Out of the jaws of Hunland; the stories of Corporal Fred McMullen, sniper, Private Jack Evans, bomber, Canadian soldiers, three times captured and finally escaped from German prison camps

Front matter

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CQEmiGHT DEPOSm

Contents

CUAPTEK

Editor's Note

I. — Strafed and Captured

CHAPTER I Jack Evans begins

It had been pretty quiet on that section of the line for quite a while, but that day, the second of June, our friends across No Man's Land certainly started something. We went in the day before, relieving the 58th Battalion, and even then things were beginning to get a bit unpleasant. The German gunners had been getting a line on the trench with mortars in preparation for the attack which came later, and I can remember one of the sSth's M.G. crew coming out said: ''Thank God we're getting out of here for five days. Fm about fed up.'' It was fairly quiet that night, too. We had a working party out on a sap in front for a while and I was kept busy covering these with the gun. About four in the morning, just after Stand-to, I rolled in, but "Wedgy** (Lce.-corp. Wedgewood), my mate on the gun, decided to stay up and clean it. About eight-thirty I got hoisted up a bit when a shell from a trench mortar lit square in the dugout. Nice way to get wakened up, that. No intermittent alarm-clock needed. When I came to, I found that another chap and I had been luclcy. We got off with only that blow-up, while three of our pals in the same hole were killed. The same shell buried Wedge and the gun. We dug Wedge up and started to clean up a bit. We carried on for a few minutes and then another trench mortar came in just round the parapet and lit into the middle of our machine-gun ammunition. We had about twenty thousand rounds stored there and that shell accounted for all but about three htmdred. A few minutes later another shell — a Minnie, I think it was — killed another pal in a dugout just beside us. They were putting a strong line of fire on the front line, on our wire, and just behind the trench to keep any supports from getting up.

This sort of thing kept on pretty steady all round us. About nine-thirty Wedge and I decided to try to get down the trench about three hundred yards to Number Three gun, hoping to get some ammunition. We started down, carrying the gun, of course — that's one of the cardinal rules, never to leave your gun alone — and found trouble all the way down. Two or three times we stopped to give a hand to fellows who were buried, and every few yards we found a chimk of the parapet blown in, leaving huge gaps. How we ever got across these I don't know for they were being raked with machine-gun fire all the time. I remember, though, we used to back up and take a run at it and usually we felt a whiff of M. G. bullets either in front or behind us.

Yes, they surely gave it to us that morning. It seemed as if all hell was let loose. ''Minnies" were dropping around us every minute and sandbags were flying around like dirt at a digging bee. To add another pleasant touch to it all, the German planes were scooting along low, parallel with the trenches, dropping bombs by the basketful. We'd never thought a plane could drop anything to come within a mile of a mark before that, but they did that day — dropped 'em in apparently wherever they liked. Of course by this time there was nothing much against them.

They've told us since that this was the worst bombardment on the Ypres salient up to that time. I haven't any doubt it was, and I've got a good strong suspicion there hasn't been anything as bad, or at any rate any worse, since. The whole German artillery of the sector was turned loose on a section of line from Hooge to Trench 47, only about a mile and a quarter long. They say since that big shells were landing about every six feet. To us it seemed that they were coming down one about every foot and two or three in a bunch at that. You see they came in from all directions except immediately behind us because the sector poked up into their line.

All this was going on with absolutely no artillery retaliation. Why, we don't know, unless the communications were cut. That was the day, by the way, General Mercer was killed. He was as bad off, I guess, as any of us. One of the chaps I knew, Gregory, a signaller, told me of 'phoning back a message at the General's orders to General Headquarters to "send everything you've got." The answer came that everything would open up. But it didn't come. General Mercer was wounded by shrapnel and then tried to get back to Headquarters through what little was left of a communication trench. Another chunk of shrapnel got him there. Brig.-General Williams was with General Mercer at the time and was captured in a sap where he went for first aid after being wounded.

