Alma Russell Letters
Letters of British Columbia men on active service with Canadian and British Expeditionary Forces, 1914-1918. Learn more.
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two of these sportsmen as souveniers, and they stuck with us for some days. Then we marched out and started to dig ourselves in with entrenching tools, but were stopped, and moved towards the trenches to the east. By this time the air was full of some infernal stink, which made us weep copiously, and nobody knew what had happened. About an hour before dawn, we went up (as we thought) to reinforce a part that was weakly held, and again dug ourselves individual holes. When morning broke we discovered, to our astonishment, that nobody was between us and the Germans, who held some houses about 300 yards in front. Then the shells came from behind, but luckily they went about 50 yards too far. A Sniper got busy and winged the Colonel, and a couple of men. The wind was very cold, and as you cannot dig more than two feet without striking water, we could do nothing but shiver. That night we made a real trench, and settled down for a while. Next morning the shells came again in bunches, getting a couple of us. Then more Germs appeared over the hill, and we had a little battle of our own, which was spoiled by our Artillery, which shelled the stuffing out of us. We were prepared to hold on forever when the order came to retire, as our flanks were turned. Then things started. I took half my Platton out along a hedge to cover the retreat of the Company, so I never saw them again. The Germs were coming in thousands, so we worked our way down the trenches to the left. In this way we kept up a running fight all morning, leaving one trench, and running across the open to another one in the rear. Our Artillery was so chivied about, that they gave us no help, while we were being mowed down by shrapnel, machine guns, and rifles. It sure was a merry little hell. Nobody was the least
BC Archives, MS-1901 Box 1 File 10 / RUSSELL, Alma M., 1873-1964. Victoria; librarian. / Selected letters from Sergeant John Raymond McIllree, 1915.