Brave Battalion (41 page)

Currie pondered quitting, but he knew “the enemy had suffered severely, and it was quite possible that matters had reached a stage where he no longer considered the retention of this position worth the severe losses both in men and morale consequent upon a continuation of the defence.” One more push, he decided, with four divisions in line “attacking simultaneously under a heavy barrage.”
³⁰

On 1
^st
Division's front, 1
^st
and 3
^rd
brigades would lead with 1
^st
on the left and 3
^rd
to the right. Flanking 1
^st
Brigade would be the 11
^th
British Division, while 4
^th
Canadian Division would be to the right. On the corps' extreme right flank, 3
^rd
Canadian Division would hit Cambrai with a frontal assault.

The advance by 1
^st
Division would be 5,000 yards north of Cambrai and 3
^rd
Brigade's first task would be completed by the Royal Highlanders advancing 1,000 yards to capture the villages of Sancourt and Blécourt. As soon as Sancourt fell, the Royal Montreal Regiment and Canadian Scottish would pass to its south and advance on a two-battalion-wide front. The target for the Montrealers was Bantigny while the Canadian Scottish had sights on Cuvilliers. Once past these villages, the two battalions were to go hell-for-leather to a sunken road well east of Cuvilliers and dig in until reinforced.
³¹

To the Canadian Scottish's dismay, they would attack without the leadership of Lt.-Col. Peck, for Brig. George Tuxford had barred him from active participation in another attack due to his being physically and mentally exhausted. The brigadier “told me I must not go into action,” Peck scribbled in his diary that evening. “Very disappointed.” After briefing Major Roderick Bell-Irving, who was to command in his absence, Peck had gone to Boulogne for a rest. But he had no intention of staying there long. He would return on the evening of September 30 to monitor the fighting from Canadian Scottish headquarters. Arriving there as planned, Peck was surprised to see that the detailed plan worked out by Canadian Corps headquarters had not been disseminated down to battalion level. He considered the orders Tuxford gave Bell-Irving “ambiguous” and “sudden.”
³²

To position itself for the attack, the Canadian Scottish moved immediately to Haynecourt and took over the lines held by 2
^nd
Brigade's 10
^th
Battalion shortly before midnight. The Canadian Corps offensive kicked off at 0500 hours and the Royal Highlanders advanced behind a creeping barrage toward Sancourt. As soon as the sounds of a fierce gunfight were audible from the village, Major Bell-Irving ordered the Canadian Scottish forward. No. 4 Company under Major Arnott Grier Mordy led with Captain George Mason's No. 3, Captain George McCreary's No. 2, and finally Captain Robert McIntyre's No. 1 companies following in line. Bell-Irving's headquarters section advanced in company with No. 1 Company. Leading from the rear was not the twenty-seven-year-old Bell-Irving's natural inclination. His close friend, Major Hugh Urquhart, often commented that Bell-Irving “had the faults of his virtues.” One of those virtues was a fearless courage that made him seek the sharp end. But the major knew that personally breathing down Mordy's neck would do little to instill confidence, so he hung back to give the officer room to breathe.
³³

It was a miserably cold day with heavy rain that drenched the men. The rain and thick overcast cut visibility so badly that the Canadian Scottish could see neither the Royal Highlanders at Sancourt nor any sign of the Royal Montreal Regiment supposedly advancing on their immediate left. Nor was 4
^th
Division's 102
^nd
Battalion visible to the right. The persistently heavy gunfire from the direction of Sancourt told Bell-Irving that the Royal Highlanders were still engaged there and not moving on schedule toward Blécourt. That meant the battalion's left flank was unprotected as it passed Sancourt and crossed the Cambrai-Douai rail line. Routine tactical doctrine would have held that Bell-Irving should hold the Canadian Scottish in place until the Royal Highlanders completed the execution of the original plan by capturing Blécourt. But one message emanating down from First Army headquarters had been crystal clear—every battalion was expected to press “forward irrespective of flanks.” These were instructions that appealed to Bell-Irving's impetuous nature. And, as the battalion had yet to suffer a casualty, he was encouraged to believe little resistance would be met. Consequently, after only a few seconds' hesitation, the major sent word to Mordy to continue advancing to the east of the railway.

A moment later No. 4 Company surged over the raised railway bed and was immediately raked by machine-gun fire. Mordy fell, badly wounded. Lt. Frank Hill was also hit but—the wound being less serious—insisted on remaining with the company until wounded more seriously a few minutes later. Bell-Irving responded immediately by ordering No. 3 Company to slip sideways and come up alongside the staggered No. 4 Company while the other two companies adopted a two-company formation a little to the rear with the battalion headquarters between them.

The two leading companies ran straight at the gunners to their front and overran a string of machine-gun positions that were mostly still in the process of being established along the verge of a sunken road south of Blécourt. Twelve machine guns and a hundred prisoners were captured. Ahead lay the village of Cuvillers, and Bell-Irving ordered the men to charge it. As the Can Scots emerged from the sunken road German artillerymen inside the village began firing at them over open sights while more guns and machine guns on an overlooking ridge poured fire in from the left. Had all this fire not been wildly inaccurate, the battalion would have been shredded. Instead, the advance continued with the Lewis gun crews scattering into firing positions and striking the German gunners in Cuvillers with such accurate fire that they fled. At 0745 hours Cuvillers was overrun, but as the Can Scots began consolidating to defend it they started taking heavy fire from Blécourt to their rear.

