THE NIGHT OF MARCH 21
SOMETHING THAT AROUSED anger, recrimination, and some amusement occurred during our night evacuation of the quarry. Officers’ and men’s kit, the signalling outfit, the doctor’s medical stores, and the cook’s stove and kitchen utensils, had been packed. The sergeant-major had a final hunt round, and then gave the order “Walk march!” The G.S. waggon, drawn by six D.A.C. mules, set off at regulation pace, the mess cart drawn by Minnie, the fat roan, followed with due sedateness; and then, hang me! if the pole of the Maltese cart didn’t snap in two. Old-soldier resource and much hard swearing failed to make it a workable vehicle. Worse still, it was this cart that contained the officers’ kit, including the colonel’s. It was pitchdark, and the advancing enemy not more than a thousand yards away.
I wasn’t there at that exact moment, but I believe the sergeant-major blamed the size of our “on leave” adjutant’s spare kit for the breakdown. “A valise and a half, two bags and a portmanteau - enough for three people,” he growled. An attempt was made to get our kit away by adding to the load on the G.S. waggon, but that made it altogether too top-heavy; and after ten minutes of sweating and shouting the sergeant-major told the drivers to move off, leaving the wrecked Maltese cart and the officers’ kit behind. That was how I found it - on the ground - when, having received final instructions from the colonel for linking up the batteries by telephone as soon as they took up new positions on the other side of the canal, I came out of the mess. The colonel’s servant stood by, looking angrily at the abandoned kit; and the sergeant-major, now on his horse, was saying he would try to borrow a cart from one of the batteries and get the stuff over the canal at any rate.
“Get away as soon as you can,” I interrupted, “and bring back the first cart you unload at the waggon lines. You’ve got to get the Maltese cart away as well. Two of the servants will stay behind to help load up when you return. And look sharp if you don’t want the Boche to be here first.”
A squadron of Yeomanry, with picks and shovels, were lining up in front of the quarry as I came away with three of the signallers. It was extremely dark, there was a dampness in the air that suggested rain, some Boche howitzers were firing over our heads across the canal, and a steady “putt-puttr-putt-putt” in the direction of the strong point, that less than half an hour ago had fallen, told of a machine-gun duel in progress. It was not an inspiriting moment; and over us, like a pall, lay an atmosphere of doubt and apprehension, that lack of knowledge of what was really happening only added to.
But at such moments there’s nothing so steadying to mind and senses as something definite to do. Earlier on I had noted marked on a Corps signalling-map a test-box between the quarry and the canal and another one along the railway embankment, not far from the retiring positions assigned to the batteries. If we could find them the labour of laying an overland telephone wire from the quarry to the opposite side of the canal would be saved. We set out, got off the roadway, and did a good deal of floundering about in hedge-bottoms and over waste lands; but the important thing was that we found both test-boxes, and that the buried cables we hoped for were there.
10.30 P.M.: I had reeled out my lines alongside the railway from the test-box to D Battery and to C and A, who, because of the nine guns the brigade had lost in the morning, had become a composite battery. They had crossed the canal in comparative quiet and were now laying out lines of fire by compass bearings. B Battery were coming along to a spot near the railway farther north, and my signallers were waiting to connect them up. Things were indeed getting ship-shape again. I had spoken through to the colonel and put him in touch with his battery commanders, and to the F.O.O. left at the rearmost O.P. on the eastern side of the canal. The colonel had issued a night-firing programme just as if we were in settled positions, and with fresh ammunition arriving from the original waggon lines the batteries began “pooping off” with brisk enthusiasm, their object being, of course, to cover the retirement of our infantry.
Every one of us had turned out that morning immediately the Hun bombardment started. No sleep could be looked for that night either; but there was the morrow, March 22nd, to be reckoned with - it might entail even more wear and tear than the day which was ending; so I sent back to the waggon lines all but six of the signallers, the brigade clerks, the two wireless operators, who had nothing whatever to do, and most of the servants, telling them to get as much sleep as possible. The colonel’s servant was still in the quarry guarding our castaway kit; my own servant I had stationed on the canal bridge so that he could report to me as soon as the sergeant-major and the rescuing waggon hove in sight.
Our discovery of the buried cable running under the canal had a sequel equally welcome. One of the telephone linemen said he believed there was another “bury” on the far side of the railway cutting, and that it connected with the back areas. The signalling-sergeant and myself set out on another hunt, and, joy! we discovered, after patient test calls with a D.III. telephone, that by speaking through two exchanges we could communicate with our own Divisional H.Q. It was six hundred yards from the railway cutting, but I could now keep in touch with the colonel in front, the batteries to right and left of me along the railway, and the brigadier-general and the brigade-major in rear.
