DIVISIONAL EXERCISE AND MIMIC WARFARE
Divisional exercise is a great game of make-believe. All sorts of
liberties are taken, the clock is put forward or back at the command
of the general, a great enemy army is created in the twinkling of an
eye, day is turned into night and a regular game of topsy-turvydom
indulged in. On the occasion of which I write the whole division
was out. The time was nine o'clock in the forenoon, and an imaginary
forced march was nearly completed, and an imaginary day was at an end.
We were being hurried up as reinforcements to the main army, which was
in touch with the enemy ahead and an engagement was developing. Our
battalion came to a halt on the roadway, closing in to the left in
order to give full play to the field telephone service in process of
being laid.
Our officers went out in front to seek a position for a bivouac; the
doctor accompanied them to examine the place chosen, see to the
water supply, the drainage, and sanitation. In addition to this, our
commanders had to find the battalion a resting-ground easy to defend
and of merit as a tactical position.
At ten o'clock we lay down, battalion after battalion, just as we
halted: equipment on, our packs unloosened but shoved up under our
heads, and our rifles by our sides, muzzles towards the enemy. One
word of command would bring twenty thousand men from their beds, ready
in an instant, rifles loaded, bayonets at hips, quick to the route and
ready for battle. We would rise, as we slept, in full marching order,
and the space of a moment would find us hurrying, fully armed, into
battle, with the sleep of night still heavy in our eyes.
For miles around the soldiers lay down, each in his place and every
place occupied. Hardly a word was spoken; commands were whispered, and
our officers crept round explaining the work ahead. Two miles in front
the enemy was assembled in great strength on a river, and by dawn, if
all went well, we would enter the firing line. At present we had to
lie still; no man was to move about, and sentries with fixed bayonets
were stationed at front, flank, and rear, ready to give the alarm at
the first sign of danger.
Behind us were the kitchen, horse-lines, and latrines. The position of
these varies as the wind changes, and it is imperative that unhealthy
odours are not blown across the bivouac. The battalion lay in two
parallel squares, with a gangway, blocked up with baggage and various
necessaries, between. On these squares no refuse was to be thrown
down; the ground had to be kept clean; papers, scraps of meat, and
pieces of bread, if not eaten, had to be buried.
Even as we lay, and while the officers were explaining the work in
hand, the artillery took up its stand on several wooded knolls that
rose behind us. What a splendid sight, the artillery going into
action! Heavy guns, an endless line of them, swept over the greensward
and rattled into place. Six horses strained at each gun, which was
accompanied by two ammunition wagons with six horses to each wagon.
How many horses! How many guns! Out of nowhere in particular they
came, and disappeared as if behind a curtain barely four hundred
yards away. Thirty minutes afterwards I fancied as I looked in their
direction that I could see black, ominous muzzles peering through
the undergrowth. Probably I was mistaken. Anyhow, they were there,
guarding us while we slept, our silent watchers!
About eleven o'clock an orderly stole in and spoke to the colonel, a
hurried consultation in which all the officers took part was held,
and the messenger departed. Again followed an interval of silence,
only broken by the officers creeping round and giving us further
information. The enemy was repulsed, they told us, and was now in
retreat, but before moving off he had blown up all the bridges on
the river. The artillery of our main army in front was shelling the
fleeing foe, and our engineers had just set off to build three pontoon
bridges, so that the now sleeping division could cross at dawn and
follow the army in retreat.
Our dawn came at one o'clock in the afternoon; a whistle was blown
somewhere near at hand, and the battalion sprang to life; every unit,
with pack on back, cartridge pouches full, rifle at the order, was
afoot and ready. Only two hours before had the engineers set out to
build the bridges which the whole division, with its regiment after
regiment, with its artillery, its guns, ammunition wagons and horses,
its transport section, and vehicles of all descriptions, was now to
cross. The landscape had changed utterly, the country was alive, and
had found voice; the horse-lines were broken, and all the animals,
from the colonel's charger to the humble pack horse, were on the move.
The little squares, dotted brown, had taken on new shape, and were
transformed into companies of moving men in khaki. We were out on the
heels of the retreating foe.
