Waiting to Catch theGeneral’s Head

A memoir of Alvin Kines1893 to Wars end

To my dad, the greatest influence on mylife, and the man I most wish I was.

Forward

One day, a few years back, I was home in Roblin for a visit. Dad, Michele and Iwere sitting around the kitchen table looking at some of Grandpa’s things.Amongst them was this memoir written in a booklet. Not too much later, I wasback at my place (in Fort Providence at the time) and the idea for this marriage ofGrandpa’s words and some of his photographs came about. Michele did the dirtywork, transcribing the memoir, and later proofreading it against the original (thetext is transcribed as Grandpa wrote it, however any errors of course are mine,).Being easily distracted, it has taken some time for me to actually sit down andchoose and add the photographs, print and bind the work, and get it out to all ofyou, but I hope that you find it worth the wait (even if you had no idea that youwere waiting for it).

The photographs are Dad’s, but they’ve been in my possession now for probablyfive or six years. I have tried to match the appropriate photographs to the textand think I have succeeded. Some are guesses, aided by clues such asregimental insignia and Corporal’s hooks etc. Some were dated and labeled. Oneof my favorite photos is the one with Grandpa wearing a tam leaning on a chair.The reason it is my favorite is because when one first looks at it, it is obviouslytaken in a studio. A closer look, however, will show that the “studio” has a mudfloor, which the chair has slightly sunk into, and vines can be seen on the left ofthe backdrop. It is marked on the back “As others see me ‘Somewhere in France’To Jim + Lena from Alvin”. I wonder how many young men had their picturetaken in this makeshift studio, and for how many it would be their lastphotograph.

The poem, “The Cobbled Road” is from a notebook of Grandpa’s that I seem tohave inherited, and have had for a very long time. It is filled with little poems,stories, prayers and sermons, that Grandpa collected, obviously because theystruck a chord with him. It also has two copies of his poem “Vimy Revisited1968”. Another one of the projects I hope to do is transcribe them all, and sendthem out. One of these days…

Of course, this is mostly about Grandpa’s words. The memoir covers Grandpa’slife from birth until demobilization after the war, and also includes some familyhistory. It was, I believe, intended to carry on after the war but didn’t. The title, aswill become obvious, comes from a story of a visit of Brigadier General Tuxford tothe trenches where Grandpa and another fellow were on duty. It is my title by theway, not Grandpa’s, but I was struck by the wry sense of humour that seemed tobe an excellent image to appropriate. In reading this memoir over and over, I wasalso struck by some other images and thoughts. One is an image of my Grandpa,on the way to battle, sitting in a field with comrades listening to one of them recite

a poem, and another of him, in a break during a battle, picking daffodils “beside asnowdrift and a few feet away from a circle of dead German soldiers”. I alsothought, over and over, how lucky I am that he went through that terribleslaughter and survived. Lucky, not only because otherwise I would never havecome into existence, but because I got to hang out with Grandpa, learn to playcrib, fish for chubs, listen to war stories, but most of all, learn lessons on valuesand morals that I hope I have lived up to. He remains a powerful influence on mylife.

Before I end this little discourse I thought I’d leave you with another of Grandpa’swritings - his poem on returning to Vimy in 1968, fifty-one years after “the bigscrap”. Some years ago Uncle Wayne related a story to me about being a Vimywith Grandpa. He described how Grandpa was walking the battlefield, describingexactly where and what he was doing. “Here is where we went over the top” etc.and when he got to the spot where Stewart McNicholl was killed, pointed it outthen stopped, turned and without saying another word, walked out to the roadand to a Canadian War Dead Cemetery, “the bitter fruits of war”. Amongstthousands of graves, he walked directly to Stewart’s, as if guided there by anunseen hand. I will never understand war, or why we do what we do to oneanother, but I am ever grateful for these men, like Stewart and Grandpa, and thesacrifices they made.

VIMY- Revisited, 1968.

I stood on the spot where Nine Elms stood,Some fifty years gone by;Looked down to the west to Mt. St. EloiIts tower still raised high.Nearby in the soil of Vimy Ridge,Graves by the thousand lay,Covering dust & bones of German youth,That war had brought that way.Fifty thousand, they said, lay thereAll silent now and still,Slain in a war that settled naught;As now, war never will.Over by Thelus Wood I wentLooking for yet some more;Looking for graves of comrades,The bitter fruits of war."Over the top and the best of luck,"Again and yet again,Winning a war for a losing peace,Giving their lives in vain.

Row on row their graves are laid,Canada’s bravest sons,Sleeping the valiant sleep of deathSpewed from a thousand guns.Boys from the lovely British Isles,From Canada’s fair domain,Buried there on Vimy Ridge,The story they tell is plain;"War is hell!" from the devil’s school‘Cause man won't live by the Golden Rule.

- A.T.Kines, Feb. 1969,

Clare Kines,January 2003

The Early Years

I was born in Neepawa, Manitoba on April 12, 1893. My mother was Mrs.Eva Kines, nee Eva Edwards. My father, John Hilliard Kines was the youngestson of William Kines and Margaret (Bothwell) Kines.

The family immigrated from Ireland in 1849 where all the children wereborn, save my father who was born at Mornington Township, Perth County,September 18th, 1850. They came from Belfast, Ireland. Two Kines familiescame out together, Richard and William Kines. They were old soldiers, havingfought at Waterloo; Richard who was 6 foot 1 inch in the Irish Guards andWilliam, 5 foot 7 inch, in the Royal Irish Horse Artillery. William had beenwounded in the right hand by a French bayonet and had always a crippled hand.He still had his musket however and when the Fenians raided Canada, he tookhis old musket and started off to fight them. However, the family found him andbrought him home again. Richard left Ottawa early and moved to Trenton and noone knew where they went from there. William Kines went down near Stratfordand farmed there. William Kines died there about 1871. He was seventeen whenhe fought at Waterloo so must have been born about 1798.

My mother’s father, John Edwards, was born in Devonshire of Welshparentage and was a blacksmith by trade, having served his apprenticeship. Hewas a short, stocky man and short-tempered as well. Grandmother Edwards wasElizabeth Chowen of Devonshire parentage. Married at the age of seventeen,she came to Canada with her husband and settled at Poole Corners on a bushfarm outside of Stratford, Ontario. My mother was their second child, bornJanuary 8th, 1861. There was Louise, Eva, Clara, Amy, Allie, Arthur, Thomas,William and Mabel.

Eva, my mother, married John Kines of Mornington, Perth County, Ontarioand they came west the same year, 1882. They were married at her home byRev. Graham of Millbank, Ontario. They movedout to Carberry, Manitoba, reaching thereNovember 7th, 1882. My father homesteaded inTummel in 1883 and they moved up in 1884.Their first child, Percy, was born at Carberryand died soon after and was buried there.Clarence was born at the farm in Tummel, SW18-25-28 April 3rd, 1885 and Bessie also on thefarm Nov. 30th, 1886. James was born atAsessippi Dec. 30th, 1888 and Margaret thereon May 17th, 1891. Then the family movedback to Neepawa to go into the dray business with Matt Gamble, a BoultonScout. It didn’t work out very well but I was born while they were there, April 12,1893, and a year later they moved back to Asessippi. Amy was born there April4, 1896 and the twins John and Arthur were born there Nov. 14th, 1898.

We lived there until September 14, 1903 when we moved back to the farmin Tummel during a heavy snowstorm.

My first memories are of Asessippi. At five years of age, Henry Boultongave me my first pair of braces; I caught my first fish (with a bent pin) in themillrace. Boultons moved away that year and I started to school the next summerup the long hill to the top of the east hill. Miss Yandle was the teacher. Then aMiss Hill and then Miss Nellie Skinner. She used a peeled red willow stick on thegroup of boys; Fraser McLennan, Earl Snider, Estemere Thompson and myself.Life was quiet. Gill’s had the general store and the grist mill. Hanburry’s log drivecame down the Shell every spring and passed on to Brandon where it wasmilled. There was a sawmill at Asessippi for a few years also but I do notremember who owned it. The logs passing through the dam was always a thrill,especially when one of the River Drivers rode a log through the dam.

We left Asessippi and came back to the farm in Tummel, the West 1/2 of18-25-28. Dad had homesteaded the first quarter section, the SW one, in 1883and the NW 1/4 for a second homestead in 1902. He was entitled to a secondone because he had his patent to the first one by 1888.

The railroad reached Roblin they year we came back to the farm. We werereally hard up and it snowed heavy Sept. 14th, the day we came to the farm in1903. Clarence, Bessie and Jim all worked out and as there was no school nearus, we missed until Miss Croll came to teach at Fyfe School on July 24, 1905.

Miss Thompson came in March 1907. She taught one month andthen died of appendicitis in Winnipeg. Miss McGougan, a chum ofMiss Thompson was teaching at Sterling School and Margaret andI went there until midsummer. Miss Agar came to Fyfe School in1908 and Miss C. Kelso in 1909. I tried the entrance exam butfailed. I passed the next year and took Grade IX and Grade X andthen took 3rd Class Normal in the spring of 1912. It lasted threemonths and then I went to militia camp at Sewell Camp with the12th Manitoba Dragoons. My sister Bessie married Charles

Glover in 1911 and Clarence married Hazel Glover.I rented two horses from Hally Simpson for myself and chum, Alex

Davidson. We went to Sturgeon Creek Rifle Range after that and took the CadetInstructors Course which gave us our commission in the militia infantry. I wentfrom there to St. Lazare where I taught Ellice School untilChristmas 1912, and boarded with the William O’Keefe’s.

While at camp at Sturgeon Creek, the Balkan War broke outand we were held for awhile to see if the war was going to spread.Germany was preparing even then for the war of 1914. I quit atEllice School as they wouldn’t fix the school up or buy a new flag.The snow drifted up through the floor and in through the windows.I went to High Bluff in January 1913 to fill in until June for AlexDavidson who had taken sick. There I found a school of 56 children in all gradesfrom 1 to 8, and who had been having teachers every few months. Discipline was

poor but improved rapidly. Alex Davidson had left a good strap and I used it andgot good results. They were a fine group of children when disciplined properlyand seemed to thrive and study well under it. I took the school for the next yearat the request of the trustees and stayed until the end of June 1914. Was homewhen war broke out in August 1914 and tried to enlist the second day but didn’tget accepted even as a private.

In November 1914 went to Swan River to work in Agnew’s Drug Store asan apprentice at $7.00 per week, paying $5.00 perweek for room and board. Went to Brandon in May1915 to work for McPhee’s drugstore and stayed onemonth and quit. Went back home, started back to takeGrade XI but enlisted March 13th, 1916.

The War Years

I enlisted on March 13, 1916 and left forWinnipeg to the 107th Battalion, Glen Campbell’soutfit, as a private. One week later was a corporal asthey had no one who knew how to mount a guard forgarrison duty. Went overseas with them in September,1916. Took a musketry course and was an instructor

on brigade when a draft was picked for France. As I didn’t get along too well with

107th , I volunteered for the draft and reverted to the ranks. However, they putme in charge of the 160 man draft and I took them to LeHavre, France andhanded them over to Capt. Campbell of the 16th Canadian Scottish. We went

right up the line to Le Brebis(Petti Serviens or GoueyServins) and I helped him take100 men of the draft into thefront line to join the Battalion,who were cut down to 100 orso men. They were then relieved and went outto Camblain le Abbe. Then 25 of us were sentin to help excavate a land mine under the frontline. I was put in charge of the rations and therum issue as I didn’t drink liquor. I went with anImperial engineer by mule train to St. Eloi forthe rations. Then we went back to Camblain leAbbe and the battalion moved over to Maisnil leRitz for a month to reorganize.

We organized and drilled for a month and then moved into the line at whatwas known as the “burning Bing”. Weather was cold and snowy; trench war wascold and wet, dugouts were cold and drafty but still lousy. From here on we werein the trenches most of the time, mostly around the Vimy area. Once while with acarrying party for trench mortarammunition, I met Col. GlenCampbell. He stopped and asked meif I was happier with the 16th than Ihad been in the 107th. They had justcome over from England as a labourbattalion. I went over from the 16th tosee them and had a visit with MajorMcLaren and Capt. Henning and sawsome of the fellows I had been with inthe 107th.

While in the “Burning Bing”area or at least up in front of BullyGrenay, Jack Bruce and I were onduty in the front line together. Thecorporal was fixing up a periscopeout of a piece of mirror when theBrigadier General Tuxford camealong. He asked us what the corporalwas doing; the corporal was deaffrom shell shock. When we told him,Tuxford said, “How do you keepwatch”, we said we just looked overthe top; which we did at night but not in the daylight as the snipers used to breakour periscopes in daytime. Tuxford got up on the firing step and looked over. “Mywhat a fine view you have here,” he said. Jack and I waited to catch his headwhen it was shot off, but no one apparently saw him.

A few yards down the same trench, Jack and I were on duty at night. Onestood up on the firing step for awhile and the other in the trench. I was down inthe trench, standing with a foot on each of the trench mats, leaning back againstthe side of the trench, my rifle between my feet and I was dozing (contrary toregulations), when someone coming along the trench stepped on the other endof the trench mat. I instantly came on guard toward him and my bayonet wastickling under his chin. I challenged him and after leaning back a bit, he gave thepassword. We couldn’t see him in the dark but he said he was one of our newofficers and we let him go. Later the next morning a spy was caught and we stillthink we let him go. The ones who caught him in the 13th Battalion lines got tendays leave and ten pounds. The spy was shot against the old stonewall in BullyGrenay. Other incidents took place and finally we were in Winnipeg huts near Mt.St. Eloi. There we started training for the battle of Vimy.

Our padre always had a big tent set up (a marquee) with tables for writingand a ring for boxing. Pat Reid and I used to take a turn at sparring nearly everyday. One day there we saw a wonderful boxer, a big awkward looking fellow puton a show at the expense of a Sgt. who had thought up to then that he was a realhum-dinger of a boxer.

Then April 8th arrived and we started in the evening to move up unto theridge to our jumping off position. We marched in fours and I was with StewartMcNicol, Dave Holmes and Leo Kenny (of Elm Creek). Leo recited a poem about

four fellows going“up the line” andone coming backa l o n e . W ed i scussed ou rchances and it sohappened that Icame back alone.Stewart was killed,Dan and Leo werewounded. BeforeDan was wounded,one of our ownshells overheadshrapnel burst shortand a p ieceknocked me to myknees. A brassfastener turned itand it ripped thecanvas cover of myentrenching tool,tore the tail off myleather jerkin andmy tunic but didn’tget in as far as myskin; shortly after,Dan was hit in the

arm and I was alone. I teamed up with Jim Pinnegar until he was wounded. ThenI was alone, a bit beyond our objective. There I found a German dug-out hospital.I got a German doctor and two stretcher-bearers out of the dug-out and sentthem out. The doctor demanded an escort and I sent him over to Major__________, a couple of trenches back. I went down into the dug-out, when Sgt.Matt Barrett came along and lent me his revolver, which I later found out wasempty and he had forgotten to re-fill it. However there was just one woundedGerman soldier in the dug-out. I picked up a few souvenirs, which were later

stolen from Louis Hornsby in hospital by the R.A.M.C. known as Rob-all-myComrades by the boys in the hospitals. I slept in the dug-out and next morningpicked some yellow daffodils beside a snowdrift and a few feet away from a circleof dead German soldiers. This was close to Pharbus forest on the East brow ofVimy ridge.

Then as Vimy was now captured, we moved back a bit on the ridge torecuperate, but we had spent a couple days at Petit Vimy along the railroadtrack. I had been put in charge of a few men, and two re-enforcements were killed before I could get to them to get theirnames. Back on the ridge, Dr. Cathcart sent quite a few, includingmy cousin Louis Hornsby, to hospital. We had received ourChristmas parcels, including some for the casualties and ate toomuch and developed dysentery. Then we were ordered into theFresnoy and Willerval, Arleux attacks. The doctor wanted me to goto hospital but I wanted to go in but couldn’t make it all the wayand ended up back at the horse lines, after being refusedadmission to a hospital by a French Canadian doctor.

