CHAPTER XIII

THE SALIENT IN WINTER

Life in the Ypres Salient could now no longer be described as a rest cure, for in addition to increased activity on both sides in the line, the weather was of the real wintry type.

The trenches, where there had been “water, water, everywhere,” had become ice-bound, and remained so for many weeks. Trench stores were often taken over by a C.S.M. who could scarcely see them through the ice, but who was told that he would “find they were all right when the thaw came.”

To complete the wintry scene, snow had fallen and cast a mantle of white over the ugly sights of war. The Ravine certainly looked pretty now, with the feathery snowflakes glistening on the trees, and here and there an icicle giving the genuine Christmas-card impression. No Man’s Land, too, has rarely looked more picturesque with the festoons of barbed wire daintily picked out in white. Yes, it was a beautiful scene on a moonlight night in January 1917, but the sentry on the firestep in the front line, with feet frozen, nose, ears and hands feeling as though they were about to drop off, had no eye for such beauty. His idea of beauty at the time was a little so-called dug-out, with a ground sheet or an old post bag (contrary to G.R.O. “XYZ”) hanging over the entrance, and inside a glorious warm “fug” with three or four of his pals stewing in the fumes given off by a tiny brazier. It was so cold on the firestep and the front line trenches were so near to each other, that he daren’t stamp his feet, for fear of being heard in the German line. Not that it mattered a great deal about being heard, thought the sentry, for with his hands in such a frozen state that he did not know whether he was holding his rifle or not, he couldn’t do much to stop the Bosche if he did come over to-night. Things would not be much better when the Battalion was relieved. He supposed it would be Ottawa Camp again, where it was bitterly cold and the Quartermaster would never give you any fuel. Why couldn’t he have a job like “Posh Harry” at the Brigade School, he wondered? At any rate, there would be a comfortable billet there, and a fire. He must get a stripe, that’s what it came to, and then if he could not get a job at the Brigade School or at the Divisional School in Poperinghe, at any rate he might get sent there on a course. He was fed up with this life, he was sure, and when his turn of sentry duty was finished and he was promptly put on an ice-breaking fatigue, he began to think that there was some sense after all in the peace talk that one read of in the newspapers at this time. If only they would talk about it seriously! But what could one expect when the newspaper folk described the peace talk as “an insult to Tommy in the trenches”?

Meditations such as the foregoing were not uncommon in the early part of 1917, when the wintry weather was almost the sole topic of conversation. But what was dreaded more than the frost and snow was the thaw which would follow, and how every man prayed that his Battalion would move into Divisional Reserve the day the thaw came!

Before the thaw came, however, the Civil Service Rifles were to have a little excitement in the front line, for one night in the middle of January, the Bosche, who had evidently been reading the story of the escape of Mary Queen of Scots from Lochleven Castle, had attired his patrols in white raiment and sent them out across the snow. The trick came off, and the Bosches entered the trench known as Berry Post, inflicted casualties on the garrison, and got back to their own lines unhurt.

This feat so impressed the authorities that by the time the thaw had fairly set in, white patrol jackets were awaiting collection from ordnance.

Many Transport men have unpleasant recollections of nights on this sector, where rations were taken up to the front line in trucks drawn by mules on the light railways from Woodcote Farm. In theory, loaded trucks were picked up at the Farm and hauled to the Ravine or elsewhere, there unloaded, and taken back to be ready for use next day. In practice, the trucks were usually at the wrong end of the railway to start with; and when obtained they invariably came off the rails at intervals on the up-journey--to a chorus of curses from the accompanying fatigue party. Drivers have bitter memories of nights when shelling occurred while trucks were off the rails. They admit that it was only human for the fatigue party to go to ground; but they still cannot see how one man could be expected to manage a distracted mule and also unload, re-rail and re-load a truck of trenchboards.

It was here that Onions, chief Bolshevik of the Battalion mules was lost. After the line had been broken by shell-fire, she was sent up at dawn to bring back stranded trucks. Enemy observers traced her back to Brisbane Dump and sent out an S.O.S. reporting her presence there. Onions left hastily with a dislike of barrage fire and a wound in the head, and was sent forthwith to the Base to be seen no more by the Civil Service Rifles.