When we finally got down to Number Three's position after a good deal of trouble, we found absolutely no trace of the gun. She was blown to — well, figure it out for yourself. Three of the crew were gone, too. The other three went the same way a little while after. We thought we*d try to get down further to Number Two. We knew, you see, that all this dirty work meant a big attack and wanted to get some ammunition if there was any chance at all. We soon found, though, that we might about as well try to get down in the open. For yards the trench was like a pancake and the M.G. men were having a high time covering those spots. So we went back a piece — you could hardly tell whether you'd been past before because things were so blasted around — till we hit a bit of traverse running toward the Germans which somehow or other had been left intact. In this hole, about thirty-five feet long, were Corporal Day and a sergeant of "A" Company. We got down in there and stuck it out till after one o'clock. I spent most of the time — there was nothing else to do — spotting for "Minnies." How the shells pounded that bit of trench around you can guess when I tell you that we carried on there for over an hour, buried up to our waists in sand and rubbish which was blown in from all around us. During that time all of us got hit once or twice. Wedge got a nasty little scrape with a chunk of shell right across the collar bone. I got mine, shrapnel, too, in the foot, the knee, and the back. Another chunk hit me square on the steel helmet and dinted it in. There's the scar from it, see. But fortunately^ none of these was very bad.

About one-thirty we saw three star shells go up from the German lines across from us.

"There's the signal for attack," Wedge said. So we hauled ourselves as well as we could out of the rubbish, climbed up to the parapet — ^what little there was left of it — and squinted over. There was Fritzy ' 'coming over" in extended order about seventyfive yards away.

By this time we were rather busted up, as you can imagine, what with the shrapnel and the fact that we hadn't had a bite of anything, food nor water, that day. I don't think I was ever so thirsty in my life. I'm not saying anything about being hungry, mind. I found out later something about what that meant. However, we managed to get the gun into action and, I'm thankful to say, got a few of them. You will know, though, about how long — or I'd better say how short — that three hundred rounds lasted. Say, but that was disappointing. I'd never had so good a chance to mow them down before and we could keep that gun going only a few seconds. That alone was enough to break your heart.

Of course we'd been busy looking after that gun and had absolutely nothing else with us to put up a scrap with. By this time it was every man for himself. There were no orders of any kind — no officers left, and most of the N.C.O.'s out of business, too. So we thought it was about time to get out and get back if possible. We got back over the parados as well as we could, and ran plump into four Fritzies with fixed bayonets. We did not know it, of course, but they had been all around us for some time. That will give you some idea of the shape things were in around there just about then.

There was nothing to do but to flop back into the trench which we did as quick as we could. They fired but missed. We knew they'd follow us up though, so climbed over a bank of rubbish and ran into four more Germans coming down the trench.

What did I think of? I don't know. Somehow or other it never hit me that I was a prisoner till I was over in their trench a little later. I was so wild with anger over our helplessness I didn't know what to do. I do remember that there was none of this ''Shove up your hands" business you read about. They simply jabbed us in the most convenient portions with their big bayonets and forced us over the parapet. About this time our artillery at last started up a little. When the first shells came over, the Boches who had us flopped. We didn't. Those British shells were too darn good to

see.

When we got down into the German trench they marched us along to a dressing station two or three hundred yards up. On the way one big Prussian took a kick at me.

When I stopped and looked at him he kicked again. This time I caught his foot. He came at me with his bayonet and I guess I wouldn't be telling you this, if an officer who seemed a decent sort, or thought they could get some information out of me, had not stopped him. I didn't care much, at that. I was too mad.

When we got a chance we fixed one another up as well as we could. Wedge's wound was bothering him a good deal and we tried to clean it up. For a little while the Germans didn't seem to pay much attention to us. Then an officer who could speak English came up and asked us how long we thought the war was going to last. When we told him we didn't know, he asked us if they had us beaten. Of course we said, No, but we told him we thought they had given us pretty rough handling that morning.

A little later we were ordered back to a church just behind the lines where a party of Canadian prisoners was made up. There were about fifty of us altogether — Princess

Pats, 1st, 4th, and 5th C.M.R/s, two or three artillery observers, and a few trench mortar men. From there we were forced to go on again and, as we found out later, were billed for a march to Menin, between fifteen and eighteen miles.

