THE WAR THE INFANTRY KNEW 1914 - 1919 (EXCERPT)
[preface] [chapter 9] [chapter 10] [chapter 11]

CHAPTER X

Somme -- Interval -- Agincourt billets -- a torpid front -- a pleasant vale: A wet Autumn -- Quick moving by omnibus -- Just moving on foot: With the French at Morval -- "Not today" : Lesboeufs -- "toot sweet"(7) : Two patrols

Contributors: CRAWSHAY; FOX; POWELL; RADFORD

Sketches: 11, 12, 13, 15, 16

[August 30th] At 3 p.m. we marched in a downpour on busy roads to our former bivouac at Bécordel. That sun-baked slope is now a slough up which two horses can't drag our Mess-cart. We are on quarter-rations owing to difficulties in bringing up supplies. Enough shell-boxes were on the ground to make shelters for all, and a Battalion Mess. Some good building was done for us by our Battle Surplus. Surplus is a new notion, a reserve which must be left out every time a unit is in action to ensure it against

[August 31st] extinction. The weather cleared in the night. The drafts generally have faced the vile weather conditions with exemplary fortitude, and kept in good health. The Division is withdrawn from the active front. At 8 o'clock, after an early breakfast, we were on the road for Ribemont, via Méaulte and Buire : 5 fell out on the way, 1 straggled in late.

[September 1st] We marched at 8.30 over pleasing, undulating country to Rainneville, a good village; 20 men finished with raw sores on their feet, and many more had minor chafing. H.Q. billet was the house of a brewer, evidently well to do. Mrs. Bung, stately of manner, and her elegant daughter rolled barrels to help load a dray. From time to time one sees Frenchwomen doing work of a kind one cannot conceive being done by women of similar social pretensions at home. The familiar names of Tennent and McEwan were on other barrels in the yard.

[September 2nd] Starting at 9, we did 16 miles with packs in the heat of a sultry, sunny day. We heard that the rest of the Brigade had lorries to carry packs. Dinner and a rest at Candas, which stands high and open, and gets, a breeze, reduced the heavy casualties of the march; count of the number was lost because ambulances ran to and fro relaying the men. Coaxing and prodding, up the weedy, the weary and the heavy-laden, "for the credit of your Company", I felt rather a brute: as the Highland woman may have felt who encouraged her man's faltering steps to the gallows -- Come away and be hanged quietly, Donald, just, to oblige the Duke. In June Division issued an Order enjoining disciplinary action on men falling out. Orderly Room circulated it with the note, "As cases never occur in this Battalion this notice is given as a guide." What was true then looks silly now. We finished at Bernaville, another good village, in the XIII Corps area. My billet is the teacher's house; all the walls are cob. My landlady seems an agreeable woman -- but her horrid little girl has droned

[September 3rd] lessons all this dull and drizzly Sunday.

[September 4th] Rested: we started at 10. A wet night has been followed by a fine marching day. There was a fresh breeze except in the sheltered valley of the Authie. The country hilly and of great beauty: the crops in the stook : liquid sunshine and masses of white cloud: good to be alive. I never saw so many pigs, or farms with such huge muck-heaps. Having a slow-moving squad got all but two along the 9 or 10 miles to Beauvoir and Bonnières, two groups of farms. I did not know then that these were Agincourt billets, or how near Agincourt we would pass.

[September 5th] Dull, with times of drizzle. We marched at 9, passed through Vacquerie, crossed the Canche at Moncel, and halted at Blangermont, another group of farms: 7 miles. No troops had been there since the French left in March so billeting needed more thinking out anew than the Staff Captain and Interpreter could be bothered with until the C.O. strafed, and then they sulked.

[September 6th] Resting. Strange the silences of these parts, so near a very active front: The guns are audible, only as a distant rumble, for the first time since we left Méaulte. I had a run into St. Pol through the harvest-fields of this pleasant land of ridges and woods: a mercy it is that we don't have to fight over them, they're worse than those we have on hand. St. Pol is a straggling little town with a late seventeenth-century church, which has a finely weathered red brick facade. I have not seen a parish church anywhere we have been in France to set alongside our rural English parish church. Much interior detail of French churches looks well enough from the door, but is meretricious on a near

[September 7th] view. We are still resting, although the G.O.C. wants us to have a daily route-march when we are standing-by: as if a goodly number had not been marched into hospital already. One of his little ways is to lurk at corners, popping out and back, to observe our march discipline.

[September 8th] It was 8 o'clock, and a fine fresh morning, when we started for Moncheaux, 8 miles: well-trimmed hedges make it homely. Our rhymester, the Divisional Gas Officer, dined at H.Q. and handed out some verses.

[September 9th] We started in the morning mist of a perfect September day, and marched by Licncourt to, Ivergny, 6 1/2 miles. From Moncheaux, and all round here, the country is liker England than anything we have seen in France. There are hedges round the houses, well-tended strips of garden-flowers in front, fruit and vegetables behind, and here there are window-boxes. For a second night my billet is tastefully furnished and has modern beds. These brass beds have their advantages, but the old French wooden bed is a dream of comfort. Except among the wealthy French sitting-room furnishing is tasteless; it is never comfortable. Only once before, at Gonnehem, have I been in a farm where one did not step from the house to the midden.

[September 10th] A fine day for a 12-mile march to Humbercamps, our new back area, VII Corps. A Corps Commander is a rare bird to see. This one guffawed at our windy Brigade Order for tin-hats, companies at intervals, no music, 7 miles behind the line. Bands are usual at little over a mile from this torpid front where Brigade casualties average one a week. From Ribemont to Humbercamps is 18 miles; our perambulation on by-roads was 66 miles in eleven days. Our casualties to hospital must be about so, mostly with sore feet; the 16-mile march weeded out the men of poorest stamina. The trouble with the drafts is neglect of cleanliness; and want of self-dependence and of resource in the small things that make for comfort.

[September 11th] Along with Walter Fox, recently commissioned, and a party of 34 other ranks, I was sent to the Third Army Rest Camp on the Downs above Hardelot. Hunting up friends and sight-seeing at places as far off as Calais made me think what a rest my return to the Battalion would be. The most interesting sight was the ammunition dump at Audrecque. One German flier, with one bomb, put up 18,000 tons of shells, etc., worth five to six millions sterling: a local Railway Transport Officer's figures.(8) The practice trenches at Etaples, revetted with sand-filled biscuit tins and other material quite unsuitable at the front, will have got some Base indispensable a decoration and promotion. The men had enjoyed themselves thoroughly,

[September 18th] and had empty pockets when we paraded to return.

