Enemy aeroplanes now swooped down with machine-gun fire; there seemed no way of getting our artillery to attend to them and they pecked like vultures undisturbed. Then Battalion Headquarters came up in the midst of the firing from the left, established themselves in a dug-out and were at once vigorously shelled, together with the neighbouring aid-post and some German prisoners there, waiting to carry down wounded. The aid-post was in charge of a young American doctor, Rhys Davis by name, who had been attached to the Battalion for some time. This was his first day of war and he was mortally wounded before the noon of it.
The trench filled as the day went on, with details dropping in by devious and hurried roads to meet the continual stream of prisoners being handed down to Brigade Headquarters. One youth, who could not have been seventeen, flung himself into the arms of an officer and cried, “Kamerad, Herr Offizier! Ich bin sehr jung! Kamerad!” To whom the embarrassed Islander said brutally: “Get on with you. I wouldn’t touch you for the world!” And they laughed all along the trench-face as they dodged the whizz-bangs out of Orival Wood, and compared themselves to the “wurrums begging for mercy.”
About noon, after many adventures, the 2nd Grenadiers arrived to carry on the advance, and Silver Street became a congested metropolis. The 2nd Grenadiers were hung up there for a while because, though the Third Division on the right had taken Flesquières, the Sixty-third on the left had not got Graincourt village, which was enfilading the landscape damnably. Orival Wood, too, was untaken, and the 1st Grenadiers, under Lord Gort, were out unsupported half a mile ahead on the right front somewhere near Premy Chapel. Meantime, a battalion of the Second Division, which was to come through the Guards Division and continue the advance, flooded up Silver Street, zealously unreeling its telephone wires; Machine-Gun Guards were there, looking for positions; the 2nd Grenadiers were standing ready; the Welsh Guards were also there with intent to support the Grenadiers; walking wounded were coming down, and severe cases were being carried over the top by German prisoners who made no secret of an acute desire to live and jumped in among the rest without leave asked. The men compared the crush to a sugar-queue at home. To cap everything, some wandering tanks which had belonged to the Division on the right had strayed over to the left. No German battery can resist tanks, however disabled; so they drew fire, and when they were knocked out (our people did not know this at first, being unused to working with them), made life insupportable with petrol-fumes for a hundred yards round.
About half-past four in the afternoon a Guards Battalion — they thought it was the 1st Coldstream — came up on their left, and under cover of what looked like a smoke-barrage, cleared Orival Wood and silenced the two guns there. The Irish, from their dress-circle in Silver Street, blessed them long and loud, and while they applauded, Lieut.-Colonel Lord Gort, commanding the 1st Grenadiers, came down the trench wounded on his way to a dressing-station. He had been badly hit once before he thought fit to leave duty, and was suffering from loss of blood. The Irish had always a great regard for him, and that day they owed him more than they knew at the time, for it was the advance of the 1st Grenadiers under his leading, almost up to Premy Chapel, which had unkeyed the German resistance in Graincourt, and led the enemy to believe their line of retreat out of the village was threatened. The Second Division as it came through found the enemy shifting and followed them up towards Noyelles. So the day closed, and, though men did not realize, marked the end of organized trench-warfare for the Guards Division.
The Battalion, with two officers dead and five wounded out of fifteen (killed: Lieutenant B. S. Close, and 2nd Lieutenant A. H. O’Farrell; wounded: Captain the Hon. B. A. A. Ogilvy, Captain C. W. W. Bence-Jones, and 2nd Lieutenants A. R. Boyle, G. F. Mathieson, and C. S. O’Brien, M.C., died of wounds), and one hundred and eighty casualties in the ranks, stayed on the ground for the night. It tried to make itself as comfortable as cold and shallow trenches allowed, but by orders of some “higher authority,” who supposed that it had been relieved, no water or rations were sent up; and, next morning, they had to march six thousand yards on empty stomachs to their trench-shelters and bivouacs in front of Demicourt. As the last company arrived a cold rain fell, but they were all in reasonably high spirits. It had been a winning action, in spite of trench-work, and men really felt that they had the running in their own hands at last.
Back-area rumours and official notifications were good too. The Nineteenth and Second Corps of the Second Army, together with the Belgian Army, had attacked on the 28th September, from Dixmude to far south of the Ypres-Zonnebeke road; had retaken all the heights to the east of Ypres, and were in a fair way to clear out every German gain there of the past four years. A German withdrawal was beginning from Lens to Armentières, and to the south of the Third Army the Fourth came in on the 29th (while the Battalion was “resting and shaving” in its trench-shelters by Demicourt) on a front of twelve miles, and from Gricourt to Vendhuille broke, and poured across the Hindenburg Line, then to the St. Quentin Canal. At the same time, lest there should be one furlong of the uneasy front neglected, the Fifth and Sixth Corps of the Third Army attacked over the old Gouzeaucourt ground between Vendhuille and Marcoing. This, too, without counting the blows that the French and the Americans were dealing in their own spheres on the Meuse and in the Argonne; each stroke coldly preparing the next.
