Nova Scotia/Nunavut Command of The Royal Canadian Legion www.ns.legion.ca 47 A Mi’kmaq Tunneller's Story - Sgt Sam Glode, DCM continued ... So, we got our pay from Lloyd and quit the job. We walked down to Liverpool. A doctor named Trites examined us and sent us on to Halifax, where the Army signed us on. We were sent by train to join a new regiment, the 64th Battalion, at Sussex Camp, New Brunswick. Some time that winter, after Christmas, I think, we sailed to England with the Battalion. We landed at Liverpool and got off the train at Liphook Station and marched to Bramshott Camp. We were there a few weeks and then went to a camp at West Sandling, near the town of Hythe in Kent. We were there quite a long while, drilling every day, and shooting on the rifle ranges at Hythe. They were taking drafts from our battalion for the regiments on the Western Front, and my friend John Francis had gone across to France in a draft to the 25th Nova Scotia Regiment. I was chummy with a fellow named Steve Battersby who had been a coal miner in Cape Breton. We were in the same tent. One day I was in the tent and Steve stuck his head in the door and yelled, "Come on, Sam. Quick! Get out on this parade with me." So, I went out on the parade with him and quite a few others that had been miners before the war. The army in France had sent a call for volunteers for a filling company of the Canadian Engineers. I told Steve, "I'm not a miner," and he said, "Shut up. You want to see France, don't you? First thing we know, the war will be over, and the 64th is never going to get there." I shut up, and we were all sent to a camp at Shorncliffe. Then we went by train to Southampton and crossed over the Channel to Le Havre. From there we went by train to a place called Poperinghe in Belgium. It was near a place called Wipers (Ypres) where there had been a lot of fighting, and the Germans were dug in on the high ground. At Poperinghe, I and some others were picked out of the draft and sent to No. 1 Canadian Tunneling Company, Royal Canadian Engineers. They were at a place called La Clyte. We could see the German lines along Messines Ridge, and I'll never forget the first night. I stayed out most of the night, watching the flares go up over no-man's land, like fireworks, and hearing the cannons and bursts of rifle and machine-gun fire. It was like a big show and kind of pretty in the night. This was in the summer of 1916. The next night we went up to the front-line trenches, which were on a rise facing over a long stretch of low ground towards Messines Ridge. The idea was to give us the lay of the land before we started to dig the tunnel towards the ridge. When daylight came it was fairly quiet till a German airplane came over, sailing slow and high. The infantry soldiers in the trench didn't do anything about it, so I did. I put up my rifle and shot at the airplane till it was away out of range. Late that afternoon the German artillery on Messines Ridge began to shell our trench and kept it up a long time. They scared us bad, I tell you. We were all green hands, and we would leave our rifles and Flares explode over no-man's-land, WWI continued ...
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