We found the Battalion in the line at Hannescamps, to the left of Fonquevillers ("Funky Villas"). Rumor had not belied the repose of the spot we were in, but some pessimists pointed to Pigeon Wood in front. The width of No Man's Land diminishes from 1400 yards on the right, where one can sit on the parapet in shirt-sleeves, to 250 yards on the left. There are rats everywhere in numbers hitherto unknown. The C.O. had won an Open Race at a 46th Divisional Horse Show, on Yates's mare, and then gone on leave. He had seen the arrival of another draft of 95, "awful sights, enough to break one's heart. The others were getting quite good and smart, now this crowd will put us back." de Miremont is Acting O.C. He joined from West Africa in time to make his only acquaintance with a trench during twenty-four wet hours in reserve, at Montauban Alley. He then declared that "trench warfare is a sort of drill." To the bewilderment of those who have lived through a year or two of it he's trying to square the facts to that idea (an idea he never gave up).

[September 21st] Relieved to billets in Bienvillers : the inhabitants have gone, the louse and the rat swarm in it. Houses and outbuildings are alike of brick, and all look much of an age, walls and roof-tiles are the same faded terra-cotta; mingled with the dark green of shading elms they make a picture it is always pleasant to turn to. A long barn covers much of the front of the village; its roof-beams become more gaunt every day; for at each shot of a big gun in rear tiles cascade to the rone or spout on to the road and are shivered; and sometimes in quiet a loosened tile, shaken by the wind, tinkles down tunefully.

[September 22nd] The G.O.C. is exchanging with the G.O.C. 35th (Bantam) Division, Reginald Pinney. As Harries puts it, "He has been given light duty," for at that date the Bantams were not being used on an active front. Soon afterwards they filled up with drafts from the Pool and, ceasing to be pedigree birds, were put to use, not kept for show.

[September 24th] Excess kit called in: warned to move: where?

[September 25th] We had no luck at a Corps Race Meeting: "Girlie" unfit, our other entries were outclassed. -- Our oldest man has gone, he is 53. A shell-blast blew open the door of his billet when he was going through; his face was cut, so he was sent to hospital. He was decent and willing but a nuisance, he needed too much coddling to keep him going.

[September 26th] The G.S.O.1 transfers to the XI Corps as B.G.G.S. He and the late G.O.C. were complementary; the one prone to be fussy and exacting, the other pedagogic. Their schemes wire perfect on paper but inelastic, unadaptable. "What is your arc?" G.1 asked 4 machine-gunner fettered to one of a series of loop-holed emplacements. The man's bewilderment was not resolved when the question was reshaped, "What is your arc of fire ?" A correct and intelligent answer was given when the Brigade-Major prompted audibly, "Ask him where his bloody gun fires".

The indigenous building material of the rural parts of Picardy and Artois, that we have seen, is a timber frame and unrammed earth mixed with chopped straw, so a few shells make havoc of farms and cottages. Behind us are white stone single-story-and-attic farmhouses with pilastered facade and gray-blue slates, somebody's scheme of about 1860; they have orchards enclosed in hedges of beech or elm : all just a bit formal.

[September 29th] After being for two nights in the same front as before we have been dribbling out all day, to avoid a night relief, to dirty, crowded billets at Souastre, 3 1/2 miles in rear.

[September 30th] Marching to Lucheux in the morning the men went well. We saw everywhere preparations for wintering troops. In the afternoon I found a woodland path and jogged into Doullens seeking a Field Cashier. Who can have been here? Instead of being given money as hitherto, whether by cashiers or banks, for the asking I was cross-questioned rigorously and required to prove my identity. Doullens is a sleepy little town at the foot of a cliff crowned by an old-time citadel; it is clean and pretty, and sweetened by the Authie. The name, "Quatre fils d'Aymon", of its large hotel, which looks like an old posting-house, belongs to the Charlemagne legends. The church, nondescript and unattractive without, has fine early twelfth-century details within.

Our stay at Lucheux lasted eighteen days. The billets were quite good. Officers had beds that were comfortable after the occupants had served as bait and caught the lice that infested them. We had a Battalion Mess in an estaminet at a gusset, owned by a cross-grained woman. The C.O. required the cost of extras to be moderate, but did not lay down any figure. (This was the last Battalion Mess for a couple of years or more, unfortunately.) One of the few incidents recalled about it is "Teg" Davies's hearty voice bridging a silence that fell upon the generally talkative company at dinner, to say, "I'm a bastard Saxon myself." The C.O. was shocked; but Teg was an unconscious droll. Shortly before this he poured out the whole of Higginson's last pint of champagne, drank it off, drew his hand along his lips and said, "I don't like these light French wines; I prefer roodge veen (vin rouge) and grenadine to that."

The weather was very unsettled, but the place was the most delightful I stayed in during over three years in France. It straggles like a Cotswold village about a lovely little vale on the left of the Grouche, a rippling stream that hugs, on its right, slopes clad then in early autumn tints. On a spur that rises from the stream is a much-ruined castle with some finely preserved mid-Gothic arcading. Whether under the slanting beams of the October sun or drifts of rain, for there was not much sunshine, the vale is a picturesque spot. We were told that Lucheux water is famous; unfortunately the Australians, who had been here, infected it with dysentery brought from Gallipoli; consequently we had a few cases. The country for miles round is a delight to ramble in. My first ramble -- no one else had the time and freedom of movement -- was in search of a goat to give H.Q. Mess fresh milk: The patronne of one farm wrung her hands and regretted we wanted a nanny in milk, not a billy: then she remembered vivaciously that she had eaten the billy: grief was her note when she spoke of his youth, his whiteness, his smallness, though he was an idiot . I had to hear how good the gigôt was before pursuing an eventually successful search. Our goat cost 30 francs. It is doubtful if she had paid for herself when she went dry. In time she cried with feminine importunity to fulfil the end of her creation, until the servants complained that her crying kept them awake. We were far from farms at the time. At a hint that Wynnstay Billy might step into the breech, so to say, our Old Soldiers, keepers of the Regimental Tradition, looked down their noses, scandalized. So imbued were they with the idea of the celibacy of the King's Goat that they required his substitute to be chaste. Like the little white idiot , the milkless one ended as gigôt ,and stock, but some she had robbed of sleep abstained from her flesh. (An enlightened generation has grown up since then, to whom the inhibition of a goat's proverbial virility is revolting and uneconomical. During the later service of the 1st Battalion on the Indian Frontier, under the command of an Englishman able to speak fluent Welsh, the King's Goat sired a son on a native Kashmiri dam.)