1 A.M.: My work for the moment was complete and I could take it easy. I stood outside the test-box that had become a sort of Brigade H.Q. and listened to the waspish crack of our 18-pdrs. sending defiance to the enemy. The six signallers - plus a terrier - had crowded into the tiny sandbag shelter that protected the test-box. One of them, receiver to ear, waited for calls, a candle stuck on an inverted mess-tin shedding sufficient light for the pencilling of messages. The others sprawled in cramped positions, snuggled one against another for warmth, and sought sleep. The doings of the Boche seemed more puzzling than ever. What was happening on the other side of the canal? Five hours ago he had captured a strong post within 1800 yards of the spot on which I now stood, and we had no reserve lines of infantry in front of him. Why this strange quiescence? And then my mind took another turn. What had become of the sergeant-major with the waggon that was to gather up our left kit? Why did he take such a long time? I thought bitterly of my field boots, and the British warm I was beginning to want, and the new jacket and breeches, all in my valise. Why hadn’t I put on my best pair of leggings to come away in? The Boche would have been welcome to the older ones I was wearing; besides, they didn’t fit so well as the pair left in the quarry.
The little American doctor suddenly nipped my elbow. I had missed him during the last two hours. “Say, son,” he said, “come and take a walk along the line: I’ve happened on a hut down along there with a fire in it. Belongs to some sappers. Come and take a warm.”
“Can’t,” I replied, shaking my head; “I’d like to, but I shall have to be like the Boy who stood on the Burning Deck to-night. I must stop on this spot until the colonel comes across.”
The doctor toddled off, and I got the telephonist to ring through to the colonel. “The enemy seems to be waiting. He’s not troubling our infantry,” he informed me, and then added, “Has the kit been got away from the quarry yet?”
I made sure that the telephonist was ringing up each battery every ten minutes to see that the lines were in working order, and then climbed up the railway bank and walked over to inquire if the brigade-major had any news. He hadn’t. “And try and keep in touch with us on this line,” he added. “It’s the only way we have at the moment of speaking to your Brigade.”
2 A.M.: The best news of the night. The sergeant-major had crossed the bridge. Our precious kit would be borne to safety! At 3.15 A.M. he passed again, triumphant, the Maltese cart in tow as well. Hurrah! Let the war now proceed!
At 4.30 the colonel telephoned that the infantry brigadier and himself were about to cross the canal. The telephone wire could be cut, and I was to meet him at the railway bridge in twenty minutes’ time.
“The infantry are crossing the canal at six o’clock,” he said when he rode up and called my name through the mist. “Batteries will start to withdraw to their next positions at 6.30. Each battery will withdraw a section (two guns) at a time; and the last section must not pull out until the preceding section is in action at the new position.” He gave me the map co-ordinates of the new positions, and rode off to visit the battery commanders.
6 A.M.: Extraordinary, it was to be another rainless hazy morning. How the weather always assists the Boche! In the grey gloom on top of the embankment I could see forms moving - our own infantry, marching steadily, neither cheerful nor depressed, just moving, impersonal forms. “What’s happened?” I asked a subaltern, keeping time with him as he marched.
“We’re going back to Rouez Wood,” he answered. “The Westshires are lining up now behind the canal.”
“Are they going to hold it?” I asked.
“Don’t know,” was the reply; “only know our orders.”
“Had many casualties?” I asked again.
“No! only a few from snipers. We weren’t in the counter-attack.”
They swung round and passed over the railway bridge, making west. On the bridge stood a keen-eyed, small-featured sapper major. I talked to him.
“No!” he informed me, “there’s no intention of making a stand here. We’ve blown up all the canal bridges except one.” A muffled boom! “Ah, there goes the last one. All our infantry are over by now.”
A few German 4·2’s were coming over now, mostly on the western side of the railway cutting. They helped to put a bit of ginger into the withdrawal of the guns. A section of each battery had now pulled out; the teams “walked out,” crossing the bridge and heading down the road. There was no trotting. The batteries went out heads high.
7 A.M.: On the telephone I learned that the last two sections were waiting the arrival of mounted orderlies to tell them to pull out. Right! I disconnected the wires, told the signallers to report to B Battery where I would pick them up, and not to waste time getting there. Then I sought a copse on the other side of the bridge, where I knew my horses would be waiting.
The sentry and the sappers who waited to blow up the bridge remained at their posts silent and still. Forty yards after passing them I was alone. I stopped in the road and turned to look back. The sun was breaking through the mist, but it was a mournful landscape - dull, soulless. All at once I felt chilled and tired, and for the first time my thoughts turned seriously and intently towards what the newly-arrived day had in store for myself, for the Brigade, for England.
From the other side of the canal the “putt-puttr-putt” of machine-guns! I turned westwards and went in search of my horses.