Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2005 6:34 pm
As found in "True Canadian War Stories" from Legion Magazine
Business is Business
"What we need," said Marrigat, "is a stick of dynomite about 20' long"
"Or," said Sir John Hawkins, "a derrick and one of these 'ere 'ooks."
"A keg of stumping powder," added Beaubien.
"Well, why not make a stick of dynomite 20' leg?" asked Brown. "Take a piece of one-inch pipe, and fill her full of ammonal and put a fuse to her-bingo."
Marrigat got up and said: "come on. That's done already."
These four, Marrigat's gang, had been notified to stand by for a raid, an identification raid. The major had discovered Marrigat's gang in the midst of his company at Vimy, where these four inseparables, who marched abreast, bunked together, ate together, played together and shared all, had preformed at least 1/2 a dozen miracles; outflanked a pair of machine guns, cut the main cable of the enemy telephone system, catapulted red ground flares an enormous distance so that the enemy guns, thinking this was the new British line, shelled short and destroyed their own last line of defense; and that four volunteering as crew to a Stokes gun sergeant, induced him to fire air-bursts at a low-flying aeroplane that was trying to solve the riddle of the ground flares. It was those air bursts, fuses cut down to 3 seconds, that took the major over to the gun and to the discovery of Marrigat's gang in the innocent midst of his own command.
"Who the blazes?" demanded the major, kneeling on the rim of the large shell hole where the Stokes was uplifting its stovepipe snout.
"Whuff!" coughed the Stokes, as Marrigat himself leaned smartly away from the gun. A whiskey-bottle shell leaped soaring into the sky; the German machine, hastening now, roared over, and the short-fused shell, dangerously short, burst with a grey smash to one side of the banking Hun.
Marrigat, watching, turned a happy face to the major.
"What's the idea?" said the major, in his party manner. "Are you aware that you are likely to get your bloody head blown off? Get back to your platoon. Are you the sergeant of this gun?"
"Yessir. I lost my crew. These men came and offered to run it, if I would show them."
Marrigat said: "The Hun has went home."
All looked, and the machine was speeding away into the east.
"Well," said the major, "Marrigat, you stay here with these 3 and serve the gun until the sergeant gets his own relief for you. But don't tinker with fuses, you hear? Stokes guns are not Archies."
The major was slightly elated as he scuttered back to the trench where his company lay. "I've got to use those boys."
That was how Marrigat's gang wqas discovered. Vimy won Marrigat and Sir John Hawkins the military medal. A raid 5 weeks later placed the same decorations on the tunics of Beaubien and Brown.
They were excused duty, in and out of the line. They were designated as raiders. The time they had on thier hands was left to them to think up new ways of distressing the enemy.
"A little raid," said the major, "an identification raid. Brigade wants only one identification, still in good condition, if possible, still able to speak. Now, let me know to-night what you would like to do. Take a look at the lay of the land. Have a talk with the scouts."
With the scout sergeant they made a tour of No Mans Land at dark, and found a place in the wire where it was only 20' across, good and thick, matted. And beyond the wire they heard a German with a bad cold.
Beaubien, when the got back in, said; "Now if he has a bad cough, likely the whole platoon has a bad cold, eh?"
"In effect, yes." said Sir John.
"That's where we go in then." said Beaubien,
Here Marrigat said:
"What we need is a stick of dynomite 20' long."
So, with Brownie's suggestion of a pipe full of ammonal, the Mills bomb explosive, and a very pretty one, the four went back to a ruined village to find a piece of pipe.
They had not long to look. In the best house in the village they found a length of pipe about 30' long, and they carried it back to the support trenches, where bomb store were.
With an enormous pull-through and emery paper, they wiped the rusty pipe clean, poured it full of explosive, bored a small hole in the lead plug for the fuse and plugged her tight.
With this strange weapon they crawled out, at 9, dark, sliding it with them as they crawled. It took them 1 1/2 hrs to insert the pipe under the matted, tangle of barbed wire. It met obstruction time after time, but at last they thust it home-all the way.
Uncoiling the fuse, they withdrew forty feet, and sent Brown back to tell the major to get ready for a bang.