No sooner had the Battalion arrived in rural France than we became familiar with the farmyard dog, large or small, that was never taken off the chain except to trot dutifully to the treadmill which worked the churn, and resignedly return to its chain when its task was finished. There were rows over the Army's habit of setting the dogs free, and bitter complaints when the dogs followed their deliverers out of the area. At Lucheux threshing was done by an ailing horse which stumbled on a treadmill.

A program of instruction was entered on at once; it occupied every morning, most afternoons and one night. Because the C.O. made training his care everyone worked well. Hygiene was my subject; my afternoon lectures did not disturb the nap many of the audience were used to take when in billets. The wet weather allowed few opportunities for games. There was no suitable place for sing-songs, but an A.S.C. major of another division's train gave several open-air cinema shows in the hotel yard -- for a consideration. A Dickens character was painted on each of his cars.

Trouble was caused by a potent nondescript liquor sold in some

estaminets. Its abuse by some of the Old Lot who had been "putting it across" the drafts, gave the drafts chances of getting their own back. Once the Battalion conjurer was beaten nearly sober, sober enough to seek the shelter of the Guard-room which he found safer than being under a lorry -- and not oily. He had been released from it only that morning; he returned to it officially next morning in spite of a fine forensic effort. Another of our uncommonly thirsty ones was suspected of having found 500 francs, the loss of which was reported by a villager as a theft.

The C.O. spent three days at Flixecourt as one of the Division's representatives to the Fourth Army School's end-of-the-term Show. The other representative was the C.O. with whom he was not on speaking terms. Both declined to go in the divisional car, each thinking that the other would be in it. They rode. At cross-roads six miles from their journey's end they met face to face. Subordinates who heard of the misadventure enjoyed it much more than the principals.

[October 1st] The officers assembled in the school to meet the new G.O.C. "Seems a pleasant, human man: not too old." After compliments, he told us that we will be "for it" in a week: Another wood awaits attack. The subalterns adapted the refrain of a popular music-hall song, and sang, "And another little wood

[October 3rd] won't do us any harm." A guest night, the Drums playing: this was the only event of the kind in my time. And

[October 4th] they played Welsh airs in Doullens Grande Place.

The French audience increased at each subsequent performance.

[October 5th] At a Brigade Conference Rossignol Wood, near Gommecourt, was named as the Division's quarry. The new G.S.O.1, Forster, a Sapper, put questions to each C.O.; the Brigade-Major, Brigadier, and G.O.C. The answers, except from three C.O.'s, were revealing, but neither helpful nor hope-inspiring. The G.O.C. "hadn't considered the problem." When will he? It's on us. As a rehearsal, Brigade treated us to a tactical exercise

[October 8th] set by G.1. It should have been instructive, in spite of the rain, but seemingly tactical problems are not the Brigade Staff's strong suit. The practice trenches had been dug on the wrong slope and sited the wrong way, so the whole show collapsed

[October 12th] in confusion. The C.O, and others are again at Hébuterne prospecting the approach to Rossignol Wood.

[October 14th] Rossignol Wood is off. Things are not going well farther south. At a divisional lecture on "Tanks and their

[October 16th] Tactical Use", we were told that the Rossignol Wood affair was just to have been a feint: as things are Fritz is having to shorten his line.

The C.O. has overhauled our administration. H.Q. details are now organized as a fifth company, except for pay. (The scheme lapsed with Colonel Crawshay's command. It was set up throughout the Army after the War.) Part of the scheme was the reappointment of a sergeant-cook. For over a year we have had no such sergeant; Companies looked after their own cooking, and great inequality resulted. The most competent of the Company cooks was paraded, told that a leveling-up of the cooking was wanted, and asked, "Do you think you can do it?" "Yes, sir, and shall I be entitled to wear the Flash?" -- presto, in a breath. Half an hour later he was going round the cookers wearing sergeant's stripes and a Flash. Such is the Regiment's pride in its Flash; and Atkins's pride in any distinguishing mark. (Since the end of the War all ranks wear the Flash.)

[October 17th] After a night exercise the men came swinging in finely; they are not recognizable as the timid drafts of six weeks ago. With the fall to a small number of the Old Army men the snatches of song on the march have disappeared. The snatch rarely was of more than four lines, and these might be a medley, or contain a line of burlesque. The challenging call towards the end of a stage of a march, "Are we down-hearted?" and the defiant response had disappeared too. The Army now kept its breath to cool its ardor, not to fan it. But the old ardor still burned in one junior N.C.O. of the old stock; these lines and the tribute to Lord Kitchener (p. 205) were written on the door of his billet at Lucheux:

Bravo! Brave Fusiliers!
You're soldiers tried and true;
Neighter Kaiser's Huns nor giant guns
Can daunt such men as you.

And yet again in the dear Homeland
The Plain will ring with cheers
For the men who claim Givenchy fame
-- The Second Royal Welch Fusiliers.

Battalion Sports in the afternoon were quite good fun in spite of some rain and cancellations.

[October 18th] The Transport went off by road to the XIV Corps area, Lord Cavan's, next the French. The roads are sloppy after three nights of rain, the air is saturated, the trees drip.

[October I9th] We're "all dressed up", and feeling as lugubrious as the song. After twenty-four hours of the emptiness of just waiting with no inducement to be doing, we moved off in the late afternoon. The sight of the Brigadier busy and happy in the performance of something he can do was a temporary fillip. The Company officers stood aside while he told their men off in bus-loads and packed them into buses. The drivers were French, the conductors mostly Megalassy. If we had been driven through the dark with less seeming recklessness we might have felt the cold more, for the uplands between Authie and Ancre, though of modest height, are bleak at this season. We arrived at Méricourt-l'Abbé, without mishap, at midnight.

