A
Anonymous
Guest
I've been archiving some personal genealogical history and thought the following might provide some amusement to my friends in the Great White North. The following is a transcription of a newspaper article that turned up in my grandmother's effects. Captain S. G. Freeborn (M.C.), 18th Battery, 5th Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery was her first cousin.
I don't know whether the choppy style of my cousin's narrative reflects his limitations as a writer or simply a poor job of editing by the publisher. Whatever the reasons, I elected to leave the typographical errors intact. Unfortunately, the date and identity (Arrow?) of the newspaper are unknown.
“Wild Hungry Savages”
[The following letter appeared on Jan. 23rd, in the Santa Ann Register, published at Santa Ann, California, U.S.A., and is from the pen of Capt. S. G. Freeborn: son of Dr. Freeborn, of Magnetawan. – Ed. Arrow.]
A letter written by Capt. S. G. Freeborn has been received by his cousin, Miss Sarah A. Gardner of West Washington avenue, Santa Ann. This letter tells of the straits in which the Belgians were found.
Rabbits saved Belgium – rabbits and the American relief associations. But let the Canadian Captain tell of it himself. He writes: --
It was very nearly “value received” for three and one-half years’ active service to receive the welcome that the French people tendered to us as we advanced through the Douai—Valenciennes. The major was on ahead on reconoic one day and the battery being the infantry contact battery for that day, was right up with Infantry Battalion H.Q. and riding at the head of it, dodging our ditches and wallowing across swampy fields flooded by the damming of the canal systems by the Huns. I must have presented a curious sight with a big bouquet of flowers, red, white and blue, the tricolor, fastened in the straps of my saddle wallets in front of me, while Nancy, my chestnut mare, wore a wreath round her neck which, while anything but regimental, I didn’t want to throw away for fear of offending the people.
There was something a bit peculiar in their attitude that I couldn’t understand for some time till we got acquainted with some of them and heard some of the amazing tales about the Canadians which the Huns had told them. The origin of the Canadians was veiled in obscurity, but about 2000 years ago Ghands, a race of Gnomes or wood fairies, in Scandinavia, crossed to Canada and mated with the Red Indian Esquimaux. With the bastard race produced mated the offscouring of the world at large, Spaniards, Greeks, English, Irish, Scotch, Welsh, French, Portuguese and all the odd Balran breeds, etc. This produced the most detestable people on the face of the earth, with one quality outstanding only, that made them a powerful proposition out here – they could fight. The Huns didn’t mind the French artillery in French warfare, nor the British front either, if they could keep away from the Canadian front. Gunfire on the Canadian Corps front was war hell-fire and “Hounds” of hell fed the guns. I can quite understand why the soldiers shook hands with everybody and then with themselves before they went into relief on the Canadian Corps front. We instituted a program of night harassing fire that was undoubtedly the “hell-fire” which they meant. From aeroplanes we checked up the night patterns in use and got after them with forward guns and sections concealed near the line and able to reach away into the boche country.
They could not get their field kitchens or transports or ammunition wagons up at night when the light railway lines were smashed by bombing and shellfire. The gunfire prevented them repairing, except by heavy casualties to the pioneers.
We were pictured to the French peasantry as hungry, wild things whose diet of sweet forest leaves was symbolized in the maple leaf badges we wore. They were warned to hide their food, and consequently, the poor people, mad with joy at deliverance from four years under the heel of the Hun, brought us cups of coffee, sweetened saccharine, bread, potatoes and beans, cooked and mashed, and wherever we turned someone was trying to feed us with stores of the American Relief Mission, which they had saved and stored away against this day of deliverance of which they had never despaired. Although in a few days every unit was feeding dozens of inhabitants and refugees, I believe they would have starved or lived entirely on the vegetables in the fields before partaking of the stores saved for the soldiers. The folks are more accustomed to us now and now that the line is stationed here for a while, with the big flooded areas between here and Mons in front of us, we loan them horses to carry on with and our men help them in the fields, teaming. Quite an entente cordiale is being built up.
