Chapter VI: Part 6

It was rarely "healthy" to take a stroll in the grounds, however much we might be in want of fresh air. Even on days which were exceptionally quiet--and there were not many of them,--when one would move out to look at the grounds with a view to future defences in case we were driven back, or with a desire to ease a torpid liver, suddenly there would be a loudening swish in the air and a crash which would send one of the tall pine-trees into smithereens, with a shower of broken branches in all directions, followed by another, or half a dozen more; and we would retire gracefully--sometimes even rapidly--behind the shelter of our house.

There were some late roses in the garden, or rather in the scattered flower-beds near the house, which lasted out even when the snow was on them; but about the only live beings who took any interest in them were three or four goats, who haunted the precincts of the château, and were everlastingly trying to get inside. Indeed, when Moulton-Barrett first came to take possession, there were two goats in the best bedrooms upstairs, who peered out of the windows at the undesired visitors, and had to be evicted after a display of considerable force.

Also pigs; for half a dozen great raw-boned pink and dirty swine rootled about in the woods near by for sustenance. They were, however, shy, and did not seek the shelter of the château. Stray cattle there were too; but neither these nor the pigs paid any attention to the shells which fell near them with impartial regularity, but did them, as far as I could see, no damage whatever.

There was a stable a couple of hundred yards in rear of the house, and here at first we put what horses there were in the neighbourhood. Having Squeaky and Silver there one night--I forget why, but I know they were there--I put them into a couple of loose-boxes. Silver went in all right, but Squeaky, generally a most sensible mare, shivered and sweated with terror, had almost to be forced in, and refused to feed when there. So I let her out again, and picketed her outside. Two nights after, a doctor's horse which was in there was all but killed, for a shrapnel burst through the window and drove fourteen bullets into his head and neck. They wanted leave to kill the poor beast, but I refused permission, as he was not hit in any vital spot, and he recovered, more or less, in a few days.

As mentioned above, this stable was marked in black on the map, whilst the château--a far bigger building, of course--was hardly indicated. I take it that this accounted for our comparative immunity, for the stable was shelled (and hit) with great regularity, whilst the château was hardly ever touched. We had, however, a couple of small H.E. shell through the eastern end whilst we were in the western; one of these bored clean through the wall of a room where there was a big cupboard against it on the far side and exploded forthwith. But the cupboard was not even scratched; it was blown into the middle of the room and a table or two upset, but, strange to relate, nothing serious in the way of damage was done.[20] On another occasion, however, a few shrapnel exploded just outside the kitchen window. At the sound of the first we all bolted to the other side of the house, and called to the servants to do the same. They came out; but Brown, our excellent cook, who had come out in his shirt-sleeves, must needs go back, without orders, to fetch his coat: for which he promptly received a jagged piece of shell in his left arm, which put a stop, alas, to his cooking for good and all, as far as we were concerned, for he was sent away, and, although he recovered, never came back to us.

[Footnote 20: This is a fact, though I cannot explain it.]

During the chief hours of the day, when not (or whilst) being shelled, we were pretty busy with telegrams and reports and queries and excursions and alarums. We were comfortable enough in the housekeeper's room, and got our meals "reg'lar," and we even had two or three arm-chairs, and newspapers and mails fairly well, and news from outside, which used to arrive with our rations at 9 P.M. or thereabouts. But a minor trial was the fact that two out of our five panes of glass had been blown in by shell, and let in an icy draught on most days. So we got some partially-oiled paper, and made some paste, and stuck up the panes.

The first shell explosion made the paper sag, the second made it shiver, and the third blew it out. The paste would not stick--it was the wrong sort of flour or something.

Then we used jam--that glutinous saccharine mess known as "best plum jam"--and blue sugar paper, and it stuck quite fairly well. But it wouldn't dry; and tears of jam used to trickle down the paper panes and mingle with the tin-tacks and the bread-crumbs on the sill.

The room was even then fairly dark, but the shell-bursts again shivered the jam paper and burst it, and we had to take to cardboard and drawing-boards. This made it still darker, and was not even then successful, for the explosions still shook the boards down and eventually broke another pane: it was most trying. On the last day but one four panes had been broken, and on the last day, as will be recounted, all were broken and the whole window blown in. Then we left.

But what was of much vaster interest, of course, than these trifles, was the desperate fighting which was being waged along our front, not 1000 yards from the château. Our two battalions, being entrenched in the wood, did not receive such a severe hammering as the brigades on either side--the 7th and 9th respectively on our right and left,--who were more in the open. And the shelling and attacks on them were incessant, as well as on troops still further off on the other side of them.

The 11th November was a typically unpleasant day. It started with a touch of comedy, Weatherby arriving stark naked in my room at 6.30 A.M., just when I was shaving, saying, "I say, sir, may I finish my dressing in here? They're shelling the bathroom!" He had a towel and a few clothes on his arm, _et præterea nihil_. (He, M.-B., and St André, though sleeping in different rooms, used to dress in the bathroom, where there were excellent taps and basins, though no water was running.)

The shelling continued till 10. It was on this morning that Brown was damaged and lots of windows blown in.

