CHAPTER IV

LOOS AND THE SPINNEY

A return was made to the trenches at Maroc on the 1st September, when it was found that the war had livened up considerably during the three weeks’ absence at La Beuvrière. The aerial torpedo made its first appearance to the Battalion, and to judge from the following letter home from a member of “B” Company, caused some consternation:--

“When we first took these trenches over from the French there was hardly a shell or a bullet all day. Now Hell is let loose. The very first morning we were introduced to a novelty in the shape of a gigantic bomb. The trench trembled and the air rushing into our dug-outs almost blew us off our seats. We rushed out to see what damage had been done, and could hardly believe our eyes when we found that the bomb had exploded about 300 yards in front of the trench. The next one burst not 40 yards away, and after the blinding flash and the crash of the explosion I felt nothing. The explosion is apparently upward rather than outward. It is thought that the offending mortar works on a pair of rails and is whisked back by the force of the recoil into the side of the slag heap. Smoke rises when the bomb is fired, but a heavy shelling at this spot failed to silence it. Now an Artillery Observation Officer watches the spot all day, and immediately the smoke is observed his battery fires and tries to catch the mortar before it gets back under cover.”

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Preparations for the big attack at Loos now overshadowed everything else, and the Battalion was out every night on working or carrying parties--such light jobs as carrying gas cylinders, digging assembly trenches and bridging trenches. All who took part in them are agreed that these gas cylinder fatigues were the most strenuous they ever had to do. On the first night there were two men to each cylinder. The cylinder weighed 180 lbs., and the men in addition carried their rifles and 100 rounds of ammunition in bandoliers. The numerous turns in the trenches were almost impassable obstacles, and to realise the difficulty of lifting the cylinders round the corners one must have done the deed. Arrived at last at the front line, the cylinder had to be lifted up high and a sort of juggling feat indulged in to get it into the correct position desired by the critical Royal Engineer.

Fatigues generally in these days were much more difficult than at any other time of the war. Light railways had not yet been developed, and it was not realised at this time how great a handicap it was for a man to have two bandoliers of ammunition swinging round his neck while he worked.

Apart from the working parties, a happy time was spent at the little village of Houchin, where there was much cricket and feasting and very little drill, and it was here that the Battalion first had the use of motor buses in France.

When the battle eventually took place on the 25th September, the Civil Service Rifles, as at Festubert, held a watching brief, being in Brigade Reserve to the 6th and 7th Battalions, and it was thought that this was the origin of the title of “God’s Own.”

To the Civil Service Rifles the battle of Loos was chiefly a spectacle, since, with the exception of two platoons of “B” Company, the whole Battalion looked on from the reserve trenches. The fate of those two platoons, however, brought home to their friends the realities of battle.

Soon after the attack started, No. 6 Platoon went forward over the top as a bomb-carrying party. Starting out twenty-five strong the party soon suffered heavy losses, and only three men of the party survived unhurt. No. 8 Platoon went to the rescue, and although their fate was much better, they, too, had their losses.

The killed included the ever-popular Lance-Corporal Tommy Dodge, a great personality both in the Civil Service Rifles and in the Civil Service Rugby Football Club.

Of the survivors, mention must be made of Corporal F. H. Chinn, who had been sent with five men to establish a bomb store in the second German trench. As the five became casualties, he made three journeys up the side of the Double Crassier alone, carrying each time as many bombs as he could collect.

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After Loos there was a short rest at Verquin and Nœux-les-Mines, where, on the 8th October, the Battalion lost the valuable services of Captain H. H. Kemble, who became second in command of the 23rd Battalion. As officer in command of “D” Company, Captain Kemble had won the admiration and respect of all ranks who served with him, and who were genuinely sorry to lose him.

The winter campaign of 1915-1916 now set in in earnest, and from this time onwards there was a long struggle against the rain, mud, and trenches that were continually falling in.

A fleeting visit was paid to the neighbourhood of Hulluch, where the Battalion was in reserve during the struggle on the 13th October, and narrowly escaped the fate which befel a Battalion of the Black Watch who went down in attempting the impossible feat of cutting their way, under very heavy machine-gun and artillery fire, through enemy wire of incredible thickness.

On the 28th October, “A” and “C” Companies had the honour of representing the Battalion at an inspection by His Majesty the King in a field near the village of Haillicourt.

Soon after their return the weather went from bad to worse. Everywhere men were huddled on the firestep with just a ground-sheet rigged over a couple of rifles placed across the trench--the “shelter” thus formed carefully collecting and depositing the rain-water down the neck of the passer by! On every ration fatigue to the “lone tree” you floundered up to the knees in mud and water. Private Beatty, of “A” Company, soothed his feelings one night on slipping head first into a slimy shell-hole with the following impromptu:--

“Mis-ry unspeakable, Horrible, shriekable, Groundsheets unleakable, I don’t think. Rain never ending, On us descending, Simply heartrending. Gawd----!”

when he fell backwards into another shell-hole, and the rest is unprintable.

The effect of the incessant rain and water-logged trenches began to tell on the spirits of all ranks. The days of hot meals in trenches had not then arrived. Sheepskin coats, leather jerkins and woollen gloves had not, at any rate, been issued to the Civil Service Rifles, while gum boots, though sometimes heard of, were seldom, if ever, seen. On many occasions, too, the only implements available for the work of baling out the water and thin mud from the trench bottom were picks and shovels!