[October 20th] Méricourt hears the guns; at Ribemont, across the river, 1000 yards nearer them, there is silence.

[October 21st] A cannonade at dawn rattled every window and door in the village : the front is about I5 miles off. In the afternoon we marched to the Citadel, on the hillside east of the Bray-Fricourt road: greasy going. Glad to be in tents, it's cold, cold.

[October 22nd] German bombing-planes came over in the early morning. The milk-goat bleated piteously just before they came. By her bleating we learned to expect bombers before we could hear them. Two bombs were dropped on the Transport; providentially they did not explode. It was a bitter night, there was more than an inch of ice on water inside the tents.

The march was resumed by cross-country tracks that thawed, making the going very heavy for the men; and the Transport skidded on the muddy slopes, and strung out as wagons stuck. We left it to collect in its allotted park in a vast expanse of mud at Carnoy, and marched by road to Trônes Wood, a ruin of branch-less, riven trunks standing, or fallen, amid shell-holes and crumbling trenches. With little overhead shelter we huddled for warmth for a few hours round green-wood fires, blinking and choking. Binge Owen, who was wounded at the taking of the R.W.F. Crater, rejoined after having. been posted to a South Wales Borderers battalion. Mann's judicious neglect of a sick-parade reduced the number reporting almost to the really sick.

After midnight we fell in. In pitch darkness, and with many

[October 23rd] stoppages, we made our way on narrow roads carrying an immensity of French and British traffic. Nothing less than a dead-stop prevented the returning French transport trying to trot. A merciful General Routine Order forbids our transport to trot even when empty. The route was by Guillemont, through which we passed in the dark, and Ginchy. Attack and counter-attack under bombardment had made them mere names of sites; few of us noticed them, for our faculties were numbed. And time was unnoticed. Night shaded into day. There was no dawn, no quickening, no radiance. A sullen sky, a flattened vault of ashen gray, pressed upon folds the like of which we have been used to see a diaper of sunny harvest-fields, with cottages and trees. There is no cottage standing, no chance tree or clump. Over on the right Leuze ("Lousy") Wood, tailing into Bouleaux Wood, is less mutilated than the woods in rear. It is the main feature in a wide and bare winter landscape of gray-green stubble stippled here and there with chrome-gray shell-holes, and scarred with trenches. Desolation, reigns undisputed now, whatever revolution Spring may bring. Beyond Ginchy Corner the road became less crowded, we could march in fours and get along, until we had it to ourselves. The distance we had come was short, but the morning was drawing on when we came to Serpentine Trench, a part of the captured Flers Line, in a fold between Ginchy and Morval, and settled down astride the road. The day was misty and chilly, the ground was soggy. Any tolerable shelter had been occupied already by the artillery, whose field-guns were in line of batteries 50 or 60 yards in rear. Four H.Q. officers could get nothing better than a shack of shell-boxes, some 6 feet by 5, open on one side: what could any other rank hope for?

The Battalion is lent to the 4th Division, which is in action on the Morval-Lesboeufs front. The idea is to improve the line preparatory to a larger-scale attack on Le Transloy, an important tactical point on the Péronne-Bapaume road. We are to be in that. There had been two postponements, for the French were taking part. The 4th Division attacked at 2.30. The ground shook as the gunners loosed off their rapidest fire, and our eardrums. were jangled by the clangor. Few of us had seen the guns during a hurricane bombardment, and a barrage. It was grand. The rapture of the gunners was catching. But the wondering infantry, who knew the other end of a barrage, missed the gun-layer among the racing loaders and leaping guns, and saw -- amazed -- why keeping close up under the shell-bursts is so unhealthy. A wonder it is that there are not more shorts.

First accounts of the attack were good. The early walking-wounded are always optimists. Later accounts were not so good. Then there was that awesome word of a situation-obscure : in short, the attack, like earlier attacks on the same ground, had failed. Still later we heard that the French had not jigged. Rain had

[October 24th] come on. It rained all night. The only relief for anyone was by changing the posture of discomfort. And it rained most of the day, which the men spent "making themselves comfortable". Nerves were a bit frayed all round. The gunners objected that our modest fires would give them away, but they had blazing fires of their own. There were minor altercations, yet from time to time someone laughed aloud, a merry laugh.

The 33rd Division is relieving the 4th. Since last it was in action the line had been carried forward 3 miles, mostly on a mid-September day when tanks, used for the first time, rolled over everything that did not get out of the way. Since then the German concentration, our lengthening communications, the bad weather conditions and the heavy surface, had all but stopped progress but there was no end to attempts, to attain small objectives by just hurling shells and men pell-mell at them.

Before nightfall we were on the road again for a short distance; then our route was over fields by a track that was entered on about half a mile behind Morval. Goldsmith, who was leading, picked up the only guide and raced on, his Company streaming behind him, the others behind it. Touch was lost in the dusk among men and detachments going in and coming out, and no one knew the way. The men were over-laden for the going; on parts of the ill-defined track they sank over their boots at every step. In the sunken road that was our reserve position several exhausted men of the outgoing units had stuck fast; they had to be dug out of the tenacious clay soil. A shell bursting there cost us Roberts, the Aid Post Orderly, and one or two others. Not a few of our weaker brethren were benighted; some were struggling in until noon next day, others were taken into the Ambulance Relay Post and: sent to hospital; but before morning most of the men had got in somehow, weary, mud-caked, wet.

The Battalion was disposed on a two-company front in relief of the remains of the 11th Brigade. B Company was on the right, in Slush. They were in touch with the French 125th Regiment, who were in Antelope. The French were extended from behind Sailly-Saillisel. C Company was on B's left, in Frosty; its left was in the air, for there was a considerable gap between it and the 20th R.F. who were in Snow, facing left. A. Company was in Ox Support; and D, in reserve, was in the sunken road in rear. The front Companies were hampered in getting in, and in working, by dead and wounded of the 11th Brigade; these were everywhere, some two dozen stretcher-cases having been left behind. For the three days we were in the position our bearers worked tirelessly to get these men out; they were helped towards the end by squads of the 5th S.R. The absence of communication trenches restricted the work to the dark hours : nearly half of the men died.