About that time I saw, to my consternation, a number of British soldiers retiring towards the walled garden. I sent out at once to stop them and turn them back, thinking they were Cheshires or Bedfords. To my relief they were neither, but belonged to a brigade on our right. They had been heavily shelled, and, though in no sort of panic, were falling back deliberately, though without orders. There were no officers with them--all killed or wounded, I believe. My efforts were successful, though I grieve to say that a nice boy, Kershaw of the Signallers, who volunteered to carry a message to them, was hit by shrapnel in the thigh and brought in by our clerk, Sergeant Hutchison, and another, bleeding profusely. Burnett, commanding the Cyclist Corps, had been knocked down by a falling tree and his back damaged--also internal damage, I believe (for he was not really fit a year afterwards); he also was brought in, as well as Cooper of the Royal Fusiliers. A number of Zouaves and some more troops also trickled slowly back from the left with stories of appalling losses (mostly untrue) and disaster to the trenches (ditto). They were also stopped--the Zouaves by St André--and sent back. Certainly the Frenchmen's nerve was not damaged, for I remember that several had playing-cards in their hands, and when they got to what they considered a fairly quiet spot they stopped, sat down, and went on with their game. Norman M'Mahon, commanding Royal Fusiliers, had, however, been killed, just as he had been appointed Brigadier to another Brigade, besides a lot more good men of the 9th Brigade. Shaw, commanding the Brigade, had also been wounded, and Douglas Smith succeeded him. Both the 1st and 9th Brigades had lost several trenches, and intended to try and retake them at night, but both had been pushed back some distance.

A company of Wiltshires was sent to reinforce us in case we were seriously attacked. But they were not used by us for fighting--only for digging extra trenches near the château in case the front battalions had to fall back. But the front battalions had no intention of falling back, and the Cheshires got in a very heavy fire on the flank of some Germans who were attacking the 7th Brigade, and, together with the Gordons on our right, killed a great number. The Cheshires reported afterwards that the Germans walked slowly forward to the attack without enthusiasm and in a sort of dazed way, with their rifles under their arms, as if they were drugged. I wonder whether they were: we several times received reports to the same effect.

A particularly cheery item of intelligence, on good authority, was that fifteen German Guards battalions were being specially brought up in order to break through our line here at all costs. I thought at the time that this was false news, and that nothing like so many would be available, but it was not far out. As part confirmation, some papers taken off a dead German officer were brought in; they belonged to A. von Obernitz, 2nd Garde Grenadier Regiment, 2nd Division Guard Corps, but there was nothing of interest in them.

About that date Weatherby, who had been seedy for several days, became seriously ill with a sort of light typhoid fever, and had to be evacuated. Moulton-Barrett therefore added the duties of Brigade-Major to his already heavy ones as Staff Captain, and did excellently well in the double capacity.

To finish up with, the weather, which had been calm and fine up to date, broke that evening, and there were violent rain-storms from the south-west all night.

We went to bed in no very happy state of mind, expecting a serious night attack by overwhelming forces. But no attack came, for probably the enemy was as exhausted as ourselves. All the same we had to fall back by order, on the following night, for many trenches on our right and left had been driven in, and we did not want to be cut off.

So we fell back about 200 yards through the wood, and straightened up our line--in a much worse defensive position as regards our own bit, but it could not be helped. My suggestions as to the line were overruled, and we took up our second line of trenches and constructed a little réduit in the wood, ringed around with barbed wire and holding about twenty-five men, who would--we were sanguine enough to expect--hold off any serious rush that came.

I forgot to mention that Singer, commanding the 17th Fd. Co. R.E., had arrived, and did an extraordinary amount of good work with his company in circumstances of the greatest difficulty and danger. He told me that the first night he went out, in order to put up some wire entanglement in a dangerous place, it was as black as pitch. He made his sections hold on to each other's coats, but within ten minutes they had not only lost each other in the dense black woods--chiefly through tumbling into trenches and falling over telephone wires,--but Singer had lost the whole company, and after wandering helplessly in what he thought the right direction for some time, he discovered that he had lost himself as well. He said he felt inclined to sit down and have a good cry, so utterly miserable did he feel!

In falling back to the second line we had a fairly easy job, but for the 9th Brigade it was a regular Chinese puzzle, for by this time some of their trenches were in German hands at one end and English at the other, whilst Northumberland Fusiliers, Lincolns, Sussex, West Ridings, Cavalry, and even part of the 2nd Grenadiers,[21] who had turned up from goodness knows where, were inextricably tangled up; not to mention that a party of Northumberlands, numbering about 120, under one gallant subaltern called Brown, had been holding out for three days in front of our line, with no food or drink, and Germans in trenches only 30 yards off them. I believe this lot eventually got away in safety, but the retirement of all was about as difficult as it could be. This was on the 13th.

[Footnote 21: My old battalion.]

On the 14th the Bedfords were heavily attacked, and the Germans pushed a machine-gun right forward through the wood and enfiladed the Cheshire left. These stood it for some time and then retired further down their trench, being unable to let the Bedfords know. Consequently this beastly gun got in a heavy fire on the Bedfords right as well and forced them to retire. The réduit was no good--the wood was too thick--and some of the garrison were captured. So the Bedfords had to fall back, fighting, on to their third line 50 yards back, where they held the enemy.

