“7 p.m. Orders have just come in for the move to-morrow. Loading party at 6.0 a.m. under Edwards, who is inwardly fed up but outwardly quite pleased. Valises to be ready by 6.45 a.m. Dixon grouses as usual at orders coming in late. These moves always try the tempers of all concerned. O’Brien and Edwards are now on the rustle, collecting kit. We have accumulated rather a lot of papers, books, tins of ration, tobacco, etc.”
Madame was genuinely sorry to see us go. We gave her a large but beautiful ornament for her mantelpiece, suitably inscribed. The dear soul was overwhelmed, and drew cider from a cellar hitherto unknown to us, which she pressed on our servants as well as on us. We made the fellows drink it, though they were not very keen on it!
“30 Jan., 1916. Montagne—Vaux-en-Amienois. I found myself suddenly detailed as O.C. rear party, in lieu of Edwards, who has to remain in Montagne and hand over to the incoming battalion. At 9.30 three A.S.C. lorries arrived, and we loaded up. I had about forty men for the job. It was good to see these boys heaving up rolls of many-coloured blankets, which filled nearly two lorries; the third was packed with a mixture of boilers, dixies, brooms, spades, lamps, etc. The leather and skin waistcoats had to be left behind for a second journey: I left the shoemaker-sergeant and four men with these to await the return of one of the lorries. As we worked a fog rolled up, which was to stay all day. Edwards meanwhile saw to it that all the odd coal and wood left at the transport was taken to our good Madame; this much annoyed the groups of women who peered like vultures from the doorways, ready to squabble over the pickings as soon as the last of us had departed.
Farewell to Montagne. All the fellows were dull. Even Sawyer the smiling, who had been prominent with his cheery face in the loading-up, was silent and dull. No life. No spirit. A mournful lot, save for the plum-pudding dog that galloped ahead and on either flank, smelling and pouncing and tossing his mongrel ears in delight. He belonged to one of the men, a gift from a warm-hearted daughter of France.
A dull lot, I say. I rallied them. I persuaded. I whistled, hoping to put a tune into their dull hearts; and as we swung downhill into Riencourt they began to sing. It was but a sorry thin sort of singing though, like a winter sunshine; there was no power behind it, no joy, no spontaneity. Suddenly, however, as we came into the village, there was a company of the Warwicks falling in, and everyone sang like fury. Baker, one of the last draft, was the moving spirit. But he is young to this life, and later on, when the fog had entered their souls again, he said he could not well sing with a pack on. Yet is not that the very time to sing, is not that the very virtue of singing, the conquest of the poor old body by the indomitable spirit?
It was a fifteen-mile march. At the third halt I gave half an hour for the eating of bread and cheese. Then was the hour of the plum-pudding hound; also appeared a sort of Newfoundland collie, very big in the hind-quarters, and very dirty as well as ill-bred. Between them they made rich harvest of crusts and cheese. We sat on a bank along the road, but after half an hour we were all getting cold in the raw air, and I fell them in again, and we got on our way. Soon they warmed up and whistled and sang for a quarter of an hour; then silence returned, and eyes turned to the ground again. This march began to tell on the older men. Halford fell out, and I sent Corporal Dewey to bring him along, hastily scribbling the name of our destination on a slip torn from my field-message book, and giving it to him. Then Riley fell out, and Flynn. I began to dread the appearance of Sergeant Hayman from the rear, to tell me of some one else. They were men, these, who had been employed on various jobs; the older and weaker men. There was no skrim-shanking, for there was no Red Cross cart behind us. But no one else fell out; the pace was steady and they were as fit as anything, these fellows. Then happened an incident. We had just turned off the main Amiens road, and come to a forked road. I halted a moment to make sure of the way by the map, and while I did so apparently some sergeant from a regiment billeted in the village there told Sergeant Hayman that the battalion had taken the left road. The way was to the right, and as I struck up a steep hill, Sergeant Hayman ran up and told me the battalion (which had started nearly two hours before us) had gone to the left. ‘I’m going to the right, sergeant,’ said I. And the sergeant returned to the rear. Up, up, up. Grind, grind, grind. I began to hear signs of doubt behind. ‘Did you hear that? Said the battalion went t’other way,’ and so on. ‘Ain’t ’e got a map all right?’ from a believer. ‘Three kilos more,’ I said at the next stop. But some of the fellows had got it into their heads, I could see, that we were wrong. I studied the map; there was no doubt we were all right. Yet a mistake would be calamitous, as the men were very done. Ah! a kilo-stone! ‘Two kilos to ——,’ a place not named on the map at all. This gave me a qualm; and behind came the usual mispronunciations of this annoying village on the stone. But lo! on the left came a turning as per map. Round we swung, downhill, and suddenly we were in a village. Another qualm as I saw it full of Jocks. The doubters were just beginning to realise this fact, when we turned another corner, and almost fell on top of the C.O.! In five minutes we were in billets....”
The next day we marched to the village of Querrieux. There I heard the guns again after two months.