MAILLY-MAILLET.
MAILLY-MAILLET SUCRIER.
On 18th October we left Rubenpré to go up to the line for that instruction period which everyone in the New Army in France knows so well. As we got nearer to the line the sound of the guns became more distinct, and the tiny puffs of white smoke in the sky from the German aircraft guns was the first sign of the nearness of the trenches. The country was just the same as at Rubenpre every inch cultivated. At Varennes we were met by a band of the South Lancs., and played through the town and along the road as far as Forceville. Here we halted in a field for dinners. After dinners we fell in, and marched off by companies at ten minutes’ interval, for we were now within the zone of artillery fire, being about 3½ miles from the trenches. It was only when we left Forceville that we saw any change in the aspect of the country. We now passed several lines of heavily wired trenches, which made long, white streaks across the otherwise brown and regular landscape. In other respects there were the same signs of intensive agriculture as far behind the line. We reached, at length, Mailly-Maillet, which was to be our billeting town during the instructional period. In peace time Mailly-Maillet had evidently been a very pretty little town of about 1,000 to 1,500 inhabitants, considerably better built and evidently much more prosperous than any of the villages we had seen since we came to France. There was a chateau with a fine avenue of elms which had its entrance on one side of the main street. The chateau was a Brigade Headquarters, while the avenue of elms was used as a park for transport, and was crowded with limbers and G.S. waggons up to the axles in mud. There was not a pane of glass to be seen in any of the houses; many were without doors, and some were pierced by great shell holes. Generally Mailly-Maillet had a dejected and war-worn appearance. A battery of howitzers close by caused all the window-frames in the place to shake, and every now and then a few slates would come tumbling down. As the town was full of troops, and we were an additional battalion, our billets were very poor. The men were in a very bad outhouse with little straw, while C Company Headquarters was an empty room with a tile floor in an extremely rickety condition. The first few days in Mailly were devoted to working parties. A Company was attached to the 1st Batt. Essex Regt., B Company to the 8th South Lancs., and C to the 1st Batt. Kings Own Royal Lancaster Regiment, and D Company to the 2nd Royal Lancaster Fusiliers; all belonging to the 12th Brigade of the 4th Division.
IN TRAINING BEHIND THE LINES.
The more or less eventful period of instruction which C Company experienced with the King’s Own began on the night of 19th October, when No. 11 and 12 platoons working at the second line trenches on the Mailly-Serre Road, were fired on by a machine gun. It was the christening. On the 21st we paraded at 5-30 a.m. and with guides from the King’s Own supplied to each platoon, marched to the trenches by platoons at five minutes’ interval. The front held by the King’s Own ran from the Serre Road on the right to slightly below and to the left of La Ligny farm. On our left was the Essex Regiment, while on our right were the Lancs. Fusiliers. No. 12 platoon was attached to A Company of the King’s Own on the right of the Batt. line; No. 10 was attached to C Company in the centre; No. 11 to B Company on the left, and No. 9 to D Company in reserve. I was with B Company on the left with Vance. The line held by the 12th Brigade formed part of the trenches taken from the Germans by the French in the preceding June. These trenches, known as the “Toutvent” trenches, had been subjected to a prolonged bombardment by the French. The latter would cease firing at intervals, during which the Germans would man the front line, and on the bombardment recommencing would retire to their dug-outs. This sort of thing went on for over a fortnight, and finally, one morning, the Germans got tired of coming out of their dugouts when the bombardment stopped, and the French swept down from their trenches behind La Ligny farm, and caught them. The victorious French advanced as far as the village of Serre, but had to fall back in the face of a terrific German counter attack, and eventually took up their position in what had been the old German second line. This trench they consolidated and held. The regiment which took the trenches was a local one, consisting of men from the region around Hebuterne, Mailly, and Bapaume. There had been reports of terrible outrages committed by the Germans on the villages behind the lines, and evidence was found in the trenches themselves to prove the truth of these reports. The story goes that little quarter was given, and the French took few prisoners, the Germans, caught like rats in a trap, being bombed in their dugouts.
B Company of the King’s Own, to which I was attached, had its headquarters in a dugout known as “The Catacombs.” Built by the Germans, no labour had been spared to make it shellproof and comfortable. Twenty feet deep, cut out of solid chalk, it was about twenty yards long by seven feet broad. It was divided into sections for signallers, mess, and servants’ quarters, but into the wall from the mess were nooks containing beds for six officers. The whole inside of this dugout was riveted with massive planks four to six inches in thickness. There were five entrances approached by flights of steep, narrow steps. This was typical of the living dugouts in this hive of trenches. The English never built dugouts like this one in front line trenches, owing to the difficulty of getting men out of them in a hurry in case of emergency, and time after time they have proved death traps to the Germans themselves. The method of training for a battalion up for instruction is as follows:—Officers, N.C.O.’s and men are attached to their opposite numbers. Company Commander to Company Commander, Platoon Commander to Platoon Commander, sergeant to sergeant, corporal to corporal, and sentry to sentry. For three nights this proceeding is carried out, then, on the fourth night, the instructing companies withdraw to reserve, and each company takes over a sector of line on its own. Thus, bit by bit the officers and men are broken in. The first night we were in the trenches was an ideal one. A full moon made things easy, and it was quite possible to get the lie of the trenches and those of the enemy. Opposite B Company the Germans were about 100 to 120 yards away; in the centre their trenches ran to within 40 yards, and on the right about 100. There were a number of “saps” formed out of what had originally been old German communication trenches. Sand bag barricades built by each side in these formed the “sap heads.” In one “sap” these barricades were about 15 feet from each other.
One may forget the incidents of one’s first night in the trenches, but one never forgets the first dawn. Gradually, out of the darkness, things begin to take upon themselves their proper shapes. The first impression is that of desolation, for there is nothing so utterly forsaken or forlorn as “No man’s land” at first grey dawn. A maze of misty barbed wire, some in loose coils lying on the ground, some draped from stumps and stakes driven in at all angles, some in shell holes, all in a shapeless and indescribable jumble, stretches for about three yards in depth in front of the parapet. Then there is that desolate and shell-pocketed strip of land which terminates with the German wire, and beyond that again great heaps of chalk and brown earth begin to appear as the daylight comes. These are the German trenches, and behind them is the rolling country out of which the sun now begins to rise; country that is in the hands of the Germans, away beyond the pale. Those coils of rusty wire, hung on the rickety posts, form the boundary of civilization.