AT MAISON PONTHIEU,
JANUARY-FEBRUARY, 1917.
Visitors to the Battalion.--The New Year.--A wintry march.--
Arrival at Maison Ponthieu.--Severe weather.--At war with the
cold.--Training for offensive action.--By rail to Marcelçave.--
Billets at Rainecourt.--Reconnoitring the French line near
Deniécourt.
I cannot often treat my readers to a ride by motor car. Jump into this
staff car that is waiting--it will not take you to the trenches! You
will have distinguished company. Colonel A. and Major Q. have decided
to pay a visit to the Battalion. It is at Maison Ponthieu, nearly 50
miles behind the line, whither it marched two days since to undergo a
period of rest.
Arrived there, you learn that the Commanding Officer is out, placating
with the assistance of the Brigade interpreter the wrath of the
village hunchback, a portion of whose wood-stack was reported missing
last night. This is not the first time that A. and Q. have visited the
village (their lives are martyred to the study of regimental comfort),
so our journey opens with an inspection of the two Nissen huts on the
village 'green.'
'Disgraceful! At least two planks, which helped to line the roof of
this hut, have been burnt. Stoves? One was sent to each battalion
only yesterday, and ten more have been promised by Corps. Fuel? I am
astounded to hear that the supply is inadequate. Quartermaster! How
many pounds of dripping did you send to the Base last week? The A.S.C.
sent twice that quantity. Who is cooking on that field kitchen? It
will be impossible to make the war last if things are abused in this
way. Your men have no rifle racks, more ablution benches must be
provided and the sanitary arrangements made up to date....'
This little parable has made me outstrip my narrative. You must come
another day and see what Sergeant Parsons is doing with the vast
quantities of timber, corrugated iron, and other stores supplied to
make the billets staff-proof for the future.
The end of the last chapter left the Battalion complaining of our guns
and otherwise merrymaking in the front line. A day or two before the
New Year, companies marched back to huts near Pioneer Station and the
next morning reached Hedauville. Here, shortly afterwards, Christmas
dinners, consisting of pigs and plum-pudding, were consumed. It was
believed that we had left Regina and Desire for good, were leaving the
Corps and likely to do training in a back area for several weeks.
Colonel Bellamy went on leave, and Bennett, amid many offers to
accompany him as batman, departed for three months' instruction at
Aldershot as a senior officer. A new Major, W. L. Ruthven, arrived in
January and temporarily was in command. Loewe and John Stockton
returned from hospital and Jones from a Divisional working party,
which had been engaged for a month on the wholesale manufacture of
duckboards. Lyon, an officer equally popular in and out of the line,
had found egress from the Somme dug-outs troublesome and withdrew for
a time to easier spheres. Men's leave was now going well and frequent
parties left Acheux Station for 'Blighty.'
This list of changes is, of course, incomplete, and I only give it to
show how constantly the wheel of alteration was turning. Comparatively
few officers or men stayed very long with one battalion. 'Average
lives' used to be quoted for all cases, ranging from a few weeks for a
platoon officer to the duration for R.T.O's and quartermaster-sergeants!
Old soldiers may never die, but I think our new soldiers 'faded away,'
not the old, who grew fat and crafty!
The Battalion marched away from Pioneer Huts--whither it had returned
after its rest at Hedauville--on January 15. The first stage on the
rearward journey carried us to Puchevillers, a village full of shell
dumps and now bisected by a new R.O.D. line from Candas to Colincamps.
Snow, which had fallen heavily before we left Puchevillers, made the
ensuing march through Beauval and Gézaincourt to Longuevillette a
trying one. The going was quite slippery and the Transport experienced
difficulty in keeping up with the Battalion, especially for the last
two miles. The road marked on the map had by that time degenerated, in
characteristic fashion, to a mere farm track across country. The
Battalion was in its billets at Longuevillette by 6 o'clock, but
blankets arrived so late that it was midnight before Hobbs could issue
them. On the next day, January 18, the march was continued through
Bernaville to Domqueur, a distance of 11 miles, on frost bound roads.
No man fell out. The 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light
Infantry was one of the best marching battalions in France. On January
19 we reached the promised destination, Maison Ponthieu, of whose
billets glowing accounts had been received; which, as often, were
hardly realised.
