Part 11 (2/2)

On the 4th November we received orders that Sir Horace would inspect us on the following morning, and we made preparations to turn out as clean as we could in the ever-prevailing mud. But in the evening more important work was at hand, for we were notified to be ready to march on the following morning to Ypres. So the inspection fell through.

The idea was that we--that is, two companies Bedfords (450 men), Ches.h.i.+res (550), and West Ridings (700)--were to combine as the 15th Brigade with M'Cracken's 7th Brigade (Wilts.h.i.+res, Gordons, Irish Rifles, and another battalion), and go to relieve the 7th Division, which had, we heard, been getting some terrific knocks. With us were to go the two R.E. companies, the 17th and 59th, belonging to the 5th Division.

_Nov. 5th._

We marched at 7.20 A.M. _via_ Locre and d.i.c.kebusch, on the main Bailleul-Ypres road, pa.s.sing through many French troops on the way.

Not far on the other side of d.i.c.kebusch we heard that the road was being sh.e.l.led by the enemy; so M'Cracken ordered the whole force to park in the fields some distance down a road to the west, whilst he went on to Ypres for instructions.

We had our midday meal whilst we waited there, but it was not pleasant for the men, for the fields were dripping wet and very muddy; they had, therefore, to sit on their kits, whilst the transport had to remain on the road, the fields being so deep.

McCracken came back at 3.30 P.M. with instructions, and we moved on, myself being in charge of the movement. We managed to get to Ypres all right along the main road, as the sh.e.l.ls were rather diminis.h.i.+ng and not reaching so far, and we pushed through the town, entering it by a bridge over the nearly dry ca.n.a.l. Why the Germans had not shot this bridge to pieces before I cannot imagine, as it was well within their range. There were numerous big sh.e.l.l-holes in the open s.p.a.ce near the railway station; one or two houses were smouldering; there were heaps of bricks and stones from damaged houses in the streets, and the extreme roof corner of the Cloth Hall had been knocked off, but otherwise the town was fairly normal-looking, except, of course, that hardly any civilians were visible.

At the other end of the town I came across General Haig, and rode ahead with him down the Menin road as far as the village of Hooge, where the Headquarters of the 1st Division were, under General Landon.

(He had succeeded General Lomax, who had been badly wounded by a sh.e.l.l exploding at his headquarters, and subsequently died, 15th April.) Here we had a cup of tea in a dirty little estaminet crowded with Staff officers whilst awaiting the arrival of the Brigade.

No part of this Menin road was, in fact, ”healthy,” and at night it was generally subject to a searching fire by German sh.e.l.ls. The wonder, indeed, was that more casualties did not occur here, for after dark the road was packed with transport and ration and ambulance parties moving slowly and silently back and forth. But the hostile sh.e.l.ling was not accurate, and for one ”crumper” that burst in or over the road twenty exploded in the fields alongside.

Only a day or two before, a couple of heavy sh.e.l.ls had burst just outside General Haig's Headquarters at the entrance to Ypres. Luckily the General himself had just left, but poor ”Conky” Marker of the Coldstream had been fatally wounded, and several other officers, signallers, and clerks had been killed.

My Brigade arrived in the dark by the time that I had received further instructions in detail, and was parked off the road (south side) half a mile further on, whilst Weatherby went on to make arrangements for their taking up the line, taking representatives of the battalions with him. I met General Capper (commanding 7th Division) at his dug-out in the wood close by, and he told me that his Division had been reduced to barely 3000 men and a very few officers, after an appalling amount of severe fighting.

Weatherby came back after a time, and the battalions and ourselves moved off along the road and branched off into the grounds of Herenthage Chateau--deep mud, broken trees, and hardly rideable. Here we bade adieu to our horses, who were, with the transport, to stay in the same place where we had had our dinners, right the other side of Ypres and out of sh.e.l.l-range, whilst we kept a few ammunition-carts and horses hidden near Hooge village. All the rest of our supplies and stuff had to be brought up every night under cover of darkness to near Herenthage, and there be unloaded and carried by hand into the trenches.

In the chateau itself who should we come across but Drysdale,[16]

Brigade-Major now of the 22nd Brigade, the one which, by the law of chances, we were now relieving; and, still more oddly, the other battalion (2nd) of the Bedfords was in his Brigade. It was a cheerless place, this chateau--every single pane of gla.s.s in it s.h.i.+vered, and lying, crunched at our every step, on the floor.

[Footnote 16: My late Brigade-Major at Belfast, now, alas!

killed (on the Somme, 1916).]

We pushed on over the gra.s.s of the park, through the scattered trees, and into the wood, and so into the trenches. Even then, as far as one could judge in the darkness, the ground was a regular rabbit-warren.

By the time we had finished with the district the ground was even more so; there seemed to be more trenches and fallen trees and wire entanglements than there was level ground to walk on.

Our own Headquarters were in a poky little dug-out[17] in a wood, not 200 yards from our firing trenches. There was just room for two--Weatherby and St Andre (Moulton-Barrett having gone to settle about transport and supplies, Cadell being away sick, and Beilby being left with the transport the other side of Ypres)--to lie down in it, and there was a little tunnel out of it, 6 feet long and 2 broad and 2 high, into which I crept and where I slept; but I was not very happy in it, as the roof-logs had sagged with the weight of the earth on them, and threatened every moment to fall in whilst I was inside.

[Footnote 17: Really only a half roofed-in little trench, marked H on the map.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Beukenhorst (near Ypres).]

The Bedfords were put into the trenches on the eastern edge of the wood, the Ches.h.i.+res continued the line to the south and for a couple of hundred yards outside the wood, and the West Ridings were in reserve at the back of the wood, in rear of our dug-out.

I did not like our place at all, for it seemed to me that, being so close to the firing line, I should not be able to get out or control the little force if there were heavy operations on; and this was exactly what did happen.

We had been told that the 6th Cavalry Brigade was in trenches on our left, and the 7th Infantry Brigade in ditto on our right, and that was about all we knew of the situation.

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