New Year’s Eve was not even as cheerful as Christmas Eve, for the Battalion was now in the front line at the Hohenzollern Redoubt, and the artillery on both sides were busy playing the old year out—the infantry in the front line getting the full benefit of it.
But before the New Year was many hours old, the Battalion had a real stroke of good luck—a German mine blew up prematurely in front of them, thus saving them from what was easily the most unpopular frightfulness of the war!
The New Year was also marked by an act of gallantry which was afterwards recognised by the award of the Military Medal to the two men concerned—Corporal P. J. Tickle and Drummer H. Hogwood.
The Hohenzollern Redoubt was not a pleasant spot. There had been a good deal of fighting in the neighbourhood during the past three months, and khaki figures still lay stiff and grim in No Man’s Land where they had fallen. There were therefore no regrets when the Division was relieved by a Cavalry Division about the middle of January, 1916, and the 47th Division relieved the 18th French Division in the Loos sector.
The Civil Service Rifles brought to a close its long association with this neighbourhood by a short spell of trench warfare in the trenches on the eastern fringe of the village of Loos, and on the famous Double Crassier. The situation on the Double Crassier was unique in a way, for both English and German trenches ran across these two big slag heaps. The troops invariably returned from these trenches looking like so many coal miners, for there was coal dust floating about everywhere.
The district lived up to its peace-time reputation as a centre of mining activity, for the hated mine warfare was pursued freely about this time with the usual accompaniment of minenwerfers. Otherwise life hereabouts was more or less uneventful, except for a big display of war-time fireworks on the Kaiser’s birthday, January 27th. It was thought the great War Lord would celebrate his birthday by making a big attack, but on the front occupied by the 47th Division he was apparently satisfied with a heavy bombardment.
There have been numerous poets in the ranks of the Civil Service Rifles, and there are many creditable effusions which, perhaps through the modesty of the poet, will never see the light of print. Some, however, have been saved, including some verses on the exploits of Private Beatty, a bomber of “A” Company, an odd, scraggy little man, with a husky voice, known to his intimates as Potgut Woodbine. He is immortalised by Hanna in his
NEW SONG OF HIAWATHA.
“Came my youngling—Pip. Q. Emma,
She the youngest of my offspring,
She the peardrop of my eyelid—
Grinning, dribbling, gurgling came she.
Thus the buxom Pip. Q. Emma—
‘Say, oh, Father Potgut Woodbine,
Thou who could’st outrun the lithe louse;
Thou who never more wilt form fours,
What did’st thou when on the warpath
Strode the Hare-Hun-Scare-Hun-Willies?’
Breathless paused she for an answer.