Chapter II, the journey being extended some two kilometres beyond

Cauchy-a-la-Tour to Ferfay.

In spite of Ferfay having been a Corps Headquarters, the accommodation at first was poor, but the troops soon settled down, and, making the most of the wretched conditions, contrived to have a jolly good time during their last days in France.

A number of N.C.O.’s and men distinguished themselves as educational instructors at the classes which were held daily, and Sergeant Blackmore’s “Sunday League Concerts” became quite a popular weekly function.

A good deal of football was played, and the Battalion got together excellent teams, both Rugby and Association.

The Association match against the 2nd Battalion Civil Service Rifles, who were beaten by four goals to three, on the 14th of December, was the event of the season. The crowd was a record one and included about 100 members of the 2nd Battalion who were billeted about twelve miles away. In the evening a concert was held in the theatre, the programme being provided by talent from both Battalions.

After a really merry Christmas the Battalion began to melt away. Demobilisation began in earnest with the New Year, and parties of twenty-five or thirty left for England almost daily. Large crowds assembled outside the Battalion Headquarters to give the lucky ones a rousing send-off, and the procession through the village was headed by the Regimental Band, until the day came when the Band played itself out of the village and left for home.

Before that day came, however, the Band had supplied the orchestra for a highly successful revue, “Pack up,” which was played in the theatre by a company of officers, N.C.O.’s and men of the Civil Service Rifles trained by Corporal Bailey of “B” Company. The “book” was written by Major D. Young, M.C., second in command of the Battalion, the music was “put together” by Second-Lieutenant P. H. Small, and the play was produced by Corporal Bailey. R.Q.M.S. Hart excelled himself with the wonderful stage effects which he devised.

Of the actors special mention should be made of Private Perrin, Captain “Florrie” Ford, and the two “girls,” Lance-Corporal Harnett and Lance-Corporal Flight, and Sergeant Taylor. But the whole Company is to be congratulated on the best show ever given by a Battalion concert party. The production got such an enthusiastic reception that it was given at Auchel and other places for the benefit of other units.

Although demobilisation began just before New Year, it was not until the 10th of May, 1919, that the last remnants, the “Cadre,” consisting of about thirty all ranks, reached England.

It should perhaps be mentioned that there was not a single officer, N.C.O. or man outside the Quartermaster’s staff and transport section who served with the Battalion continuously throughout its stay in France.

Included in the Cadre was Sergeant Teasdale, a member of the Regiment for nearly twenty years. For more than nineteen of his twenty years he had been a humble private, and as a raconteur at Regimental concerts he never had an equal. He had been in France with the 1st Civil Service Rifles as a member of the Quartermaster’s staff ever since the Battalion landed in 1915. It is said that he accepted his third stripe owing to the keen demand for his stories in the Sergeants’ Mess.

The two war trophies that had been preserved by the Civil Service Rifles and brought home also deserve special mention.

One generally expects a war trophy to be some instrument of war, but the Civil Service Rifles war trophies were an instrument of music, viz., a piano, and a presidential chair.

The piano was captured at Nurlu during the heavy fighting on the Somme in the first days of September, 1918, and the Regiment is chiefly indebted to Major Young for this uncommon trophy. It is also through the ingenuity of the same officer that the Regiment was represented in the salving of H.M.S. _Vindictive_ at Ostend, whence came the “presidential chair,” for it was through his efforts that two pioneers of the Civil Service Rifles found their way to Ostend in 1918, and worked on the salved ship, producing out of a piece of teak taken from the decks, a handsome chair on which the Regimental crest is carved. Thus it transpired that whereas their keenest rivals in the London Regiment are said to have sunk the _Emden_, the 1st Civil Service Rifles can claim to have salved the _Vindictive_.

The home-coming of the Cadre was an even more dismal experience than the celebration of the Armistice, for the party was taken stealthily to Felixstowe of all places, and from there the members drifted away one by one until all that remained were Colonel Feilding and Colour-Sergeant Chubb, the Orderly Room clerk. These were then permitted to return to Somerset House.

But although the Battalion had, as it were, been scattered to the four winds, the spirit of comradeship, which had been so characteristic of the Regiment in war, still prevailed in peace-time.

Already, before demobilisation was nearly completed, a meeting of members of the Regiment had been held at Somerset House, and it had been resolved to proceed forthwith to found a Club as a memorial to those of the Regiment who had lost their lives in the war, and as a place of reunion for those who survive. A temporary home was found at Somerset House, where the School of Arms was converted into a lounge, and on the 28th of April, 1920, the Club was opened by Major-General G. D. Jeffreys, G.-O.-C. London District, who congratulated the Civil Service Rifles on being the first Territorial unit to form such a club, which forges a link between the old generation and the new in the Regiment, and where, for many years to come, the new members of the Regiment will be able to meet those who, in the Great War of 1914-1918, helped to make history for the Civil Service Rifles.

2nd Battalion, Civil Service Rifles

BY MAJOR A. C. H. BENKÉ.[15]

[15] Major Benké, D.S.O., M.C., acting Lieut.-Colonel, 1919, till demobilised.--EDITOR.

PREFACE

This brief story of the 2/15th Battalion, London Regiment, is written, not as a specimen of literary art, but merely as a record of the work of the Battalion during the War of 1914-1918.

It is compiled from rough notes in my pocket diary, and probably some of the events in the experience of others have been overlooked, and to these I offer my apologies.

I have to thank Lieutenants J. L. Hutchinson, M.C., and T. H. E. Clark for their kindness and assistance in furnishing the notes for the greater part of Chapters IX and XI, especially the accounts of the Capture of Jerusalem, the Turkish Counter-Attack at Tel el Ful, and the journey to Es Salt. In these actions both these officers served with distinction.

I have also taken the liberty to include extracts from a Brief History of the 30th Division in France, in writing up the last three chapters of this book.

A. C. H. BENKÉ.