After a voyage more or less uneventful, we lay to off Le Havre on the evening of the 21st. The next morning we picked up a pilot and steamed leisurely up the winding River Seine, appreciating the beautiful scenery and no less the greeting of the riverside inhabitants, who waved Union Jacks and the Tricolour, and whose frequent shouts of "Vive l'Angleterre" and "Vive les Anglais" could be plainly heard, so narrow is the river at many points. Such was our welcome to France, and towards the evening of Sunday, November 22nd, we arrived at Rouen, and the next day set foot on French soil. In a few hours, with the help of the French pontoon cranes, so different, alas! to the hydraulic jibs at ——, we successfully slung and landed all the vehicles, without any casualties of serious importance. The lorries were parked in a long line on the road outside a former cinema theatre on the outskirts of Rouen, which building was for the time being the Advanced Mechanical Transport Depot of the British Expeditionary Force, and no time was lost in completing equipment before starting on the journey by road up country. Rouen, with its magnificent cathedral and quaint narrow streets, is an altogether delightful town. It was, of course, full of khaki, and it seemed strange to think that it, of all towns, should be occupied by British troops. A few days later we started on the journey to the front. The column went up in two sections. I was with the second to leave Rouen, and we had with us half our vehicles, and carried all our equipment, cooking utensils, stores, etc., for all the world like a huge travelling circus. Leaving Rouen by the Route Nationale Number 28, we wondered how soon it would be before we should encounter patrols of Uhlans or come under shell fire. No one knew where the front exactly was, how far away, or what it was like.
I had the pleasure of travelling together with our French Interpreter, in the car which led the convoy, with the senior lieutenant who was in charge of it. The first night after leaving Rouen we stopped at Neufchâtel-en-Bray, where there is a small country hotel, kept, strangely enough, by an Englishwoman, who put up a very good dinner for us and the best cider that Normandy can produce, which is saying a good deal. The next morning we were on the road again, and by mid-day reached Abbeville, outside which the convoy was halted while the officer in charge proceeded into the town for orders as to our ultimate destination. Pushing on, we arrived at Hesdin and stayed there the night. Travelling throughout the following day, we at length reached Lillers. This little town was full of troops of almost every imaginable regiment, from dusky Indian Cavalry soldiers to kilted Highlanders. Guns were booming away in the distance, and we realized that we were at last at the front and within measurable distance of the trenches.
I was billeted for the night in a café in the square; all night long could be heard the regular tramp of men marching, horses, and the wheels of limbered wagons rumbling along the cobbled street, for Lillers is on the main road to Béthune, not far beyond which were the trenches. Resuming our journey the following day, we passed through the picturesque old town of Béthune, with its typical pavé Grande Place and square-towered church. At that time it was to all intents and purposes momentarily deserted by its civilian population, for the Germans had on the previous day caused much alarm and some damage by an aeroplane raid and bomb-dropping exploit, and civilians took more notice of such unaccustomed incidents at this period than they do nowadays. Eventually we arrived at Fouquereuil, which for the time being was to be our railhead. It consisted of a railway station, a couple of dozen or so small cottages, a few estaminets and a brickfield. The latter served as the parking ground for our mobile workshops and a good number of the supply lorries, while the roofed-in part of it was used as sleeping quarters for officers and men, the column office, and officers' messroom. In the latter our table and chairs, if one may thus describe them, were composed of loose bricks built up in heaps to the required shapes. The Indian Cavalry regiments were billeted in the surrounding villages.
The same evening two officers of the Supply and Transport Corps, Indian Army, joined us, so that our establishment was complete and we were ready to carry on. The following day we tasted for the first time the joys of "loading"—refilling the lorries from the supply train at railhead, which brings up from the Base the rations and forage for the troops. It appeared at first a complicated and extremely lengthy business, and the mud and rain—it seemed to rain continuously—did not make matters any easier. Notwithstanding these several disadvantages, a complete division of Indian Cavalry "in the field" was for the first time in history rationed in Europe, and also for the first time anywhere by means of mechanical transport.
Chapter III
RAILHEAD
Supply trains, which, as their name denotes, bring up supplies for the troops in the field, are made up and loaded at the Base, and possibly certain of their contents are loaded at intermediate points en route in the line of communications. They then proceed to the regulating station, which is to all intents and purposes the terminus of the lines of communication, and from there they are dispatched to the railhead of the Division for which the supplies are intended.
The railhead of a Division is the furthest point along the railway line in the direction of the Division in question to which the supply train travels. From that point motor-lorries are loaded up with rations and forage drawn from the supply train, and in due course convey them by road to the vicinity of the troops, where they either dump their contents in bulk at a prearranged point, deliver it to each regiment individually, or, in the case of an Infantry Division, off-load it to the divisional horse train. This consists of a number of thirty hundred-weight carrying capacity General Service wagons, which in turn carry and deliver the supplies to the Brigade or regimental ration dumps. From there they are taken on by carrying parties into the trenches when necessary—the plan adopted being, of course, in accordance with tactical considerations and the conditions prevailing.
The railhead usually consists of a station yard; fortunately, in France they are nearly all large, rather more so, I think, than those of country villages or small towns of corresponding size at home. They are all built on the same pattern and have the same attributes. In winter they are covered with a sea of ankle-deep mud and in summer they are as dusty as the Sahara. In any season of the year they are places to avoid from a pleasure point of view.
We will try to picture a typical railhead. It is about 6 a.m. Drawn up in the yard of some country station, possibly one that has been blown to bits by shell fire, are one or more goods trains. They are composed of large closed-in trucks, each of which is marked "Hommes 40. Chevaux [en long] 8." One reads this for the first time with feelings of sympathy, for either the "hommes" or the "chevaux." But, for the trucks we are going to deal with, the inscription is misleading, for they actually contain rations for men and horses, and go to make up a supply train.