While this battle was pending, the company was called on to supply various parties for odd jobs, involving the distribution of
the unit into a multitude of details in the manner characteristic of Field Companies. One party built a small motor-transport bridge in Corbie, another erected some experimental camouflage over a bridge over the canal near Lamotte, while improvements to the hutments at Corps Headquarters at Bertangles, gave employment to a number of carpenters.
In accordance with the usual cycle of reliefs, the 3rd Division relieved the 4th in the line astride the Somme (including the newly-captured Hamel). On July 11th and 12th, the 11th Field Company on this occasion relieved the 12th, and became reserve company, with headquarters in shelters along the railway embankment near La Neuville, and horse lines at Bussy. The 12th Field Company took over the Rivery billets and works.
6. Corbie.
The work of the reserve Field Company of the Division holding the line where it crossed the Somme valley, between Sailly Le Sec and Sailly Laurette, was spread up and down the Somme, from Bouzencourt to below Daours; and from just below Bonnay on the river Ancre to its confluence with the Somme at La Neuville. On first undertaking it, the 11th Field Company had its headquarters in a camp alongside the railway embankment near La Neuville, a position which it shared with the headquarters of the 10th Field Company, then in line on the right of the divisional front. No. 1 section was up the river at Vaire, No. 2, with section headquarters in the familiar gas works, was in Corbie, No. 3 at La Neuville itself, and No. 4 at Daours. All were employed on various tasks in connection with bridges, but as some of the work was merely guarding, and as sappers were urgently required for other work, a party of some 50 odd infantry were attached to the company from the 11th Brigade. No. 2 section, reinforced with infantry, with section headquarters remaining in the gas works, took over from No. 1, and No. 4 similarly added No. 3’s tasks to its own.
Most of the original bridges in the care of the two sections, as well as the temporary steel or wooden structures erected by the Army to provide alternative crossings, had been fitted with an excellent system of demolition charges in sealed tins by the 12th Field Company A.E., but further work of the kind remained to be done, and there were electric circuits to test, leads to bury, and numerous improvements to be carried out. Altogether there were about eight bridges prepared for demolition near Daours, the same number near La Neuville, and ten at Corbie. In addition there was a number of barrel pier foot bridges across the Somme, chiefly between Bouzencourt and Corbie, calling for a good deal of maintenance, some dummy bridges, a couple of stand-by pontoon bridges, and the night bridge at “Circular Quay,” near Vaire. This was a pontoon bridge to take field
artillery, put in position every night at dark, and dismantled and hidden at dawn. A detachment of sappers lived in the cellars of Vaire to do this, and generally had the assistance of a party from a regiment of U.S. Engineers, who for the sake of the experience, marched every night from some place in the rear, helped build the bridge, departed in the morning, after persuading the 11th Corporal in charge to teach them a few knots and splices, and were replaced by a new party next night. The bridge was very largely used each night by both infantry transport and gun limbers.
Shortly after the company took over, one of the bridges at Daours was hit by a shell which blew out the abutment from under one girder. The girder was jacked up and the abutment repaired in brick.
The living conditions on these bridge jobs were quite good. The Corbie billets had a good billiard table, La Neuville possessed an excellent piano, and there were plenty of opportunities for swimming. Had the Boche attacked on this front, the position of the bridge guards would have been very unenviable, but fortunately he did not do so, and the company sustained no serious casualties on this work.
The sappers relieved off bridges by the employment of attached infantry were immediately occupied with other tasks. No. 3 section worked at a water point—engine and pump and tanks and standpipes—at a spring on the road from La Neuville to Daours; helped the 11th Brigade to improve the dugouts in their reserve positions, and made some experiments in the art of building shelters in chalk banks, with the idea of developing the best method of housing the corps for the winter. No. 1 provided a party, under Lieut. Valentine, which was attached to Artillery Group Headquarters to supervise work on gun positions, chiefly more dugouts; the remainder of the section extracted the charges from a number of road mines near Fouilloy, and on July 18th started preliminary work for a proposed pile bridge across the Somme canal, west of Vaire. This last was quite an ambitious project. Piles were cut and shod, a long stretch of corduroy road laid down, and a monkey was improvised by “borrowing” a 9.2 shell from a battery, extracting, not without difficulty, the solid T.N.T. bursting charge, and filling the cavity with lead. All was in readiness for driving the first pile when orders came to suspend operations.