Preparations for the big attack at Loos now overshadowed everything else, and the Battalion was out every night on working or carrying parties—such light jobs as carrying gas cylinders, digging assembly trenches and bridging trenches. All who took part in them are agreed that these gas cylinder fatigues were the most strenuous they ever had to do. On the first night there were two men to each cylinder. The cylinder weighed 180 lbs., and the men in addition carried their rifles and 100 rounds of ammunition in bandoliers. The numerous turns in the trenches were almost impassable obstacles, and to realise the difficulty of lifting the cylinders round the corners one must have done the deed. Arrived at last at the front line, the cylinder had to be lifted up high and a sort of juggling feat indulged in to get it into the correct position desired by the critical Royal Engineer.
Fatigues generally in these days were much more difficult than at any other time of the war. Light railways had not yet been developed, and it was not realised at this time how great a handicap it was for a man to have two bandoliers of ammunition swinging round his neck while he worked.
Apart from the working parties, a happy time was spent at the little village of Houchin, where there was much cricket and feasting and very little drill, and it was here that the Battalion first had the use of motor buses in France.
When the battle eventually took place on the 25th September, the Civil Service Rifles, as at Festubert, held a watching brief, being in Brigade Reserve to the 6th and 7th Battalions, and it was thought that this was the origin of the title of “God’s Own.”
To the Civil Service Rifles the battle of Loos was chiefly a spectacle, since, with the exception of two platoons of “B” Company, the whole Battalion looked on from the reserve trenches. The fate of those two platoons, however, brought home to their friends the realities of battle.
Soon after the attack started, No. 6 Platoon went forward over the top as a bomb-carrying party. Starting out twenty-five strong the party soon suffered heavy losses, and only three men of the party survived unhurt. No. 8 Platoon went to the rescue, and although their fate was much better, they, too, had their losses.
The killed included the ever-popular Lance-Corporal Tommy Dodge, a great personality both in the Civil Service Rifles and in the Civil Service Rugby Football Club.
Of the survivors, mention must be made of Corporal F. H. Chinn, who had been sent with five men to establish a bomb store in the second German trench. As the five became casualties, he made three journeys up the side of the Double Crassier alone, carrying each time as many bombs as he could collect.
After Loos there was a short rest at Verquin and Nœux-les-Mines, where, on the 8th October, the Battalion lost the valuable services of Captain H. H. Kemble, who became second in command of the 23rd Battalion. As officer in command of “D” Company, Captain Kemble had won the admiration and respect of all ranks who served with him, and who were genuinely sorry to lose him.