APPENDICES
APPENDIX I
BRIEF NOTES ON SPECIALISTS
1. Scouts.—The origin of the Scout Section can be traced from the earliest days at Liverpool, where the provision of civilian bicycles and the varied nature of their duties made that branch of training popular. With the move to Blackpool they came under the direction of 2nd-Lieutenant G. C. T. Giles, who served with us ungazetted for a time, but was subsequently gazetted to the Divisional Cyclist Company.
From then onwards till the Upstreet days they still continued to exist in an unostentatious fashion; but at Upstreet the scouts and snipers were properly organized under Lieutenant F. O. J. Huntley and Sergeant Fenner. From then onwards till the battalion proceeded overseas their efficiency grew apace, the last few weeks of their training being under Lieutenant Alcock, when Lieutenant Huntley joined Brigade Headquarters Staff. Colonel Fletcher always took the greatest interest in their work, buying them all kinds of snipers' rifle sights, telescopic periscopes, and other valuable aids to their special work. Overseas, under the successive leaderships of Lieutenants Alcock and Royle, 2nd-Lieutenants Little, Noon, and Upward, Lieutenant Burton, and Lieutenant Hazell, the scouts, snipers, and observers more than justified their existence. In addition to Sergeant Fenner, there was Lance-Corporal Peterson and seventeen men in the original contingent, while at Brigade were Corporal Stirrup and three more. After the Armentières gas attack reorganization became necessary, and first Corporal Harper, and later Sergeant Corkill and Lance-Corporal Darcy, were the leading scouts. It is invidious to pick out individuals from such a highly trained and enthusiastic party, but there can be no doubt that, taken all round, Sergeant Corkill was the best of a very good collection of men. The duties of these men varied from patrolling, either collectively or individually with company patrols, leading raiding parties, sniping, manning observation posts, and so forth, in the trenches, to blocking side roads during relief nights, exploring emergency routes, or reconnoitring ordinary routes when the battalion was out of the line.
2. Runners.—It is doubtful if any collection of individuals had to work so consistently hard and under such trying conditions, and managed withal to be so invariably cheerful, as the Battalion and Company Runners. Organized at Woking, and recruited largely from the buglers, they first really came into active existence at Strazeele. Throughout the history of the battalion there appears to have been no occasion when a runner failed to reach his destination, except through being incapacitated by wounds. Always on the move, they were the first in the line and the last out of it, with endless messages going day and night; one day cycling along the ominous Houplines road, another day leaving the safety of a pill-box to make their way across mud and shell-holes in the blackness of the night; or, again, dashing (not once, but again and again) through a barrage. Such were some of the duties of which a runner's life was composed.
Before the gas bombardment the Battalion Runners had no actual N.C.O. in charge of them, but later Lance-Corporal Brown, one of the originals, was appointed to take charge of them.
3. Lewis Gunners.—In training Lewis Gunners at home we were more than fortunate in possessing Lieutenant Bowring and Sergeant Machell, with the result that we went overseas with gunners possessed of an efficiency of which any battalion might be proud. From then onwards was one unceasing struggle to keep up the numbers. Holding as they often did the dangerous posts, the casualties were not few, and as our numbers dwindled the supply of guns grew steadily greater. The teams generally had to go into the line twenty-four hours before the remainder of the battalion, and, in addition to the ordinary impedimenta of a relief, they had to carry, at any rate along the trenches, their guns and ammunition, which, when conditions were bad, often proved an almost overwhelming burden. Out of the line they had to be cleaning their guns and ammunition unceasingly, while the care of innumerable spare parts was enough to drive anyone crazy. After Lieutenant Bowring, 2nd-Lieutenants Rothwell, Dwyer, Hicks, and Lieutenants Wilson and Drewsen, in turn took charge of their destinies; while Sergeants Bond, Simpson, and Rowlandson acted in succession as Battalion Lewis Gun Sergeants.
4. Battalion Orderly-Room.—After the first days of chaos we soon settled down to a continued period of great efficiency, broken only by one temporary interruption caused by the gas bombardment. At home, the records and administration of the battalion passed successfully through the hands of Colour-Sergeants Robinson, Sutherland, and Evans, and the completeness of their work can be seen at once by anyone who has to deal with the old battalion orders. Overseas we were no less fortunate in our orderly-room sergeants—Ewan, Longridge, Llewellyn, and Myers. It is one thing to keep files complete and records accurate in the comfortable security of a properly organized orderly-room in England. To maintain no less efficiency and accuracy in France is a very different proposition. Space and stationery are limited; half your records are always packed and inaccessible; the orderly-room may be represented by a small "bivvy," a tent lit by one guttering candle, a "lean-to" composed of an old ground sheet, or other commodious habitation. Work under such conditions is trying and difficult, but it always went on; the orders were always issued, the records always kept, no matter what the obstacles. The amount of work which had to be done may be estimated by the fact that two typewriters were fully employed.