[October 25th] By daylight the rudimentary trenches had been deepened enough to give fair cover. The position was seen to be a hollow overlooked by the enemy, to whom situation maps allotted Hazy Trench, Misty Trench, and other apt names. The "trenches" were figments of the Staff imagination, but the names had a colloquial use in pointing the whereabouts of the groups of shell-holes that served the Germans well for concealment and defense. So undefined was the position that at dawn the C.O. and Sapper Officer were just saved from walking over to the enemy round C Company's open flank. Only less adventurous was the C.O.'s visit to the French company on his right. He was looked at with suspicion, and escorted back to his own trench for informal identification.

Our predecessors, who were not well dug-in, and the Germans had indulged each other a good deal except during an attack, or if a patrol blundered into its enemy's lines. Our fellows, having been made to keep warm by digging, fired on anyone who looked out of a shell-hole in daylight. Goldsmith was claiming six Germans in one hole to his own rifle when again a head, the same head, was raised, and a tired voice pleaded, "Don't shoot at me, sir, I'm a wounded Hants" (of the 11th Brigade). The day passed in ever-deferred expectation of doing something. We were to attack with the French, who fixed an hour, postponed it, and then cancelled it. In the afternoon word was sent from behind that a German attack was imminent: nothing happened. Then C Company was warned to do a night stunt: it heard no more about it.

[October 26th] Half of B Company and all C were withdrawn at 7 o'clock to the support line to let our 6-inch howitzers bombard the nebulous German position at Boritzka and Hazy. This was in preparation for an attack by the French and ourselves later in the day. C had casualties from the bombardment, and found their trench pretty well flattened out on returning to it at dusk. The attack was cancelled.

[October 27th] Half B and C were again withdrawn to oblige the French: again our trench was flattened out: and again nothing followed. Late in the day the Brigadier came to H.Q. and wished us "good luck" in a partnership with the French tomorrow. Our liaison officers, seated on velvet, may be complaisant to seventy times seven with unreadiness and whims, but our "Poor Bloody Infantry" is kept on tenterhooks by Gallic ways. Meanwhile the Brigadier wants us to use up our sagging energy digging a trench in dead ground. One cause of the 11th Brigade's failures (and later failure) is that the German front is in dead ground to our field-guns, and they have a clearance of only 6 feet 6 inches of the bank into which H.Q. is dug. Local tradition says that a tall French officer, who stood on one of the little heaps of stones that are raked up before plowing, had his head knocked off. "The Count", who retired to the top of the bank, and descended in haste and deshabille, says the clearance, is nothing like 6 feet; but he is not a judge of range or direction. -- In one respect we are fortunate: our Gunner observer is knowledgeable and helpful, unlike the general run of forward observers these days who disclaim being in any sense liaison. -- The Ambulance-bearer work has improved; hitherto it has not taken account of the surface on which stretchers have to be carried: A wounded officer, not of ours, weighing 16 stone, was carried into the Advanced Dressing-station. He told the M.O. that his men were toppers, he would like to kiss them all because they had dropped him only four times. -- At last we had a fine morning, it promised well for the day, but the end was a downpour. A late warning of relief was very cheering news; the physical conditions were a trial of endurance.

Anything I have seen out here yet was picnicking compared with these four days. Until today's downpour it has been horribly raw, with mist or occasional drizzle. The Companies have not been in action or strafed, but food can neither be cooked nor sent up warm; H.Q. has to live on sandwiches made up behind. Taking up rations at night, the Transport found that things were simply bloody. Woe betide the wagon or team that got off the beaten track. Everyone had to be challenged. A single man who loomed up in the darkness replied, "A Doblin Fus'lier, and a bluidy poor spicimin at that." Moldy Williams supplied the daily tonic. Although movement by day was unhealthy he strolled, smiling, over the top each morning to ask the Companies in front if his Sapping Platoon could do anything for them. My part has been one of rather ignominious inactivity. Three of the last four days at Lucheux in bed with influenza, rising only to see the sick, was no preparation for this ordeal. At H.Q., an earthen vault recently cleared of German dead, in a sunken road between Morval and Lesboeufs I shivered in two suits of summer and one suit of winter underclothing; and three pairs of socks in easy boots did not save me from chilblains that made the wearing of boots impossible for two days. How the men, the undeveloped youths, have stood these trenches is beyond my understanding. Contrary to what is usual, H.Q. gets all the shells that are going. The sunken road is a natural target; it has had a fair dose, but the crump on our roof that would bury us has not happened so far. The smoke of our attempts to have a fire may have drawn shelling, besides choking us. The Companies have been almost exempt from shells but for our artillery's shorts.

Relief arrangements, which worked well, had been made with The Cams. before a less simple Brigade scheme arrived. Trouble began after we got out. The lighter-laden officers and the robust carried rifles, Lewis guns, and such of the magazines as had not been "lost". Exhausted men were pulled out of mud from which they could not lift their feet, and hauled over anything they could not jump -- however narrow. One spent youth prayed "Only leave me to die": another, when asked how long he had been mired, said with a wan smile, "Since the beginning of the War."

[October 28th] We were all back at Guillemont by 6 a.m., most of the men stone-cold. Our "rest billets" were recognized as having been a village by the household fragments turned up on digging; and there was the human evidence of battle. Wood for cover and firing was most sought. By evening the men had made for themselves shacks, and some were singing. Rum is a great reviver; it was no longer an issue in the Division; it had to be wrung out of the new G.O.C. for today only. His own habits are not ascetic. An occasional shell still falls on the site. If Fritz is better off for quarters behind his front he is having a poorer time under long-range fire, we are sending over so many more shells than we get.

[October 29th] Rain and bitter cold. Some men who can stand no more have been sent to hospital. The others are wonderfully cheery. A few short-time working-parties are being found. Our losses for the week are about 60 from all causes, two dozen are gunshot wounds; and we have "done nothing". I was feeling that Roberts was irreplaceable. He was the most deft and knowing dresser I met in the Army in four years. He taught me much that a regimental medical officer must know. There was no spoon-feeding in his method, if method there was; all my resource was drawn out. In all he did he was unruffled and dogged, never more so than when reciting "Gunga Din": during his boy-service these qualities were called "obstinacy " -- so I was told.