Edwards, who commanded the advanced Bedford company, came up to the château to report, and gave a most cheery and amusing account of the whole thing, but the result was not at all amusing, as we had lost ground and a lot of men.

Meanwhile the big attack by the German Guards was being made on the brigades on our flanks, but, as all the world knows, it was completely repulsed, though the 15th Brigade was not very heavily engaged as a whole. The fighting was terribly confused in the woods, and nothing but the individual grit of our men held the line, for it was practically impossible to give directions or exercise control in this horrible terrain.

During this period we got much "mixed" as regards our machine-guns. We took over some from the 7th Division and lost some of those. Then we borrowed some more from other units in rear and recovered some of the lost ones. Sergeant Mart of the Bedfords did a splendid thing, and recovered two of the lost Bedford guns practically by himself, stalking the Germans with only one other man and rushing their trench, killing the few men in it. I wanted to recommend him for the V.C., but had such difficulty in getting sufficient evidence about it that an official recommendation would not have held water. Meanwhile poor Mart was shot through the neck. I got him a D.C.M., but do not know whether he lived to receive it.

Then three out of our five guns got damaged by shells and bullets and mud and stopped work. So we borrowed some more, and had some difficulty in working them, as they were a new pattern. By the time we understood them two other guns were _hors de combat_,--it was a real nightmare, and it needed strenuous efforts to keep even one or two guns[22] going; yet they were of enormous importance, and accounted for a lot of the enemy, especially on the right flank of the Cheshires.

[Footnote 22: It does indeed seem extraordinary now that in
those strenuous days of 1914 we only had about three
machine-guns to two battalions. Nowadays we should have at
least twenty!]

Meanwhile the weather had turned beastly cold--snowstorms and sleet during the day and a hard frost at night. The men suffered terribly in the trenches--especially the Cheshires, whose trenches were very wet. Although we kept the wet ones occupied as lightly as possible, we could not abandon them altogether and dig others further forward or back, as there was water everywhere only a foot below the ground. Breastworks were attempted, but they were very visible and attracted large numbers of shells: altogether the Cheshires had a very poor time, I fear. The Bedfords were rather better off, their trenches in the wood being on rather higher and sandy ground, but they were not dry by any means.

It was very awkward getting to the trenches, even in broad daylight, by this time, for such numbers of trees had been blown down by the shells, there were so many shell-holes and so much wire about, and the mud and pools of water so universal, that it was really quite a physical effort to get through at all.

About this time--the 17th--the Germans in our immediate front appeared to have retired a bit, but they certainly had not gone far, for our scouts on pushing on for 50 yards or so were greeted with a heavy fire, so we were unable to get on as much as we wanted. But though the rifle-bullets were rarer for a day or two, shells certainly were not, and continued with the utmost regularity.

On the evening of the 17th, by the way, the enemy, annoyed perhaps at our scouts pushing on, made what was probably meant to be a counter-attack. It was not made in much strength, and we repelled it with ease. But it appeared to us at the château to be more serious than it was, for a messenger from the trenches arrived with the information that the Bedfords were being very severely pressed, and the Cheshires had had very heavy losses, and could not hold their trenches for more than ten minutes unless they were supported at once. I had no supports to send them. A message to Griffith by telephone for confirmation of this alarm produced no result, for the wires were, of course, broken at that critical moment. So I wired to General Wing asking him to send me some supports if he could, and got 200 Royal Fusiliers shortly afterwards. But I did not use them, for the news of the messenger--who protested that he had been sent with a verbal message (not likely) by an officer whose name he did not know--turned out to be grossly exaggerated, and by the time the Fusiliers arrived the fighting was over. I never could trace whether any officer was responsible for the original message: I believe not. Anyhow, there was trouble for the messenger.

On the 18th and 19th we had comparatively quiet days--except for nervousness about our left flank, where certain troops who had joined the 9th Brigade were very heavily shelled and lost one or two of their trenches. They managed, indeed, to get most of the lost ground back, but I was not entirely happy about it, for the ground between us and them was extremely difficult and could not be properly covered by either of us. There was a pond hereabouts, with a little island on it with a summer-house; and we found, on extending our left to take it over, that there must have been a German sniper there for several nights, for many empty Mauser cartridge-cases were found in the summer-house, and a very dicky punt was discovered in the rushes. This latter we sank, and were no more troubled; but it shows the cool pluck of the enemy's snipers in getting right into our lines by themselves (and also--I regret to add--certain other things as well).

Rumours now came of an approaching relief, and certainly troops had rarely been more in want of it, for our two battalions had been in the trenches for fourteen days, with pretty stiff fighting--and nervous, jumpy fighting in the dark at that--all the time, and no chance of being comfortable or quiet during the whole of this period. Each battalion had had to find its own supports or reserves; but even the latter had to be pretty close up to the firing line, for in such cramped country one could not afford the risk of a sudden rush which might have succeeded before the reserves could get up. Our line, it is true, was not a particularly long one; but it was awkward, and the troops were much cramped and confined by nearly all being obliged to take cover in the wood, which gradually grew too small to hold them.

_Nov. 19th._

On the 19th General Wing arrived and told us that, after settling to relieve us to-day, the French had been unable to find the men and could not do it. This was a disappointment; but a later message arrived to say that the Worcesters, coming from the 5th Brigade, would arrive that afternoon and relieve both of our battalions, who by that time were reduced to 540 Bedfords and 220 Cheshires altogether (the Bedfords having started with 1100 and the Cheshires with 600 odd).

In the evening a battalion of Worcesters--from goodness knows where--turned up and announced that they were to relieve us. We had already, as above mentioned, heard that they were coming, and were ready for them; but it was funny that they should arrive for only twenty-four hours, for the French were going to occupy our trenches on the morrow.

Anyhow, by midnight or so the Bedfords and Cheshires had cleared out, thankful to leave the horrible rabbit-warren where they had been stuck for nearly three wet, cold, and beastly weeks; and they retired to the wood and dug-outs close behind our château, so as to be in reserve in case of necessity.

_Nov. 20th._

But they were not wanted as such, and the following day was fairly quiet as far as trench fighting was concerned.

But not so for the staff. We were sitting in the housekeeper's room after breakfast working out our orders for the withdrawal that night, when there was a terrific bang just outside the château--nearer than ever before. We looked at each other, and would, I verily believe, have settled down again to our work, so accustomed were we to shells of all sorts, had not Naylor, who had joined us two days before as temporary signal officer (_vice_ Cadell, gone sick with light typhoid at Hille eighteen days before), jumped up and run outside in order to see where it had gone. Being Divisional signal officer, he had not, perhaps, had quite so much experience of shells as we had, and he wanted to get into closer touch. The example was infectious, and we also strolled out to see where the shell had fallen. Hardly had we got outside into the passage, and halfway up the basement steps into the fresh air, when there was a roar and an appalling crash which shook the building. The concussion made me stagger, and blew my cap off. St André's hat fizzed away into the bushes, and, surrounded by a cloud of red dust and stones and chips of balustrades and hunks of wood and branches, we held on to anything we could. No damage to ourselves; but a glance down the passage showed us that the shell, or most of it, had exploded in or just outside the kitchen, and blown that chamber, as well as the housekeeper's room, which we had just left, into absolute smithereens.

No time to look into further details; a hurried issue of orders, and we legged it for all we were worth across the open and into our funk-hole in the shrubbery 300 yards off, whilst the signal section and servants and orderlies made a bolt for the stables in the opposite direction.

But the Germans seem to have been satisfied with this little exhibition of "hate," and bombarded us no more--except casually, with shrapnel, as usual. We crept back to the château at intervals during the morning, and removed various possessions and chairs and tables to our dug-out, which was not a very luxurious abode, though dry and fairly deep. Poor Conway, Weatherby's servant, whom he had left behind, was the only casualty; his dead body was found, with both legs broken and an arm off, blown down a cellar passage at the back. The next most serious casualty was Moulton-Barrett's new pair of breeches, arrived that morning from England, and driven full of holes like a sugar-sifter. Our late room was a mass of wreckage--half the outer wall and most of the inner one blown down, tables and chairs and things overturned and broken, and the floor knee-deep in plaster and rubbish. Of the kitchen there was still less; and nothing was to be rescued from the debris except one tin plate and one tin mustard-pot. It would have taken days to clear it, for a good deal of the room above seemed to have fallen into it as well, and one could hardly get in at the door, so full was the place of plaster, wreckage, and stones, and hot-water pipes and bits of iron and twisted rails, and dust and earth and broken laths and rafters. Luckily the concussion put the fire out, or there might have been still more damage.

We spent our day somewhat uncomfortably in the dug-out, for there was a hard frost and very little room to turn round in, and though we had a brazier, its charcoal fumes in the confined space nearly poisoned us. In the middle of the day three French officers turned up, and we made mutual arrangements for the taking over by them of this portion of the line, Milling (of the Bedfords) guiding one party and St André the other.

Food was rather a difficulty, for the mess servants had disappeared, and had last been seen hastening in the direction of Ypres--for which we cursed them loud and long. We did our best with small hunks of bully and odd bits of chocolate and a modicum of tea and biscuits in our haversacks--for all the rest of our food had been buried by that infernal shell,--but it was neither comfortable nor filling; and, in truth, as the dark winter evening came on with only one or two candle-stumps between us, we were not as happy as we should otherwise have been.

Help was, however, at hand; for our servants, Inskip and Stairs, who we thought had ignominiously run away, suddenly turned up with heaps of food. They had gone all the way to our cook's waggon three miles the other side of Ypres for comestibles, and whilst we were d--ing their eyes for bolting, were trudging, heavily laden, along the road back to us--good youths.