The Huns made a clean sweep of their livestock. There are a few hens on the street but I haven’t seen or heard a rooster in the village yet. A small goat is next door and not very far from us a cow, and to the cow there hangs a tale. When the old lady knew the Huns were evacuating she put the cow down cellar and kept it there some little time. Bye and bye the Huns found it but they couldn’t get it up, and time was precious. The old lady took a few days to size us up, then decided it was safe to bring out the cow. But the cow—the Lord only knows how she got it down the cellar-way—won’t come out, and she hasn’t got it out yet. She came to us with her troubles and our Q. M. S. has taken the contract of getting the cow out. As the animal has been a resident of the cellar for nearly a month and has advanced that much nearer the maternity ward, she requires to be handled carefully. When the calf arrives in a few days the Q. M. S. is going to take out a floor beam and some tiles and lift her up in slings. The sergeant’s mess of the battery is assured of first option on a fresh milk supply if the cow is delivered on deck once more in good repair.
Well time is going and the candle is getting short. The people used to pay four francs for an eight-ounce candle.
The folks would have starved except for the American Mission and rabbits. Now this rabbit proposition—this fresh meat—is for the moment our business, and it has always interested me since I wandered into France and Belgium three years ago. If they had not kept hundreds of rabbits, these people would have died of malnutrition for they never saw any other meat except when a British air-man’s bomb killed a horse or cow or the herds got mired in the marsh. Then the Hun soldiers might cook the giblets on their stoves and give the people a bit as an inducement to look after the cooking for them.
Cabbages, sugar beets, carrots, turnips, potato peelings and clover hay were turned into rabbit meat. Coming along the streets of the villages thousands of fresh rabbit skins were to be seen.
I wondered what sort of barbecue was on and upon inquiring found that the Huns took all the rabbits they could lay hands on and that now many of the people were bringing hidden rabbits out of the woods and fields and killing them to make a welcome feast for those “Hungry Devils of Canadians” which the Huns had told them about. I immediately attempted to check this and meeting the Cure, I explained they would need breeding stock, which was scarce behind us and they must hang on to every morsel of food they had as it might be days before official relief would get through. However, no more about the rabbits as I am apt to relapse into an exhaustive treatise on the question of the “freestock of the landless” as I call the goats donkeys and rabbits of France and Belgium.
Chas.
I don't know whether the choppy style of my cousin's narrative reflects his limitations as a writer or simply a poor job of editing by the publisher. Whatever the reasons, I elected to leave the typographical errors intact. Unfortunately, the date and identity (Arrow?) of the newspaper are unknown.
“Wild Hungry Savages”
[The following letter appeared on Jan. 23rd, in the Santa Ann Register, published at Santa Ann, California, U.S.A., and is from the pen of Capt. S. G. Freeborn: son of Dr. Freeborn, of Magnetawan. – Ed. Arrow.]
A letter written by Capt. S. G. Freeborn has been received by his cousin, Miss Sarah A. Gardner of West Washington avenue, Santa Ann. This letter tells of the straits in which the Belgians were found.
Rabbits saved Belgium – rabbits and the American relief associations. But let the Canadian Captain tell of it himself. He writes: --
It was very nearly “value received” for three and one-half years’ active service to receive the welcome that the French people tendered to us as we advanced through the Douai—Valenciennes. The major was on ahead on reconoic one day and the battery being the infantry contact battery for that day, was right up with Infantry Battalion H.Q. and riding at the head of it, dodging our ditches and wallowing across swampy fields flooded by the damming of the canal systems by the Huns. I must have presented a curious sight with a big bouquet of flowers, red, white and blue, the tricolor, fastened in the straps of my saddle wallets in front of me, while Nancy, my chestnut mare, wore a wreath round her neck which, while anything but regimental, I didn’t want to throw away for fear of offending the people.