The C.O.'s birthday. A cake arrived, and Company Commanders squeezed into H.Q. for dinner. Near the end a Brigade Order required us to detail a Company to reinforce The Cameronians, so Ralph Greaves took A back to Morval. The Cams. and 5th S.R. had been given the part for which B and C Companies were cast, the capture of Hazy. We had reckoned that a surprise rush by one Company might succeed. The battle-piece, a pretentious night scheme handed out by Brigade or Division to a company from each of two battalions, was foredoomed to failure. Men wandering behind the German position were captured in daylight. It was said that each battalion lost nearly the strength of its company -- for nothing. Their enemies helped them to clear some of their wounded -- and saved themselves the heavy carry.

[October 30th] Withdrawn to reserve between Trônes and Bernafay Woods: wretched conditions for all: some tents, leaking like sieves, were issued. During heavy showers it looped as if the bellying tarpaulin roof of H.Q.'s crazy shack would release a flood on us. It was more from prudence than sacrifice that

[October 31st] I sat up stoking a brazier and drying clothes while the wearers got some broken sleep. The day was fine and sunny but for one hour of downpour. A Company rejoined. We made a short move to whole tents in another sea of mud at La Briqueterie, south-west of Bernafay Wood, and had blankets for the men. The conjurer, doing field punishment, was given a small case to carry for the C.O.: It was no sleight of hand that opened a locked box of cigars. After dark a German plane came over and machine-gunned: there were no hits. A new interest is going to be watching these night craft play hide-and-seek with our searchlights. I lay, but could not sleep, on a duckboard; the alternative was a ground

[November 1st] sheet on mud. Riding into Méaulte for a Primus stove an army of pioneers, working on ruinous roads crawling with traffic, was passed. Why is railhead so far back? Why have not we such tramways close to the front as the French have? Some of our officers who borrowed blankets from a Coldstream battalion last night have been scratching all day.

[November 2nd] We are still supplying working-parties, not very arduous. A wet morning has been followed by sunshine; we have not seen the sun but once for two weeks. The moon too has been for long a stranger, tonight she walks in beauty. Thanks

[November 3rd] to the warmth and fumes of a coke brazier in a closed tent I had a real good sleep.

What the French do with their weaklings is a mystery. Their gunners may be picked, but here are infantry and supply all as big as our average; they have no such little men in this part of their line as a great many of ours. Their A.S.C. and ours differ also in age; their men are in early middle age, ours are lusty youths.

We were on the move again between 2 and 2.30. There was some half-clouded sunshine just after we started. For much of the way we were on a road that, forking at each end, had to carry a double load of traffic. We could only edge along in single file, and so slowly that when we were no farther than Ginchy there was just light enough to let us see the shells of our big howitzers on the roadside soaring in flight against a gleam in the overcast sky. The road surface was worn to its foundation, broken by shells, and beyond putting in repair as things were. Lines of Labor men at the sides made shift to keep the route passable. They plied their brushes among our feet, and shoveled any rubbish into pot-holes between the closely ranked moving wagons, horsed and motor. Men and animals tripped and stumbled, and wheels skidded, on bits of loose timber and untrimmed branches which were flung into shell-holes for want of other filling. A couple of hundred yards of German corduroy in a dip, was the only stretch near there on which the going was fairly good. In all that moving mass little was spoken. There was the monotonous grind of feet and wheels on the crumbling macadam, or the swish-swish where water lay inches deep, the clank of arms and harness, the scrunch of gears and brakes, the burst of a shell, but there was next to no talk. Mechanically a subaltern or sergeant ordered his men to "close up" or "lead on": wearily a driver muttered a curse when his horse stumbled, or his wagon stuck in a hole or skidded; somberly, stolidly, thousands of men plodded forward or rearward.

Through Ginchy progress became slower when we were moving, stoppages became longer. One long stoppage took place when H.Q. was where a road on the left rose towards the Hog's-back. A long column which was turning into it stood up to view. It was a fine sight; the rhythmic sway of marching files has a rippling flow that's never seen in any city traffic stream. The tiny triangle of turf so often found at a fork had not perished quite. An officer of the Road Control stood on it exchanging short occasional remarks with two who looked as if they loitered for gossip. A wiry Engineer sergeant waited near them; his eyes, head, feet moved restlessly as he scanned the down stream on the right with a set, angry look. He was the most human of the many interests there. My roving eye turned ever to him. Suddenly the tautness of his pose yielded, but his look hardened. "Where the 'ell 'ave you been? -- an' me waitin' 'ere for the last two hours like a (horribly obscene)," he asked in a tuneless, steely voice of a flushed, good-natured-looking private who came out of the throng. Heads were turned towards the voice. I caught the C.O.'s eye; the Road Control group, and other neighbors, looked at each other. We all smiled. The foulness of that metaphor bespoke a mood of time and place and state we could all share. The wiry sergeant was already threading his way to the rear with purposeful mien and shoulders, and the good-natured private was panting behind him. There was a shuffling of feet ahead; "close up," someone said, and the unspeaking column trudged on in the darkening of a dull, raw day. All wheeled traffic ended between one and two miles from the front. Rations and stores, before being manhandled, and shells were taken on pack-animals by tracks which, winding about a contour, had some cover. On a track beside the road a string of mules, their heads bent, their shoulders heaving, labored to keep their feet in greasy mud more than fetlock deep. The guns of both sides searched the other's approaches to catch reliefs, working-parties, and stores; from evening therefore until after midnight was always noisy; and the forward tracks were marked by more and more shell-holes every night, and by more killed and foundered animals. On the last three-quarter mile of our way, past the left of Lesboeufs, the track was on heavy plow in which one's feet slithered and slid, or sank and had to be dragged out, sometimes with help. We were all in by 8 o'clock, a mean rate of a mile an hour, and there were no communication trenches to lose time in. The German guns had kept up the usual dropping fire nearly all the way. A shell bursting beside a H.Q. group, which had just left the road for the track, wounded R.S.M. Boreham and the Provost Sergeant. Butcher looked his part; and he was the poacher turned gamekeeper. To his eye for useful things, and to his skill in fixing-in a window or building-in a good-drawing grate, H.Q. officers had owed much comfort. His personality, rather than character, made him eminent in the Battalion, apart from his office. He never had to officiate at an execution, or it is easy to think of him reporting, as did another Provost Sergeant, "It went off champion, sir."

