THE TRAINING OF THE PORTUGUESE
When first we saw the Portuguese troops upon the roads of France, we
did not dream that it would fall to our lot to train them in sniping,
scouting and observation, but it did so fall, and after one or two
Portuguese officers had been attached to the school for instruction,
we were suddenly ordered to take an entire Portuguese class. This was
the first of three or four, and we usually had eight officers and forty
N.C.O.’s and men at a time.
The Portuguese were equipped largely, as is known, by the British, and
had served out to them our short service rifle. In the Portuguese Army
they use the Mauser, so our rifle was new to all ranks, and had to be
carefully explained.
Of course, the great difficulty in training Portuguese troops lay in
the necessity for the use of interpreters. One of my N.C.O.’s was able
to talk Portuguese, which was of great assistance, and from time to
time an English-speaking Portuguese officer was attached; but for the
most part none of the officers and men who came to the school could
speak a word of English, and the result, as I say, was that we had to
carry on through interpreters.
In one of the first classes there was a Portuguese sergeant who was
extremely capable, and very keen on his work. As a mark of appreciation
I gave this sergeant, when he went away, a very nice telescope. About
three weeks later the sergeant, who had spent the intervening time in
the trenches, turned up at the school and said that he wished to speak
to the Commandant. He said that he had come to thank me again for the
telescope, as it had enabled him to spot a concentration of some fifty
Germans, on to whom he had successfully directed artillery fire. He had
taken the trouble to walk out quite a number of miles--at least ten or
twelve--to inform me of his success. Poor fellow, he was afterwards
badly gassed, and when I last saw him was in a very bad way. He was a
most useful man as an observer, as he had been the master of some small
coasting craft which used to sail up and down the coast between Lisbon
and Setubal, and had knowledge of instruments.
Considering that the Portuguese troops did not know anything about our
rifle, they really came along very quickly in shooting. One of the
classes was at the school when we were informed that the Portuguese
Corps Commander and Staff and various British G.S.O.’s would come
over to see a “demonstration” two days before the course ended. The
demonstration included shooting at dummy heads exposed for four
seconds--five rounds; application on a 6-inch bulls-eye at two hundred
yards; an attack upon a position, and a demonstration of the work of
scouts. As soon as the Portuguese troops realized that they were to be
inspected at the end of the course, there was a tremendous competition
among them to get into the shooting team, and when the day arrived
the eight who were picked obtained 34 hits out of 40 shots on the
dummy head. At the 200 yards application the team scored 208 out of a
possible 224. This shows how quickly shooting can be taught when both
men and instructors are all out for success.
The greatest difficulty we had was training Portuguese as observers;
for none of them had used a telescope before, and it was very difficult
to make them realize its possibilities. Of course, I am here talking
of the private soldiers. The officers in their observation often made
excellent reports, and developed the greatest keenness on the work.
There was one thing which occurred, owing to my attempting to speak
Portuguese myself, which always struck me as not without its humorous
side.
I had been attempting to point out to a squad of Portuguese scouts the
elementary fact that when you were looking through a bush, or through
roots or grass, it was sometimes well worth while to put a leaf or two
into your cap. I sent them off to do this, keeping with me a few of
their number to observe the value of the experiment. The rest went over
the brow of the hill, and were away for some period of time, so long
that I was just going to see what was happening when suddenly a bush,
followed by several other trees, began to move slowly over the hill! I
found that the squad, not quite understanding my instructions, had cut
down small trees with their large knives, had bound them upon their
backs, and in the shadow of these were advancing upon me!
A part of their training upon which the Portuguese were extraordinarily
keen was patrolling in No Man’s Land. Usually at the school we used
to begin this as soon as it was dark, often in summer, therefore, as
late as eleven o’clock at night. After two or three hours’ patrolling
the Portuguese always still wanted to continue, and once they got out
into our large imitation No Man’s Land it was not easy to get them back
again.
At one time, when we had a class of Portuguese, to whom we had been
teaching patrolling, an officer and sergeant, who were making a round
of Sniping and Infantry Schools, to give demonstrations on patrolling,
turned up at the school. The Portuguese held the trench while the
demonstrators set out to show them the way in which a reconnaisance
patrol should be conducted. I was lying beside the Portuguese trench,
and at once realized that something was afoot. Presently one of the
Portuguese officers came up, and said, “Our men say that they hear them
and can capture them.” I told them to go ahead, and do it.
Well, that patrol developed. A battle was going on at the time in the
north, and all the plateau was lit with the flashes of the guns and the
flares of the Verey lights, which the Germans kept firing into the air.
For a long time there was silence. The Portuguese, who had had several
days at the school and were learning well, had sent out a strong
patrol, which very skilfully worked round and surrounded the hostile
reconnaissance. I do not know what happened in No Man’s Land, but
the sergeant who was doing the demonstration, and who was a ju-jitsu
expert, famous in pre-war days in the music halls, was captured and
carried in by the Portuguese. There must have been a considerable
scrap, for the sergeant was too stiff to come on parade next day! The
Portuguese were much pleased at their success, and almost immediately
afterwards they went back to the line, where a German patrol of eleven
came out against them. The Portuguese tried their surrounding tactics
with such success that they killed eight and captured three.
One day I was asked by the Portuguese Corps commander to attend a
review of the Portuguese Army, which was being held at Marthes, some
six miles from my Headquarters. When the time for the march past came,
I saw the forty observers we had trained go by under their officers as
a separate unit, each with a large white “O” sewn upon his sleeve.
The great difficulty was to obtain telescopes for these observers, for
the demand was, all through the war, vastly in excess of the supply.
The G.S. (General Service) telescope used by signallers in the British
Army was, I believe, afterwards issued to the Portuguese troops, and
this was a quite good enough glass for the purpose.
Another part of our training which the Portuguese troops took with
enthusiasm was the physical training and ju-jitsu.
Sometimes when we had mixed classes, it was very difficult indeed, as
all lectures had to be repeated in Portuguese, and the ordinary daily
morning talks on the care and cleaning of the rifle, the stalking
telescope, or on the work of snipers in attack and defence, which
usually took from thirty to forty minutes, used to tail out, as each
sentence was translated, into a matter of an hour and a half and even
two hours.
But I think that, on the whole, the Portuguese troops really enjoyed
their time at the school, and I remember our taking the field at
Association football with a good sprinkling of them in our team.