In the New Year, battalion training began, carried out on the occasional bright days that redeemed an abominable winter. At the beginning of February it was proposed to start brigade training, and in order to enable the 29th Brigade to concentrate for this purpose, various changes of station were necessary. Accordingly, the whole 29th Brigade moved to the Curragh, where one battalion was accommodated in barracks and the other three in huts. In order to allow this move to be carried out the 7th Royal Dublin Fusiliers, the Reserve Park Army Service Corps and the Divisional Cyclist Company were transferred to Dublin where they were quartered in the Royal Barracks.
Brigade field-days, brigade route marches and brigade night operations were the order of the day throughout February, and a second course of musketry was also fired. Early in March the Divisional Commander decided to employ the troops at the Curragh in a series of combined operations. For this purpose he could dispose of two infantry brigades (less one battalion), three brigades of Royal Field Artillery, the heavy battery (which joined the Division from Woolwich about this time), three field companies of Royal Engineers, while on special occasions the divisional Signal Company were brought over from Carlow and the Cyclists from Dublin. He could also obtain the assistance of the two reserve regiments of cavalry which were stationed at the Curragh.
Though we criticised them bitterly at the time, these Curragh field-days were among the pleasantest of the Division’s experiences. By this time the battalions had obtained a corporate existence and it was exhilarating to march out in the morning, one of eight hundred men, and feel that one’s own work had a definite part in the creation of a disciplined whole. The different units had obtained (at their own expense) drums and fifes, and some of them had pipes as well. As we followed the music down the wet winding roads round Kilcullen or the Chair of Kildare, we gained a recollection of the hedges on each side bursting into leaf, and the grey clouds hanging overhead, that was to linger with us during many hot and anxious days.
As a rule, these combined operations took place twice in the week. For the rest of the time ordinary work was continued, while on the 16th of April, Sir B. Mahon held a ceremonial inspection of the units of the Division which were stationed at the Curragh, Newbridge and Kildare. The infantry marched past in “Battalion Mass,” and the artillery in “Line Close interval.” At this time, too, Company Commanders began to mourn the loss of many of their best men who became specialists. As mules, Vickers guns, signalling equipment, etc., were received, more and more men were withdrawn from the Companies to serve with the regimental transport, the machine-gun section, or the signallers. The drain due to this cause was so great that the Company Commander seldom saw all the men who were nominally under his command except on pay-day. While this process was going on the weaklings were being weeded out. A stringent medical examination removed all those who were considered too old or too infirm to stand the strain of active service, and they were sent to the reserve battalions of their unit. Men of bad character, who were leading young soldiers astray, or who, by reason of their dishonesty, were a nuisance in the barrack-room, were discharged as unlikely to become efficient soldiers. But on the whole there was not much crime in the Division. A certain amount of drunkenness was inevitable, but the principal military offence committed was that of absence without leave. This was not unnatural under the circumstances. Men who had not fully realised the restraints of discipline, and had been unable to cut themselves completely adrift from their civilian life were naturally anxious to return home from time to time. If they could not obtain leave, they went without it; when they got it, they often overstayed it, but their conduct was not without excuse. One man who had overstayed his pass by a week, said in extenuation, “When I got home, my wife said she could get no one to plant the land for her, and I just had to stay until I had the garden planted with potatoes.” And there is no doubt that in most cases of absence the relations of the absentee were responsible for it. It was not easy for men who had been civilians four months before to realise the seriousness of their offence while they saw the Division, as they thought, marking time, and knew that their homes were within reach, and officers were relieved when at the end of April units received orders to hold themselves in readiness to move to a point of concentration near Aldershot.
This point of concentration proved to be Basingstoke, and by the end of the first week in May the whole Division was assembled there. As we journeyed we read how the 29th Division had charged through the waves and the wire, and effected its landing at Cape Helles, and how against overwhelming odds the Australians and New Zealanders had won a foothold at Gaba Tepe. At that time, however, our thoughts were fixed on France.
At Basingstoke we were inspected and watched at work by the staff of the Aldershot Training Centre, and were found wanting in some respects. In particular, we were unduly ignorant of the art and mystery of bombing, and many hot afternoons were spent in a labyrinth of trenches which had been dug in Lord Curzon’s park at Hackwood, propelling a jam tin weighted with stones across a couple of intervening traverses. Bayonet-fighting, too, was much practised, and the machine-gun detachments and snipers each went to Bordon for a special course. In addition, each Brigade in turn marched to Aldershot, and spent a couple of days on the Ash Ranges doing a refresher course of musketry.
BASINGSTOKE. A HALT
MUSKETRY AT DOLLYMOUNT