Part 7 (1/2)

The weather was mostly fine during that week, but there were two horridly cold days on which the rain came down in torrents, and did not help us in our entrenching tasks.

At last came the day which I had been expecting for some time; and I was ordered to send the Dorsets across, to begin relieving the 14th Brigade near Missy.

_Sept. 24th._

They left on the 23rd, and on the 24th the Bedfords went over, preceded by the Brigade Staff at 2.30 P.M. The Norfolks had been sent off three days before to strengthen the 3rd Division, so I had only three battalions, and of these the Ches.h.i.+res were very weak. However, the K.O.Y.L.I., and West Kents (of the 13th Brigade), already holding the eastern edge of Missy, were put under my orders, besides the 15th Brigade R.F.A. under Charles Ballard (a cousin of Colin's[9]), and a Howitzer Battery (61st) of Duffus's 8th Brigade.

[Footnote 9: Commanding the Norfolk's.]

Weatherby and I walked across to Rolt's farm, across a series of big fields, with only an occasional bullet or sh.e.l.l pitching in the distance. Lord, what a poor place it was; Rolt and his staff had lived there for the last week, all lying together on straw in one or two rooms: it must have been most uncomfortable. The windows towards the north-east had been plugged up with sandbags, so that the rooms were very dark, and the floors were deep in caked mud and dirt of all sorts. The only attraction in the main room was a big open fireplace with a huge sort of witches' cauldron standing over the hot ashes, and this was most useful in providing us with hot baths later on.

_Sept. 25th._

Rolt explained his position and the places which the different battalions were occupying; but beyond an occasional bombardment of Missy and losses from German snipers in trees and elsewhere, he had not suffered overmuch. However, he and his Brigade were not sorry to leave, and leave they did at 4 A.M. next morning. The awkward part of it was that one could never go out in the daytime, as the road in front of the farm leading towards Missy was under perpetual rifle-fire directly any one showed up, and several holes had been made in the farmyard gate, windows, and walls, not to mention bits of the roof taken off by shrapnel. Why they did not sh.e.l.l the farm more I cannot conceive. Perhaps the enemy thought it was deserted, but whilst we were there no sh.e.l.ls fell within a couple of hundred yards of it, though some were pitched well over it, and exploded 500 yards to the rear.

I had gone to see the Dorsets and 13th Brigade in Missy on the evening before, and found them fairly well ensconced. The Dorsets were in Missy itself, with their headquarters in a really nice house with carpets and big shaded lamps, and a cellar full of excellent wine, and a nice garden all complete, and charming bedrooms--infinitely superior to our pig-sty of a farm. I seriously thought of turning them out and taking the house for the Brigade Staff, especially as our farm was not at all central but quite on the left of our line; but all our cable-lines converged on to the farm, and, in addition, the Dorset house would have been impossible to get out of for further control if Missy were sh.e.l.led; so I settled to remain at the farm. The 13th Brigade--_i.e._, K.O.Y.L.I., and West Kents, were further on, the K.O.Y.L.I., on the eastern outskirts, and the West Kents in trenches beyond them. The K.O.S.B.'s were still further south-eastwards, and reached back to the river, but there were only one or two weak companies of them.

Before dawn, and just after Rolt had left, I went to inspect the Bedfords' position, which was close to Rolt's farm, in the wood in front of it, and a beastly position it was. The wood was very damp, and when one tried to dig trenches one struck water only a foot below ground, so most of the line had to be made of breastworks. There were German trenches within 20 yards of our advanced trench there, and ours was remarkably badly situated and liable to be rushed at a moment's notice; yet it was impossible from the lie of the ground to dig suitable ones unless we retired altogether for 200 yards, which of course was out of the question. So we chanced it and stuck it out, and luckily were never attacked there. The men suffered there from damp and cold, I'm afraid, for every morning a wet and freezing fog arose in the wood, although the weather was clear elsewhere; but it could not be helped.

We stayed in Rolt's farm and in the positions described for just a week. On one day, the 27th, we had a false alarm, for the enemy was reported as crossing the Conde bridge at 4 A.M. in large numbers, and everybody was at once on the _qui vive_, the Ches.h.i.+res, who were in bivouac behind Rolt's farm, being sent back (by Sir C. Fergusson's orders) to Rupreux, the other side of the river. We rather doubted the news from the start, as the Conde bridge had, we knew, been blown up, and there was only one girder left, by which a few men at a time could conceivably have crossed; but the information was so circ.u.mstantial that it sounded possible. Eventually it turned out all to be owing to the heated imagination of a Hibernian patrol officer of the West Kents, and we turned in again.

