[12] Formed May 1915.
[13] Now Sir G. Hacket Pain, K.B.E., C.B., M.P.
[14] In future, battalions of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, Royal Irish Rifles, and Royal Irish Fusiliers will be alluded to as "Inniskillings," "Rifles," and "Irish Fusiliers," respectively.
[15] The writer saw one man, at whose shoulder he had stood on a U.V.F. range while he put five huge bullets from an Italian Veterli into the bull's-eye, miss the target twice at 600 yards.
[16] Now Sir Oliver Nugent, K.C.B., D.S.O.
[CHAPTER II]
The Division in France: October 1915 to June 1916
General Nugent and his Staff arrived at Boulogne at midnight on the 3rd of October. Between the 5th and the 9th of the month the Division concentrated in the area round Flesselles, where, some ten miles north of Amiens, Divisional Headquarters were established. Here the troops realized for the first time that France did not always mean the firing-line. The sound of guns was, strangely enough, heard less than it had been at Seaford, though the Vérey lights that could be seen by night against the sky were evidence of the proximity of the trenches. The countryside of the Somme was poor of soil, though the industry of the inhabitants extracted good crops from it, and curiously unlike that of the North of Ireland in its absence of pasture. It was, however, pleasant enough, high and rolling, the sites of the little villages in the uplands determined by the scanty water supply, but traversed by numerous streams in the valleys, full of beautiful panoramas wherever woodland interposed to break the monotony of its contours. The villages were not uncomfortable so long as troops could be widely spread. When, however, they were used as "staging areas" and billeting was at all close, their poverty was only too apparent.
Of this, some portions of the Division had early experience. On October the 9th the 107th Brigade and the 1st/1st London Brigade R.F.A. moved up for attachment to the 4th Division, and instruction in trench warfare. The 4th Division at this time held a wide and comparatively quiet front north of the River Ancre, which had been taken over from the French during the previous summer. The general method of instruction in vogue was the attachment of formations and units to those next larger; that is, a battalion to an infantry brigade, a company to a battalion, a battery to a brigade of artillery. The troops in this preliminary experience of trench warfare suffered less from the enemy than the elements. The weather was bad, roads and trenches were wet; the billeting accommodation en route was scanty, and while in rest behind the line, consisted almost entirely of war-worn tents without floor-boards. The men in those first days scarce seemed to notice these things, so intense was their eagerness and curiosity. The conventional and traditional grumble of the British private soldier, a sotto voce accompaniment to the most generous efforts and the most unselfish devotion, was forgotten here. One of the Brigadiers of the 4th Division said of them: