Description
Mr. Skeates describes the unquestionable authority of on-duty sentries.
Charles Darwood Skeates
Charles Skeates was born in Ingersoll, Ontario on February 3, 1894. He worked as a barber until his enlistment at Swift Current, Saskatchewan on March 11, 1916 in the 209th Unit, 4th Infantry, despite his original hopes to be called into the cavalry. Arriving overseas in England in October, 1916, he joined the 9th Reserve Brigade at Bramshott and then the 128th at Whitley as a band member. He went into action as a member of the 46th Battalion, 10th Brigade. Mr. Skeates saw action in several major offensives; Passchendaele, Valenciens, Amiens, Drury Mill where he was wounded, and the Oppy Front. Mr. Skeates was a machine gunner during his tour of duty. After the war, he resumed his work as a barber and married Bessie Becker Maitland, on June 13, 1921. During the Second World War, he served as a barber with the RCAF in England, and finished his military service in 1968 after a 13 year stint in the Canadian Army. Mr. Skeates died on December 5, 1982.
Transcript
Bob Crow from Regina, when he first came to the battalion, we were on the Oppy front and it was getting rather hot there at night. He was just new and, of course, he was going to win the war. So this night he was on the officer of night duty there and Bill Parry a big, a big tall lad and hooked nose. He was a good lad, this Sergeant Parry. He was on duty with the night officer, the orderly officer. So we were coming along and I just happened to be down close at the end of the bay there. Heard him, somebody come along so. He come along there and I says, “Halt! You know the password? ” He was going to keep on. I was just hollering a little lower. I says, “HALT! Goddamm you, I’ll run this here bayonet through you.” He says, (inaudible). “I don’t give a Goddamn who you are. You give me the password.” He told Bill, Bill Parry the sergeant there, “Your going to report me? ” And the sergeant says, “You hadn’t better,” he says. “When anybody halts you and asks you for the password you give it and give it quick too,” he says, “or you’re liable, you number is liable to be up.” They transferred him. I guess the colonel got wind of it, what had happened, they transferred him, I heard, to the Scouts. And the Scouts they were, they were a rough bunch, good bunch of guys and they made a man out of him and by God, he turned out to be a hell of a good soldier, this Crow did. He didn’t like me talking to him that way though.