It was a lengthy business getting the relief through. The French troops, due at 7.30 P.M., did not arrive till 9.15 P.M., and even then it was difficult to pilot a lot of troops, fresh to the ground, in pitch darkness, over shell-holes and wires and broken trees and stumps, and through mud and undergrowth and dead horses, &c., &c., into the trenches destined for them. The details had to be very carefully arranged indeed, and it was not till nearly 2 A.M. that we had got the French into the trenches, the Worcesters into reserve, and the Bedfords and Cheshires on their way back to Ypres.

Then, with a sigh of some thankfulness apiece, we stumbled back in the darkness to the château, where we waited to collect the remains of the Signal Section and staff, and then moved off, mounted this time, down the Menin-Ypres road.

It was freezing very hard--as I think I remarked before--and the road was frightfully slippery. Trotting was almost out of the question, but I tried it on Squeaky for a few yards, on a dry broken bit. She pulled back on to the slippery part, slid up, and sat down heavily, whilst I fell gracefully off on to my shoulder. And she repeated the performance the other side of the town. Ypres, in the bright starlight, was still quite impressive, and the Cloth Hall was still almost intact. But there were many shell-holes about, and some of the houses were still smouldering. The town happened to be respited from shells for the actual moment, but I believe that the very next day a heavy bombardment began again, and the Cloth Hall was destroyed till hardly the skeleton thereof was left.

_Nov. 21st._

We were due to billet in Locre, and there we arrived at about 7 A.M. It was frightfully cold, but, after we had seen the two battalions billeted, the military policeman who had been told to turn up and show us to our billets was nowhere to be found, so we wandered on as far as the Convent, staggering and slipping on the snowy ice and blowing on our fingers as we went. The thermometer must have shown ten degrees of frost or more, but I only know that I was very glad to reach our little house at last (having passed it already once half a mile before) and get in between the sheets of an ancient but respectably clean bed, covered by all the mackintoshes, blankets, and rugs I could get hold of.

The Cheshires were billeted on the Mont Rouge close by, and the Bedfords near us, at the corner of the Westoutre road. They had all struggled over the fourteen miles or so that divided them from their trenches, but having arrived and their feet having swollen terribly during the long march, any number of them could not get their boots on again, and they went to hospital by twenties and thirties, hobbling along the road with their feet tied up in rags or socks, for they were deformed with rheumatism and swollen joints,[23] and would not fit any boot. The Cheshires, as I expected, were much the worse of the two battalions, for their trenches had been very wet, and most of the men had sat with cold feet in water for many days; yet there was not a single case of pulmonary complaint amongst them, and hardly even a cough or a cold.

[Footnote 23: What would now be known as "trench feet."]

Here we stayed, at Locre, till the 25th, the men enjoying a most well-earned rest, and filling up with hot baths, warm clothes, socks, parcels from home, and comforts of all sorts. The Divisional Headquarters were in the Convent, a clean huge building which did very well for the purpose, and here we went almost daily, either on business or on a meal intent. The Cheshires--only 230 of them left--were of no practical value, alas, with their bad feet; so they were sent in to 2nd Corps Headquarters (Sir H. S.-D.) at Bailleul, nominally to "find" the Headquarters Guard, but in reality to convalesce.

On the 25th we--that is, Headquarters and the Bedfords, for that was all there was left of the 15th for the moment--moved to St Jan's Cappel, a nice little village only a few miles behind Locre. We lived in the Curé's (M. de Vos) house, clean and pleasant; and the Curé, who liked the good things of this world, brought his stout person to coffee every evening, and did not disdain to make the acquaintance of an occasional tot of British rum or whisky, except on Fridays.

Two days afterwards we were inspected both by Sir Horace and, half an hour later, by Sir John French, who were both pleased to say complimentary things of the Brigade. It did us good. The Bedfords again put me to confusion by calling out "'Ear! 'ear!" at telling points of the speeches--curious folk,--the only battalion I ever heard do so. 587 men and 8 officers on parade, not one of the latter of whom, except the Quartermaster, had come out with the battalion. Griffith was on leave, his place being taken by Major Mackenzie, V.C., who had just joined. All the other officers who had left Ireland with me in August were either killed, wounded, or sick.

We were under orders to go into the trenches again shortly, taking over from Maude,[24] now commanding the 14th Brigade; he also had the Dorsets and Norfolks, scraped up from various places, attached to him. His line was in front of Dranoutre.

[Footnote 24: The victor of Baghdad.]

On the 29th November we took over there, a most complicated arrangement which only evolved itself clearly during the next week. I had the East Surreys and Manchesters under me for a time, and then the K.O.S.B.'s, all interchanging and intershuffling with my battalions, the main reason being that I had not got the Cheshires, so had to shift as best I could without them, picking up a battalion of the 13th or 14th Brigade when one was available.

The line was not exactly nice. We had, it is true, got rid of the worst bit, Hill 73, on to the 3rd Division, which was next door on the left; but it extended all the same for an unpleasant length on our right, which was south of the Wulverghem-Messines road, the right of the Brigade on our right being on the Douve. At the longest--the length that the Brigade had to defend varied according to circumstances--the line was just over 2500 yards; at its shortest it was about 2200. Considering that the normal frontage (defensive) of the Brigade at full strength was 900 to 1300 yards, this was a bit "thin" in more senses than one.