There was something a bit peculiar in their attitude that I couldn’t understand for some time till we got acquainted with some of them and heard some of the amazing tales about the Canadians which the Huns had told them. The origin of the Canadians was veiled in obscurity, but about 2000 years ago Ghands, a race of Gnomes or wood fairies, in Scandinavia, crossed to Canada and mated with the Red Indian Esquimaux. With the bastard race produced mated the offscouring of the world at large, Spaniards, Greeks, English, Irish, Scotch, Welsh, French, Portuguese and all the odd Balran breeds, etc. This produced the most detestable people on the face of the earth, with one quality outstanding only, that made them a powerful proposition out here – they could fight. The Huns didn’t mind the French artillery in French warfare, nor the British front either, if they could keep away from the Canadian front. Gunfire on the Canadian Corps front was war hell-fire and “Hounds” of hell fed the guns. I can quite understand why the soldiers shook hands with everybody and then with themselves before they went into relief on the Canadian Corps front. We instituted a program of night harassing fire that was undoubtedly the “hell-fire” which they meant. From aeroplanes we checked up the night patterns in use and got after them with forward guns and sections concealed near the line and able to reach away into the boche country.
They could not get their field kitchens or transports or ammunition wagons up at night when the light railway lines were smashed by bombing and shellfire. The gunfire prevented them repairing, except by heavy casualties to the pioneers.
We were pictured to the French peasantry as hungry, wild things whose diet of sweet forest leaves was symbolized in the maple leaf badges we wore. They were warned to hide their food, and consequently, the poor people, mad with joy at deliverance from four years under the heel of the Hun, brought us cups of coffee, sweetened saccharine, bread, potatoes and beans, cooked and mashed, and wherever we turned someone was trying to feed us with stores of the American Relief Mission, which they had saved and stored away against this day of deliverance of which they had never despaired. Although in a few days every unit was feeding dozens of inhabitants and refugees, I believe they would have starved or lived entirely on the vegetables in the fields before partaking of the stores saved for the soldiers. The folks are more accustomed to us now and now that the line is stationed here for a while, with the big flooded areas between here and Mons in front of us, we loan them horses to carry on with and our men help them in the fields, teaming. Quite an entente cordiale is being built up.
The Huns made a clean sweep of their livestock. There are a few hens on the street but I haven’t seen or heard a rooster in the village yet. A small goat is next door and not very far from us a cow, and to the cow there hangs a tale. When the old lady knew the Huns were evacuating she put the cow down cellar and kept it there some little time. Bye and bye the Huns found it but they couldn’t get it up, and time was precious. The old lady took a few days to size us up, then decided it was safe to bring out the cow. But the cow—the Lord only knows how she got it down the cellar-way—won’t come out, and she hasn’t got it out yet. She came to us with her troubles and our Q. M. S. has taken the contract of getting the cow out. As the animal has been a resident of the cellar for nearly a month and has advanced that much nearer the maternity ward, she requires to be handled carefully. When the calf arrives in a few days the Q. M. S. is going to take out a floor beam and some tiles and lift her up in slings. The sergeant’s mess of the battery is assured of first option on a fresh milk supply if the cow is delivered on deck once more in good repair.
Well time is going and the candle is getting short. The people used to pay four francs for an eight-ounce candle.
The folks would have starved except for the American Mission and rabbits. Now this rabbit proposition—this fresh meat—is for the moment our business, and it has always interested me since I wandered into France and Belgium three years ago. If they had not kept hundreds of rabbits, these people would have died of malnutrition for they never saw any other meat except when a British air-man’s bomb killed a horse or cow or the herds got mired in the marsh. Then the Hun soldiers might cook the giblets on their stoves and give the people a bit as an inducement to look after the cooking for them.
Cabbages, sugar beets, carrots, turnips, potato peelings and clover hay were turned into rabbit meat. Coming along the streets of the villages thousands of fresh rabbit skins were to be seen.
I wondered what sort of barbecue was on and upon inquiring found that the Huns took all the rabbits they could lay hands on and that now many of the people were bringing hidden rabbits out of the woods and fields and killing them to make a welcome feast for those “Hungry Devils of Canadians” which the Huns had told them about. I immediately attempted to check this and meeting the Cure, I explained they would need breeding stock, which was scarce behind us and they must hang on to every morsel of food they had as it might be days before official relief would get through. However, no more about the rabbits as I am apt to relapse into an exhaustive treatise on the question of the “freestock of the landless” as I call the goats donkeys and rabbits of France and Belgium.
Chas.
