To-day we transported all our worldly belongings in handcarts from our
former billets to a village about six miles nearer the firing line.
The village is called Bresle. It is quite a nice little village in a
hollow, only it is crowded with troops--three Battalions and various
other units all billeted in it. Consequently, though the men still
have room for their usual billets in barns, &c., some have very little
spare room, whilst most of the officers are billeted in tents, hiding
from aeroplanes, under trees. When we arrived we had to get parties to
move our tents into a field under a hedge and some trees. We have
three tents--one we use as a mess--and the men looted wood and doors
and made a splendidly fine table round the tent pole, also a form to
sit on. Another tent we all three--Kitty, Brand and myself--sleep in,
and a third we have handed over to the servants. I myself have a
folding bed that Captain Brockbank, of the Divisional Supply Column,
had made for me, and I hope to be fairly comfortable. Our little camp
is in the corner of a cultivated field, behind the farms on the hills
rising from the village. When we had finished putting up our tents, we
lay down for a late lunch of bully-beef sandwiches and cake and
watched Mademoiselle and the family digging the field. Then at the
other's instigation I offered Mademoiselle a piece of the cake you
sent me as my "gateau de marriage," telling her I had been married
vingt-cinq anees. It is always well to conciliate the native. To-night
I went to tea with the Battalion, several spare officers have arrived
out from our depot Battalion. They all have tents in a sort of
orchard.
To-night we dined off boiled eggs, tea, and soup, in that order, in
our mess-tent, and we are now going to bed.
On Sunday I went away in a waggon to Railhead to Mericourt to catch a
train at 7-30 to go on another course at G.H.Q.--Hezdin, near Etaples.
On the train I met Bowkett, from the Tyneside Scottish, and we
travelled together. While we were waiting at Amiens to catch a
connection we met another man, who was going on the same course, and
whom we avoided, as he seemed a terrible person. We arrived at Hezdin
about 6-30, reported at G.H.Q., and then walked up to a chateau, where
we were billeted. There we saw the Adjutant, who gave us a room
together with two decent beds. The chateau is a topping big place in
pretty grounds and has most of the furniture left in it. We had a
large mess-room, with doors opening into the terrace, and an
ante-room. The next day, as our time was slow, we missed our breakfast
and only just came down in time for parade at 9-0. In the evening we
went down to Hezdin to the hotel to dinner, about four of us. The next
day we had breakfast in bed, and were in time for the lecture at 9-0.
In the morning, gun drill and firing. The other people in the course
were very interesting people, and an awfully nice lot. There was an
Australian whom, of course, we all called Anzac--a small
strongly-built man, with a military moustache, named Hart. He had a
very amusing manner of taking off old Army Colonels and 'varsity men,
from what he called Okker and Camer, and whom he described as always
going about with a towel round their necks, a blazer and pumps. He
would always talk to order. To set him off we had the man we saw on
Amiens station, and whom we all call George, for no known reason, and
whose real name was Arthur. Like Anzac, he had been all over the
world, and was very quiet and melancholy. He used to talk in a
pathetic high voice, and teach us Chinese, and tell us how he was
arrested as a spy in Armentières, and of his experiences. The other
chevalier, you knew at sight, came from Oxford. Bouchier, of the Royal
Scots, a small, dark Englishman, who was born in Tipperary, and was
known to our society as Arthur Bouchier, the passionate Scot from
Tipperary. Sutherland, Black Watch, a decadent specimen from the
Coldstreamers; Pinto Pike, and a Canadian Captain called Clarke. The
others were Lloyd (Cheshire), Robinson (King's Liverpool), Laying
(Gloucesters), Granville (Royal Fusiliers), who was in the same
Battalion as Wynn, who was chaplain of Jesus, and Cuthbertson, the
girl of the footlights; Steed, a pianist, Propert, and others. Our
instructor, Higgins, was a topping chap, with the Military Cross. We
had an awfully jolly time on the course.
