Part 11

On further consideration of the situation, I settled to make Brigade Headquarters at the Beukenhorst Château,[18] half a mile farther back, and started the R.E. and a strange fatigue party to dig a funk-hole for us in front of it in case it were badly shelled; but I remember as a particular grievance that when the foreign fatigue party heard they were to go somewhere else, they went off, leaving their work half undone, and with our Brigade tools, though I had given them distinct orders to do neither of these things. But they were now out of my jurisdiction, so nothing could be done except to send them a message to return our tools--which they never did.

[Footnote 18: "Stirling Castle" on our present maps.]

Moulton-Barrett turned up in the afternoon with a basket of cold food for us, and took St André away; it was not the least necessary for him to stay, as the dug-out was really only big enough for two, so Weatherby and I settled down for the night. We had wanted to move into the château at 7 P.M., but we could not. For it was not advisable as long as an attack was imminent; also, M. B. had not got our message of that morning saying we wanted him to clean up the château for us; and thirdly, the Bedford relief was taking place. So we settled to move next day instead.

But it was not very attractive living in the tiny dug-out. We had no servants, we had to prepare our own food and wash up afterwards; it was frightfully cramped, and we were always getting half-empty sardine-tins oozing over official documents, and knives and forks lost in the mud and straw at the bottom, and bread-crumbs and fragments of bully beef and jam mixed up with our orders and papers; and it was not at all healthy going for a stroll as long as the sun was up because of the bullets and shells fizzing about. Altogether, although it was no worse, except as regards size, than other dug-outs, it was not luxurious; and as for washing, a little water in the bottom of a biscuit-tin was about all we could manage, whilst a shave was a matter of pain and difficulty.

_Nov. 7th._

We had now come under the 3rd Division (under General Wing temporarily--a very good and charming fellow, a gunner, who had taken over General Hubert Hamilton's command, the latter having been killed, I forgot to mention, some time previously), whilst the 9th Brigade had relieved the 6th Cavalry on the previous day. The Division, therefore, now consisted of the 7th, 15th, and 9th Brigades (the latter comprising the Northumberland Fusiliers, Royal Fusiliers, Lincolns, and Scots Fusiliers)--in that order from right to left. It looked, therefore, as if we ought to be soon relieved by the 8th Brigade and return to our own Division. Vain hope! We were not destined to be relieved for another fortnight.

There was a good deal of shelling of the 9th Brigade during the morning, but we personally had not many shells into us, and were fairly quiet till past 2 o'clock.

Suddenly, about 3, a hellish hostile fire broke out in the wood--not in our front, but close on our left. A hail of bullets whizzed over our heads, responded to by our fire trenches; and then, to our horror, we saw our Bedford supports, to our left front, retiring slowly, but in some confusion, on top of us--many of the men only half-dressed, and buckling on their kits as they moved. We jumped out of our dug-out, and with the assistance of their officers stopped and rallied them. They were certainly not running, and were in no sort of panic; but they all said that the word had been passed from the right front that the Bedfords were to retire, so they had done so--half of them being asleep or feeding at the time the fire began.

We made them advance again, which they were more than willing to do, and then there was a cheer from the Bedfords in front. Upon which the supports pricked up their ears, rallied to the sound, and charged forward like hounds rallying to the horn.

Violent firing and confused fighting and yelling in the wood for a space, and some wounded began to come back. Then some Germans, both wounded and prisoners, in small batches, and at last the news that the Bedfords had completely repulsed the attack and taken about 25 prisoners, driving the enemy back with the bayonet at the run.

Who it was that started the order to retire we could never find out. It certainly was not Milling, who was commanding in the front trench, nor was it any officer. Quite conceivably it may have been started by the enemy themselves.

What happened, as far as I could make out, was that the right centre of the Northumberland Fusiliers on our left had been pressed back and the Germans had poured through the opening. The right flank of the Northumberlands had sat tight, so the Bedfords in our front line had known nothing of the German success till they were fired at by the enemy in the wood on their left rear. I do not fancy, however, from what the prisoners told me, that the attack was a very strong one--not more, I expect, than three or four companies.

These belonged to the Frankfurt-am-Main Corps (VII.). I examined one prisoner, a regular "Schwabe" from Heilbronn, a jolly man with a red beard, who told me that his company was commanded by a cavalry captain, who considered it beneath his dignity to charge with infantry, and remained snugly ensconced behind a wall whilst he shouted encouragement to his men.

The Bedfords retook three of the Northumberlands' trenches with them, but failed to retake one of their own--together with two machine-guns in it--that they had lost, although they tried hard, A Company (Milling's) making three bayonet charges. They behaved devilish well, in spite of heavy losses both in officers and men. Macready, their Adjutant, was shot through the liver (but recovered eventually); Allason (Major) was hit twice--once through the shoulder, and again, on returning after getting his wound dressed, through the thigh; Davenport was shot through the left elbow (we looked after him in our dug-out); and two subalterns were killed, besides twenty-four men killed and fifty-three wounded. Of the Cheshires, Pollok, Hodson, and Anderson (the latter a fine runner and very plucky chap) were killed, besides five men killed, nineteen wounded, and eight missing. Altogether the losses were rather heavy. The men were particularly good to the wounded Germans; I remember especially one man, a black-bearded evil-looking scoundrel, who had been shot through the lungs, and rolled about in the mud at my feet, and him they looked after carefully. The last glimpse I caught of him was being helped to a stretcher by two of our own men, also wounded.