Talk about forced marches. I had thought it was pretty bad getting up those muddy old communication trenches with part of the gun, and so it was, but. Great Caesar ! Never believe anybody again when they tell you that was hard. Think of it. Most of us were more or less cut up, but that didn't seem to make any difference. My foot had begun to bother me a good deal by this time, too, but there was nothing for it but to pike along. Some of the other fellows were a good deal worse off than either Wedge or I, but they had to pound along just the same. We were under an escort of mounted Uhlans armed with long lances and ahead of us rode military police on bicycles. They knew where they had to get that night and they kept us moving. We asked for water, thinking we would at least be given that, but there was nothing doing. Not a drop did we get till we got into Menin at about ten o'clock.

We did get some s^^npathy, too. I forgot. Several places along the road Belgian civilians tried to show us how sorry they were for us by giving us food. It was no use. The moment the Uhlans saw what was going on, they would ride up and bash them over the head with their lances. One girl, about eighteen years old, who seemed a little more daring than the others, was hit this way and knocked fiat in the road. It seemed to be a settled policy to maltreat these poor people at every turn. Often the beggars on the bicycles would get off, when they met people on the road, kick the men and women and cuff the children. This was done absolutely without provocation, too. The Belgians took it the only way they could and so far as we could see didn't show any resentment . Wouldn ' t have done them any good if they had. The Germans seemed to have done this sort of thing so much that they had them cowed, all the life and hope beaten out of them. Of course all this got under our skins pretty deep, but what could we do?

When we got to Menin, a Belgian town of about fifteen thousand, we could see traces of the German bombardment of the earlier days. We were put in a horse stable and given our first meal — memorable for several things. It was the first meal imder the auspices of our Htm hosts. It gave us our first introduction to German war coffee, and also gave us a chance to make the acquaintance of German war bread.

The coffee was black and hot. Whether it was made of chestnuts, bimit grain, or stove polish we didn't know — and didn't much care so long as it was the Hquid our bodies had been cr^'-ing out for all day.

The bread. Say, when I hear anybody here at home talking about ''War Bread'* I feel like yelling. What we got was a hunk, mighty small at that, about what would make up a fair half-sHce of one of our baker's loaves, of a doughy, sour, black concoction which looked as if it had a sawdust crust.

3 [ 33 ]

As a matter of fact it had, as we verified later. The inside mass seemed to be made from turnips. We couldn't begin to eat the stuff then. We learned to, later — when we had to, or die.

Yes, you can put right down as gospel those stories you heard and didn't believe, of bread made from sawdust being fed to the Belgian kiddies. It may not have been all sawdust but the wood was there, just the same. We've had the same stuff, time and time again. Sometimes the principal ingredient seemed to be ground straw. Sometimes it was potatoes. They didn't toss away the hides either. Often we've seen pieces of potato skin sticking out of our allowance of bread.

That was in June, 1916, remember, and that was the chief ration of the Belgian ci^alians and the aUied prisoners at that time and until we left Germany last December. The German civilians got about the same stuff, sometimes a little better. Sometimes neither we nor the civilians got even this bread. But more of this later.

When I think about it I'm stirprised that we all seemed to sleep so well that night. Of course we were beastly tired and had no idea of what was coming. Not a single one of the fellows I was with then or talked with later had ever dreamed of being captured, so we didn't worry over what was ahead of us.

Next morning we were poked out good and early, so stiff that it was agony to move at all, were formed up into fours and paraded before an ofncer who spoke EngHsh splendidly. I can remember almost ever}" word of the command which came :

"You are now imder German martial law and if you do not give up any papers or any other information in your possession you '^ill be shot."

I had in my pockets two letters, and a book on machine gunner}^ which I had been working away at in odd moments, and Wedge had another copy of the same book. We didn't want them to get those books, so, being near the end of the line and standing beside a drain, we got them out mighty carefully and kept tearing them up in our hands. Before they came along to search us we were able to reach down and get those bits of paper down the drain. They took my two letters though.

Breakfast! Say you fellows who have your two eggs after grapefruit and cereal and probably end up on muffins and marmalade, thinking you're doing wonders to forego the old-time slice of bacon! You don't know you're living. Our breakfast that morning was the same as *^ dinner" the night before — stove-polish coffee we couldn't drink and war bread we couldn't eat. Any of you fat fellows don't need to take long distance running or a course of "bawths" to get back so you can wear one of those dinky morning coats. Just take a couple of months of our experience. You'll need to take a foot or two out of your waistband at the end of it. It's true what they say, all right. We didn't see a single fat man, even moderately fat, in Germany.