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Small drafts were continually arriving during the winter of 1916-17, and they often included several old N.C.O.’s and men of the original Battalion, who were coming out for their second trip to France. Such men were generally given a rousing send off by their companions at Hazeley Down Camp, Winchester, where the Reserve Battalion was stationed. The war cry of the returned warriors at the time was “Everybody once, before anybody twice” and the unofficial flag, known as the “Twicers” Flag, which was usually carried aloft on the march to the station, has since been framed, and now hangs in the Civil Service Rifles’ Club to commemorate the once famous “F” Company of the Civil Service Rifles Reserve Battalion.

For some unknown reason the officers joining the Battalion belonged to regiments outside London. There were representatives of the various Battalions of the Manchester Regiment, the Northern Cyclists and the Hampshire Regiment. In fact, so many changes had taken place among the officers of the Battalion, that by February, 1917, not a single one remained of those who had embarked as officers in March 1915.

An interesting innovation during the early weeks of 1917, was the starting of a Regimental Drum and Fife Band. The R. S. M. called it a Corps of Drums, the troops knew it at first as those----tin whistles, but under the leadership of Sergeant Drummer Harmon, the Regimental Band became an accomplished fact, and the Civil Service Rifles had music on the march for the first time since coming to France--except for the early spring of 1916, when “Mattie” Hull conducted a mouth organ and tin whistle band among the Lewis gunners.

A change from the eternal round of trench life came about towards the end of February, when it fell to the lot of the Civil Service Rifles to act for one month as Works Battalion in the Tenth Corps area. The Companies were scattered over a very wide area, “A” being at Château Belge, near Kruistraathoeke, “B” at Coppernollehoek and Poperinghe, “C” at Pacific Sidings between Busseboom and Poperinghe, and “D” at Vancouver Camp, close to Vlamertinghe. Battalion Headquarters remained at Ottawa Camp. The Companies were employed daily on working parties, chiefly under the Canadian Railway Construction Company, on work connected with the laying of a light railway from Poperinghe to the forward area. After the discomforts of trench life, the change was very welcome, particularly with “B” Company, who had rather wonderful billets, and “C” Company, who were all under one roof within easy distance of Poperinghe.

The Companies were still scattered on the 17th of March, so it was not possible for the Battalion to celebrate the day with a united gathering, but “C” Company had a very successful show at Pacific Siding which was attended by representatives from all the other Companies. The Sergeants held a belated but very hearty celebration on another day, and a party from “B” Company held a dinner in Poperinghe.

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Throughout the first six months of the time spent in the Ypres Salient, the Transport Lines were established at a typical Belgian farm, and consequently no gathering of Transport men is now complete without a few tales of Delanotte Farm.

In addition to the Transport, the Quartermaster and his staff spent a good deal of their time at Delanotte Farm, where also the Civil Service Rifles’ dentist, Corporal E. Pitt, was installed with all his stock in trade. The Civil Service Rifles claim to be unique among Infantry Battalions in the B. E. F. in that they alone possessed their own dentist, who, although fully qualified, was primarily an infantryman and was not one of the R. A. M. C. attached.

During his service in France, Corporal Pitt has attended to a distinguished clientele, including at least one Brigadier General, but he showed no class distinctions in his dental chair, and the humble private was always sure of just as careful treatment as was given to his Brigadier.

Pitt often had to work amid strange surroundings, but his surgery at Delanotte Farm was perhaps his best known home, and one of his patients has recorded his impressions of it:

“In the last great European War the ambitious Emperor who may be regarded as the Kaiser’s prototype stated that an army marched on its stomach. But what is a stomach without its teeth? (vide any advertisements of ‘a complete set from one guinea upwards’). At any rate the British Army has come to regard the teeth of its lads as anxiously as the fond mother regards her little one’s chewing organs. These few remarks will serve to introduce our hero.

