight
ing Tenth," with boys from Southern
Alberta, mainly Medicine Hat and Cal
gary arid Lethbridge. And there was
the Seventh of British Columbia.
It was the Second Brigade which the
First was supporting. To the left of
the Eighth Battalion, which was the ex
treme Canadian left wing, there were
Zouaves and Turcos. These were black
French Colonials. To these unfortu
nates, probably the Canadians owe their
near disaster.
THE POISON CLOUD OF HATE
In the far distance we saw a cloud
-rise as though from the earth. It was a
greeny-red color, ( and increased in
volume as it rolled forward. It was like
.-a mist rising, and yet it hugged the
ground, rose five or six feet, and pene
trated to every crevice and dip in the
ground.
We could not tell what it was. Sud
denly from out the mist we men in re
serve saw movement. Coming toward
us, running as though Hell as it really
was had been let loose behirid them,
-were the black troops from Northern
Africa. Poor devils, I do not blame
them. It was enough to make any man
run. They were simple-minded fellows.
"They were there to fight for France, but
their minds could not grasp the signifi
cance of the enemy against whom they
"were pitted. The gas rolled on and they
fled. Their officer's vainly tried to stem
the flying tide of them. Their heels
barely seemed to touch the ground. As
they ran they covered their faces, noses
r.nd eyes with their hands, and through
blackened lips, sometimes cracked and
"bleeding, they . gasped, . " Allemands !
Allemands ! ' '
Some of our French-speaking officers
stopped the few running men they could
make hear, and begged of them to re
form their lines and go back to the
attack. But they were maddened as
only as a simple race can be frenzied by
fear, and paid no heed.
It is in times like this, in moments of
dire emergency, that the officer of true
worth stands out. the real leader of men.
There were a dozen incidents to prove
this in the next few hurried, desperate
moments. None can be more soul-stir
ing than the auick thought, quick ac
tion and foresight displayed by our own
captain. He did not know what this
smoke rushing toward our lines could
be. He had no idea more definite than
any of us in the ranks. But he had that
quick 'brain that acts automatically in
an emergency and thinks afterward.
' 1 Wet your handkerchiefs in your
water-bottles, boys ! " he ordered.
We all obeyed promptly.
"Put the handkerchiefs over your
faces and shoot like the devil!" he
panted. '
We did this, and as the gas got closer,
the handkerchiefs served as a sort of
temporary respirator and saved many of
us from a frightful death. We in the
reserves suffered least. Yet some of us
died by that infernal product. A man
dies by gas in horriDle torment. He
turns perfectly black, those men at any
rate whom I saw at that time. Black
as black leather, eyes, even lips, teeth,
nails. He foams at the mouth as a doer
in hydrophobia; he lingers five or six
minutes and then goes West.
THE BRUNT OF THE BATTLE
Marvelous is the only word to de
scribe the endurance, the valor of the
Ladies from Hell. They withstood the
gas, and they withstood wave after
wave of attacking German hordes. And
yet even their wonderful work was over
topped by that of the Eighth, which,
being exposed on the left by the black
troops who had fled, had to bear the
brunt of1 a fight which almost sur
rounded them.
TEN TO ONE
It was wonderful. I shall never for
get it. There were twelve thousand
Canadian troops. In the German official
reports after the battle, they stated that
they had used one hundred and twenty
thousand men against us, and one thou
sand guns. We had not one gun. Those
that we had were captured when the
African blacks had left, it was our
strength against theirs no, it was
white man's spirit against barbarian
brutality.
HAND TO HAND
For six days and nights that terrible
death struggle continued. Every man
was engaged: cooks, doctors, stretcher
bearers, chaplains, every one of us had
a rifle. The wounded who had to take
their chance of living because there was
no way to convey them back to shelter
some of them would sit up, if they
possibly could, to load and load again
rifles which they lifted from dead com
rades. They would hand us these as our
rifles got too hot to hold. And still the .
German attacks persisted. Still they
came on. And still we did not budge an
inch from our position as it was when
the gas first came over. They did not
gain a yard, though when the British
reserves at last reached us, there were
only two thousand of as ieft standing
on our feet; two thousand of us who
were whole from out the twelve thou
sand that had started in to repel the
attack.
LEFT OF TWELVE THOUSAND
The two thousand of us were still in
the old position. Still we held in our
safe-keeping the key of the road to
Calais, to Paris, to London and farther. ;
The key to world power which the
Continued on page seven)
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