The Germans had, during September, lost a quarter of a million of prisoners, several thousand guns, and immense quantities of irreplaceable stores. Their main line of resistance was broken and over-run throughout; and their troops in the field were feeling the demoralisation of constant withdrawals, as well as shortage from abandoned supplies. Our people had known the same depression in the March Push, when night skies, lit with burning dumps, gave the impression that all the world was going up in universal surrender.
TOWARDS MAUBEUGE
But work was still to do. Between Cambrai, which at the end of October was under, though not actually in, our hands, and Maubeuge, lay thirty-five miles of France, all open save for such hastily made defences as the enemy had been able to throw up after the collapse of the Hindenburg systems. There, then, the screw was turned, and on the 8th October the Third and Fourth Armies attacked on a front of seventeen miles from Sequehart, north of Cambrai, where the Cambrai–Douai road crosses the Sensée, southward to our junction with the French First Army a few miles above St. Quentin. Twenty British divisions, two cavalry divisions, and one American division were involved. The Battalion faced the changed military situation, by announcing that companies were “at the disposal of their commanders for open warfare training.” After which they were instantly sent forward from their Demicourt trenches, to help make roads between Havricourt and Flesquières!
On the 3rd October they had orders to move, which were at once cancelled — sure sign that the Higher Command had something on its mind. This was proved two days later when the same orders arrived again, and were again washed out. Meantime, their reorganisation after the Flesquières fight had been completed; reinforcements were up, and the following officers had joined for duty: Lieutenants H. E. Van der Noot and G. F. Van der Noot, and 2nd Lieutenants A. L. W. Koch de Gooreynd, the Hon. C. A. Barnewall, G. M. Tylden-Wright, V. J. S. French, and R. E. Taylor.
On the 4th October the Commanding Officer went on leave, and Major A. F. L. Gordon, M.C., took command of the Battalion. Once more it was warned that it would move next day, which warning this time came true, and was heralded by the usual conference at Brigade Headquarters, on the 7th October, when the plans for next day’s battle in that sector of the line were revealed. The Second Division, on the left, and the Third, on the right of the Guards Division, were to attack on the whole of the front of the Sixth Corps at dawn of the 8th October. The Guards Division was to be ready to go through these two divisions on the afternoon of that day, or to take over the line on the night of it, and continue the attack at dawn on the 9th. The 1st Guards Brigade would pass through the Third Division, and the 2nd Brigade th
rough the Second Division. As far as the 1st Brigade’s attack was concerned, the 2nd Coldstream would take the right, the 2nd Grenadiers the left of the line, with the 1st Irish Guards in reserve. It was all beautifully clear. So the Battalion left Demicourt, recrossed the Canal du Nord at Lock 7, and were “accommodated” in dug-outs and shelters in the Hindenburg Line, near Ribecourt.
On the 9th October the Battalion moved to Masnières, four miles or so south of Cambrai. Here, while crossing the St. Quentin Canal, No. 3 Company had three killed and three wounded by a long-range gun which was shelling all down the line of it. They halted in the open for the rest of the day. A curious experience followed. The idea was to attack in the general direction of Cattenières, across the line of the Cambrai–Caudry railway, which, with its embankment and cuttings, was expected to give trouble. The New Zealand Division was then on the right of the Guards Division; but no one seemed to be sure, the night before the battle, whether the Third Division was out on their front or not. (“Everything, ye’ll understand, was all loosed up in those days. Jerry did not know his mind, and for that reason we could not know ours. The bottom was out of the war, ye’ll understand, but we did not see it.”) However, it was arranged that all troops would be withdrawn from doubtful areas before Zero (5.10 A.M.), and that the 2nd Coldstream and the 2nd Grenadiers would advance to the attack under a creeping barrage with due precautions which included a plentiful bombardment and machine-gunning of the railway embankment.
The Battalion, in reserve, as has been said, moved from Masnières to its assembly area, among old German trenches near the village of Seranvillers, in artillery formation at 2.40 A.M., and had its breakfast at 5 A.M., while the other two battalions of the Brigade advanced in waves, preceded by strong patrols and backed by the guns. There was no shelling while they assembled, and practically none in reply to our barrage; nor did the leading battalions meet opposition till after they had cleared out the village of Seranvillers, and were held up by screened machine-guns in a wood surrounding a sugar-factory north of Cattenières. The Battalion followed on in due course, reached the railway embankment, set up Headquarters in a road-tunnel under it (there was no firing), and received telephonic orders that at 5 A.M. on the 10th October they would pass through the other two battalions and continue the advance, which, henceforth, was to be “by bounds” and without limit or barrage. Then they lay up in the railway embankment and dozed.
