A section of trench held by the Scots Fusiliers on the immediate left of the Irish Guards was attacked and a hundred yards or so of it were captured, but the Battalion was not called upon to lend a hand. It lay under heavy shell and sniping fire in the wet, till it was time to exchange the comparative security of a wet open drain for the unsheltered horrors of a relief which, beginning in the dusk at six, was not completed till close on two in the morning. The last company reached their miserable billets at Mazingarbe, some three miles’ away across a well-searched back-area at 6 A.M. One N.C.O. was killed and ten N.C.O.’s and men were wounded.
They spent the next three days in the battered suburbs of Mazingarbe while the Twelfth Division took over the Guards’ line and the Ninth French Army Corps relieved the British troops who were holding the south face of the Cuinchy–Hulluch–Grenay salient. The 1st Battalion itself was now drawn upon to meet the demands of the 2nd Battalion for officers to make good losses in their action of the 27th. Five officers, at least, were badly needed, but no more than four could be spared — Captain J. S. N. FitzGerald, as Adjutant, Lieutenant R. Rankin, Lieutenant H. Montgomery, who had only arrived with a draft on the 1st October, and 2nd Lieutenant Langrishe. Officers were a scarce commodity; for, though there was a momentary lull, there had been heavy bomb and trench work by the Twenty-eighth Division all round the disputed Hohenzollern redoubt which was falling piece by piece into the hands of the enemy, and counter-attacks were expected all along the uncertain line.
THE HOHENZOLLERN TRENCHES
On October 3 the Guards Division relieved the Twenty-eighth round the Hohenzollern and the Hulluch quarries. The 3rd Brigade of the Division was assigned as much of the works round the Hohenzollern as yet remained to us; the 1st Brigade lay on their right linking on to the First Division which had relieved the Twelfth on the right of the Guards Division. The 2nd Guards Brigade was in reserve at Vermelles. The 1st Battalion acted as reserve to its own, the 1st, Brigade, and moving from Mazingarbe on the afternoon of the 3rd bivouacked in misery to the west of the railway line just outside Vermelles. The 2nd Grenadiers, in trenches which had formed part of the old British front line north-east of the Chapel of Notre Dame de Consolation, supported the 2nd and 3rd Coldstream who held the firing-line in a mass of unsurveyed and unknown German trenches running from St. Elie Avenue, a notorious and most dismal communication-trench, northwards towards the Hohenzollern redoubt, one face of which generously enfiladed our line at all times. The whole was a wilderness of muck and death, reached through three thousand yards of foul gutters, impeded by loops and knots of old telephone cables, whose sides bulged in the wet, and where, with the best care in the world, reliefs could go piteously astray and isolated parties find themselves plodding, blind and helpless, into the enemy’s arms.
Opinions naturally differ as to which was the least attractive period of the war for the Battalion, but there was a general feeling that, setting aside the cruel wet of The Salient and the complicated barren miseries of the Somme, the times after Loos round the Hohenzollern Redoubt and in the Laventie sector were the worst. Men and officers had counted on getting forward to open country at last, and the return to redoubled trench-work and its fatigues was no comfort to them. But the work had to be done, and the notice in the Diary that they were “responsible for improving and cleaning up the trenches as far as the support battalions” — which meant as far as they could get forward — implied unbroken labour in the chalky ground, varied by carrying up supplies, bombs, and small-arm ammunition to the front line. There were five bombing posts in their sector of the front with as many sap-heads, all to be guarded. Most of the trenches needed deepening, and any work in the open was at the risk of a continuous stream of bullets from the Hohenzollern’s machine-guns. High explosives and a few gasshells by day, aerial torpedoes by night, and sniping all round the clock, made the accompaniment to their life for the nine days that they held the line.
