The 4th Canadian Mounted Rifles - ElectricCanadian.com

30 4TH CANADIAN MOUNTED RIFLEScovered acres were?g?6depleted and replenished with onlyan occasional hindrance. One enormous dump nearFricourt "went up"for days but was a mere incident inthe turmoil and noise. Innumerable troops billetedthemselves in tents, lean-to s and old German dugouts.Noisy, high-spirited battalions laden with rations, ammunition, sand bags, and gas masks were passed byunshaven, tired and worn companies silently coming out.The brick-fields were congested with bell-tents andtransport lines. An occasional shell would frighten ahorse from the picket line and start him careering throughthe tented area followed by an irate groom and cursedby the inmates of the tents. Most of the men of theBattalion did not have a chance to get initiated into thisnew life because of the sudden orders which reachedSept. 11, them on their arrival. They were told that they had togo into the line that night. This came as a surprise to theofficers who had not had an opportunity to orient themselves or make any kind of reconnaissance. By 6.30 p.m.the Battalion less a reserve of Officers, N.C.O. s anddetails was on the move along the main Albert-Bapaume road through la Boisselle to Pozieres to relievethe 5th Battalion. The men saw for the first timeon either side of this congested road the devastationof the Somme battlefields. Not a tree was standing, laBoisselle was a heap of rubble and the remains of itsbuildings had been used to fill the shell holes in the road.Shell cases were strewn along the roadside or marked oldbattery positions. Tangled wire and mutilated trenchescovered the barren waste as far as one could see. Fromthe high ground beyond Albert the gilded Virgin couldbe seen hanging at a perilous angle over the ruined Campanile of the Eglise Notre-Dame de Brebieres. Sheseemed to be clinging to her tower that the folk-prophecyof victory might be fulfilled. Columns of dust could beseen rising from the town when a shell found its mark inthe clay-plaster and brick of the ruins.It was dark when the Battalion left Pozieres. Therelief was difficult and unpleasant, the guides gettinglost in the maze of trenches in the darkness. During