The journey was continued on the 11th of April, when the Battalion marched to Domart en Ponthieu, a delightful village, where all ranks would have been happy to remain for the rest of the war. But it was not to be, for the troops were on the move again early next day, and after a fifteen miles’ march the training area was reached, and the Civil Service Rifles were billeted in the village of Canchy, close to the historic forest of Crecy. The village was also occupied by Divisional Headquarters, and the billets allotted to the Battalion were consequently poor, everything worth having being appropriated for the use of Divisional Headquarters.
The usual training programme was carried out and drafts continued to arrive until the Battalion grew to an unwieldy size, being over 1,300 strong. But although numerically it was stronger than it had ever been, the vast majority of the men were very raw—recruits who had been hurried out during the panic caused by the Retreat. It was soon found that the Civil Service Rifles had received more than their share of these men, and 250 of them were accordingly sent to the 142nd Brigade.
The only breaks in the routine of training were trips to Abbeville, football matches, and a half-hearted sort of Sports Meeting.
The Divisional Commander visited the Brigade at a Brigade parade at Forest l’Abbaye, on the 18th of April, when he complimented the Brigade on its work during recent operations, and hinted darkly at further “dirty work” in store in the near future.
The concluding sporting event at Canchy was a football match against the Divisional Train, the holders of the Divisional Company, who were well beaten by four goals to nil. While the match was in progress orders were received for the Transport to move early the next day, Sunday, the 28th of April, and for the Battalion to move by bus on Monday morning.
Although the programme of training had been arranged for another week, the sudden orders to move occasioned little surprise, for it was quite a common thing for a “training holiday” to be cut short, and the Transport Section accordingly moved to St. Quen without any fuss.
On the last afternoon at Canchy the entente cordiale between the Civil Service Rifles and the villagers was strengthened by a tea-party which Colonel Segrave gave to the village children. To entertain them were engaged the Divisional Cinema, the String Trio and Private Saipe. The latter’s conjuring brought down the house, and was so popular that the conjurer, on taking his evening stroll later on, was mobbed by the villagers, who insisted on his giving them a “second house” in the open air.
The bus journey to Contay was uneventful, and on leaving the buses, the Battalion, just over 700 strong, marched to billets in Warloy. A battle surplus of eight officers and 240 other ranks had been left behind at a Divisional Reinforcement Camp at Estrées les Crecy.
The German advance had been held up in the neighbourhood of Albert, and for some weeks now no move had been made on either side, though farther north the allied lines in the Ypres and Armentieres districts had been pushed back considerably. It was not, therefore, surprising when the 21st Australian Battalion was relieved on the night of the 1st of May outside the Albert-Amiens Road that orders were issued to all units to make every possible preparation to meet an enemy attack, which, to use the official language, “is likely to develop on our front in the near future.”
During this tour of the trenches the patrols of “B,” “C,” and “D” Companies, who were the three front line Companies, all reported that at 2.0 a.m. on the morning of the 4th of May, a noise resembling that of steam tractors was heard coming from the vicinity of the railway south of the Albert Road. As a result, the R.A.F. carried out a special reconnaissance at dawn and found four enemy tanks hiding near the railway. These were bombed, two being totally destroyed and the others disabled. The Brigadier General specially commended the Civil Service Rifles on the good work done by the patrols.