The Battalion regathered at LE TOURET and was given breakfast there from the cookers which had been brought up, with a rum issue. The roll was called, and only 243 men answered it.[E] We moved off about 10 a.m. In spite of their exhausted condition and their heavy losses, the men marched well and in good spirits, singing for the first half-hour of the journey, but a halt was made just before reaching billets for the purposes of a rest. The day was very hot and close. The march was resumed about 4 30 p.m., and billets at LE CORNET MALO were reached about 5 30 p.m. Billets were of the usual type—barns with adjacent orchards.
Lieutenant Ord was admitted to hospital on June 17th. The men were very exhausted, and the days passed in resting and cleaning-up and reorganising. All the Companies needed reorganising. B Company was without an Officer until Lieutenant Gregson came back from the Bomb School on June 19th. There was a great shortage of N.C.O.’s, since most of them were casualties. B, C, and D Companies had an average of five or six each, and A Company was not much better. Platoons were very weak in strength. A few odd men rolled up during the first few days. One, Corporal Smalley, of D Company, came in from the German lines wounded, with German field dressings on his wounds.
The system of Officers messing by Companies had to be abandoned, and a Battalion mess was reinstituted. This system was abandoned on the 9th July, when three messes were constituted: Headquarters, A and B, and C and D, when out of the trenches.
Brigadier-General Hibbert inspected the Battalion, together with the 1/8th Liverpool Regiment, on June 18th, and conveyed to Officers and Men the appreciation of himself and of the Corps Commander for the services they had rendered. He said that though the attack had failed in its immediate object, yet it had been instrumental in attracting to itself reinforcements which might otherwise have been directed against the French, attacking further south. The G.O.C. Division held an inspection on June 19th, and conveyed to us a message from Field-Marshal Sir John French, congratulating the Brigade on the fight it had made.
CHAPTER III.
TRENCH WARFARE.
Major Foley took over the command of the Battalion on June 16th, 1915, vice Lieutenant-Colonel Hindle, wounded; Major Nickson became senior Major, vice Major Foley, from the same date; Lieutenant Duckworth became Adjutant, vice Captain Norman, wounded; Captain Widdows took over command of C Company, vice Major Nickson; Lieutenant Rennard of D Company, vice Captain Hibbert, missing; Lieutenant Gregson B Company, vice Captain Peak, missing; Second Lieutenant Rogerson became Machine Gun Officer, vice Second Lieutenant Rawsthorn, killed.
The weather was good and sunny, and we bathed in the LA BASSEE Canal. Most of us were exhausted by the attack and in need of rest. Indents for clothing and necessaries were rendered.
Orders were received on the 21st for the Battalion to proceed to billets near LE TOURET. A working party of 200, under Captain Booth, was detailed for work under the R.E. building a light railway.