Next night they raided Ferme Beaulieu with the full strength of Nos. 2 and 4 Companies (eighty men) under 2nd Lieutenants Mathew and Close. It seems to have been an impromptu affair, and their sole rehearsal was in the afternoon over a course laid down in the wood. But it was an unqualified success. Barrages, big and machine-gun, timings and precautions all worked without a hitch and the men were keen as terriers. They came, they saw, and they got away with twenty-five unspoiled and identifiable captives, one of whom had been a North-German Lloyd steward and spoke good English. He told them tales of masses of reserves in training and of the determination of the enemy to finish the War that very summer. The other captives were profoundly tired of battle, but extremely polite and well disciplined. Among our own raiders (this came out at the distribution of honours later) was a young private, Neall, of the D.C.L.I. who had happened to lose his Battalion during the Vieux-Berquin fighting and had “attached himself” to the Battalion — an irregular method of transfer which won him no small good-will and, incidentally, the Military Medal for his share in the game.
Life began to return to the normal. The C.O. left, for a day or two, to command the Brigade, as the Brigadier was down with gas-poisoning, and on April the 25th a draft of fifty-nine men came in from home. Captain A. F. L. Gordon arrived as Second in Command, and Captain Law with him, from England on the 28th. On the 27th they were all taken out of D’Aval Wood and billeted in farms round Hondeghem, north of Hazebrouck on the Cassel road, to strengthen that side of the Hazebrouck defence systems. Continuous lines of parapet had to be raised across country, for all the soil here was water-logged. Of evenings, they would return to Hondeghem and amuse the inhabitants with their pipers and the massed bands of the Brigade. Except for the last few days of their stay, they were under an hour’s notice in Corps Reserve, while the final tremendous adjustments of masses and boundaries, losses and recoveries, ere our last surge forward began, troubled and kept awake all the fronts. They were inspected by General Plumer on the 15th for a distribution of medal-ribbons, and, having put in a thoroughly bad rehearsal the day before, achieved on parade a faultless full-dress ceremonial-drill, turn-out and appearance all excellent. (“The truth is, the way we were put through it at Warley, we knew that business blind, drunk, or asleep when it come to the day. But them dam’ rehearsals, with the whole world an’ all the young officers panickin’, they’re no refreshment to drilled men.”)
On the 20th May, when the line of the Lys battle had come to a stand-still, and the enemy troops in the salient that they had won and crowded into were enjoying the full effect of our long-range artillery, there was a possibility that their restored armies in the south might put further pressure on the Arras–Amiens front, and a certain shifting of troops was undertaken on our side which brought the 4th Guards Brigade down from Hondeghem by train to Mondicourt on the Doullens–Arras line, where the drums of the 1st Grenadiers played them out of the station, and, after a long, hot march, to Barly between Bavincourt and Avesnes. Their orders were, if the enemy broke through along that front, they would man the G.H.Q. line of defence which ran to the east of Barly Wood, and, for a wonder, was already dug. There is an impenetrability about the Island temperament in the face of the worst which defies criticism. Whether the enemy broke through or not was in the hands of Providence and the valour of their brethren; but the Battalion’s duty was plain. On the 22nd, therefore, they were lectured “on the various forms of salutes” and that afternoon selected, and ere evening had improved, “a suitable site in the camp for a cricket-pitch.” Cricket, be it noted, is not a national game of the Irish; but the Battalion was now largely English. Next day company officers “reconnoitred” the G.H.Q. line. After which they opened a new school of instruction, on the most solid lines, for N.C.O.’s and men. Their numbers being so small, none could later boast that he had escaped attention. At the end of the month their 1st Battalion borrowed four lieutenants (Close, Kent, Burke, and Dagger) for duty, which showed them, if they had not guessed it before, that they were to be used as a feeding battalion, and that the 4th Guards Brigade was, for further active use, extinct.
On the 9th June, after a week’s work on the G.H.Q. line and their camp, Captain Nugent was transferred as Second in Command to the 1st Battalion, and 2nd Lieutenant W. D. Faulkner took over the duties of Acting Adjutant.
