Nightly bombing raids by enemy aeroplanes added to the discomfort, and on the night of the 18th of May an intense bombardment was heard. Later, an alarm was sounded in an adjacent wood, and the Battalion stood to arms at 2.0 a.m. and remained so for about an hour. Thereafter the troops were made to stand to arms each morning at an hour before dawn as in the trenches, and the cooks had to “keep up steam” in readiness to serve a hot meal at once in the event of an enemy attack on the Corps front. Happily nothing so unpleasant as an attack developed, but the camp was shelled on the morning of the 22nd, with the result that the Transport Section lost an old and tried friend in Corporal Banks, who had been with them continuously since mobilisation. It was cruel luck that he should be killed while in Corps Reserve, after surviving such ordeals as the Somme, Ypres Salient, Bourlon Wood and the Retreat. Two horses were also killed and two others wounded.
The Division moved out of Corps Reserve on the 24th of May, and after a whole day spent in cable burying in the pouring rain, the Civil Service Rifles relieved the 7th East Surrey Regiment in quarries near the Franvillers-Albert road. Here the troops bivouacked amongst guns and howitzers of all calibres; in some cases the men slept, or rather spent the night, under the muzzles of the guns. The only good thing the Battalion got out of this relief was a draft of 10 N.C.O.’s, who had been wounded on the Somme in 1916, and on their return to France had been drafted to the East Surrey Regiment. By a strange coincidence they rejoined the Civil Service Rifles almost on the very ground where they had been trained for the Somme battle, for the Bois Robert, where many of the rehearsals for High Wood took place, was within a hundred yards or so of the bivouacs.
A short stay amid the guns was followed by a move to comfortable but shell-riddled billets in Baizieux—a village somewhat changed since the previous Christmas, when it was occupied by Divisional Headquarters.
The 4th Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers was relieved in the Lavieville defences on the 26th of May, and here the Battalion spent four days in support trenches, during the whole of which time all Companies were at work with the Royal Engineers on cable burying. At the end of May 1918, the Civil Service Rifles occupied a field surrounded by new and shallow trenches just north of the Franvillers-Berhencourt road, and about half a mile west of Franvillers itself. These trenches were the rear defences of the Lahoussoye system, but the men occupied tents and bivouacs outside the trenches.
There followed five uneventful days in the front line opposite the village of Dernancourt, and on relief by the 17th Battalion on the night of the 6th of June, support trenches astride the Albert-Amiens road were occupied for three days. The Battalion then relieved the 1st Surrey Rifles in the front line on the immediate left of the sector held previously. This particular area was held by the Brigade for nearly three weeks, the Battalion changing round every four or five days. Nothing worthy of note happened until, on the 19th of June, the Division was relieved by the 58th Division, the 6th London Regiment taking over from the Civil Service Rifles, who had a long march back to the village of Berhencourt, which was reached at about 5 a.m. After a few hours’ rest the march was continued to Molliens au Bois, where a tented camp in a sea of mud was taken over from the Queen Victoria Rifles. Here the Regimental Brass Band, which had been entertaining the Commander-in-Chief at General Headquarters for the past six weeks, rejoined, together with the battle surplus and a draft of reinforcements from the Divisional Reinforcement Camp.
CHAPTER XXII
INTENSIVE TRAINING
Fortunately only one day was spent at Molliens au Bois, and on the 21st of June a bus ride took the Civil Service Rifles through Amiens and then round the country for a few hours, and back to Ferrieres, a little village about four miles from Amiens. The Battalion then marched to Guignemicourt, a village without any water supply, a real old-fashioned out-of-the-way country place, which seemed miles away from the war. The big château occupied by Battalion Headquarters was the property of a French “nouveau riche,” who, according to the natives, had made his fortune out of beer. He had fled hurriedly during the German advance, leaving all his furniture behind him, but no trace could be found of the commodity which was alleged to have earned him his francs.
A quaint feature of the village life was the town crier with his drum, who took up his stand in front of the sentry outside Battalion Headquarters and made such announcements as the fixed price of coal, flour, etc., for the ensuing month. His services were utilised by the Civil Service Rifles at the end of their stay to announce to the villagers that any claims against the Battalion must be lodged at the orderly room before the Battalion left the village.
To the members of the Civil Service Rifles who were at Guignemicourt, however, the name does not revive memories of an old-world village or of a quaint town crier. The memory that is inseparable from this village is one of eternal parades. There were not only parades for work, but also parades for play, the Battalion, after spending the morning hard at work on the drill ground, being marched to the football field every afternoon to take part in compulsory football. And for officers the day’s work was carried on after lights out; for many were the hours spent in conferences at Battalion Headquarters long after the men were “between the sheets” in their billets.
The compulsory football took the form of six-a-side games, the sides being chosen in alphabetical order throughout each platoon or specialist section. Every able-bodied officer, warrant officer, N.C.O., or man, had to play, and the games were on the knock-out principle. Only four games could be played at a time, and those who were not playing had to look on, but, as the weather was beautifully fine, the troops soon tumbled to the idea of bringing their writing-pads, with the result that when the Corps Commander and many of the gilded staff drove up to the ground on the afternoon of the 25th of June they found a few men playing football and the majority of the Battalion squatting on the grass writing letters. The final was won by a team from “B” Company.