[7] See Illustration, p. 81.
[8] I allude of course to the New Armies.
[9] These views of the battle, I am told, are unduly pessimistic. But I let them stand as a record of personal feelings aroused as a result of the battle.
XIII[ToC]
HÉNENCOURT
Brigade Head-quarters were accommodated in wooden huts, but the battalions were mostly under canvas. Strenuous efforts had now to be made to complete the training of the men, and to initiate them to a style of warfare that was quite new and strange to them.
My own task was to train as many men as possible in the use of the Mills grenade. Each day I had fifty men to train, and they were kept at it all morning and again in the evening, until they had each thrown two live grenades. I had the services of three sergeant-instructors, who were invaluable in getting the men past the first stage. All the live firing I had to supervise myself; that being the rule of the Army, that an officer should always be present during live practice. All my spare time was spent in going over and testing the grenades to be fired next day, or in baling out the bombing trench, which filled very rapidly in wet weather. And so it went on day after day. Thirteen officers and 671 men who had never previously thrown a live grenade went through the course at Hénencourt; and about 1400 live grenades were fired. The battalion bombers used the ground in the afternoon in charge of their own officers; and they got through another 1000 grenades. On September 2 I was able to tell the General that every man in the Brigade, including machine-gunners and trench-mortar men, had been through the course, with which he expressed himself very pleased. Towards the end of our stay the General came to see the live throwing several times in the evenings, and he always spoke very encouragingly to the men.