Captain George McCreary's No. 2 Company was most exposed to the fire coming from Blécourt, so he ordered Lt. James Rodgers to take his platoon back to the village and take out the Germans there. Working their way into the village, Rodgers closed on a church with an attached convent that the Germans had fortified. Men were firing out of every window and doorway and also from the steeple. The platoon busted into the church and cleared it, but stalled trying to get inside the convent until a Lewis gun crew arrived. Once they opened fire, the remaining Germans abandoned the convent.

With Blécourt cleared and Cuvillers taken, the Canadian Scottish set up a defensive front to fend off any counterattacks. No. 1 Company, acting as the reserve, dug in along Cuvillers' eastern outskirts. About 100 yards farther out, No. 2 Company established a support line from where they could quickly move to reinforce the other two companies dug in on a ridge about 200 yards ahead. Both Nos. 3 and 4 Companies had sent patrols almost a thousand yards beyond the ridge to the sunken road that marked their final objective. Bell-Irving confidently expected to complete the battalion advance to the road once the battalions on either of his flanks appeared. It was only 0900 hours, the day was young, and there was much daylight yet for finishing the assignment. The only German resistance in the battalion's area consisted of sporadic artillery fire from the ridge that was concentrated on Blécourt, which the Canadian Scottish had withdrawn from once the church and convent had been taken. Such calm reigned that the battalion's cooks rolled their kitchen wagons into Cuvillers and prepared a hot meal.

As the morning wore on, however, and there remained no sign of friendly troops on either of their flanks Bell-Irving began to worry. With Assistant Adjutant Lt. Robert Kerans for company, he went forward to the ridge where No. 3 and No. 4 companies were deployed. Kerans was increasingly anxious. Gesturing to their flanks, he said, the battalion was “in the air.” Not looking up from the map he was studying, Bell-Irving replied, “I know that, but I'm going to push on to the men in the road.” Kerans was to go back and have the two companies back of the ridge change positions so that the Canadian Scottish was covering its own flanks. The two men parted, Bell-Irving walking down the slope and out into the countryside between the ridge and the sunken road. Major Roderick Ogle Bell-Irving would not again be seen alive.
³⁴

Kerans was still on his way to the rear when the quiet was shattered by intense fire from the overlooking ridge on the left flank that ripped the battalion lines all the way from where Nos. 3 and 4 Companies were positioned back to Cuvillers. As Kerans sprinted into the village he saw Germans slipping into it from the direction of Bantigny to the north. The Royal Montreal Regiment was supposed to be over there, but clearly they weren't. From the overlooking ridge the German machine gunners were able to cover every inch of ground the Canadian Scottish held and prevent them organizing a measured counterattack to meet the enemy infantry vying for control of the village.

When the Germans first appeared, RSM James Kay had immediately ordered all the men in the village to fall back to a position on the northern outskirts. By the time Kerans joined him, Kay had broken the headquarters section into fighting details—strengthened by the cooks and other troops who normally provided support functions. Each detail was strategically placed in a house from which they could provide mutual fire support to the others while also maintaining control of the road that ran to Blécourt. The road was the battalion's escape route, Kay told Kerans. He added that the situation they were in was untenable. Kerans agreed, but escaping it seemed equally untenable because there was now German fire coming from Blécourt. The four rifle companies, all to the front of Cuvillers, would be surrounded if the small force in Cuvillers was unable to turn the advancing Germans back. Kerans and Kay agreed that their current positions were no good. The only viable defensive ground for such a small unit was a sunken road that ran southwestward from the village. Once they were in place on that road, the rifle companies could fall back on them.

Out to the front of Cuvillers, Captain Robert McIntyre of No. 1 Company had taken No. 2 Company's lieutenant, James Rodgers, and his platoon out to the left in hopes of making contact with the Royal Montreal Regiment. He had just decided the Montreal regiment was obviously nowhere near where they were supposed to be when a wave of Germans suddenly appeared and began moving to cut the platoon off. The Canadians sprinted back to the company lines, which were being saturated with heavy fire. McIntyre learned that No. 3 Company's captain, George Mason, had been killed and No. 2 Company's captain, McCreary, seriously wounded. That left McIntyre the senior officer in the front area. He told Rodgers to go to battalion headquarters in Cuvillers and ask for reinforcements. As Rodgers ran off, McIntyre reorganized Nos. 1 and 2 Companies into a composite unit. There was nothing he could do for the two companies out on the ridge. All contact with them had been lost.

As Rodgers entered the village he came face-to-face with a group of Germans. He sprinted back the way he had come until finally outdistancing the pursuing Germans, who gave up the chase. During his return to McIntyre's position, Rodgers met four lost Royal Montreal Lewis gunners and took them under his wing. Rodgers reported that the Germans were in control of Cuvillers and McIntyre decided the only course of action open to him was to withdraw to positions west of the village. That meant leaving the two forward companies to their own devices, but there seemed no choice. As McIntyre's men moved back they came upon the group led by Kerans. The two officers decided to send patrols toward Blécourt and Bantigny, for surely the Royal Highlanders would be in the former while Bantigny was an objective for the Royal Montreal Regiments. Once they located either battalion, the Canadian Scottish could withdraw to their position.