On Friday we again went into Hezdin for dinner, several of us.
On Saturday morning we saw most of them off, and Bowkett, George
Bouchier and I remained. In the afternoon Bouchier and I went and had
a hot bath at an old nunnery by the river. Dinner at the hotel, where
we spent a comfortable night.
On Sunday morning we set off at 6-0 to catch the 6-24 train, and we
arrived at Amiens about lunch-time. On the station I met half a dozen
officers from the 8th Suffolks, and talked to them about various
mutual acquaintances and of what the Battalion was doing. Then in the
town Bowkett and I met a man named Grey, who had come out from our
Reserve Battalion to the 8th Suffolks, and we went and had lunch in
the Hotel du Rhine with him and several other officers, two of whom I
had met at Cambridge. A topping dinner, including ices and
strawberries.
When we returned to the station we discovered that the train we were
supposed to go on was a crowded leave train, full of people returning
from leave, so we waited till the next. Arriving at Mericourt I had to
walk to Bresle, but got the assistance of one motor waggon and a mess
cart, and arrived at Bresle only to find that the Battery was moving
in an hour to Albert, and was going in the trenches that night. I went
to have tea, and meanwhile the Batteries went on. Then, very luckily,
I found a friend and a car that whisked me past the Batteries trudging
with handcarts on into Albert. Arrived in Albert I went on to see
Rigby, whom we were taking over from, in a small billet, but found
that we were getting a big billet in the hospital--a huge, great
place, with large rooms built in 1904, and toppingly fitted up, but
now practically empty. All our men sleep in two big double rooms, and
Kitty and I in one room, the others in a room 100 feet by 25 feet. Our
mess-room is a large, clean, dry, tiled room, with one huge window; we
furnished it with tables and chairs, chiefly taken from the old
billet, which we are not using. Fuller keeps the room smart with wild
flowers.
At 11-0 p.m. o'clock I went up to the trenches with Carroll and half
the Battery, who were going in for the night--the men in one big
dug-out and Carroll in one with two machine gunners. I returned home
and got to bed about 3-0 a.m.
The next morning I was wakened before seven by the guns waking up for
their early morning hate just under my window. There are Batteries
dotted about all over the place here--18 pounders, howitzers of all
sizes, and naval guns. You almost trip over them wherever you go.
There are two 6in. howitzers hiding in our back garden. I went up to
the trenches to look round the next morning (Monday).
The trenches here are very different from what we have been used
to--long narrow trenches, not breastworks, dug down in the chalk, a
veritable labrynth of trenches, going in all directions, up hill and
down dale. They are very deep, and very few rifle shots are fired.
Sniping is done with field guns and trench mortars. The line is very
curious, moving forward and backward. In one place in our line a
village runs out and there is a German salient. In front of the
salient lots of mines have been exploded and no trenches remain,
merely holes that bombers hide in, where the trench bulging again we
share our parapet with the Bosche. I don't go there often, as you have
to crawl, and you usually crawl into the wrong trench and find
yourselves wandering in the Bosche lines. The Germans send over a lot
of oil cans filled with old razor blades and rubbish, which do a good
deal of damage, and are rather unpleasant. However, we are educating
them not to send them over too often, as we send over two to their one
with our mortars, and in time we shall get them under our thumbs I
hope. We always have one man by each gun firing almost continuously.
We have dug-outs well back with wire beds in them, also rats! Here we
have big underground dug-outs 20 feet underground, some of them down
long stairways. The country is very hilly and wooded in parts; our
part of the line has two hills and one valley, it is rather like
Salisbury Plain, or a flat edition of Derbyshire.
Carroll has been in, and I have gone up in the daytime.
I am going to relieve him this afternoon; I shall only be in a few
days. I hope to come home on leave about June 4th.
Much love to all, from your loving Son,
ALEC.
P.S.--I have not got your letter, but I have received all the letters
and things sent, I think.