On the 11th they transferred to camp in the grounds of Bavincourt Château, a known and well-bombed area, where they hid their tents among the trees, and made little dug-outs and shelters inside them, when they were not working on the back defences. But for the spread of the “Spanish influenza” June was a delightful month, pleasantly balanced between digging and divisional and brigade sports, for they were all among their own people again, played cricket matches in combination with their sister battalion, and wrote their names high on the list of prize-winners. Their serious business was the manufacture of new young N.C.O.’s for export to the 1st Battalion, and even to Caterham, “where they tame lions.” Batches of these were made and drilled under the cold eye of the Sergeant-Major, and were, perhaps, the only men who did not thoroughly appreciate life on the edge of the Somme in that inconceivable early summer of ‘18.
The men, as men must be if they hope to live, were utterly unconcerned with events beyond their view. They comprehended generally that the German advance was stayed for the while, and that it was a race between the enemy and ourselves to prepare fresh armies and supplies; but they themselves had done what they were required to do. If asked, they would do it again, but not being afflicted with false heroisms, they were perfectly content that other battalions should now pass through the fire. (“We knew there was fighting all about an’ about. We knew the French had borrowed four or five of our divisions and they was being hammered on the Aisne all through May — that time we was learning to play cricket at Barly, an’ that’ll show you how many of us was English in those days! We heard about the old Fifth and Thirty-first Divisions retaking all our Vieux-Berquin ground at the end o’ June (when we was having those sports at Bavincourt) an’ we was dam’ glad of it — those of us who had come through that fight. But no man can hold more than one thing at a time, an’ a battalion’s own affairs are enough for one doings. . . . Now there was a man in those days, called Timoney — a runner — an’ begad, at the one mile and the half mile there was no one could see him when he ran, etc. etc.”)
The first little ripples of our own returning tide began to be felt along the Arras–Amiens line when on the 4th of July the Australians, under Lieutenant-General Monash, with four companies of the Thirty-third American Division and many tanks, retook our lost positions round Hamel and by Villers-Bretonneux. The Battalion celebrated that same day by assisting the American troops with them (and the Guards Division) at their national game. Here the Second in Command narrowly escaped serious injury in the cause of international good will, for a baseball, says the Diary most ungallantly, “luckily just missed him and struck a V.A.D. in the face.” The views of the V.A.D. are not given.
The 14th July, the French celebration at Paris, fell just on the eve of Marshal Foch’s historical first counter-attacks which, after the Second Battle of the Marne, staggered the German front, when the same trees that had hidden the 1st Battalion’s dead at Villers-Cotterêts, close on four years ago, covered and launched one of the armies that exacted repayment. And the 2nd Irish Guards, entirely appreciating the comfort of their situation, despatched to Paris every member of their bureaucracy who could by any means hatch up passable excuses for helping to form the composite battalion which should grace the festivities there. The C.O. (the Second in Command had gone on already), the Adjutant, the Assistant-Adjutant, the Sergeant-Major, the M.O., the Sick Sergeant, the Orderly-Room Clerk, the Signalling Sergeant, the Mess-Sergeant, and all the drums managed to get away. So Captain Nutting chaperoned the remainder down to the pleasant watering-place of Criel Plage, which is over against Dieppe. This time they were set up in business as a young officers’ semina
ry for the benefit of newly commissioned officers who were to be taken in hand by the 4th Guards Brigade before passing on. Many of them had had considerable service in the ranks, which again required a special form of official education. They were distributed among the battalions to the number of twenty-five or thirty each, and drilled as companies. Whatever they learned, they were, beyond question, worked up to fit physical trim with the others, and, at the Guards Brigade Sports, the Battalion covered itself with glory. They won every single event that counted for points, and the Brigade championship by an overwhelming aggregate. Next day, being the fourth anniversary of the War, they listened to a serious sermon on the matter — as they had listened to others — not much crediting that peace was in sight. Among the specialists who lectured them on their many businesses was an officer from the G.H.Q. Physical and Bayonet Training School, who spoke of “recreational training” — boxing for choice — and had a pretty taste in irony. For he told them how well some pugilists had done in the War; citing the case of an eminent professional who had been offered large purses to appear in the ring, but, feeling his country needed him, declined them all and, when the War had been going on for rather more than two years, joined a select body of cavalry, which, after another year, he discovered was not going to the front. This so wrought on him that he forthwith gave his services to the G.H.Q. Bayonet School, where he had flourished ever since, heroically battling against stuffed gunnybags. The Battalion held its breath at the record of such bravery; and a few days later professed loud horror at an indent which came in for a hundred and fifty men and four officers — a draft for their 1st Battalion. The Guards Division had been at work again since the 21st August on the thrice fought-over Moyenneville-St. Léger-Mory ground, in our northern attack which had followed Rawlinson’s blow round Amiens. The whole of the 4th Guards Brigade was drawn upon to help make good the wastage, and its draft of six hundred and seven men was one of the finest that had ever been furnished-trained to the last ounce, and taught to the limits of teaching. The young officers attached for instruction left after a joyous dinner that lasted till late in the dawn. And it may be that the draft had dined also; for, on the way to the station, one of our men who had lost his cap and had paraded in steel-helmet order was met by “a lady from out of a house,” who solemnly presented him with the missing article. It was an omen of victory and of the days when steel helmets should become curios.