The Companies took over a narrow front from the Middlesex, under a desultory strafe of the position that went on all night. They were commanded by their second strings. B Company (W. H. Fox), was in front; it was in Summer, under a crest line, and was covered by outposts; its left was on the Le Transloy road, its right was in the air, separated by 500 yards of German ground from what was C Company's left at Morval. D Company (Coster) was in Dewdrop Trench, in close support of B's right. A. (Ralph Greaves) was battalion support in Windy; and C (Radford) was reserve in John Bull, its right being on the edge of the vestiges of Lesboeufs Wood. H.Q. was in a German dug-out, so it faced the wrong way, cut in the chalk bank of a sunken road about 800 yards north-west of the church. The Count was left out, to his own content, but for our peace. Conditions in general were trying enough; in the cramped space of a make-shift dug-out his snoring was unbearable. Conscientiously he gave the signalers written orders so voluminous that they wondered who was barmy -- he or they.

B Company sent out patrols at once. One of them found a machine-gun post about 300 yards off on the right flank. Another, an officer's patrol of 30 other ranks, had orders to search the gap on the right where it was said that a very active enemy sniped by day and roved about by night. The patrol was barely clear of its trench when a shell burst close at hand. A consequent general swerve downhill brought the party on to D Company. From there a fresh start was made. The main features of its further pilgrimage were not known for thirty-six hours. The slope of the ground, the greasy surface, and many shell-holes were the physical determinants of direction. A near or farther shell-burst was the only light. The patrol crossed a segment of the gap, and blundered on the 76th K.R.R.C., the left battalion of the 100th Brigade. In the surprise shots were fired. Before the mistake was realized, and the patrol learned where it was, the K.R.R.C. had one casualty, or more. After that a return was decided on. The men bunched to keep touch in the inky blackness. A shell burst among them causing casualties, confusion and scattering. Any sense of direction was lost, so the officer collected in shell-holes such of his men as he could, to await day and knowledge. He had then to wait for darkness again before rejoining. One of the patrol was known to have been killed and 6 wounded, 76 were missing. Later, the Brigadier said that the officer had behaved very commendably, he disapproved of the C.O.'s contrary opinion, and wanted him to apologize to his subaltern for having expressed it.

[November 4th] Daylight is revealing. Any way one goes to Dewdrop is through a shambles. Nowhere have I seen the dead in such numbers on so little space or of so many units. The Middlesex had pushed forward 200 yards where previous attempts --seven, it is said -- had failed. We are warned for a three or more, division attack tomorrow. Le Transloy Cemetery is our appropriate objective. It is nearly a mile away, in front of the village which is perched on the highest ridge hereabout. We will have to cross and descend an intervening high ridge before tackling a long glacis that is the approach to the Cemetery, all bare, even ground -- the terrain of the machine-gunner's dream. Some dilettante at a seaside resort, fresh from a gay time in Paris, is supposed to have devised the scheme. The facetiae of H.Q. had been taken up and embroidered by the Companies when an amended, less wanton, scheme came in; yet no one is optimist enough to think that any consecrated acre will enfold him. What little study of the ground was possible was made. It has been a gray day with glints of sunshine, and no rain. One misses the rain. The guns have been active, especially in the dwindling daylight. The moon is hazy.

[November 5th] Guy Fawkes Day. Another noisy night, and a short drizzle. During the night C Company was ordered up into Dewdrop on D's right. The going was bad. The Company arrived just before dawn: fortunately it was a gray damp morning with a low-lying mist and bad visibility. -- Yet another version of the operation gives us a compassable objective. We are to dig-in about 200 very unhealthy yards beyond the crest of the ridge over against Le Transloy. The new line will be some 250 to 300 yards in front of where B Company is now. The French fix the time. They and the 17th Division attack on the right and left respectively of our division. The 20th R.F. on our left, across the Le Transloy road, are to move with us.

"I had forgathered with Coster in his German dug-out for what breakfast was procurable, when the latest Operation Order arrived. Zero hour has not been fixed, but will, if possible, be notified later: if time does not permit of notification Company Commanders will take the opening of the French seventy-fives bombardment as zero: the attack will be carried out by pushing strong patrols over the forward slope, these will hold the ground, the main body of the Companies will advance at dusk and consolidate the ground so occupied. Coster read these orders and passed them to me as I was enjoying a cup of hot tea. I was half-way through them when the French barrage-fire commenced: (It was then 11.10.) We looked at each other, roared with laughter, and, shouted "The Show's begun." Neither of us had had time to grasp the details. We just bundled our men out, and our Companies surged up the slope en masse. There was luck for us in this pell-mell evacuation of Dewdrop. The men were barely out when the German counter-bombardment fell on it, and on A Company, whose orders were to occupy it when we advanced." (Radford) It was, however, a less unhealthy spot for A than that which they quitted: there the Germans put down a most perilous and prolonged barrage-belt of rapid whizz-bangs some 70 yards deep.

In the meantime B Company also was on the move. They were soon held up by an unharassed machine-gun on their right. A Lewis gun was played on it effectually. One of the team tried to get away, but Fox dropped him with a rifle shot: he was found later hit in the stomach. The silencing of that machine-gun helped C and D Companies to come into line and get forward. On crossing the ridge to where the ground sloped towards the main German position the Companies came under direct small-arms fire, so a line of shell-holes was occupied temporarily. Patrols were organized to work their way forward; they did so, and established themselves about 15 yards short of the objective line. The three Company Commanders then met and agreed that the most practical procedure for the time being was to consolidate on the crest behind these outposts. Their reasons were the very exposed position of the objective, the difficulty of digging -- for the sodden clay would not leave the shovel -- and the fatigue of the men. When some senior artillery officers came up later to check the new line there was an inclination to cavil at these 15 yards and our provisional disposition, but the C.O. upheld it.

On the right the 100th Brigade, who had been held up three days before when the French took Boritza, were able to advance. When the Germans in the gap saw the progress that was being made on their flanks they left their shell-holes and hurried back. Except to a few of our men they were in dead ground, but the 100th people should have had a bag. The French, it was said, hardly gained their objectives at Sailly-Saillisel. On our left, a section of the 20th R.F. on the roadside advanced perhaps 50 yards and dug itself in; otherwise the 20th made no progress, although B Company tried to help them with flank fire. Beyond them the 17th Division at Gueudecourt was held from the start.