Here is the bare record. On the 6th October, two men killed and three wounded, while strengthening parapets. On the 7th, Lieutenant Heard and three men with him wounded, while superintending work in the open within range of the spiteful Hohenzollern. On the 8th, six hours’ unbroken bombardment, culminating, so far as the Battalion knew, in an attack on the 2nd Coldstream whom they were supporting and the 3rd Grenadiers on their left. The Grenadiers, most of their bombers killed, borrowed No. 1 Company’s bombers, who “did good work,” while No. 1 Company itself formed a flank to defend the left of the Brigade in case the Germans broke through, as for a time seemed possible. Both Grenadiers and Coldstream ran out of bombs and ammunition which the Battalion sent up throughout the evening until it was reported that “all was normal again” and that the Germans had everywhere been repulsed with heavy loss. The Battalion then carried up rations to the Coldstream and spent the rest of the night repairing blown-in ammunition trenches. They had had no time to speculate or ask questions, and not till long afterwards did they realise that the blast of a great battle had passed over them; that the Germans had counter-attacked with picked battalions all along the line of the Cuinchy–Hulluch–Grenay Salient and that their dead lay in thousands on the cut-up ground from Souchez to Hohenzollern. In modern trench warfare any attack extending beyond the range of a combatant’s vision, which runs from fifty yards to a quarter of a mile, according to the ground and his own personal distractions, may, for aught he can tell, be either an engagement of the first class or some local brawl for the details of which he can search next week’s home papers in vain.
The battalions got through the day with only six men killed, eleven wounded, and one gassed, and on the 9th, when they were busiest in the work of repairing wrecked trenches, they were informed that certain recesses which they had been cutting out in the trenches for the reception of gas-cylinders would not be required and that they were to fill them in again. As a veteran of four years’ experience put it, apropos of this and some other matters: “Men take more notice, ye’ll understand, of one extra fatigue, than any three fights.”
A few aerial torpedoes which, whether they kill or not, make unlimited mess, fell during the night, and on the morning of the 10th October Lieutenant M. V. Gore-Langton — one of the Battalion’s best and most efficient officers — was shot through the head and killed by a German sniper while looking for a position for a loop-hole in the parapet. He was buried six hours later in the British Cemetery at Vermelles, and the command of his company devolved on Lieutenant Yerburgh. Our own artillery spent the day in breaking German wire in front of the Hulluch quarries at long range and a little more than a hundred yards ahead of our trenches. Several of our shells dropped short, to the discomfort of the Irish, but the wire was satisfactorily cut, and two companies kept up bursts of rapid fire during the night to stay the enemy from repairing it. Only 5 men were killed and 5 wounded from all causes this day.
On the 11th our guns resumed wire-cutting and, besides making it most unpleasant for our men in the front trenches, put one of our own machine-guns out of action, but luckily with no loss of life.
The tragedy of the day came later when, just after lunch, a shell landed in the doorway of Headquarters dug-out, breaking both of Colonel Madden’s legs, and mortally wounding the Rev. Father John Gwynne, the Battalion’s R.C. chaplain (Colonel Madden died in England a few weeks later). The Adjutant, Lord Desmond FitzGerald, was slightly wounded also. The other two occupants of the dug-out, Captain Bailie, who had gone through almost precisely the same experience in the same spot not three days before, and the Medical Officer, were untouched. It was difficult to get two wounded men down the trenches to the Headquarters of the supporting battalion, where they had to be left till dark. And then they were carried back in the open — or “overland” as the phrase was. Father Gwynne died next day in hospital at Béthune, and the Battalion lost in him “not merely the chaplain, but a man unusually beloved.” He had been with them since November of the previous year. He feared nothing, despised no one, betrayed no confi
dence nor used it to his own advantage; upheld authority, softened asperities, and cheered and comforted every man within his reach. If there were any blemish in a character so utterly selfless, it was no more than a tendency, shared by the servants of his calling, to attach more importance to the administration of the last rites of his Church to a wounded man than to the immediate appearance of the medical offlcer, and to forget that there are times when Supreme Unction can be a depressant. Per contra, Absolution at the moment of going over the top, if given with vigour and good cheer, as he gave it, is a powerful tonic. At all times the priest’s influence in checking “crime” in a regiment is very large indeed, and with such priests as the Irish Guards had the good fortune to possess, almost unbounded.