As we were here for three months, off and on--from the beginning of December to the end of February,--it may be worth while trying to describe it, if I can.

Imagine a bit of rolling country--rather like parts of Leicestershire,--fair-sized fields, separated mostly by straggling fences interspersed with wire (largely barbed), and punctuated by tall trees. Patches of wood in places, spinney size for the most part. Low hills here and there--Kemmel, Scherpenberg, Ploegsteert Wood,--but all outside our area. For villages, Dranoutre, Neuve Église, Wulverghem, and Lindenhoek, of which the two last were already more than half shot to pieces and almost deserted. Opposite our right was Messines--a mile and a half in front of our line,--its big, square, old church tower still standing; it may have had a spire on the top, but if so it had disappeared before we came. Nearly opposite our extreme left, but out of our jurisdiction and in the sphere of the Division on our left, was Wytschaete (pronounce Wich Khâte), one and a half miles off. The cavalry had held both Messines[25] and Wytschaete at the end of October, but had been overwhelmingly attacked here and driven out of them, so that the two villages formed a hostile bulge into our line. We had been in hopes of driving attacks into the base of the bulge and thus forcing a retirement. But the Germans reinforced the bulge and entrenched it heavily, and instead of our cutting off the bulge, it became flatter and flatter, without giving way at the point, so that we had to retire slightly, on either side, and not they.

[Footnote 25: Locally pronounced Mersé.]

Farms, nearly all of them roofless and half-ruined, were dotted about over the country. Small ones for the most part they were, and of the usual type--a liquid and stinking manure-heap surrounded on three sides by a living-house and barns. Of the roads, those from Dranoutre to Lindenhoek, Dranoutre to Neuve Église, and Neuve Église _viâ_ Wulverghem to Messines, were _pavé_--_i.e._, cobble-stones down the centre and mud on both sides. Those joining Lindenhoek to Neuve Église and Wulverghem were also mostly _pavé_. The remainder were mere field tracks for the most part, rarely metalled, and in wet weather almost impassable for mud.

O that mud! We have heard lots about Flanders mud, but the reality transcends imagination, especially in winter. Greasy, slippery, holding clay, over your toes in most places and over your ankles in all the rest--where it is not over your knees,--it is the most horrible "going" I know anywhere. Whether you are moving across plough or grass fields, or along lanes, you are perpetually skating about and slipping up on the firmer bits and held fast by the ankles in the softer ones. There is no stone in the district, nothing but rich loamy clay, _alias_ mud. However much you dig, you never come across stone, nothing but sticky mud which clings to your shovel and refuses to be parted from it--mud that has to be scraped off at almost every stroke, mud that absorbs water like a sponge yet refuses to give it up again. Every little puddle and rut, every hoof-depression full of rain, remains like that for weeks; even when the weather is fine the water does not seem to evaporate, but remains on the surface.

And when it rains, as it did all that winter (except when it snowed), the state of the trenches is indescribable. Some were, frankly, so full of water that they had to be abandoned, and a breastwork erected behind. But a breastwork is slow work, especially if you are less than 100 yards from the enemy. For weeks, indeed, the garrison of one particular trench had to lie out on the mud, or on what waterproofs they could get, behind a shelter two to three feet high--always growing a little, yet never to be made to a real six feet height for reason of conspicuousness and consequent clusters of Black Marias.

Other trenches varied from five inches to five feet deep in mud; in one a Dorset man was literally almost drowned and drawn forth with great difficulty. Many cases occurred of semi-submersion, and as for moving up the communication trenches during the winter, it was generally an impossibility, for they were either knee-deep in water or in mud, and simply refused to be drained. So men preferred the risk of a stray bullet to the certainty of liquid mud to the knees and consequent icy discomfort for twenty-four hours and more. And as for the unfortunate ration-parties and men bringing up heavy trench stores, their task was really one of frightful labour, for, for two men to cross a large and slippery muddy series of fields carrying a 100 lb. box between them was no joke. First one would slide up and skate off in one direction whilst the other did his best to hold on, generally resulting in dropping his end of the box or finding himself on the flat of his back. Then the parts would be reversed, but they always slid up in opposite directions--the mud saw to that,--and they would arrive in the trenches, after their stroll of a mile or less, absolutely exhausted and dripping with sweat. It was difficult enough, over much of the ground, to avoid slipping up even when burdened by nothing more than a walking-stick; that I know from personal experience. Yet for many weeks the men had to do this and suffer, for fascines and bricks, besides sandbags, were only just beginning to make their appearance in December; and floor-boards and gratings and gravel and trench stores and wire-netting, and revetments and planks and iron sheeting and trestles and hurdles of all sorts, did not really materialize in anything like sufficient numbers till March.

The draining of the trenches was heartbreaking. After a heavy day or two of rain the parapets would fall down in hunks into the foot of water or so in the trenches, and would churn up into liquid mud, only to be removed by large spoons, of which we had none, or buckets, of which we had but very few. It was too thick to drain off down the very, very gradual slopes which were the best we could do, and too liquid to be shovelled away; so there it would remain, and our strenuous efforts in rebuilding the parapets (for at this period we had no revetting material) would only result, a night or two later, in still further collapses.