They assembled next morning (the 10th) in the dark, and, reinforced by seven Corps Cyclists and a Battery of field-guns, went forth into France at large, after a retiring enemy. Nothing happened for a couple of miles, when they reached the outskirts of Beauvais-en-Cambrensis, on the Cambrai–Le-Cateau road, where a single sniper from one of the houses shot and killed 2nd Lieutenant V. J. S. French, No. 4 Company. A mile farther on, up the Beauvais–Quiévy road, they found the village of Bevillers heavily shelled by the enemy from a distance, so skirted round it, and sent in two small mopping-up parties. Here No. 4 Company again came up against machine-gun and sniper fire, but no casualties followed. Their patrols reported the next bound all clear, and they pushed on, under heavy but harmless shelling, in the direction of Quiévy. At eight o’clock their patrols waked up a breadth of machine-gun nests along the whole of the front and that of the battalions to their left and right. They went to ground accordingly, and when the enemy artillery was added to the small-arm fire, the men dug slits for themselves and escaped trouble. For some time past the German shell-stuff had been growing less and less effective, both in accuracy and bursting power, which knowledge cheered our troops. In the afternoon, as there were signs of the resistance weakening, our patrols put forth once more, and by five o’clock the Battalion had reached the third bound on the full battalion front. Then, in the dusk, came word from the New Zealand division on their right, that the division on their right again, had got forward, and that the New Zealanders were pushing on to high ground south of Quiévy. With the message came one from No. 4 Company, reporting that their patrols were out ahead, and in touch with the New Zealanders on their right. There is no record that the news was received with enthusiasm, since it meant “bounding on” in the dark to the fourth bound, which they accomplished not before 10.30 that night, tired officers hunting up tired companies by hand and shoving them into their positions. These were on high ground north-east of Quiévy, with the Battalion’s right on a farm, called Fontaine-au-Tertre, which signifies “the fountain on the little hill,” a mile beyond the village. The 1st Scots Guards were on their left holding the village of St. Hilaire-les-Cambrai. Then, punctual as ever, rations came up; Battalion Headquarters established itself in a real roofed house in the outskirts of Quiévy, and No. 1 Company in reserve, was billeted in the village.
Next morning (11th October), when the 3rd Guards Brigade came through them and attacked over the naked grass and stubble fields towards St. Python and Solesmes, the Battalion was withdrawn and sent to very good billets in Quiévy. “The men having both upstairs and cellar room. All billets very dirty,” says the Diary, “owing to the previous occupants (Hun) apparently having taken delight in scattering all the civilian clothes, food, furniture, etc., all over the, place.” Every one was tired out; they had hardly slept for three nights; but all “were in the best of spirits.” Brigade Headquarters had found what was described as “a magnificent house” with “a most comfortable” bed in “a large room.” Those who used it were lyric in their letters home.
The total casualties for the 10th and 11th October were amazingly few. Second Lieutenant V. J. S. French was the only casualty among the officers, and, of other ranks, but three were killed and nine wounded. The officers who took part in the operations were these:
No. 1 Company
Lieut. H. E. Van der Noot.
2nd Lieut. J. C. Haydon.
2nd Lieut. R. E. Taylor.
No. 2 Company
Lieut. E. M. Harvey, M.C.
2nd Lieut. G. T. Todd.
2nd Lieut. A. L. W. Koch de Gooreynd.
No. 3 Company
Lieut. F. S. L. Smith, M.C.
Lieut. G. E. F. Van der Noot.
2nd Lieut. J. J. B. Brady.
No. 4 Company
Capt. D. J. Hegarty.
2nd Lieut. Hon. C. A. Barnewall.
2nd Lieut. V. T. S. French (killed).
Battalion Headquarters
Major A. F. Gordon, M.C.
Capt. J. B. Keenan.
Capt. G. L. St. C. Bambridge, M.C.
They lay at Quiévy for the next week employed in cleaning up dirty billets, while the 3rd and 2nd Brigades of the Division were cleaning out the enemy rear-guards in front of them from the west bank of the Selle River, and roads and railways were stretching out behind our armies to bring redoubled supply of material. One of the extra fatigues of those days was to get the civil population out of the villages that the enemy were abandoning. This had to be done by night, for there is small chivalry in the German composition. Quiévy was shelled at intervals, and no parades larger than of a platoon were, therefore, allowed. The weather, too, stopped a scheme of field-operations in the back area between Quiévy and Bevillers, and a washed and cleanly clothed battalion were grateful to their Saints for both reliefs.
On the 17th October the Sixty-first Division took over the Guards area, and that afternoon the Battalion left Quiévy by cross-country tracks for Boussieres and moved into position for what turned out to be all but the last stroke of the long game.
The enemy on that front were by now across the steeply banked Selle River, but the large, straggling village of Solesmes, of which St. Python is practically a suburb, was still held by them and would have to be cleaned out house-to-house. Moreover, it was known to be full of French civils and getting them away in safety would not make the situation less difficult.
ST. PYTHON
It was given out at Brigade conference on the 17th that the Sixty-first Division would take place on the right of the Guards Division and the Nineteenth on it
s left in the forthcoming attack, and that the Sixty-first would attend to Solesmes, while the Guards Division pushed on north-east between St. Python and Haussy on a mile-wide front through the village of Escarmain to Capelle, a distance of some three and a half miles. The 1st and 3rd Brigades would lead, the 2nd in reserve, and the passage of the Selle would be effected in the dark by such bridges as the Sappers could put up.
Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) Page 906