The men were very well pleased with themselves. As soon as there was a modicum of cover the work of digging a trench dragged. Rain came on at noon, and weather conditions became more and more depressing as the afternoon wore on. Our conjurer alone rose above adversity; he sang with the raucous vibrato of outside-the-public-bar door, and with voluntary encores, although without hope of reward, "Somewhere the sun is shining." Then he chanced to find a mislaid book of signed blank hospital tallies. Along the line he went offering to sell "free passes to Blighty." A form was missing when the book was recovered. One of the slightly wounded of D Company was a half-baked fellow for whom a good deal of allowance was always made. After screaming loudly for the stretcher-bearers to attend to him, he mulishly refused to act on advice and orders to go to hospital; but when rations came up and he had drawn his portion he went away rejoicing. At dusk digging was begun in front.

After dark, Radford "detailed Mair to seek touch with the 100th Brigade, our right flank being still in the air. Mair chose three stalwarts and set off. The patrol had gone only about 50 yards when a shot fired under the leader's nose caused them to hustle back discomfited for further instructions. C.S.M. Dealing suggested that "anyone on the flank should be mopped up"; so the patrol was reinforced and he went with it. He was enveloped in the flowing mackintosh cape affected, in khaki, by quartermaster sergeants and, in blue, by maternity nurses in rural parts. In the fresh breeze that blew from the right Dealing's cloak flapped like the flaps of a tent in a gale, and every note of his deep bass was audible in my shell-hole as he asked or gave directions. 'Where are they, sir:' . . . 'Form a horse-shoe round them:' . . . 'Heave one among them, sir.' . . . There was the crash of a Mills bomb, and in no time four scared Germans were flung in on me. Dealing had spotted 'another likely lair, sir,' and suggested 'that we collect them too.' So the party went out again, and formed a horse-shoe round the 'likely lair.' 'Come out, Allemand,' boomed the C.S.M. . . . 'Heave one among them, sir.' After the crash. -- 'Come out, Allemand, come out -- Isay.' . . . 'Heave another, sir.' . . . Crash . . . . 'Apparently there is nothing doing, sir': and the patrol came in disappointed. Later on Mair went out again and found the 100th Brigade about 25o yards away." The four Germans extracted from their lair so summarily were provided with five days rations. Along with them, wounded, was one of the missing of B's fighting patrol. He said he had "been treated properly", his wounds had been dressed, and he had been given food and drink. The prisoners belonged to the 24th Regiment, and the first Frankfort-on-Main. They were 19, 19, 22, and 26 years old. One English speaker was a pleasant, talkative youth. When one of our fellows said how "awful" a German bombardment was, he retorted: "You don't know what a bombardment is, you haven't been under one of your own."

The weather had cleared as day closed. Away in rear a big howitzer coughed huskily from time to time, and high overhead its shell sizzled and soughed eerily beneath the stillness in the starry sky, to burst so far beyond Le Transloy that the report was muffled and there was no echo although sounds carried far: else, for the first time in two weeks, only a rare shot ruffled the calm of night.

[November 6th] By daylight the three front Companies were linked up in a trench of sorts, and C and D were covered by strong advanced posts in T-heads. Owing to the failure of the troops on the left B Company had to form a flank on the Le Transloy road. Mist allowed a lot of work to he done unseen by the German infantry, and, although an aeroplane came and had a good look at the position, the German, artillery was comparatively quiet during the day. The night too was quiet, only an occasional field-gun fired. Moonlight favored work on the outpost line; it was fairly well connected up, and a serviceable, if shallow,

[November 7th] communication trench was dug. In the forenoon there was much strafing; and rain flooded our new trenches.

At dusk the 2nd Devons, 8th Division, arrived. Relief was a laborious affair, and the trouble of two days in getting down stretcher-cases came to a head. A notion that our wounded should be left as the 11th Brigade had left theirs at Morval was intolerable, but firmness had to be used to overcome it. Triple squads carrying on short relays were needed to get the stretchers over the ground, so exhausting was the work. A clear sky and moonlight saved

[November 8th] bearers and wounded from shell-hole hazards. It was well on in the morning before anyone reached the untented part of La Briqueterie in which we had to bivouac. There was a shack for the C.O. and me. Lying on a trench-board was, after the last experience, too suggestive of the rack, so I sat up drying clothes and cursing: Why are tired men given no better resting place than this half-flooded claypit? Why does our Army now leave its dead lying about anyhow? Why does it now leave its wounded in its midst behind, or bring them out only under lethal threats? Why are men still being flung against an enemy in these appalling weather conditions? -- and with far less method than our shells are flung. Were we not told a month ago of the German line having been driven in so far that its flanks must be pulled back? -- it doesn't look like breaking. Our total casualties these six days are 150.

At 11 o'clock our withdrawal was continued, via Montauban and Fricourt, to billets at Méaulte. I had a luxurious hot bath at Corps H.Q. They do themselves well. No mud there, duckboards are laid two-deep; the huts are wind-proofed, and there are stoves everywhere, yet the poor devils "find it cold sometimes". The yarn that they all ran out of their camp when the German bomber was over it, "to see what he had done over the ridge", is listened to with the politeness due to Corps.

[November 10th] Another fine day, blue sky and sunshine, but wet under foot. In the early hours a hot strafe a few miles off shook the houses. About noon the Prince of Wales had a look at us informally; Geiger had brought him over from Corps. He returned in the afternoon and, after listening to the Drums, had tea at H.Q. A clean-run youth, very fair, looks well in uniform, talks gaily and easily. The Guards passed through, going up to attack Le Transloy. Their beat is slower than ours. -- When the Welsh Division was attached to them for instruction a Guards battalion, having its packs carried in lorries, passed a Welsh battalion in full marching order: a little Welshman, sweating and puffing, looked at them and said, "Thank God, I've got my health and strength."

[November 11th] Yesterday morning's strafe is dwarfed by this morning's; there is said to be a German attack at Beaumont-Hamel. For a third night of clear moonlight bombers have been round here. A French dump and one of ours have been blown up; a tentful of men at Buire and a line of horses elsewhere are said to have gone west; four houses in Amiens are wrecked. Our billets are machine-gunned from the air each night, with no more loss than of some roof-tiles so far.

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[preface] [chapter 9] [chapter 10] [chapter 11]