the evening of august 7th, 1918, saw the british troops in france massed under cover along a front of many miles, ready for the morning and the grand attack of august 8th which led to our final victory.
throughout the vast organization of our allied armies, now all under gen. foch, gigantic preparations of microscopic thoroughness had been going on for weeks. our intentions had been most wonderfully hidden from our foes by all the artifices of elaborately developed camouflage. at night the roads of france back of the line were filled with hundreds of thousands of infantrymen marching to their appointed places; with countless batteries of big guns and little guns, and munitions, moving as required by the great secret plan; with lorries, armoured cars, and tanks, pounding along in almost endless succession through the darkness. in the daytime little movement was to be seen beyond what was usual. artifices, many and varied, were used to trick our foes, such as fake attacks in flanders by a platoon or two of canadians left in the north to mislead the enemy, the canadian troops being then far south. altogether it seemed that the germans were left wholly in the dark as to our purposes. it was the largest and most brilliantly arranged venture in the war. armistice day testifies how well the plans were carried through.
our own corps had been slipping by night into a little patch of timber, on the roye road, called gentelles wood. we had been gathered there for two days, lying low but so packed in, that, if the enemy artillery had dropped a single shell anywhere in the woods, it would have decimated a battalion. what a chance they missed! enough to give old hindenburg the nightmare if he knows of it. it seemed like another direct intervention of providence. for weeks before, the germans had shelled these woods, a little, almost every day, but now, at the very time when a few shells would have materially disarranged our plans, something stayed the hands of the gunners and not a single shell or bomb came near us.
on the 7th, as soon as it was dark enough, the tanks, hidden in the brush at the edge of the wood and by hedges at roadsides, commenced to move to their attack positions. two score must have passed through our battalion bivouac. the leading tank made its own road crashing through the brush, going over ditches and fallen timber, and turning aside only for the large standing trees. each driver, hidden away in the tank and peering through the small look-out, could see only the lighted end of his officer's cigarette which was used to guide him in the deep darkness of the trees. no other lights were allowed. when they were gone we too moved forward, deploying to our positions in trenches ready for "zero-hour" next day.
the night passed safely, a momentous night, in which the enemy had his last good chance to spoil our plans and save himself from overwhelming defeat. just before dawn, through the light morning mist, our artillery barrage came down with infernal noise and destructive effect. it told the enemy that we were going to attack. the german batteries of course replied with damaging precision, but it was too late then to save the day. our guns lengthened range and the tanks went forward. the other fighting units followed and by sunrise the grand attack had been fully launched up and down the whole british and french front. it was an attack that was to continue victoriously for three months, finally forcing the germans on nov. 11th to confess themselves well and thoroughly whipped.
in this splendid affair the canadian corps had a place of special honor on the extreme right of the british line, and facing the central attack-area beyond amiens down the roye road. of our own battalions the 43rd was on the right flank linking up with the left wing of the french troops. the "liaison platoon" was half canadian camerons and half french "poilus." this junction sector would probably be the place of greatest danger to the success of the whole advance, for there, if anywhere, misunderstanding or conflict in orders might occur leading to a dangerous dislocation in the long line of the allies. we were very proud of the confidence placed in us. the results show that it was not misplaced.
it was a glorious victory. the tanks cleared up the out-lying german defence posts and enabled our machine-gunners and infantry following them, to put their full strength against the main german positions. before noon the hun was on the run. we chased him helter-skelter through fields of yellow grain, across meadows, and down dusty roads, cornered and captured hundreds of his men in orchards and chateaux. it was sunny, summer weather in one of the loveliest parts of france. our success had surpassed expectations and we were still going on. there were "beaucoup souvenirs." the enemy in his hurry had left a litter of stuff behind him, post-cards half-written, tobacco-pipes half-smoked and still warm, shaving brushes with fresh lather on them, breakfasts commenced but finished elsewhere, if ever finished.
on aug. 11th, three days after the attack our brigade was camped under the trees beside a chateau which had been a german divisional headquarters on aug. 8th, and was now ten miles behind our line. i remember it distinctly for that day, a sunday, i had preached my farewell sermon to my battalion. i had been inveigled into asking for a recall to england. they said i needed a rest. perhaps i did, and then at that time you couldn't tell how much longer the war was to last. if i had foreseen an armistice in twelve weeks i should have done differently. so i was to go to blighty for a few months, my substitute had reported for duty and there was nothing for me to do but go.
a group of men sat around me beneath the trees, as i lingered that afternoon, chatting about odds and ends of things, leaving the subject that, i think, was uppermost in our minds pretty much untouched, for we were all loth to say good-bye. somehow the talk turned to stories of clever camouflage suggested by some of our recent experiences and the boys told several good yarns. i outlined an old one i had heard my father tell of the arts of camouflage practised by indians in his own soldier days in upper canada. this elicited enquiries about my father, and how he came to be soldiering in canada so long ago. it was a story i knew well, and so it was easily told. these men were friends of mine, true and tried, and i knew they would understand and fill in from their hearts the simple outline i gave them of my father's life.