[Illustration: MAISON PONTHIEU]
At Maison Ponthieu the Battalion remained for nearly three weeks.
Brigade Headquarters, the Machine-gun Company, and some A.S.C. were
already in the village--ominous news for a billeting party.
Now much snow had already fallen throughout the countryside, and the
weather since the New Year had been growing steadily more cold. In the
middle of January, 1917, an iron frost seized Northern France till
ponds were solid and the fields hard as steel. This spell, which
lasted a month, was proclaimed by the villagers to be the coldest
since 1890. As day succeeded day the sun still rose from a clear
horizon upon a landscape sparkling with snow and icicles, and each
evening sank in a veil of purple haze. Similar frost was experienced
in England, but the wind swept keener across the flat plains of
Ponthieu than over our own Midlands. This turn of the weather was a
military surprise. It produced conditions novel in trench warfare.
Severe cold was a commonplace, but now for three weeks and more the
ground everywhere had been hard as concrete, digging and wiring were
quite impossible, and movement in our front area easier than ever
before. It almost seemed as if our opportunity for open warfare had
arrived. Certainly at this moment in the military situation the enemy
could not have availed himself of his old tactics as guarantee against
a break through, nor could he, as formerly during the Somme Battle,
have protected himself from gradual defeat by digging fresh trenches
and switch lines and putting out new wire in rear wherever his front
line was threatened. No doubt there were reasons prohibiting an
attempt to rush the enemy on a grand scale from his precarious salient
between Arras and Péronne other than fear of being 'let down' by the
weather; though perhaps the latter consideration alone, from a Supply
standpoint, constituted sufficient veto.
At all events the tactics of the Battalion were in quite another
order. How to shave, how to wash, how to put on boots frozen hard
during the night, above all, how to keep warm--these were the problems
presented. I doubt if there was much washing in cold water before
parade, and, as for shaving, I know a portion of the breakfast tea was
often used for this purpose. Sponge and shaving brush froze stiff as
matters of habit. To secure fuel provided constant occupation and
frequent stumbling-blocks. On our arrival most rigid orders had been
issued not to burn our neighbours' fences and I am able to say that
the fences survived our stay. Temptation grew, nevertheless, in
orchards and rows of small pollards (usually of ash), which formed the
hedges in this part of France, not to mention a wood at the lower end
of the village. That ancient trick of covering tree stumps with earth
needed little learning. Each night for such as had ears, if not
official ones, wood and thicket rang with the blows of entrenching
tool on bole and sapling, till past the very door of Sergeant-Major
sipping his rum, or company officers seated around sirloin and baked
potatoes would be dragged trunk and branches of a voting tree, that in
peace time and warmer weather might have lived to grace an avenue.
There should be variety in story telling; here was one told very much
out of school.
From contemplation of this illicit forestry I pass to sterner
matters. The first alarms of the 'spring offensive' were in the air,
urging us infantry to deeds of arms in the back area. Pamphlets
proclaimed the creed of open warfare and bade perish the thought of
gumboot or of trench. Hence daily practices in attack formation, the
following of barrages to first, second, and final objectives, the
making of Z shaped posts and sending forward of patrols and scouts.
The Brigadier was an enthusiastic spectator of the work, and woe
betide the platoon officer whose men gave reckless answers to the
General's questions. The 'Platoon Test' was introduced.[3] Soldier's
catechism did not yet reach the perfection it afterwards acquired,
when all who took part in an attack knew beforehand every practical
detail assigned to them. While knowledge of the complexities of the
war became steadily more important, individual training of the man
helped to make good his deficiency in pre-war discipline. Morale was
never learnt from sack-stabbing at home, but in France this education
of each soldier to use his intellect and become a positive agent
instead of a member of a herd proved a potent factor towards the final
superiority of the Englishman over his enemy.
[Footnote 3: Cross-examination of the men in their
duties. They were asked what they would do in
various emergencies. Their powers of recognition
were also tested. I recollect a humorous incident
when General White and Colonel Wake (G.S.O.I., 61st
Division) both passed _incognito_. The situation
was well seized by the former, who slapped his
chest and declared, 'Such is fame'! Lay readers
will find in later chapters some attempt to explain
the technical expressions used in the text.]