Missy was sh.e.l.led particularly heavily that day from 10 to 6, and it was painful to watch great bouquets of 8-in. H.E. sh.e.l.ls exploding in the village, and whole houses coming down with a crash; it seemed as though there must be frightfully heavy casualties, and I trembled in antic.i.p.ation of the casualty return that night.

But the Dorsets and K.O.Y.L.I. had dug themselves in so thoroughly in deep funk-holes and cellars that they did not have a single casualty; and literally the only men wounded were three K.O.S.B.'s and six West Kents outside the village in a trench, who were hit by about the last sh.e.l.l of the day; whilst a Bedford sniper, an excellent shot, one Sergeant Hunt, unfortunately got a bullet through two fingers of his right hand.

During that week it was moderately quiet, with nothing like so many casualties as we had expected. Our supply waggons rolled up after dark right into Missy village and never lost a man, whilst the village was so thoroughly barricaded and strengthened and scientifically defended--mostly Dorset work--that we could have held out against any number. The sappers too, 17th Co. R.E., worked like Trojans under young Pottinger, a most plucky and capable youth wearing the weirdest of clothes--a short and filthy mackintosh, ragged coat and breeches, and a huge revolver.[10]

[Footnote 10: I grieve very much to see that he was fatally wounded outside Ypres (15th May 1916).]

We put Rolt's farm and the mill (between that and Missy) and La Bizaie farm in a thorough state of defence, and dug hundreds of yards of trenches. In fact we should have welcomed an infantry attack, but it never came--only artillery long bowls.

In this the two howitzer batteries, especially Wilson's 61st, were splendid, and spotted and knocked out gun after gun of the enemy. He had an observing station halfway up the hill above Ste Marguerite, to which I went occasionally, with a grand view up to Vregny and Chivres; but even here, although the O.P. was beautifully concealed, one had to be careful not to show a finger or a cap, for the German snipers in the wood below were excellent shots, and there were some narrow escapes.

The worst of it was that we could take very little exercise. I used to go out nearly every morning before sunrise to visit the posts, but was often surprised by the sun before I'd finished my rounds, and had to bolt back under fire; and after sunset I'd go round to Missy, &c., and visit the troops there. Otherwise, we could not go out at all in the daytime--it was much too ”unhealthy,”--and what with numerous meals and little movement we grew disgustingly fat. I put in a lot of time drawing careful maps of the position.

The farm itself was cleaned up from roof to cellar by Moulton-Barrett and his myrmidons, but it was not perfect at first. My bed was a ma.s.s of stale blood-stains from the wounded who had lain there before we came, and St Andre, whose bed was not of the cleanest and exuded an odd and unpleasing smell, routed about below it, and extracted the corpse of a hen, which must have been there for ten days at least.

We cleaned up the farmyard too--it was perfectly foul when we came--but we could not show much even there, although the gate was always kept closed, for any sign of life was generally greeted with a bullet. A man got one through the knee when just outside it, and the gate itself had several holes through it. The Bedfords used to send a company at a time there for hot tea in the mornings and evenings, for they could not light fires where they were, and s.h.i.+vered accordingly.

Many were the schemes for improving their wood--trenches; and at last Orlebar (killed later near Wulverghem), who had been a civil engineer, drew up an arrangement for flooding the wood and retiring to a more satisfactory line. But before it could be put into practice we got orders to retire, and for the 12th Brigade on our left to relieve us.

This meant, of course, thinning the line terribly, and we were, with the 12th Brigade, somewhat nervous about it, for we did not know what it portended. But we got away during the night in perfect safety; for although there was a full moon there was also a thick mist, and the Germans never seemed to notice the movement, which required most careful staff work on the part of both Brigades.

Cuthbert, seedy, was relieved by Hickie in command of the 13th Brigade to-day.

_Oct. 2nd._

By some time in the early morning of the 2nd October--1.40 A.M. it was, to be accurate--the whole Brigade had got back to Jury, and there we were told, as usual, that we were to rest and recuperate for a week; so we were not surprised at getting orders in the afternoon to move out at 6.30 P.M., our destination being a place called Droizy. I had caught a bad cold that day, due solely, I believe, to taking a ”woolly” into wear for the first time; and the cold fog in which we marched did nothing to improve it. Above us was a bright clear moon, but the fog clung heavily to the valleys, and we marched in it most of the time. Desperate secrecy and quiet was observed, for we were evidently doing secret marching at night for some great object; though what it was we could only conjecture. But orders came that for the next few days we were to march at night, and during the daytime were to lie ”doggo” and not show ourselves for fear of the enemy's aeroplanes.