The advantage of having the Battalion compacted in one camp became almost at once exemplified, and the desirable tightening of discipline rapidly effected a great increase of efficiency. The unsurpassed facilities for training afforded by the Aldershot Command also proved of incalculable value, and enabled the keen and efficient training staff of the Battalion to raise the unit to the position of one of the best organised battalions of a Brigade whose reputation for training was second to none.
At Blackdown, moreover, the facilities provided for the recreation of the troops were really excellent, and among these mention should be made first of the Y.M.C.A. and the Church Army, whose excellent institutions were of the greatest value. Each battalion also was provided with a sports ground, and among the pleasant memories of men trained in this Station not the least is the Blackdown Garrison Theatre, which was visited weekly by capable companies. The Sunday evening concerts in the theatre were also a very notable and valuable feature of the social life of the garrison.
Training here proceeded on the same lines, but a further modification was now introduced for the benefit of the large numbers of lads under military age who were now joining. Under the Military Service Acts no men might be sent overseas till the age of nineteen, and in order to ensure that their training should not be unnecessarily hurried a special syllabus of work was evolved for them, the original scheme being so enlarged and lengthened as to provide for such young soldiers becoming "trained" not earlier than the age at which they might be sent to the front. To ensure the smooth working of this amended scheme the young soldiers, or "A IV's" as they were called, were grouped in special companies, and in addition a number of "young soldier battalions" were added to the Coastal Defence Forces.
In January 1918 Lieut.-Col. Montgomerie Webb vacated command of the Battalion on attachment to the Royal Air Force, and the Battalion was taken over by Lieut.-Col. Hanbury Sparrow, D.S.O., M.C., Royal Berkshire Regiment, who had come to England under the six months exchange system. Under Lieut.-Col. Sparrow the Battalion continued to make great strides, and his striking personality was the means of winning every ounce of willing and devoted service from all who had the honour to be under his command. The work of the Reserve Battalion during the early part of 1918 is so much bound up with the movements of the overseas battalions under the stress of the German offensive that we may conveniently break off here and take up the story of the Second Battle of the Somme.
CHAPTER XX
THE 2/4TH BATTALION IN THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE SOMME, 1918
I. Preparations for the German Offensive
The southward move of Gough's Fifth Army was for the purpose of extending the British lines into an area hitherto occupied by the French. Between the 10th January and the 3rd February 1918 a considerable sector, extending from the River Omignon north of St Quentin to Barisis, in the Forêt de St Gobain south of La Fère, was taken over from the French. The responsibility for the whole of this line, some thirty miles long, in addition to about twelve miles from Gouzeaucourt to the Omignon, hitherto held by Byng's Third Army, fell upon Gough.
The 58th Division was at first in reserve and was billeted in the Amiens area, the 2/4th Londons being quartered on the evening of the 22nd January at Thézy-Glimont, a pleasant village near the confluence of the Avre with the Noye, about eight miles south-east of Amiens, where French pre-war civilisation was still almost untouched. It is needless to remark how delightful to all ranks were these peaceful surroundings after the ghastly shell-torn swamps of Poelcapelle. About a fortnight passed at Thézy-Glimont in the usual routine of training, during which one or two small drafts joined the Battalion. Lieut. B. Rivers Smith left the Battalion on the 1st February for six months' duty in England.