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL THE HON. R. WHITE. C.B., C.M.G.,
D.S.O.]
On the morning of February 4, 1917, the Battalion has said good-bye
to Maison Ponthieu and is marching to Brucamps. Another week and we
see it on the move again, this time partly by train. Orders for that
move were as follows:--
Reveille, 5 a.m.
Breakfast, 6 a.m.
Blankets rolled in tens and valises to be dumped outside the Q.M.
stores by 6.30 a.m.
Mess boxes, 7 a.m.
Parade, 7.30 a.m.
The march was through Vauchelles-les-Domart to Longpré. Thence we were
dragged by train through Amiens to Marcelçave, where we detrained and
marched to huts at Wiencourt. We were about to relieve the French in
the line near Chaulnes.
On February 15 the Battalion marched through Harbonnières, where the
Major-General, Colin Mackenzie (now Sir Colin, K.C.B.) was standing
with a French General to see us pass, and on to Rainecourt. The latter
village, where the Battalion was billeted, improved on acquaintance.
It had lain some 3-1/2 miles behind the old Somme front and had
suffered a good deal from German shells. French industry and French
materials had, since the advance, converted damaged barns and houses
into quite good billets.
Several days were spent in Rainecourt in rather dismal weather, for
the prolonged frost had broken and mist and mud followed. Into the
little church were now dragged 6,400 pairs of gumboots, representing
about £10,000. It was the Divisional gumboot store, phrase of awful
significance! I feel that the very mention of the word gumboot,
whenever it occurs, is lending a smile to certain of my readers and,
perchance, a frown to others. O gumboots, what reputations have you
not jeopardised, what hairs brought down with sorrow to the Base!
[Illustration: HARBONNIÈRES]
The Battalion was divided before it left Rainecourt, orders being
given for C and D Companies to move forward to Herleville and occupy
some huts and dug-outs there.
* * * * *
It is morning of February 22, 1917. Colonel Bellamy and his four
company commanders are setting out to reconnoitre the new front line.
Guides are to meet us at Deniécourt Château, a heap of chalk slabs and
old bricks, beneath which are Brigade Headquarters. To reach this
_rendez-vous_ we pass through Foucaucourt and then along a corduroy
road through Deniécourt Wood to the village of that name. The wood has
been fought through and but few branches remain on the trees, whose
trunks, like so many untidy telegraph poles, rise to various heights
from the upheaval of shell-holes and undergrowth. Dismal surroundings
on a dismal morning, for the frost has relented for several days and
already sides of trenches are collapsing (flop go the chunks into the
water!) and on top the ground is loading one's boots at every step.
We change into gumboots in an old cellar and our journey commences.
See the Colonel, Cuthbert, Marcon, Brown, Stockton, Robinson and
myself lead off down a communication trench behind a guide, pledged to
take us to the Berks Headquarters. The going is desperate--water up to
our knees; however, each hundred yards brings our goal nearer, and it
can hardly be like this all the way. We come to a trench junction, and
our guide turns left-handed; presently another--the guide knows the
way and again turns to the left. Confound the mud! If we do not get
there soon we shall never be home for lunch ... but we do not get
there soon. The guide, always protesting that he knows the way, has
led us in a circle and here we are whence we started an hour ago!
After such well-meaning mockery of our efforts, a route 'over the top'
is tried. Soon we are outside Battalion Headquarters of the Berks.
Whilst we are there, German gas shelling starts--a few rounds of
phosgene--and helmets require to be adjusted. It is not everybody's
helmet that fits, this being the first real occasion on which some
officers have worn them. There is some laughing to see the strictest
censor of a gas helmet (or its absence) in difficulties with his own,
when the moment for its adjustment has arrived.
The company commanders duly separate to go up to their own sections of
the front. They see the 'posts,' or any of them that can be visited in
daylight, make notes of local details affecting the relief, and so
home independently.
Billets never seemed so comfortable or attractive as on the night
preceding a relief. Perhaps they would have seemed more so had the
Battalion known, what luckily it could not, that an unpleasant tour
was in store, and that afterwards, with the enemy in retreat, there
would be no more billets until the summer.