After this experience an open-air life seemed preferable to the somewhat damaged billets in Bonnay, so a camp was established in an open valley just west of Heilly. The first site chosen was rather unfortunate, as within a day or two a battery of 8in. hows. planted themselves alongside, and a move of three or four hundred yards along the valley had to be made to avoid these noisy neighbours.
A new Brigade Headquarters being called for in Heilly, it was decided to burrow into a huge old retaining wall which ran round part of the Chateau grounds. The sappers were not without hope of finding buried treasure—preferably in the shape of a well-stocked and forgotten wine cellar—behind this mysterious old wall, but all they found was loose and treacherous filling, making the work slow and arduous.
The work of the section cooks deserves to be mentioned, particularly under the conditions which prevailed on this sector, when each section was split into parties working various shifts on dugouts and other work, coming and going and expecting meals at all hours of the day and night. No. 2 section will always remember the hot roast meal prepared for them in the quarry on the 24th April by Sapper Castle, literally cooked between bursts of shelling and the cook most of the time in a gas mask.
The unit was issued with its first Lewis gun on this sector, for defence against low-flying aircraft, and shortly afterwards had an object lesson in the efficacy of the weapon when the famous German airman Von Richtofen was shot down by a Lewis gun belonging to an Australian Field Artillery Battery. His bright red triplane crashed quite close to a party of sappers of the company.
On the 1st of May the 9th Field Company, coincident with the relief of the 11th Brigade by the 9th Brigade, took over the work in forward areas; the plans prepared by the company surveyors of the old French trenches partly occupied by our troops, and of the extensive new works dug by them, were handed over. Work was continued at the saw mill, at the “Hole in the wall” above-mentioned, and a good deal of work was done in various Headquarters’ dugouts in the extraordinary series of trenches which had been dug under corps supervision between the Ancre
and the Hallue. A good deal of the novelty of the situation had now worn off, the supply of adventitious aids to the rationing had failed, and a regular trench warfare routine had been established when the 3rd Division was relieved by the 2nd and the 11th Field Coy. by the 7th, on May the 10th. The 3rd Division passed into close reserve, and the 11th Field Company moved to Pont Noyelles on the Hallue, and took over various Corps jobs from the 6th Field Company.
3. Pont Noyelles.
The few days rest in the valley of the Hallue will be memorable to members of the company chiefly by reason of the glorious weather and the beauty of the country-side in its garb of late spring. Even thus early in what was destined to be a hot and dry summer, the sun shone warm enough to make the deep lagoons along the river attractive to bathers. The quarters taken over were all crowded practically under one roof right on the main cross roads in Pont Noyelles, and as the Boche bombing planes were rather active, the greater part of the company was shifted out of the village into two tented camps by the riverside. Work was not very exacting, and consisted of improvements to the bridge crossings over the Hallue and the development of the trench system designed as a bridge head defence in front of Pont Noyelles and Querrieu. The 86th Labour Company, R.E., supplied parties for these works, supervised by the 11th Field Company.
It has frequently been remarked, throughout the history of the unit, that release from strenuous line work was generally followed by an increase of sickness. No doubt the rest following heavy and absorbing work brought about re-action, physical as well as mental.
This occasion was no exception to the rule, as an outbreak of influenza, or some such disease, led to the evacuation to hospital of a considerable number of men, a total of 34 being lost to the unit in this way in five days ending May 15th. No. 1 section suffered particularly severely, and a number of original members of the unit, men rather advanced in years, after surviving two winters, were invalided out of the service as the result of this outbreak.