Two hours' forced marching brought us to the river, a real one, with
three pontoon bridges, newly built and held firm on flat-bottomed
boats moored in mid-stream. We took our way across, and bent to the
hill on the other side. Half-way up, in a narrow lane, a wagon got
stuck in the front of our battalion, and we were forced to come to a
halt for a moment. Looking back, I could see immediately behind three
lines of men straining to the hill; farther back the same lines were
crossing the bridges and, away in the far distance, pencilled brown on
the ploughed fields, the three lines of khaki crawled along like long
threads endlessly unwinding from some invisible ball. Now and again
I could see the artillery coming into sight, only to disappear again
over a wooded knoll or into an almost invisible hollow.
Thus the division, the apparently limitless lines of men, horses, and
guns crawled on the track of the fleeing enemy. As we stood there,
held in check by the wagon, and as I looked back at the thousands of
soldiers in the rear, I felt indeed that I was a minute mite amongst
the many. And then a second thought struck me. The whole mass of men
around me was a small thing in relation to the numbers engaged in
the great war. Even I, Rifleman Something or Another, No. So-and-so,
bulked larger in the division as one of its units than the division
did in the war as a unit of the Allied Forces.
Even more interesting than divisional exercises is the mimic
warfare that is heralded by a notice in battalion orders such as the
following: "The battalion will take part in brigade exercise to-day.
Ten rounds of blank ammunition and haversack rations will be carried."
At eight o'clock in the morning whistles were blown at the bottom of
the street in which my company is billeted, and the soldiers, rubbing
the sleep from their eyes or munching the last mouthful of a hasty
breakfast, came trooping out from the snug middle-class houses
in which they are quartered. The morning was bitterly cold, and
the falling rain splashed soberly on the pavement, every drop
coming slowly to ground as if selecting a spot to rest on. The
colour-sergeant, standing at the end of the street, whistle in hand,
was in a nasty temper.
"Hurry up, you heavy-footed beggars," he yelled to the men. "The
parade takes place to-day, not to-morrow! And you, what's wrong with
your understandings?" he called to a man who came along wearing carpet
slippers.
"My boots are bad, colour," is the answer. "I cannot march in them."
"And are you goin' to march in them drorin'-room abominations?" roared
the sergeant. "Get your boots mended and grease out of it."
At roll-call three of the company were found to be absent; two were
sick, and one who had been found guilty of using bad language to a
N.C.O. was confined to the guard-room. Those who answered their names
were served out with packets of blank ammunition, one packet per man,
and each containing ten cartridges wrapped in brown paper and tied
with a blue string.
The captain read the following instructions: "The enemy is reported
to be in strong force on X hill, and Battalions A and B are ordered
to dislodge him from that position. A will form first line of attack,
B will send up reserves and supports as needed." The rifles were
examined by our young lieutenant, after which inspection the company
joined the battalion, and presently a thousand men with rifles on
shoulder, bayonets and haversacks on left hip, and ammunition in
pouches, were marching through the rain along the muddy streets, out
into the open country.
The day promised to be an interesting one from my point of view; I had
never taken part in a mimic battle before, and the day's work was to
be in many ways similar to operations on the real field of battle.
"Only nobody gets killed, of course," my mate told me. He had taken
part in this kind of work before, and was wise in his superior
knowledge.
"One-half of the brigade, two thousand men, is our enemy," he
explained; "and we're going to fight them. The battalion that's
helping us is on in front, and it will soon be fighting. When it's
hard pressed we'll go up to help, for we're the supports. It won't be
long till we hear the firing."
An hour's brisk march was followed by a halt, when we were ordered
to draw well into the left of the road to let the company guns go by.
Dark-nosed and cold, they wheeled past, the horses sweating as they
strained at the carriage shafts; the drivers, by deft handling,
pulling the steeds clear of the ruts; out in front they swung, and the
battalion closed up and resumed its march behind.
