A common occurrence during the marches on the trek was the failure to observe the infantryman’s most valuable charter—ten minutes’ halt in every hour. The marches were usually by Brigades, and the starting point was often a mile or so away from the billeting area. For some strange reason the march to the starting point was wont to be hurried, and what should have been the first halt was omitted altogether.
Towards the end of the march, again, the leading Battalion, on approaching the village in which it was to be billeted, would often cut out the halt as the appointed time was reached, and go straight on to the billets. The succeeding Battalions on such occasions would follow like sheep, irrespective of whether they were billeted in the same village or in another one two or three miles farther on.
In these circumstances it is not surprising that marches which on paper looked nothing out of the ordinary were found to be very arduous and trying, and men were frequently guilty of the “crime” of falling out on the march.
At first early rising was voted a success by all ranks, but when an afternoon parade was introduced and later an evening parade just to fill up the day, the troops began to feel that though it was “nice to get up in the morning,” it was certainly “nicer to stay in bed.”
A day’s rest at Croisette was followed by a march to Fortel, where, during a four days’ stay, a delightful bathing place was discovered in the swift-flowing, icy cold waters of the River Canche. “A” and “D” Companies and the Lewis gunners have happy recollections of this stream, for the most part of the two hours’ route march by Companies which formed part of the daily programme was spent in and around the bathing place.
The 4th of August at Conteville was marred by the sudden introduction of an evening parade. The move from Fortel had taken place in the early hours of the morning, and after a very short march Conteville was reached at about 10.0 a.m. The troops were still congratulating themselves on their luck when the order came round that all units in the Division would at once start to practise an attack on a wood or village.
The wandering life was resumed on the 5th of August, when the Division moved to the training area near Abbéville, the Civil Service Rifles being billeted in the little village of Drucat. The Division now settled down to serious work, and for three weeks the troops trained strenuously every day. It is interesting to note that the Division trained for its share in the battle of the Somme near the historic battlefield of Crécy.
But although there was much hard work and the billets at Drucat were poor—so poor that in many cases both officers and men slept in gardens or fields—and the inhabitants inclined to be hostile, memories of August 1916 are among the happiest of the war.
A great drawback, however, was the scarcity of beer. The estaminets in the village had none at all, nor did they attempt to get any, for they were thus able to get rid of their stock of atrocious wines. The Regimental Canteen eventually came to the rescue by securing a supply of beer from Abbéville.
The weather at first was all that could be desired, and bathing was indulged in daily. At the end of the fields occupied by the Lewis gun section and the Transport lines ran a narrow, shallow stream. The men of the Transport section, by damming the stream with a wall of filled sandbags, managed to construct a pool just big enough for a man to plunge in, and the bathing pool was thoroughly appreciated by officers and men alike.