The R.E. companies, both 17th and 59th, worked like heroes, and so particularly did the Norfolks and Bedfords; but it was most disheartening work. No sooner was one parapet fairly complete than another fell in; and when this was mended the first one would collapse again under the incessant downpour. And all this time wire entanglements had to be put up in front under hostile fire, trenches connected up and drained, support trenches dug, communication trenches improved, loopholes made, defences thickened and strengthened, saps pushed out, all under the fire of an enemy anything from 60 to 200 yards off, and always on rather higher ground than ourselves, worse luck, so that he had the whip-hand.

Soon came the period of hand grenades, in which he had six to one the best of us in numbers; and then in rifle grenades ditto ditto; and then in trench mortars, flare-lights, searchlights, and rockets--wherein we followed him feebly and at a great distance; for where he sent up 100 (say) light balls at night, we could only afford five or six; and other things in proportion. Later on came the Minenwerfer, an expanded type of trench mortar, and its bomb, but up to the end of February his efforts in this direction were not very serious, though I allow that he did us more harm thereby than we him. For our trench mortars were in an experimental stage, made locally by the R.E., and constructed of thin gas-pipe iron and home-made jam-pot bombs, whose behaviour was always erratic, and sometimes, I regret to say, fatal to the mortarist. (Poor Rogers, R.E., a capital subaltern, was killed thus, besides others, I fear.)

Our reliefs varied. Normally the Brigade was supposed to be, at first, eight days in and four days out. Then this was rapidly changed to twelve days in and six days out; then, as the 14th Brigade suggested that it should hold Neuve Église, a quite short front, in perpetuity, whilst the 13th and 15th Brigades relieved each other alternate eight days along the long front, it was changed nominally to eight in and eight out. But it was not always possible, and our last tour lasted twenty days in and only three out.

The reliefs made one's head whirl. It was all right to start with, two battalions in the trenches (_i.e._, fire-trenches, support-trenches, and reserve-trenches), and two battalions in reserve at Dranoutre or thereabouts--four days about, each battalion, in eight-day reliefs, or three days about in twelve-day reliefs. This was simple. But when our line was lengthened to a three-battalion length it became much more difficult, especially when one battalion was much weaker than the other three. And when, eventually, the brigade was presented with a Territorial battalion of great strength but no experience, making five battalions of varying strengths to occupy a three-battalion length, whilst one could only put the Territorial one (at first) into a comparatively safe place in the line which did not fit it, then the problem of the wolf, the goat, and the cabbage faded into complete insignificance.

It was very difficult to fit everything in so that each battalion had its fair share of duty and of rest. Even with the best intentions matters did not always pan out straight, for considerations of strength, of comparative excellence, of dangerous and of safe localities, of moral, of comfortable or uncomfortable trenches, of spade-work and of a dozen other things, had to be fitted together like a Chinese puzzle.

There was a particularly dangerous and uncomfortable length which was given to the best battalion to hold. On its relief, who should hold it? the next best, who was badly wanted somewhere else, or another one weak in numbers and consequently unfit? And when the relief came again, was the best battalion always to be doomed to the worst and most dangerous trenches, merely because it _was_ the best? Hardly an incitement to good work. And when the battalions did not fit their length, were you to add or subtract a company from somebody else, or would you put some in reserve out of their turn, thereby inflicting unfair hardship on another battalion? And would you like to reinforce one battalion, in case of attack, by another battalion? or would you like to make it thin in front and deep behind, and support itself? If the other thing was necessary, how could you do it when the two battalions were accustomed to relieve their companies, internally, in different ways, when perhaps the transport of one was deficient, or one battalion preferred sandbags, whilst the other cherished hurdles, as revetting material?--for I always found that giving the commanding officer his head in such small internal matters produced the best work. It was a matter for deep study and wet towels, and there let it rest.

We had much difficulty about quarters outside the trenches, for all the farmhouses anywhere within two miles of the enemy were shelled pretty regularly as regards quantity of explosive material devoted to them--though, as regards dates, they varied considerably. Battalion headquarters had to be dumped down in farms half shot to pieces, with all windows broken and howling icy draughts tearing through the shell-holed walls. If you did not like this, you could go and dig a big hole in the side of a road or a turnip-field and live in that. The reserves were always the difficulty, and so, for a long time, were even the supports. For whatever and wherever the trenches that we dug for them, the rain came steadily down and broke away the sides of the dug-outs and provided wet legs for those that sat therein. Later on, more timber being available, as well as iron sheeting, hurdles and other things, they became a good deal more weather-proof; but at first the men as well as the officers were, I fear, very uncomfortable.

In those days one could not dream of going up to or into a trench except in the dark, or, indeed, of moving about anywhere near there except at night. Nowadays one can visit all one's trenches in broad daylight, and never care a rap for the occasional bullets which whistle over the comfortable deep communication trenches; but up to the spring of 1915 it was very different almost throughout.

