now, the ordinary combatant officer who perhaps will read these lines may expect a diatribe against what the boys call, "the brass-hats," but, if so, he will be grievously disappointed. outside the fact that staff officers, like medical officers, are a necessary evil, the writer has the vivid recollection of one occasion on which he might have been court-martialed, and perhaps shot, for lèse majesté, or something akin to it, but for the good humor of a well-known brigadier general. so there will be no scathing denunciation of staff officers here.
at noon i was sitting in a dugout in the lines when i received an order to immediately relieve captain ——, of the —steenth canadian battalion. the order gave no information as to the whereabouts of this battalion, and as it turned out the order had been wrongly transmitted, and i had been directed to go to a battalion which was not on our front. however, i did not know this at the time, and so, i quickly got my things together, hung my steel hat, my cap, haversack, pack, overcoat, stick, and other odds and ends on various parts of my person,—for an officer, like a private, seems to be made to hang things upon.
to get out of the lines to where i was to be met by an ambulance was a long, hard trudge. the ambulance was over one hour late, and hours followed in which we searched everywhere to find a trace of the battalion. night came on and we were still searching, and as no food had accompanied us, and a mixture of snow and rain was falling, i was cold, wet, hungry and pugnacious, when i entered a headquarters in order to try to get some information. forgetting i was only a captain, and stalking angrily in, i demanded:—
"where the hell is the —steenth battalion?" an officer rose, came forward and smilingly asked me what the trouble was.
"i have been hunting for hours," i replied hotly, not even looking for his rank, "searching for this bally battalion, and i'm fed up to the neck with being pushed around like a basket of fruit," for i had had many moves recently.
"and a pretty healthy looking basket of fruit you are, too," he returned with a good-humored laugh, while he proceeded to put me on the right track, and at last i noted his rank. he was the general of my brigade. so now you have the reason that i will say nothing against staff officers.
a story akin to this of an incident that happened in one of our trenches may be worth relating, though it has nothing to do with staff officers. my colonel who always, even in his busiest times, had a vivid sense of humor, was sitting in his dugout when a tommy's voice yelled down:—
"say, bub, how do we get to the vistula railhead from here?" the colonel's voice floated up giving directions. but the tommy, thinking he was talking to another private, said:—
"oh, say, bub, don't be so damned lazy, come up and show us the way," and the consternation of the tommy as the colonel good-naturedly came up and showed him the way was good to look at.
on a drizzling, rainy day when our battalion occupied the front lines on part of the vimy ridge, i was standing in front of a so-called dugout, which consisted of a room about twelve feet by twelve, in which, through lack of space, two medical officers and their four assistants and two batmen, ate, slept, and attended the wounded and sick. we were sheltered from shells by a tin roof, on which someone had piled two layers of sandbags.
the trenches were of sand with no revetments of any kind, so that the rain, which had been pouring for days, washed the earth down and formed mud to the knees. sometimes the mud was rich and creamy, and, except for the fact that whoever happened to be in front of you spattered it in your face, it was easy to get through. the other variety of mud was mucilaginous and tenacious, and in getting through it one was very likely to lose his boots—particularly if they were the long rubber kind—and socks, or to get stuck fast. there were many cases where men had to be dug or pulled out; and not one but many men, and on one occasion an officer, came into this dugout of mine during the night in their bare feet. they had come for hundreds of yards in some cases in this manner.
on the day of which i speak i was standing in the creamy mud half way to my knees listening to the sharp crack made by bullets whizzing over head, and to the singing of shells, by way of a change from the rather poisonous atmosphere in the dugout, made offensive by the carbon monoxide from a charcoal fire, when i heard someone splashing along through the mud.
looking up, i saw three staff officers with the distinguishing red bands on their caps, for they were not wearing helmets. two of them wore raincoats, so that their rank could not be seen; the third wore no overcoat, but an ordinary officer's uniform with ankle boots and puttees. he strode doggedly behind the others, apparently caring nothing for mud or rain, and to my surprise he had upon his breast, though he looked no more than twenty years of age, the ribbons of a number of decorations.
they stopped just before they came to where i was. taking out a map of these trenches they and their guide, or runner, began studying it, while i stood wondering how a boy of twenty could have won these coveted decorations, finally deciding that he must be in the air service. while i was still wondering he turned to me, and, though he was of my own rank, he saluted and, with a pleasant smile, asked me if i could give them any information as to this front. i joined them, and for some time i answered their questions, which, rather strangely, were in regard to a cemetery to which guillemot trench—the one in which we stood—led on its way to the firing line 500 yards away.
"after we go there," asked one of the older officers, "what is the easiest way out?"
i explained that the easiest way was overland to neuville st. vaast, and then down the road, but as we still heard the bullets passing a few feet above the parapet it might not be the safest. he smiled whimsically, and said he would personally rather take the risk than plow through this dreadful mud, but perhaps they'd better stick to the trenches. we chatted a few moments more, and they put their feet once again to the task of getting them through the trenches, the rather thin legs of the young officer pushing him determinedly along behind the others.
that evening the colonel informed me that he had learned at brigade that my questioner of the afternoon was the prince of wales, who is honorary chairman of a commission in charge of british cemeteries in france. and this removes, for me at least, the idea which many of us had that, while the prince is in france, he is kept well out of the danger zone. for on this day he was well up toward the front lines and under filthy trench conditions at that. a prince with as much red blood in his veins as he displayed in making that journey should not have enough blue blood to prevent his being some day a strong and righteous monarch.