The Ypres Times.
71
Admiral was the leader, put in some excellent work with Bangalore torpedoes and, if
the legends are based on fact, it is surprising that either the party or its leader survived
for many weeks. But the Admiral seemed to bear a charmed life and, despite the fact
that he seemed to live in No Man's Land and to mix with his healthy hatred of the
enemy a fairly large element of contempt, he lived to take part in many raids and enter
prises against the occupants of the opposite trenches. In one of these he gained the
D.S.O., although it is difficult to conjecture the exact official channels through which the
recommendation passed.
To join the Admiral's private detachment was to invite wounds or death, but
such was the cheery nature of the man he never lacked lieutenants.
The story goes that Charlemagne is not dead. In the dark recesses of some cave
he has been sleeping for eleven hundred years and his followers believed that some day he
would return again to rule his vast empire. Perhaps those who followed the Admiral
may be excused for believing that he too would some day return to lead them upon their
daring enterprises, for the Admiral," continuing his legendary character* to the end,
faded from the Salient on the night of June ioth, 1916, and nothing definite was ever
known of the nature of his passing.
Many will remember the Canadian gun emplacements which, after the gas attack of
1915, had been left high and dry between the opposing front lines in the neighbourhood
of Wieltje. These emplacements were the scene of almost nightly skirmishes between
patrols, and the story has it that the Admiral returned from an evening stroll among
these deserted gun-pits, bringing with him as a souvenir a human skull. Superstitious
friends informed him that such a possession would bring him ill-luck and refused to share
the Mess with the gruesome relic. The skull was, therefore, consigned for the time being
to the garden of the cottage in which they were billeted there it succeeded in entirely
preventing the old lady of the house from tending her vegetables. Once again the
Admiralwent out to the gun emplacements and returned safely, and vet again he
made the journey and all was well. But the third time he went out never to return. It
was rumoured that he was experimenting with a new kind of flashless, smokeless powder
for the discharge of rifle-grenades and that he had chosen the gun-pits as a point of vantage
from which to experiment upon the enemy. It is fairly generally held that the enemy
sent out a strong patrol and ambushed the Admiral's" party upon its return. One
wounded man returned, but the Admiralwas never seen again.
This, then, is the legend of the Admiral," a man round whom many stories were
built in 1916 and of whom little is recorded. But this much is certain. The Admiral
lived in the Salient he served his Division in a manner peculiarly his own he was
entirely fearless and was consumed with enthusiasm to harass the enemy and, by his
unfailing good nature and genial spirits, endeared himself to all who knew him.
Above all, he typified the spirit of the armies of the Salient while being, strangely
enough, not officially of those armies. Our men struggled ceaselessly to make things as
uncomfortable as possible for those across "No Man's Land under all circumstances
they remained cheerful and willing to give their allthey did their job and did it well.
And this is just what the Admiral did. This at least is no legend.
THE SILENT FIELDS OF FLANDERS.
There are silent fields in Flanders,
There is a salient in Flanders,
Sown with costly grain,
The life blood of our nation,
The harvest of our slain.
The unbroken Ypres line,
Whose name shall ring out glorious
Down the moving ranks of Time.
campbem, of saddei.l,
F.S.A.(Seot.), J.P.
