As I was resting at Headquarters, one of the Staff told me I had "missed some fun" while "out front." Six Black Marias had landed on the earthen wall of the moat, not many yards from our brewery quarters, "shaking things up a bit," but fortunately hitting no one.
Examining my camera, I discovered, to my great chagrin, that the shutter had been inadvertently set at "time" when I took the snapshot of the ruined farm, away from which I retired in such a hurry. So I missed getting the picture which cost me such a strenuous race against the shells. As a solace, my photographs of the French reserves in the wood, and of our Brigade Headquarters, came out quite satisfactorily.
Shells fell not far from our Divisional Headquarters next day. More than once the signals-men brought in pieces of shrapnel, quite hot, that fell in the courtyard, which from that time began to lose its popularity as a lounging-place for waiting orderlies.
A run to Hooge, and a wait there in a dug-out while the Huns threw a dozen shells about it, was made memorable to me by Nicholson's reconstruction of a bit of the fighting over that ground in November, 1914.
Nicholson had been with the 1st Infantry Division—a Division that had Haig for a leader. At the beginning of the War it had come out 14,000 odd strong. In six months its total list of casualties had reached 34,000.
In the first battle of Ypres its battalions had suffered cruelly. The 1st Coldstreams had been annihilated. The Queen's (West Surreys) came out of the line with but fifteen men and no officers, the Black Watch with but sixty men and one officer, and the Loyal North Lancashires with but 150 men and two officers. When the Division came back to billets, it was commanded by a brigadier-general. Every colonel in the division had been killed or wounded, and the brigades were commanded by officers of all ranks. A captain was in command of one brigade.
It was in front of Hooge, between that town and Gheluvelt, that most of the heaviest losses of the 1st Division were suffered.
Nicholson had seen some of it. One night the Prussian Guard broke through the line on the Menin Road. Nicholson's squadron of the 15th Hussars, acting as Divisional Cavalry, were sent to stop the gap. Forty troopers and forty cyclists, eighty rifles all told, went up. They had no trenches, as the Prussians held our original position. So they lay in a sunken road near the Herenthage Château. The Germans occupied a wood sixty yards away, though neither force knew of the whereabouts of the other until dawn.
Nicholson sought out General Fitzclarence, commanding the 1st Brigade, in the dark. Most of Fitzclarence's Brigade had been killed. Efforts to clear up the situation had borne little result. Every messenger he had sent out for information had been killed. Fitzclarence said five brigades were to be sent to him, with which he was to counter-attack. The five brigades came, and were found to total 1,000 men all told. Yet with the remnants of his force Fitzclarence counter-attacked at dawn. Though he himself was killed, his wonderful men won through. The position was recaptured, and Ypres saved.
A glorious page in the annals of the British Army, though it cost England men who were indeed hard to replace.