They returned to their depleted camps until more young officers came along for instruction, and in the last week of September their comrades, the 4th Grenadiers and the 3rd Coldstream, were called away to the moving front — ”to fight” — as the horrified Diary puts it! Actually, the two battalions merely followed the advance in the wake of the cavalry corps as mobile infantry on lorries, till the 26th of October. They then returned to their brigade till the 14th November, when they joined the Guards Division for the march into Germany.
For the next six weeks or so, then, Criel Plage was all the Battalion’s deserted own during the autumn days that saw the German armies driven back, but it is interesting to observe that, on the 10th of October, a special order of the day, issued by the G.O.C. Fourth Army, laid down that “all peace-talk must cease.” As usual, they seemed to know more in the back-areas than at the front, where the 1st Battalion certainly did not believe on the chances of any immediate end.
On the 14th October, their small world was shaken out of all its talk by the really serious news that their C.O. (Colonel the Hon. H. R. Alexander) was to transfer to command the 10th Army School. He left on the 18th, and the whole Battalion turned out to bid him good-bye with an affection few commanding officers had ever awakened. He wrote in orders (but he had spoken as well, straight from his heart): “I wish to express my sincere grief in leaving the Battalion I am so fond of. We have been through some hard times together, but the remembrance of those battles in which the 2nd Battalion has taken such a glorious part will always be a great pride to me. Remember the great name that this wonderful Battalion has made for itself in the War. Be proud of it and guard it jealously. I leave you with complete confidence that its reputation is safe in your hands. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the loyalty that you have always shown me during the whole time that I have had the honour of commanding you. I wish you all and individually the best possible luck and success, and a safe return to your homes when the War is over.”
It is undeniable that Colonel Alexander had the gift of handling the men on the lines to which they most readily responded; as the many tales in this connection testify. At the worst crises he was both inventive and cordial and, on such occasions as they all strove together in the gates of Death, would somehow contrive to dress the affair as high comedy. Moreover, when the blame for some incident of battle or fatigue was his, he confessed and took it upon his own shoulders in the presence of all. Consequently, his subordinates loved him, even when he fell upon them blisteringly for their shortcomings; and his men were all his own.
On the 26th October the 4th Grenadiers and the 3rd Coldstream returned from their adventures at the front with the cavalry, full of their impressions that everything was over now except the shouting. Then there was more “peace-talk” than ever in the camp, and, three days after the Armistice was declared, the Battalion with the Brigade rolled statelily out of Criel for Cambrai by a “strategical” train, which is slower than a sundial. They were clean, polished, and splendid to behold, and they instantly fought with Brigade Headquarters and their own trench-mortar battery, who had generous ideas as to the amount of truckage which they themselves required.