There was again no chance of our getting to the château to-night, so another basket of food arrived, and we fed with what comfort we could.

We worked all night at strengthening our lines, but the Germans had got up so close to our weakest salient that I was a bit anxious on the subject of a renewed attack by night.

_Nov. 8th._

A small reinforcement arrived at 7 A.M., in the shape of the Divisional Mounted Troops of the 3rd and 5th Divisions--about 250 men altogether, consisting of 70 of the 15th Hussars and 60 cyclists from the 3rd, and 50 of the 19th Hussars and 70 cyclists from the 5th Divisions, under Courage and Parsons respectively.

These were distributed in rear of our dug-out.

We had a fairly quiet day as far as we ourselves were concerned, but both Brigades on our flanks were heavily shelled. The French on our right were attacking in force, but although they were being supported by their 16th Corps, I do not think there was much result about Klein Zillebeke.

At last, at 5.30 P.M., we started for our château, and hardly had we gone 150 yards when a terrific fire broke out. We got behind a little ruined hut to escape the bullets, and I made ready to return in case it was a serious attack. But it died down in ten minutes, and we pursued our way in more or less peace, for it was only a case of firing at reliefs, and I think the Germans were rather jumpy.

The Château of Beukenhorst was a square white block of a place, and merits perhaps some description, as we were there for a most uncomfortable fortnight--uncomfortable as far as events and fighting went, though not so as regards living.

It belonged to some people whose name I have forgotten--Baron something (Belgian) and his German wife, and it was due to this lady's nationality--so the story went--that the place had suffered so little. Personally I think that it was due to the house only being indicated on the map, whilst the stables, 200 yards off, which were perpetually being shelled, were marked in heavy black, and were a cockshy for the German guns, which were evidently laid by map and not by sight; yet the house was on a fair elevation, and must have been visible from certain points on the German side. By the same token, General Capper had had his Headquarters there for a few days, but had cleared out, I believe, because of shells. Half a dozen shrapnel had certainly hit it, but they had only chipped off some bits of stone and broken all the windows at the eastern end.

We lived in a room half below ground at the western end, which must evidently have been the housekeeper's room or servants' hall, next to the kitchen. About half the Signal Section lived in some sort of cellars close by, the other half being away with the transport. Two of these cellars were also used as a dressing station for the 7th Brigade, and wounded used to be brought in here frequently and tended by a sanitary Highlander, a corporal whose exact functions I could never discover, but who worked like a Trojan. The wounded were visited by a medical officer in the evening, and removed on stretchers every night to the ambulances who came to fetch them. Our own wounded did not come here, but were looked after just behind the trenches near the Herenthage Château, and taken away from there at night by our own 15th Field Ambulance, who worked all night in circumstances of much danger, but were luckily hardly ever hit.

The owners had evidently had plenty of notice before clearing out, for they had removed all the smaller articles and most of the furniture, and had rolled up the carpets and curtains and blinds, leaving only big cupboards and bare bedsteads and larger bits of furniture. These were, oddly enough, in very good taste--Louis XV. style--and only sand-papered and not polished or painted. There was a good bathroom too, and a lavatory with big basins, but much of it had been smashed by shrapnel, as it was at the east end. Our bedrooms were on the first floor, and most of them had good beds and washhand-stands, but no linen or blankets. I need hardly say that we carefully selected those at the western end of the house, whither few bullets had penetrated. But the windows there were mostly untouched, and consisted of good plate glass. Altogether the whole place gave one the idea of comfort, money, and good taste, and was an eminently satisfactory abode--bar the shells.

I know that, as far as looking after the Brigade was concerned, we got through three times as much satisfactory work in the morning after we arrived as we did during all the three days we were in the little dug-out. For we could now communicate not only by wire but by messenger and by personal contact with the authorities and commanders in our rear and on our flanks, and could discuss matters _re_ artillery and defences and plans in a way which had been quite impossible in our advanced position.

General Wing[19] used to come and see us most evenings, and I used to communicate personally with Shaw (9th Brigade), and Fanshawe (Artillery), and M'Cracken (7th Brigade), about combined movements, &c. Every morning before daylight, and at a good many other times besides, I, or Weatherby, or Moulton-Barrett, used to go down to the trenches and confabulate with Griffith--always cool and resourceful, who was in immediate command--or Frost and Burfeild, who were running the Cheshires excellently between them. It was not always a very easy business getting down to the trenches, for there were nearly always shells bursting in the woods and on the open field which lay between us and the trench wood; and we had generally to hurry in order to leave the château precincts unperceived by the beastly Taubes who hovered overhead, always on the lookout for headquarters to shell; so we cut down orderlies and staff to a minimum, and absolutely forbade any hanging about outside.

[Footnote 19: To everybody's great regret, he was killed in October 1915.]

It is no use going into or describing our proceedings day by day: "Plus ça changeait, plus c'était la même chose." I have the detail of it day by day in my diary, but it was always, in the main, the same thing--minds and bodies at high tension throughout the day and most of the night; perpetual artillery fire--if not by the enemy then by ourselves; shells bursting round the château and hardly ever into it, mostly shrapnel near the house and Black Marias a bit further off--chiefly into a walled garden 200 yards off which, for some unknown reason, the Germans were convinced held some of our guns, though, as a matter of fact, our batteries were in our right rear, in well-covered positions just inside (or even outside, in some cases) the woods. But we got shells on the other side of the house as well, over the bare half-grown lawn and flower-beds between the château and the Hooge-Menin road.

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.