The rain ceased and a cold sun shot feeble rays over the sullen
December landscape. Again a halt was called; the brigadier-general,
followed by two officers and several orderlies, galloped up, and a
hurried consultation with our colonel took place. In a moment the
battalion moved ahead only to come to a dead stop again after ten
minutes' slow marching, and find a company detailed off to guard the
rear. The other companies, led by their officers, turned off the road
and moved in sections across the newly furrowed and soggy fields. A
level sweep of December England broken only by leafless hedgerows and
wire fencing stretched out in front towards a wooded hillock, that
stood up black against the sky-line two miles away. The enemy held
this wood; we could hear his guns booming and now considered ourselves
under shell fire. Each squad of sixteen men marched in the rear or on
the flank of its neighbour; this method of progression minimises the
dangers of bursting shrapnel, for a shell falling in the midst of one
body of men and causing considerable damage will do no harm to the
adjacent party.
Somewhere near us our gunners were answering the enemy's fire; but so
well hidden were the guns that I could not locate them. We still
crept slowly forward; section after section crawled across the black,
ploughed fields, now rising up like giant caterpillars to the crest
of a mound, and again dropping out of sight in the hollow land like
corks on a comber. On our heels the ambulance corps followed with its
stretchers, and in front the enemy was firing vigorously; over the
belt of trees that lined the summit of the hillock little wisps of
smoke could be seen rising and fading in the air.
Suddenly we came into line with our guns hidden in a deep narrow
cart-track, their dark muzzles trained on the enemy, and the gunners,
knee-deep in the mire of the lane, sweating at their work. "We're
under covering fire now," our young lieutenant explained, as we
trudged forward, lifting enormous masses of clay on our boots at every
step. "One battalion is engaged already; hear the shots."
The rifles were barking on the left front; in a moment the reports
from that quarter died away, and the right found voice. The men of
the first line were in the trenches dug by us a fortnight earlier, and
there they would remain, we knew, until their supports came to their
aid. Already we passed several of them, who were detailed off on the
anticipated casualty list in the morning. These wore white labels in
their buttonholes, telling of the nature of their wounds. One label
bore the words: "Shot in right shoulder; wound not dangerous." Another
read: "Leg blown off," and a third ran: "Flesh wounds in arm and leg."
These men would be taken into the care of the ambulance party when it
arrived.
When within fifteen hundred yards of the enemy, the command for
extended order advance was given, and the section spread out in one
long line, fronting the knoll, with five pace intervals between the
men. We were now under rifle-fire, and all further movements forward
were made in short sharp rushes, punctuated by halts, during which
we lay flat on the ground, our bodies deep in the soft earth, and the
rain, which again commenced to fall, wetting us to the skin.
Six hundred yards from the enemy's front we tumbled into the trenches
already in possession of Battalion B, and I found myself ankle-deep in
mire, beside a unit of another regiment who was enjoying a cigarette
and blowing rings of smoke into the air. Although no enemy was visible
we got the order to fire, and I discharged three rounds in rapid
succession.
"Don't fire, you fool!" said the man who was blowing the smoke rings.
"Them blanks dirty 'orrible, and when you've clean't the clay from
your clothes t'night you'll not want to muck about with your rifle.
There's a price for copper, and I always sell my cartridge cases. The
first time I came out I fired, but never since."
Several rushes forward followed, and the penultimate hundred yards
were covered with fixed bayonets. In this manner we were prepared for
any surprise. The enemy replied fitfully to our fire, and we could now
see several khaki-clad figures with white hat-bands--the differential
symbols--moving backwards and forwards amidst the trees. Presently
they disappeared as we worked nearer to their lines. We were now
rushing forward, lying down to fire, rising and running only to drop
down again and discharge another round. Within fifty yards of the
coppice the order to charge was given. A yell, almost fiendish in its
intensity, issued from a thousand throats; anticipation of the real
work which is to be done some day, lent spirit to our rush. In an
instant we were in the wood, smashing the branches with our bayonets,
thrusting at imaginary enemies, roaring at the top of our voices, and
capping a novel fight with a triumphant final.
And our enemies? Having finished their day's work they were now
fifteen minutes' march ahead of us on the way back to their rest and
rations.