“I can only hope that the good-bye which the Vth Corps now wish the 51st Division is for a short time, and that the good luck may be for many years to come.”
One of the Jocks summed it up more briefly in the single sentence, “Onyway, they winna ca’ us Hairper’s Duds noo.”
The spirit of the men in this battle is exemplified by a certain Jock who was found lying in a shell-hole in advance of the Green line, with a shattered leg, forty-eight hours after he had been hit. He was asked by the medical officer if no one had come near him, and he replied, “Aye, a German Red Cross man came up to me.” “Surely he attended to you,” said the M.O. “Attended to me?” replied the Jock, “I flung a boom at the blighter.”
[CHAPTER VIII.]
COURCELETTE.
Immediately after the battle of Beaumont Hamel, Lieut.-Colonel Ian Stewart, D.S.O., left the Division. Colonel Stewart had been chief staff officer to the Division through all those months in which it was learning the art of war, and in which many battalions were for the first time blooded in active operations.
During this period the amount of work which Colonel Stewart carried out, and the careful thought exercised by him on behalf of the Division to lessen the difficulties of all and to raise it to the high standard that it reached, was indeed vast. It was therefore a matter of great satisfaction to the Division to hear that his services had been rewarded by promotion to be Brigadier-General, General Staff of the XIIIth Corps.
It must also have been equally satisfactory to Colonel Stewart that the Division should have proved its worth at Beaumont Hamel before his service with it came to an end.
Lieut.-Colonel J. K. Dick Cunyngham, D.S.O., Gordon Highlanders, succeeded Lieut.-Colonel Ian Stewart as G.S.O. 1. Lieut.-Colonel Dick Cunyngham will always remain to those who came into contact with him the ideal of what a staff officer should be. He had a wide sympathy with the regimental officer, and understood his difficulties thoroughly. He had, moreover, an unruffled temperament, which enabled him to keep a clear head and think quickly and correctly even in the most adverse circumstances. The speed with which he would write a long and intricate operation order in clear and unambiguous language was a definite asset to the whole Division, and largely eliminated that confusion which is so liable to occur during the fluctuations of a modern battle. “Dick,” as he was familiarly known, was certainly one of the chief pillars on which the efficiency of the Division rested.