They wandered half round northern France on that queer journey, halting for hours in a battered world just realising that the weight of the past four years had lifted. Whereby everybody attended to everything except his proper job. At this distance one sees how all men were walking in a mild delirium of reaction, but it annoyed people at the time. Said one who had experienced it: “Ye would come on a man an’ ask him for what ye wanted or where you was to go, an’ the Frenchman, he’d say, ‘Oui! Oui! Gare finne,’ an’ smile an’ rub his hands an’ push off. The Englishman — some dam’ back-area sergeant-clerk or ticket-collector that had been playin’ ping-pong at Boulogne since ‘14 — he’d smile the same way an’ ‘‘Tis over, ‘tis over!’ he’d say, clean forgettin’ everything for you that he hadn’t done wrong-end-up. But we was all like that together — silly, foolish, an’ goin’ about grinnin’.” At one of their many resting-places, they found the 4th Grenadiers who had started four hours before them. The rail ahead was reported mined, and though the Battalion politely suggested that their friends might hurry on and test the truth of the rumour for themselves the Grenadiers declined. Men were beginning to set a value on their lives again. At ruined Cambrai, forty-eight hours after their start, they were warned to join the Guards Division, who were going to Cologne, and to travel light, as no further transport could be taken up. So they dumped surplus kit, including boots, which was a mistake, at Cambrai, and waited twenty-four hours till lorries should turn up, as guaranteed. When these at last appeared no destination was laid down, but the Guards Division was supposed to be somewhere near Maubeuge. They lost their way from Cambrai at the outset and managed to mislay no small portion of their lorries, all the Battalion, less Headquarters, and a good deal of the 3rd Coldstream, ere they reached Maubeuge, which was in the full swing of Armistice demonstrations. Their orders were to march with the 2nd Guards Brigade next day to Vieux Reng, which they did through a friendly and welcoming country-side, and on the 20th November to Charleroi through Marchienne where they were met by a mad brass band (entirely composed of men in bowler hats!). The roads filled as they went on, with returning prisoners even more compositely dressed than the natives — a general gaol-delivery of hidden, escaped, released, and all the flotsam and jetsam of violently arrested war. The customs of His Majesty’s armies were new to the world, and Charleroi did not in the least understand “saluting drill” with the drums in t
he background, and when, to this marvel, was added the sight of a regiment of Grenadiers at physical drill, hopping on one foot, they assembled and shouted like the men of Ephesus.
The next move (November 24th) was to Presles on a frosty day, with billets for the officers in the superbly comfortable Château, with its pictures and wallpapers intact on the wall, handles to the doors, and roofs of flawless integrity. To wake up among surroundings that had altogether escaped the past four years was curious. (“Somehow or other, it felt like being in a shop where everything was free, and one could take down what one wanted. I remember looking at a ceiling with flowers painted on it one morning and wondering how it hadn’t been cracked.”) They were landed in the dull and cramped village of Lesves by November the 25th and rained upon in their utter boredom. Our national methods of conquest have nothing spectacular. They were neither talked to, sung to, nor lectured on their victory, nor encouraged to demonstrate their superiority over the rest of mankind. They marched and mourned that they had not brought spare boots. Company physical training and drills were kept up, and the sole thing approaching war was a football match of the right half-battalion against the left, which blossomed into an argument, which verged upon a free fight and, almost, the slaughter of the umpire. At Petit Han, in the remoter districts of the border where the people had accepted the Hun from the first, and had profited by his rule, the attitude of the civilians changed. Here they were prosperous pacifists who objected to militarism; even cursing and swearing and shaking their fists at the invaders. So one old lady had to be gently locked up in her own room for two hours while billets were being arranged and the officers patiently argued and entreated. Ouffey, another hamlet of a few sad houses, was of the same unaccommodating temper, and their transport turned up hours late after being delayed by traffic and bad roads. A halt was necessary here to sort out the general confusion of our brigades converging on Cologne. They were held, then, at Ouffey till the 10th December, another day at Aisomont, an unknown village, and at last on the 12th crossed into Germany from Stavelot at Pont Rucken with the Brigade. The Battalion, whose staff never neglected their interests, had contrived to secure waterproof capes at some issue or other, which they wore under the approving eyes of the Corps Commander, who watched the march past in the unending rain. Honsfeld was their last journey afoot; there they got orders to go south to Burg and entrain for Cologne, and at Ehrenfeld, on the outskirts of that city, they dropped into the Pioneer Barracks, fitted with every luxury from electric-light to drying-rooms and baths, and found the inhabitants both friendly and intensely curious.
Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) Page 930