It is characteristic of the spirit of the troops that there are so many good stories told of this period of discomfort. Although it was found that the working parties increased as the strength of the Battalion decreased, it was also found that the rum ration increased, and one man of “A” Company benefited so much by the extra ration that when his next turn for sentry duty came, he faced the wrong way on the fire step and called the attention of his platoon sergeant to a wood, which he said he could swear was not in front of him during his previous turn of sentry duty!

Another story is told of the same man, who was a Scotsman, during another of his turns of sentry duty. His platoon commander suspected him of being asleep, and brought his sergeant along to confirm or allay his suspicions. The man was resting his head on the parapet and apparently gazing straight to his front. The platoon sergeant said he felt sure the man was awake, but suggested to his officer that he might test him with a franc. The officer thereupon slipped a franc note on to the parapet in front of the sentry’s face. Without taking his eyes off his “front,” the sentry promptly opened his mouth and took the bait. “The franc is yours,” said Lieutenant Bates, whose doubts as to the alertness of his sentry were now dispersed.

By way of a diversion, the Battalion was inspected during one of the short rests in support trenches, by a civic dignitary from London, accompanied by his Press photographer. Of all the discomforts of life in France few, if any, were more irksome to the British soldier than being visited by a civilian, looking clean, and fat, and comfortable, who would return home and have it duly advertised in the Press that he had just been to the front to see things for himself.

It will always be a mystery to the troops why so many civilians were allowed to come on these “Cook’s tours” to France at the nation’s expense, and if the visitors had only thought for a moment what effect their “patronage” had on the weary soldier, who generally had to give up a few hours of his well earned rest for an extra parade, there would not perhaps have been so many photographs in the Press of “Mr. ---- wearing his steel helmet and box respirator while visiting the troops in France.” The troops would not have minded so much if only the distinguished civilian had included a visit to the front line in his “tour of the trenches”!

In addition to the physical strain due to the continuous exposure to atrocious weather, Companies in turn occupying the “Spinney” trenches towards the end of the period had their nerves sorely tried by the eccentricities of enfilade fire. Shells burst against the inside of the parapet, and there were some parts of the line in this very narrow salient which appeared to be exposed to fire from the rear as well as other directions!

There were as many as thirty casualties a day--a high average for a trench tour. At one place in front of a steep quarry--subsequently evacuated during bombardments--men were constantly employed in filling and placing sandbags on the parapet as fast as they were knocked down.

The communication trenches were impassable and consequently the wounded could not be taken down until night, when a perilous journey had to be made over the open country, the stretcher bearers picking their way between shell holes filled with water. There were no roads leading up to the line, the district seemed to be unusually difficult to explore, and parties of men were continually going astray.

The wastage in personnel due to the appalling weather and shelling had so mounted up, that when eventually relief came, the Battalion marched, or rather dragged itself out only about 300 strong.

The following extract from the diary of a bomber gives a characteristic description of the close of this extraordinarily uncomfortable period of the winter campaign of 1915-16.

“We were thankful, I can tell you, to make tracks at last for the reserve line, but it was raining hard and it damped our spirits to find our new trench waterlogged. We bombers had not been in our dug-out an hour before one earth wall collapsed and buried our equipment and belongings. We were too tired to grumble, but propping up the fallen corrugated iron roof to form a side, we slept soundly beneath the ruins. In the morning, in spite of the rain and liquid mud, we set to and made a dug-out with groundsheets and one or two pieces of corrugated. Our new abode was the envy of our comrades. It had even a covered in hall where we cleaned our boots before being permitted to enter. Then we won a brazier, collared some wet coke, charcoal and wood logs and kept up a good fire. I took off my boots every time I came in from a fatigue and dried my socks and puttees. We sat round the brazier at night, and by the light of the glowing and smoking logs--for candles we had none--told stories and sang songs and were some company. But our nerves were still strung, and when whizbangs came over our way we fell down on the floor in strategic positions. The mud was still awful, and everywhere the trench and ramshackle shanties were falling in.

“It happened, however, a fine frosty night on that 13th November, when we were relieved by the 1st Cameron Highlanders--as fine a regiment of Scotch troops as you could wish to see. The Highland accent was particularly soothing. We marched as far as Mazingarbe that night.

“Next morning was the day for Divisional Relief, and as the Battalion marched out of the village, other troops were marching in. It was a fine, dry, frosty morning, and official War Office cinema operators took pictures all along the route--we with our trench mud still on us, some wearing sleeping helmets in lieu of caps buried in fallen trenches, a be-draggled and motley band, hardly able to put one foot before another--and the incoming troops marching on the other side of the road spotlessly clean and fit.

“As we neared the railhead at Noeux les Mines the Battalion found its old self and tried to sing with as much vigour as trench throats would allow:

‘As we’re marching down the Broadway side, Doors and windows open wi--de: We know our manners, We spend our tanners, We are respected wherever we may go, We are the London Bhoys!’”

“It was fine to be in the train again, and to see cows once more browsing at peace in the fields. We all fell in love with Lillers and soon forgot our troubles.”

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Memories of what was afterwards known as “the 1st Lillers” (for the Battalion visited Lillers again at the next Corps Reserve) are of the pleasantest. The billets were good, there were plenty of sports and amusements, and there was an appreciable increase in the leave allotment to the Battalion.