Colonel Madden was succeeded by Captain Lord Desmond FitzGerald as commanding officer, and the rest of the day was spent in suffering a bombardment of aerial torpedoes, very difficult to locate and not put down by our heavy guns till after dark. Besides the 3 wounded officers that day 3 men were wounded and, 3 killed.
On the morning of the 13th, after heavy shelling, a bomb attack on the 2nd Grenadiers developed in the trenches to the right, when the Battalion brought up and detonated several boxes for their comrades. Their work further included putting up 120 scaling-ladders for an attack by the 35th Brigade.
Next day they were relieved by the 7th Norfolks, 35th Brigade of the North Midland Division of Territorials, and went to rest at Verquin, five or six miles behind the line. It took them nearly seven hours to clear the trenches; Colonel Madden, on account of his wounds, being carried out on a sitting litter; Lord Desmond FitzGerald, who, as Adjutant, had been wounded when Father Gwynne had been killed, overdue for hospital with a piece of shrapnel in his foot, and all ranks utterly done after their nine days’ turn of duty. They laid them down as tired animals lie, while behind them the whole north front of the Cuinchy–Hulluch Salient broke into set battle once again.
A series of holding attacks were made all along the line almost from Ypres to La Bassée to keep the enemy from reinforcing against the real one on the Hohenzollern redoubt, Fosse 8, the Hulluch quarries and the heart of the Loos position generally. It was preceded by bombardments that in some cases cut wire and in some did not, accompanied by gas and smoke, which affected both sides equally; it was carried through by men in smoke-helmets, half-blinding them among blinding accompaniments of fumes and flying earth, through trenches to which there was no clue, over the wrecks of streets of miners’ cottages, cellars and underground machine-gun nests, and round the concreted flanks of unsuspected artillery emplacements. Among these obstacles, too, it died out with the dead battalions of Regulars and Territorials caught, as the chances of war smote them, either in bulk across open ground or in detail among bombs and machine-gun posts.
There was here, as many times before, and very many times after, heroism beyond belief, and every form of bravery that the spirit of man can make good. The net result of all, between the 27th of September and the 15th of October, when the last groundswell of the long fight smoothed itself out over the unburied dead, was a loss to us of 50,000 men and 2000 officers, and a gain of a salient seven thousand yards long and three thousand two hundred yards deep. For practical purposes, a good deal of this depth ranked as “No Man’s Land” from that date till the final breakup of the German hosts in 1918. The public were informed that the valour of the new Territorial Divisions had justified their training, which seemed expensive; and that our armies, whatever else they lacked at that time — and it was not a little — had gained in confidence: which seemed superfluous.
AFTER LOOS
But the Battalion lay at Verquin, cleaning up after its ten days’ filth, and there was Mass on the morning of the 14th, when Father S. Knapp came over from the 2nd Battalion and “spoke to the men on the subject of Father Gwynne’s death,” for now that the two battalions were next-door neighbours, Father Knapp served both. No written record remains of the priest’s speech, but those who survive that heard it say it moved all men’s hearts. Mass always preceded the day’s work in billets, but even on the first morning on their return from the trenches the men would make shift somehow to clean their hands and faces, and if possible to shave, before attending it, no matter what the hour.
Then on the 14th October they moved from Verquin to unpleasing Sailly-Labourse, four miles or so behind the line, for another day’s “rest” in billets, and so (Oct. 17) to what was left of Vermelles, a couple of miles from the front, where the men had to make the wrecked houses habitable till (Oct. 19) they took over from the Welsh Guards some reserve-trenches on the old ground in front of Clerk’s Keep, a quarter of a mile west of the Vermelles railway line.