Arni Novdahl and Stanley Knowles were killed in the attackon Arleux on April 28, 1917. Knowles was from Roblin; Novdahlwas from Doc Baker’s farm at Togo. He was a Norwegian; Knowles was English.Doc Cathcart was wounded in the right shoulder while tending wounded men inthe open during the battle of Fresnoy May 3rd, 1918.

My next battle was Hill 70 on 15 August 1917. We had held lines aroundLens, on the Dori plain. Finally Aug. 13 wemoved into Loos in front of Hill 70, then heldby the Germans. I went up the line that daywith Lieut. McConechy and took a check onthe line, occupied by the B.C. 7th Battalion,and guided the company in that night to takeover. Morning of August 15th at 4:25 am weattacked. I had drawn the maps from airplanephotos and knew the way. Had 8 men underme as Lance Corp. and when attacking in thefirst wave, I found them all in line behind mein place of out to the right. However we allgot to the objective but found the next wavehad dropped the shovels and sand bags, so Ivolunteered to go back for them and my menwent with me and an engineer corporal. Hewas the only one wounded. We then had tobuild blocks in the German communicationtrenches just below the top of Hill 70. Theengineer officer (his first time in action)

wanted mine built on top but I wouldn’t. He built Corp. Patterson’s on top of the

right hand trench and Fritz blew it up, killing Patterson and 6 men. We held theline 48 hours and then were relieved by 2nd Can. Battalion. I stayed to showthem around and then walked to Mazingarbe, 7 miles with a rubbed raw heel. Ilooked after most of the work at Hill 70, as Matt Barrett Sgt. lost his nerve and hidin a German dugout along with some others, so had to do his work. Matt was avery fine Sgt. all other times and was killed a year later. It was for my work, etc.there I was recommended for the Military Medal M.M. but I didn’t get it until 19thNov. 1917.

From there (Mazingarbe) we moved to Hersin and from there to Marle leMines. Here we were reviewed by Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig in a fieldduring a rain-storm. On Sept. 2nd we went in to Cite St. Pierre, Brigade support,then up the line and Major-General MacDonnell visited us in the line. In Octoberwe moved into Avion area and were relieved by the 2/5 Lincolns, a very tired andworn-out unit. I guided them through miles of trenches to the front line and had atime, took about 1 hour per mile, then led our own battalion out. I figure I walked30 miles of trenches at least that night but got out by daylight. Then we started towalk to Passchendaele. But before we left we were inspected by the 1st ArmyCommander as we were to join the 2nd Army there.

We marched miles every day and Oct. 31st marched through Ypres toWieltje in reserve. Met Harold Dunlop as we marched through Ypres. We heldthe line on Paschendaele ridge a few days. I also took a party of 15 men withrations for the 42nd Battalion who had lost three ration parties, and we all gotback safely. After second trip in the line, we moved back around Lens Fronts,Avion, Lieveu, then out to Chateau de la Haie and from there to Bruay, then backup the line to Loos and raids. In a brigade raid, our company party was mostsuccessful and we got a machine gun and a few prisoners. Corp. A.M. McDonaldand I did all the patrols, etc. He got wounded and I got nothing although 2 CM’scame up for the raid. On March 23rd we were rushed to 3rd Army whereGermans had attacked. Went in and I was gassed and lost 30 pounds in 10 daysbut didn’t report sick, as I had been recommended for a commission and didn’twant to miss going to England. We went into Telegraph Hill and relieved the 8thbattalion on the Arras front. We had been running around the forward area for 30days and were then relieved by a Scotch Reg. of 15th Division and moved out.

I went to England, to Seaford and training and some leave, then to Bexhillofficer school. There they made me take part in boxing which was ring-fighting. Iweighed in at 136 pounds and after several contests, won the light-weight goldmedal. Was there until the armistice was signed, then to Camp Bramshot,Surrey, and then to the demob camp at Kinmel Park, out from Rhyl, North Wales.After serving on the staff there until June, I was demobbed and sent back toCanada, arriving in July.

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