CHAPTER FIVE

LUCK RUNS OUT WHEN A WALK IN THE WOODS PROVES FATAL

The trenches are not the best place to spend Christmas and New Year, to see out the old or see in the new, but there was no alternative. On the positive side no one was killed. However, there were still losses but not all caused by enemy action. Private Ernest Hayes, a twenty-one year old clerk, who before the war had lived with his parents at 4 Severn Villas, New Bridge Road, Hull had a fall in the trenches which so badly damaged his knee that he spent the next nine months convalescing in the UVF hospital in Belfast. In July, before he was recovered, he was discharged from the army as unfit for further service.

January was a very quiet month. Authie was vacated on the 11th when the battalion marched to Amplier for a rest, this time rest with training. After eleven days the battalion moved on to Gezaincourt for a further nine days’ rest - a works battalion rest. Then on to Berneuil for training. For five and a half weeks the battalion were out of the line, part labouring, part training training at platoon, company, battalion and brigade level, and there was specialist training for snipers, Lewis-gunners and the like.