“Platoons went in turns to the brewery for a bath. Imagine, if it is not too shocking, twelve of us at a time bathing in a mash-tub, and the unusual spectacle of 24 feet and I don’t know how many toes meeting in the middle. No wonder somebody described the atmosphere as ‘foetid.’ You kept on losing the soap and diving for it under other fellows’ legs.”
At Poperinghe, later on, the baths were run by a hustler who could now get a lucrative appointment on the District Railway. After three weeks of trench life, a man was allowed exactly thirty seconds under the hot spray and was then allowed to dry himself in a strong breeze while the minions of the Divisional Laundry Officer disinfected his clothing, which in some baths had to be strung up in a bundle on a hook to protect him from pickpockets.
The first year in France was rapidly drawing to a close, and though many gaps had been caused in the ranks by casualties and many by members of the Regiment being appointed to commissions in other Regiments, the Battalion as a whole had undergone little change. The work of the first year could be looked upon with satisfaction, and although “God’s Own” Civil Service Rifles had not taken part in any big assault, there had been many little items of “dirty work” done.
The short stay at Lillers passed all too quickly and soon the Battalion trekked out in the snow, the remainder of the time in Corps Reserve being spent in training at the villages en route to the new area.
CHAPTER VI
NOTRE DAME DE LORETTE
The new area proved to be the northern end of the famous Vimy Ridge, which the Battalion approached by easy stages, for although the Division took over the “Carency Sector” of the line on the 13th of March, it was not until the 10th of April that the Civil Service Rifles went into the front line. The interval had been spent in reserve billets in the French huts in Bouvigny Woods, in the partially deserted village of Villers au Bois, the wholly deserted village of Carency, the fully inhabited and rather pretty (for the Pas de Calais) village of Fresnicourt, and in the support trenches on the hill known as Notre Dame de Lorette (or Lorette Spur). These trenches had looked down on the long struggle by the French in 1915 for Souchez, the famous Zouave Valley, and for a footing on Vimy Ridge.
Lorette Spur was the most popular of all trench areas with the men, for by day there was no movement allowed and they were thus left undisturbed. It was here that the first anniversary of landing in France was spent. What little shelling there was went to Battalion Headquarters in the ruined village of Ablain St. Nazaire, and by night the working parties were all in the neighbourhood of the trenches occupied by the men themselves.
The Lewis Gunners were particularly happy on Lorette Spur, for they had good dug-outs and little or no work to do. It was in these trenches where Private Roessli (a Lewis Gunner) distinguished himself as a sculptor, for he had ample opportunities and much good material in the chalk with which the dug-outs were lined.
Evidence of the popularity of Lorette Spur is found in Corporal “Paddy” Guiton’s description:—