About noon they marched the lot of us down to the railway station, a busy place, for this seemed to be the headquarters for the district. I remember that well, for there I got a real meal — the best one I had in all my seventeen months in Germany.

What was it? How many courses? A gammel (wash basin) of thin pea soup. That was all. But it was mighty good.

After we stood around for a while here in a sort of freight-sorting room, in came about twenty German officers. We wondered what was up when they approached us smiling and very politely, but soon found out what was in the wind. One of them asked me in excellent English how many troops were stationed on the Ypres front, how many guns there were in the sector, and similar things. I didn't know just what to say, not knowing what might happen, but finally I hit on playing up ignorant. "I'm only a common soldier," I said. *'It isn't for me to know these things."

They seemed to judge us from the standpoint of their own privates and took all this apparently as gospel.

Another officer who was questioning

Billy Raeside, a Woodbridge boy, still in Germany, though he got away with me for a while on one of the "attempts,'' asked him the same questions. When the first one, about the troops on the Ypres front, was put to him, Billy scratched his head for a minute and said: "Don't know exactly, sir. But about four million, I think."

The officer came back at him a little stiffly.

"Vat vould you take me for?" he said. "Do you t'ink I'm a fool?" Then he took a kick at Billy and walked away.

The last man they questioned was WivShback, one of our bombers, who had some German blood in him. The officer looked him over and then said: "Kannst du Deutsch sprechen ? "

Before "Wish" thought about it, I guess, for he could jabber away in the stuff easy, he said: "No." The officer turned with a grin and shot at him: "Then how do you know what I said?" He didn't get any satisfaction out of him, though, and after a few minutes said : * ' Ach, was ! ' ' and turned away.

It's a wonder they didn't do something to us right there, though. One or two of the boys began to get a Httle heady, thinking they'd put it over them and started to be smart to them. I guess they concluded there was no use bothering us any further and so left us alone.

One of the officers — perhaps he was trying to be ingratiating — spoke mighty confidentially to a couple of us, saying that if their own prisoners could be depended on to hold their tongues as well as we did they would have less trouble.

About five o'clock we were herded out again, marched to the freight yards, and loaded on cattle trucks. These were what they had moved their own troops in, or had used for the transfer of Belgian civilians. There were some rough seats but not enough to accommodate the forty men allotted to each car. When the train was about to pull out somebody started to sing that glorious classic, "It's a long way to old Tip." Say. It was funny to see the sentries rushing around, shoving their bayonets in through the bars as if we were a lot of cattle. Meant some tall dodging for us, too. But as soon as they'd quiet down one car and go on to the next all the trouble would start over again.

From five that afternoon till two the next was spent in that car. Nothing to eat. No water. Do you wonder I remember that meal of pea soup? The country? We were too sick and sore to look at it. Besides it was Germany. We didn't want to see it. Of course that train travelled like an express. Nixy. We were freight, and travelled about as fast as some of the coal coming out of Buffalo this winter. Oh, what a night!

However, we existed. There wasn't much else to it. And about two they unloaded us — cattle, you see — on a railway station platform to be "fed and watered." Introductions were frequent these days. Just there we met up for the first time with another concoction which later we found was in plain English dubbed "sandstorm." It was really a sort of thin porridge made from cornmeal with a few rotten figs for fiavoring — and the sand. Somehow or other the sand always formed a large portion of the ingredients of this dainty. We flirted with it often. Sometimes were mighty glad to do so. Personally I suspect the food contractor of a nice little bit of graft. Sand in rotten figs or cornmeal bulks 'em up nicely, you know. Perhaps the joke was just on us.

After this great feed we were prodded into the cars again and travelled for another night — or till about 4 a.m. I slept that night, not so badly either, standing up. We had to let the worse-wounded fellows lie down a little while.

In the morning about dawn we were unloaded— ^not sorry, either — formed in fours, and marched about six miles to Dulman prison camp.