I used to visit the trenches every third night or so; at least I tried to, but it was not by any means always possible. It meant a three-mile ride there, putting up the horses in Wulverghem or Lindenhoek, and a walk of a mile or so to the trenches, then a mile or less along the trenches. It was lucky for you if there was any light of moon or stars to see by, and lucky if you did not go over your knees in mud in the dark. On one occasion it came down a pitchy dead blackness just as I was arriving at the trenches, so that you literally could not see your hand in front, or the road, or anything else; so I gave it up and went back. Other nights were impossible for the same reason; and occasionally the brilliance of the moon was in fault, though not often. So we had to select our nights carefully.

Johnston, V.C.,[26] R.E., was in R.E. charge of our trenches. (Poor fellow, he was killed by a sniper near St Éloi on April 15.) He must have worked something like eighteen hours out of the twenty-four. For by 9 A.M. he was collecting material near Dranoutre and receiving reports, and settling his company administrative work. At 11.30 he came to see me, and we discussed and settled the ensuing night's task. Then back to his farm to give out instructions to his sappers, and fifty other things to do before he rode out about 6 P.M. to the trenches, remaining there till 3 A.M. or even 6 A.M.--to superintend the work and struggle about in the mud all night. He never spared himself an ounce. He was occasionally so nearly dead with want of sleep that I once or twice ordered him to take a night's sleep; but he always got out of it on some pretext or other.

[Footnote 26: He had received the V.C. for a particularly
plucky piece of raft work under heavy fire at Missy.]

And with it all he was as plucky as the devil--he seemed to like getting shot at. One night he got a ricochet bullet over his heart, but this only put him in a furious rage (if you can use the word about such a seeming mild person), and spent the next twenty-four hours in collecting ammunition and bombs and extra trench-mortars and firing them himself; this seemed to soothe him. He was a wonderful fellow all round, always full of expedients and never disheartened by the cruel collapse of all his plans caused by the wet weather; and if there was a dangerous piece of work on hand, he was always first in giving the lead. One very nasty place on the left there was which was commanded by the enemy at short range, yet we could not dig in it, as the water was only a foot below the ground, and breastworks there were practically impossible; yet if the enemy had seized this bit they would have enfiladed the rest of the line; why they did not do so I do not know. He was always pressing me to attack the Germans at this point and seize a bit of false crest that they held; but my better judgment was against it, as, if we had taken the bit, we should have been commanded there from three sides instead of one, and could not have held it for half an hour. I know Johnston's private opinion of me in this matter was that I was a funk, but he was too polite to say so. After I left, the following Brigade not only did not attack the point, but fell back some distance here, "on its own"; and I am sure they were right.

Poor Johnston--he became Brigade-Major after Weatherby left for the 5th Divisional Staff (some time in April 1915, I think), and, as I remarked, was killed shortly afterwards. His death was a very heavy loss to the Brigade.

At Dranoutre we--that is, the Brigade staff--lived in a perpetual atmosphere of mud and draughts. The Curé's house was very small and very dirty, and was not improved by the pounds of mud which every one brought in on his boots at all hours of the day and left on our best drugget--a cheap, thin thing which I bought in Bailleul (they had not such a thing as a carpet in the whole town) wherewith to cover the nakedness of the brick floor of the one tiny room in which we all worked and ate.

Weatherby and I slept in the house, and the others were billeted outside, but the quarters were none of them more than passable--poor villagers' rooms, with a frowzy though comfortable bed, a rickety washhand-stand, if you were lucky (I did not even have that), no carpet on the dirty wooden floor, and one small hard-backed chair, generally minus a portion of a leg; never any chest of drawers or anywhere to put your things, as if there by any chance was such a thing in the room, it was sure to be full of the inhabitants' rusty old black clothes and dirty blue flannel shirts, and petticoats, thick and musty, by the ton,--I never saw so many petticoats per inhabitant.

Our mess had only had one change since the beginning of the war, and that was in the signal officer. Cadell had gone sick in November, and Miles had replaced him in December. For about a month, including all the period at Ypres, we had had no signal officer (except Naylor for two days), nor any Brigade-Major from about the 12th November (at Ypres) till the beginning of December; so Sergeant King, a first-rate signaller, though not the senior, had carried on for Cadell, and Moulton-Barrett had added the duties of Brigade-Major to his own. But by the middle of December we were complete again. Weatherby had returned from his sick leave, and Miles, of the K.O.S.B.'s, was now signalling officer. A quite excellent one he was, too--very silent, always an hour or two late for dinner (owing to strenuous night work), never asking questions, but always doing things before they were even suggested, and very thoroughly at that; he was a great acquisition. Moulton-Barrett was still Staff Captain--very hard-working and conscientious, and very thorough; Weatherby was still Brigade-Major--keen and resourceful; Beilby was still veterinary officer--capable and helpful; and St André was still interpreter and billeting officer--cheerful and most willing. His duties were mostly to investigate the numerous cases of natives who wanted to go somewhere or do something--generally to fetch their cows off a shell-swept field, or to rescue their furniture from a burnt village, or to fetch or buy something from Bailleul--and recommend them (or otherwise) to me for passes--a most trying duty, wearing to the temper; but he was angelic in patience, and, as a light recreation, used to accompany me to the trenches fairly often.