On the 7th January my Brigade-Major, Capt. W. G. Lindsell, D.S.O., M.C., left the Division to take up the appointment of Staff Officer R.A. of the 8th Corps. He was greatly regretted throughout the Division, by none more sincerely than by myself. To an unlimited capacity for work, and a meticulously accurate knowledge of staff duties, he added a tact and charm of manner which made him many friends in the Divisional Artillery, and helped to ensure that all orders, however unpleasant, were carried out cheerfully and without question in full confidence that nothing which bore the Brigade-Major's signature would ever be unreasonable or unnecessary.
Major F. FitzGibbon, D.S.O., was appointed Brigade-Major in Lindsell's place, and I may say at once that he proved a most worthy successor.
In the New Year's gazette Capt. Lindsell, M.C., and Major Arnold Forster both received the D.S.O., and Major R. C. Foot the Military Cross. All these honours had been thoroughly well earned, but it was a great disappointment to me that more officers could not receive decorations. The allotment of honours allowed for regimental officers was always so small that each gazette left this feeling of disappointment behind it, and many an officer remained undecorated at the end of the war who had earned such distinction over and over again. Major Arnold Forster, I may here mention, was the only battery commander to hold that position in the Division throughout the war; one or two others ran him close as far as service in France was concerned, but he commanded a battery—and commanded it with conspicuous success—from May, 1916, till the breaking up of the Division in Germany, and had the satisfaction therefore of fighting the battery which he had himself trained.
Chapter IV
THE GREAT GERMAN OFFENSIVE
"There is but one task for all,
For each one life to give,
Who stands, if freedom fall?
Who dies, if England live?"
Kipling.
Jan. 1918.
On the 9th January Divisional Headquarters moved to Victory Camp, near Roclincourt, and I assumed command of the artillery in the line, the 56th Divisional Artillery.