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ever since i can remember, edinburgh has been to me the fairest city in the world. i am canadian-born, my mother also, but my father was an edinburgh man, and my earliest memories are filled with word-pictures of that city drawn in warm tones of affection by a home-sick scot. many an hour have i sat at my father's feet, as we gathered around the fire of a winter's evening, listening to his stories. he had a wide range of indian and soldier anecdotes so dear to a boy's heart, but none of them live so clearly in my recollection as those he had to tell of his birth-place. long before i knew what geography was i had a fairly intimate knowledge of edinburgh. calton hill, arthur's seat, samson's ribs, holyrood palace, high street and princes street, i had the right location and a true picture of them all. when boy-like i would be building forts with blocks or in the sand, they would always be called edinburgh castle.
i knew all his stories except one, and that one was his own life. i heard that too, at last, and it came about in this wise. an important registered letter used to come to father quarterly, containing his soldier's pension. until i was well along in school i was not specially interested in the envelope or its contents, but one day i read the address as it lay near me on the table, and it was "559 cpl. g. mcdonald, r.c.r." naturally i became curious. my father, george pringle, was getting george mcdonald's letter and money. my father was honest, i never, of course, questioned that. still it was a puzzle to my boyish mind. he came into the room, saw what i was doing, and so i asked him to tell me about it. "it must look odd to you, my boy," he said, "and i've been waiting until you were old enough to hear and understand the explanation. to-night after supper, if no visitors come, i'll tell you the reason of it." that evening under the lamplight we gathered around his arm-chair and he told his own story.
"long ago," he said, "when i was a boy, our family were living very happily in what was then one of the best parts of old edinburgh. my father was a man of substance and gave us all a good schooling and a trade. of my mother i shall only say that she was to me the most wonderful and the most beautiful woman in the world. i had a twin brother john and we were very much alike in appearance. when we were fourteen years old our mother died. we mourned as only boys of that age can mourn, with deep grief too poignant for words. within three years father married again. our stepmother was an excellent woman and kind to us, and i know now my father did right. but we couldn't bear to have anyone else in our own mother's place. loyal in our love to her we grew embittered towards our father. there were no "words," but when about seventeen years old we ran away from home, tramped south to london, and there, being edinburgh tradesmen, soon found work. a year or so and then we got an inkling that father had traced us. determined not to go back we enlisted in the rifle brigade and to hide our identity gave our names as john and george mcdonald, our mother's maiden name. you see where our hearts were. within the year our unit left for canada, and we had been in barracks at halifax, nova scotia, only a few months when we were paraded one day before the commanding officer, col. lawrence. he took us into his own room and there he spoke to us as a friend. he had received a letter eloquent with a father's love for his two wandering laddies. father had traced us by our christian names, and our likeness to each other. i think, too, the name mcdonald, which we thought would baffle him, only made him more certain. col. lawrence read the letter aloud to us, and it moved us deeply. money enough was enclosed to buy our discharge and pay our passage home. the officer urged us to return. at first we were inclined to yield, but some dour devil of bitterness took control of our hearts and we said we would not go, would accept no money, and wished to have no further communication with our father. such was the unrelenting reply the colonel would have to send back to edinburgh. how many, many times has remorse punished me for that unkind decision. yet we blindly thought that love and loyalty to the mother we had lost made it right that we should turn our backs on our father's outstretched arms. we never heard from him again, and we have lost all trace of our relatives in scotland.
"you can easily construct the rest of my story. after serving some years more we left the army for a time. i was married to your mother, mary cowan, at murray harbor south, prince edward island. shortly after we re-enlisted under our army name in the royal canadian rifles, then a newly organized regiment, with which i served until i finally gave up the soldier life, and settled in galt under my right name. my service was sufficient to get me a medal and a pension. the pension comes addressed as you have seen, and the medal is similarly inscribed. it is the regimental number that identifies me and the money and medal are rightfully mine. but a thousand pensions can never ease my heart of regrets for the suffering we needlessly inflicted on our father who loved us and whom we loved."
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this was the homely story told in my father's words to those kiltie lads that summer afternoon under the apple trees in an alien land. they listened and understood, for every true scottish heart responds to these stories of our own folk and our homeland.
from the lone shieling of the misty island
mountains divide them, and a waste of seas,
but still the blood is strong, the heart is highland,
and they in dreams behold the hebrides.
and it's all the same whether they are from the east coast or the west, the highlands, or the islands, or the borders, city or country-born, the scot never knows the place scotland has in his affections until he becomes an exile.
i slipped away after saying farewell, and, with my faithful henchman macpherson, climbed up on a waiting lorry and was off down the dusty road towards boulogne, homesick for the men i left behind me.
sequel
it was my privilege to spend the winter of 1919-20 in edinburgh taking lectures at new college, a glorious year. i had searched the city for traces of my father's people without success, and had almost given up hopes of ever finding them. one day early in the session i was standing in the common hall of the college chatting with other students, when one of them named scott asked me if he might enquire why my father went to canada, for i had been saying he came from edinburgh. i gave him a few details and he seemed much interested. further explanations and his eyes lighted up with excitement. i soon found what caused it. several eager questions and answers back and forth and i knew that one of my great ambitions had been realized. i had found one of the old edinburgh pringles from whom we had been estranged so many years. his mother was a pringle, the daughter of an older brother of my father's. it was one of the supreme occasions of my life. in our hand-clasp in that college hall under the shadow of the castle, the separation of nearly a century was ended. some of you can guess how deeply i was stirred. fancy or fact, i was certain he had my father's voice and eyes. we opened our hearts to each other and it was pleasant talk. i had reason to be proud of my new-found cousin. he was then assistant-minister in one of the noblest of edinburgh's many fine churches, "chalmer's territorial united free," commonly called "the west port." my first sermon in my father's city was preached from his pulpit, and in it i could not forbear telling the congregation of the strange and happy meeting with their minister.