“Imagine a brick farm-house in a part of Belgium where the mud is too muddy for words. The house nestles in a swamp of green viscous slime. This was for many months the locale of the C. S. R. Transport while the boys were disporting themselves in the ditches (misnamed ‘trenches’) in the Ypres district. _The_ room of the farmhouse was of fairly decent size, with a low ceiling supported by stout smoke-grimed beams. It was always well patronised by the lads of the Transport, who would discuss the inevitable eggs and chips and sip their coffee or beer all day long. At a large sink by the window the good lady of the house, assisted variously by a submissive husband, a daughter (who could by no stretch of imagination be called a coquette!) and a son, seemed eternally engaged either in preparing a salad of chickweed and groundsel (or so it seemed), or in counting the stock of dried haricots. In the other corner by the window, there was a complete dental establishment installed. This was the scene of the labours of the indefatigable Pitt, and there was nothing of the horse-doctor’s methods about him. I can assure you that he wielded the cocaine-injecting needle as expertly as the one and only Sherlock himself. Did you want a tooth scraped or stopped, or filled, or coddled in any way whatever, our dentist would say ‘right,’ and place a fresh cigarette in his holder (would that I received a royalty on the cigarettes he smoked!) Then he would select some fearsome-looking--but really harmless--instruments from his plenteous stock, and carry on. His sideline (something like the ‘making bricks in spare time’ stunt) was treating cases that would ordinarily fall to the care of the M.O. if he were available. It was surprising how the fame of Pitt spread near and far; and many and various were his clients. The amusing part was the complete nonchalance of the people of the house. They would carry on their weird and wonderful culinary processes at the sink while the amateur doctor extracted teeth and poured away bloody water and rinsed foul dressings under their very noses. In this atmosphere of eggs and chips, steaming coffee, stale beer, tobacco smoke, flies, and sometimes washing, Pitt carried on his labours day by day, month by month, until the Battalion was sent away to happier (?) hunting grounds....

“Jolly old Pitt! How many of us had cause to bless the fact that we could go to him for healing balm in our time of bitter sorrow!”

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The Battalion was reassembled after being employed for a month as Works Battalion, and on the 21st of March renewed its acquaintance with the front line trenches in the Ravine. The trenches were no longer ice-bound, but the official first day of Spring did not live up to its name, for snow and sleet fell throughout the night. Eight uneventful days in the Ravine were followed by a similar period in support in the neighbourhood of Swan Château and Château Segard. Hitherto when the Battalion had been at Swan Château the chief recreation had been sliding on the pond in the château grounds. Captain Ind, in fact, made a nightly practice of leading Headquarter Company in sliding on the ice by moonlight. On this occasion, however, boating and fishing were freely indulged in. There was an odd looking craft on the pond, which was in great demand, and the most popular bait for the fish seemed to be a Mills bomb--though this bait was not sanctioned by the B. E. F. Angling Society. It was in fact forbidden by G.R.O., so it naturally follows that no angler was ever known to use the bait.

Any man who thought the Battalion had come to the Ypres Salient for boating and fishing, however, was rudely disillusioned when a return was made to the front line in the familiar Ravine. The London Irish had just finished a big raid on the German lines when the Civil Service Rifles relieved them on the night of the 7th of April, and henceforth things livened up very considerably in this sector, where life had previously been tolerably quiet. The Bosche now bombarded furiously, and on the 9th of April (Easter Monday) he raided the Battalion on the immediate left of the Civil Service Rifles, causing pretty heavy casualties. The raid took place at 6.30 p.m. and the accompanying fireworks were kept up throughout the night. As a sample of the frightfulness that could be served up in the Salient, it was fairly complete, and the Civil Service Rifles, although not in the raided trenches, lost thirteen killed and eighteen wounded during the night.

The Division very soon afterwards had to take over a little more of the line immediately south of the Ypres-Comines Canal, known as the Spoil Bank Sector, and as it meant giving up the hated Hill 60 Sector, the change was a very popular one.

Ottawa Camp now came within the area of another Division, and the Civil Service Rifles, on being relieved on the 12th of April by the First Surrey Rifles, moved into Divisional Reserve in Devonshire Camp, near Busseboom.

Early in April rumours of a big Spring offensive began to relieve the monotony, and the story was passed from one to another in strict confidence that the Civil Service Rifles would soon attack a château in a wood just south of the canal, where the Adjutant was of opinion that “we shall have some interesting wood fighting.”

The next trip to the front line was to the Spoil Bank section itself, whence rumour had it that the attack would some day be launched, and amateur tacticians were thus able to study the scheme on the spot. A preliminary reconnaissance generally ended in the observer hoping he would be away on leave or on a course when the attack should eventually take place.

An unsuccessful attempt at a raid by the enemy at 4.30 a.m. on the 25th April was the only incident of note in a somewhat uninteresting stay in the front line, where nearly every trench appeared to be open to direct observation from the Bosche. The mystery about the Spoil Bank sector, with its trenches so open and devoid of shelter, was that in five days there were only eight casualties, all of which occurred during the enemy’s attempted raid. The bombardment during the raid was such as to make every man look forward with more than usual keenness to the relief on the following night by the 6th Battalion, when the Civil Service Rifles moved to Dominion Camp, adjoining Devonshire Camp.