The 20th October was the day when the 2nd Battalion were engaged in a bombing attack on the Hohenzollern, from which they won no small honour, as willbe told in their story. The 1st Battalion lay at Vermelles, unshelled for the moment, and had leisure to make “light overhead cover for the men against the rain.” The Division was in line again, and the Battalion’s first work was to improve a new line of trenches which, besides the defect of being much too close to the Hohenzollern, lacked dug-outs. In Lord Desmond FitzGerald’s absence, Major the Hon. H. R. Alexander from the 2nd Battalion took command of the Battalion, and they relieved the 2nd Coldstream on the 21st and resumed the stale routine-digging saps under fire, which necessitated shovelling the earth into sand-bags, and emptying it out by night; dodging snipers and trench-mortars, and hoping that our own shells, which were battering round the Hohenzollern, would not fall too short; fixing wire and fuses till the moon grew and they had to wait for the dawn-mists to cloak their work; discovering and reconnoitring old German communication-trenches that ran to ever-new German sniping-posts and had to be blocked with wire tangles; and losing in three days, by minenwerfers, sniping, the fall of dug-outs and premature bursts of our own shells, 7 men killed and 18 wounded. The two companies (1 and 2) went back to Vermelles, while 3 and 4 took over the support-trenches from the 3rd Coldstream, reversing the process on the 24th October.
When letters hint at “drill” in any connection, it is a sure sign that a battalion is on the eve of relief. For example, on the 24th, 2nd Lieutenant Levy arrived with a draft of fifty-eight men, a sergeant, and two corporals, who were divided among the companies. The Diary observes that they were a fair lot of men but “did not look too well drilled.” Accordingly, after a couple of days’ mild shelling round and near Vermelles Church and Shrine, we find the Battalion relieved by the Norfolks (Oct. 26). All four companies worked their way cautiously out of the fire-zone — it is at the moment of relief that casualties are most felt — picked up their Headquarters and transport, and marched for half of a whole day in the open to billets at pleasant, wooded Lapugnoy, where they found clean straw to lie down on and were promised blankets. After the usual clean-up and payment of the men, they were ordered off to Chocques to take part in the King’s review of the Guards Division at Haute Rièze on the afternoon of the 28th, but, owing to the accident to His Majesty caused by the horse falling with him, the parade was cancelled.
“Steady drill” filled the next ten days. Lieutenant the Hon. B. O’Brien started to train fresh bombing-squads with the Mills bomb, which was then being issued in such quantities that as many as twenty whole boxes could be spared for instruction. Up till then, bombs had been varied in type and various in action. As had been pointed out, the Irish took kindly to this game and produced many notable experts. But the perfect bomber is not always docile out of the line. Among the giants of ‘15 was a private against whom order had gone forth that on no account was he to be paid on pay-days, for the reason that once in funds he would retire into France at large “for a day and a night and a morrow,” and return a happy, hiccuping but indispensable “criminal.” At last, after a long stretch of enforced virtue, he managed, by chicane or his own amazing personality, to seduce five francs from his platoon sergeant and forthwith disappeared. On his return, richly disguised, he
sought out his benefactor with a gift under his arm. The rest is in his Sergeant’s own words: “‘No,’ I says, ‘go away and sleep it off,’ I says, pushin’ it away, for ‘twas a rum jar he was temptin’ me with. ‘‘Tis for you, Sergeant,’ he says. ‘You’re the only man that has thrusted me with a centime since summer.’ Thrust him! There was no sergeant of ours had not been remindin’ me of those same five francs all the time he’d been away — let alone what I’d got at Company Orders. So I loosed myself upon him, an’ I described him to himself the way he’d have shame at it, but shame was not in him. ‘Yes, Sergeant,’ he says to me, ‘full I am, and this is full too,’ he says, pattin’ the rum jar (and it was!), ‘an’ I know where there’s plenty more,’ he says, ‘and it’s all for you an’ your great thrustfulness to me about them five francs.’ What could I do? He’d made me a laughing-stock to the Battalion. An awful man! He’d done it all on those five unlucky francs! Yes, he’d lead a bombin’ party or a drinkin’ party — his own or any other battalion’s; and he was worth a platoon an’ a half when there was anything doing, and I thrust in God he’s alive yet — him and his five francs! But an awful man!”
Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) Page 886