Brown came back and whispered "OK"
Sir John Hawkins, the derrick worker, accustomed to mines and quarries, fired the fuse with the major's cigaret butt the Brown had brought out from the trench, reversed in his mouth.
The instantaneous fuse hissed, and forty feet away a huge flame and roar leaped up. Marrigat and his gang lay with eyes tight shut, face to the ground. While the debris was still falling the four scrambled up, charged the spot of the explosion, and found as they had expected, a large lane torn in the belt of tangled barbed wire.
Marrigat in front, pistol in hand, slid into the spledndidly planked German trench. Brown behind him had a large iron nut slid on to the handle of his trenching tool. This made a little club called a whiffer. Sir John and Beaubien followed, with nose bags full of Mills bombs.
Thier ears, dulled by the explosion, could still make out the clatter of near-by machine guns in the night. Thier job was immediately lighted by a cloud of German flares, shot aloft from right and left. In the vivid boarded trench, scattered full of dirt and torn wire, they stood waiting for an identification to show himself.
"Not more than 20 paces either way," shouted Marrigat. "Beaubien, this way." And he went left, making a gresque shadow in the livid trench. Brown with his whiffer, and Sir John on his heels, with bombing arm laid back, ready to throw beyond, went right.
"One, two, three, four," counted Brownie, and paused at a bend. Around the bend came a German bayonet, thick and broad, and gleaming in the light of the constant flares. Slowly it came. Brownie and Sir John pressed themselves against the side of the trench. The bayonet, with infinite caution, came around, followed by the muzzle of a rifle. Brownie, his whiffer in his left hand, suddenly seized the muzzle and gave a great heave. The rifle exploded down the trench and a large German, with a vast shout, fell on his face at thier feet. At the same time, Sir John lobbed a bomb lightly over the bend, where it fell, amid a furious thuding of feet, and exploded. Brown with his foot tipped the German's deep helmet forward and off, and cracked him neatly and lightly with the whiffer on the back of the head.
Lengthening each time, Sir John had rapidly thrown 3 more boms, when, with a rush, Marrigat and Beaubien came from behind. Brown and these 2 took the German by the armpits and dragged him back to where the lane in the wire was. Sir John, his long arm flailing, began to lob his bombs in both directions.
Then Marrigat removed from his side pockets 2 bombs that looked like black tins of salmon. With a match he litthem and threw 1 left, and 1 right. Dense clouds of white smoke rose up and spread before them. The lane screened against the green calcium glare of the flares, the party, a leg and an arm apiece, hauled thier identification up out of the trench, and through the lane.
The white smoke billowed and eddied around them, choking them. But they reached a deep hole and lay in it.
For 15 min. the flares leaped and lobbed, the machine guns raved, back and forward. From the Canadian trench not a sound. The German field guns that had opened up died away. In a moment of darkness, Marrigat's gang and thier identification scrambled up and on. Flare! Down they dropped at the tell tale pop. In 3 mins the major and 10 men found them, took thier burden from them and scuttled into the trench.
"Very neat," said the major. "Is he all right?"
"I just tapped him." said Brown.
"Just a little tap." He bent down and felt the German's head. "Yep, it's swelling. He's all right."
They poured water on the German's head and wrists, patted his wrists as if he had fainted, pillowed his head on Marrigat's lap.
He stirred, raised a hand to his brow.
They heaved him to his feet and led/pushed him, in dumb bewilderment, down towards the major's dugout. In the candle-lit chamber they sat him down on a bench, and the four stood smiling at him, while the major took the phone and told headquaters the had got a feldwebel for an identification.
"To seven seventh Bavarian," said he
Rum was handed around. The german got his first. The four in turn, held thier granite cup of rum up to him.
"Good luck," said Marrigat.
"The war is over." toasted Sir John.
"Hoch der Kaiser." said Beaubien
"Gesundheit!" greeted Brown who had cracked him.
The four saluted the major; he helmetless, smiled upon them. Up into the chill night they went, back down to the trenched to the dugout and the soiled cribbage board.[align=left][/align]
