The History of the Prince of Wales' Civil Service Rifles

by Anonymous

The discovery of the tanks, however, only served to increase the warnings of a coming attack, and an otherwise uneventful spell in the mud and water was frequently disturbed by such orders from Division as “See that all men have a hot meal immediately: Attack probable this morning.”

On the night of the 6th of May a somewhat complicated relief, owing to a reshuffle of Brigades on the Corps front, brought to an end a surprisingly peaceful stay in the front line. It did not, however, bring much comfort to the troops.

The Battalion was to move back to support trenches in the neighbourhood of Millencourt and Henencourt, but the Companies had the greatest difficulty in identifying their positions, as they turned out to be mere scratches in the ground. The night was black and the rain poured in torrents throughout. The relief was accordingly exceptionally slow and day was breaking ere the support positions were reached.

The Officer Commanding “A” Company found in Millencourt some unoccupied cellars with plenty of straw, and decided to stow his men away there and risk the consequences. “B” and “C” Companies found ruined houses in Henencourt, and “D” moved into a barn in the yard of the château at Henencourt, which had been Third Corps Headquarters during the Somme battle of 1916. Battalion Headquarters was at the Grand Caporal estaminet—a “house” that had been a favourite resort of the men of the Civil Service Rifles during the rest after High Wood in 1916. But how the village had changed since those days! In 1916 Henencourt had been a tolerably clean inhabited village, but now all was desolation, every house was in ruins, and there was not a civilian to be found anywhere.

By night the Companies occupied their battle positions and tried to dig trenches there, and by day they kept under cover in their billets. A search was made for bath tubs, and a bath-house was started in the Château yard, and apart from occasional shelling of Millencourt and Henencourt, a fairly comfortable time was spent in these villages.

The next visit to the front line was to relieve the 17th London Regiment astride the Millencourt-Albert Road, a mile or so east of the village of Millencourt. The trenches here were new, and so exposed that no cooking could be done there. All food was cooked at the Quartermaster’s stores at Warloy and brought up at night, when the troops had their only hot meal of the day. The tea was sent up in petrol cans enclosed in packs stuffed with hay—a method which had been adopted by members of the Transport Section some months previously for keeping tea hot on a long march.

Digging new trenches and wiring were the nightly tasks of all Companies during five uneventful days in this sector, and on relief by the 6th London Regiment—now in the 58th Division—the Battalion moved back to billets in Warloy, and on the following day the Division moved into Corps Reserve.

The period in Corps Reserve had generally been spent in tolerably comfortable billets in inhabited villages some distance from the firing line, but on this occasion the Division was kept close up, owing to the possibility of an enemy attack, and it fell to the lot of the 140th Brigade to occupy small woods in the neighbourhood of Warloy and Bazieux. The accommodation was distinctly poor, the men having to sleep under bivouac sheets—or trench shelters as they were called officially.

Colonel Segrave accordingly indulged in a little billeting on his own account and fixed his battalion up in comfortable billets in Warloy, observing at the same time that as they were nearer to the front line they were tactically in a better position to meet an emergency. A wordy warfare with the Divisional Staff ensued, and for a few days the Civil Service Rifles hung on to their billets, although the Colonel had been withdrawn to command the 141st Brigade. But soon a move had to be made to the bivouacs in the Bois La Haut, north of Bazieux, where the days were spent by the troops in digging cable trenches near Henencourt Wood, and the nights were often spent in alarms and standing to.

Indeed, a more restless period in Corps Reserve had never been known. All officers were taken to reconnoitre positions of assembly for counter-attack, and to each battalion in the Brigade was allotted a definite objective. It was announced that the attack would be launched on the 20th, and the officers were taken through a kind of rehearsal of their counter-attack.