This march, of course, was in Germany in the province of Westphalia, and while we were not so badly treated as some of the fellows we met later, there was no love going to waste in the eyes of the civilians we met along the road. They sneered, of course — and the German is some sneerer, let me tell you — and called us Englische Schweinehundey and a few other similar things. But they didn't cut much figure with us. By that time we were wondering what sort of thing Mr. Fritz had in for us. We got the first glimpse of the camp from about half a mile away. It stood on a knoll, and when we saw the sentries passing along outside the rows of wire, it hit me that there was mighty little chance of getting out of a spot like that.

Dulman camp was really a quarantine station where the prisoners were held for two or three weeks, to catch any case of disease, before being sent on to other working camps.

When we got into the camp we were greeted by a chorus of yells from other British prisoners who were there before us. Then we were put into tents in the enclosure. Another historic incident occurred here. We were given our first bowl of Steckrube or turnip soup. Since this delicacy became a sort of staple afterward, we were destined to get well acquainted with it before we left Central Europe.

Chapter II How I Got Into Difficulties

Corporal McMullen speaks:

My turn to go in that notable week came along on May 29th, and about twelve p.m. we snipers started for 147 Trench to relieve. We found the communication trenches full of men coming back, making it out of the question to get through, so had to work up to Trench 56 and from there down through the front line to 147. I had a message for Colonel Dennison who I expected to find in the Headquarters of the 4th C.M.R., but when I got there he wasn't to be found. So I jumped over the parados and struck back to the snipers* dugout. There was some little strafing that day but nothing unusual, and things stayed about like that till the morning of Jtme 2d.

I had been up on duty all night — that's when we did most of our shooting — and about seven o'clock in the morning went back to the dugout, made a cup of tea, and went to ''kip'' (sleep). I suppose I had slept about half an hour when a big trench mortar lit beside a road running just past our post and about twenty yards away. That shook the ground like a leaf. They began to come over all around us then so I thought it better to get out and go up to the front line. On the way up I met Jack Ward, one of my friends, and asked him if he thought we were in for some heavy fire. "Oh no," he said. ''It's just a few trench mortars to waken us up." He said that he was going back, for the Germans had the range on the communication trenches and were shooting down them like snakes. I thought it would be better to get up into the front line, which I made tracks for, but merely got into it when a "Minnie" came over, burying two fellows just beside me and knocking me over. You know when a shell hits within say ten or twelve feet, the concussion smacks you nice and solid first, while the earth goes up all around you and comes down again before you can move.

I helped to dig these chaps out and then the "Minnies'' began to come over thick. They had us enfiladed, and when we watched for them coming, so as to dodge 'em when possible, we could see them cross in the air. We kept running along the trench on which the Germans turned a hail from their machine guns and in a little while it got so bad we couldn't dodge around any longer. We started back down a communication trench, thinking things might be better, but found it, if anything, worse. It was a mighty hot pickle to be in — the worst shelling by far that part of the line had ever had. About forty times, I think, I only escaped absolute annihilation by a few feet. Finally when we had about all endurance could put up with, I saw a big shell hole beside the trench and said to Flynn, another sniper, and a man from the 33d, who by the way had just come in and naturally was feeling pretty ''windy": ''Look here, we might as well be in the open as in here. A shell doesn't often hit in the same place. Maybe we'll be better off out there."

They agreed and we beat it over and settled down nice and comfortable in the bottom waiting — we didn't know for what. We had been in there about four minutes when a big ten-inch brute lit right in the middle of us. When I came to, some time after, I found myself out of the hole and over quite a bit nearer the road. Poor Flynn had disappeared — you'll know how. The 33d man was lying near me groaning. He'd been cut up in the legs pretty badly with shrapnel. At first I didn't know there was much wrong with me, thought the dullness I felt was shell shock. So I crawled over to the other chap and asked him how bad he had it. Only then did I discover the hole in my back. At that time I hadn't any idea how bad it was. A chimk of shell about two inches long went through me just above the hip, a little to one side, and bored a hole as big as a good-sized fist. It's a wonder it didn't finish me on the spot.

INm DIFFICULTIES

As if that wasn't enough, another chunlc poked a good-sized hole just at the edge of my right eye. You can see there now where it's healed up. I got out my first-aid kit and tried to get on a bandage, but by that time I was getting stiff and it was impossible to do anything. Even yet I hadn't suffered any pain to speak of. I got enough of that later, though.