On July 10 we moved back, most of the way by 'bus, to Liettres, a very pretty village well behind the line and south-west of Aire. Hardly were we settled before we were ordered to move, which we did with no very good grace to St. Hilaire, a much inferior village. Two days later our tactical location was discovered to be still unsatisfactory, so we tried a march northwards to Warne, where for the third time in ten days a quartermaster's store had to be built from the materials we had managed to drag along with us. Almost before our headquarter runners had learnt the whereabouts of companies we were on the road again. This time we left the XI Corps, with which so many of the Battalion's fortunes and misfortunes had been associated, and passed into General Plumer's Army as part of the XV Corps. The paradise which every division, sent back for 'rest,' fancies will have been prepared for it, now degenerated to a mere field. Still, there are many worse places, if some better, than a grass field; footballs were soon bouncing merrily, and on the air floated the monotonous enumeration of 'House.' One evening the Colonel, myself, and the company commanders returned wet-through from a voyage of inspection of the Hazebrouck defences, for a German attack was still anticipated. The last of these shuttle-cock moves occurred on July 31, from our field at Pont Asquin back to St. Hilaire, whose billets few of us were anxious to revisit.
As I have not loaded my narrative with marches my readers shall hoist full pack (no air-pillows allowed!) upon their backs and fall in with the Battalion. It is already dusk as the sanitary men, like so many sorcerers, stoop in the final rites of fire and burial. Some days ago I taxed the band-master, Bond, with the possibility of playing in the dark; for a moment his face was as long as Taylor's bassoon, but since then by means of surreptitious practice and, I fancy, the sheer confiscation of his bandsmen's folios, the impossible has been achieved. Every band is the best in France, but only ours can play in darkness. Thus, as the column swings past the pond and waiting cookers, the Band strikes up one of its best and loudest marches....
Such midnight music, if it drowned the drone of German aeroplanes, which ever and anon swam overhead, looking like white moths in the beams of our searchlights, served also to arouse the village inhabitants, whose angry faces were framed for an instant in windows as we passed. Our musical uproar set dogs barking for miles, cocks crowed at our passage, and generals turned in their second sleep to hear such martial progress in the night. The march—through Racquinghem and Aire—was long, lasting nearly all night. To flatter its interest a sweepstake had been arranged among the officers for who should name the exact moment of its conclusion. Years of foot-slogging in France made my considered guess formidable in the competition. More dangerous still was that of the Colonel, for to him would fall the duty of the decisive whistle-blast, and his entry ultimately was not accepted by the 'committee.' As in most sweepstakes, the first prize fell to a most undeserving winner.
July closed with a feeling of dissatisfaction at the cycle of moves which had rendered futile both rest and training. Consciousness that one was helping to win the war was more often imputed than felt. Early in August, 1918, the 61st relieved the 5th Division in front of the Nieppe Forest. Minor attacks had already cleared the enemy from the eastern fringe of the forest and driven him back towards Neuf Berquin and Merville. At 7 p.m. on August 7 A and B Companies attacked and captured the trenches opposite to them, causing the enemy to retire behind the Plate Becque, a stream as wide as the Cherwell at Islip but far less attractive. We had a dozen casualties in this attack, which was rewarded by half as many German prisoners and a machine-gun. Sergeant Ravenscroft, of B Company, for an able exploit during the advance, received the D.C.M.
Already the Forest of Nieppe had become notorious for German gas. It was now a nightly programme of the enemy to drench the wood, which was low-lying and infested with pools and undergrowth, with his noxious 'Yellow Cross'—shells whose poisonous fumes bore the flavour of mustard. Throughout the night of August 7/8, when things generally were very active, a heavy gas-bombardment was kept up. The Colonel was away from his headquarters at the time. He returned after the shelling to find that gas helmets had been taken off. No harm was expected, but the next day, after the sun's heat had awakened dormant fumes, the Colonel, Symonds (the adjutant), Kirk, who had brought up the rations, and Cubbage, as well as the Regimental Sergeant-Major and many signallers and runners, all found that they were gassed. Their loss was serious. It was known that Wetherall would soon have to leave the Battalion, for he had been appointed to a command in the Machine Gun Corps; indeed already his successor, Colonel Woulfe-Flanagan, had arrived to take his place. Under the present unlucky auspices (for more than half Headquarters were knocked out) the interchange took place.
Herodotus says of the kings of Sparta that the last was always regretted as the best the country had ever had. Colonel Wetherall's merit did not depend on his being the last of a series. Phrases such as 'he was worshipped by the men' have become so hackneyed as to be meaningless, nor shall I use an even worse commonplace, that 'he was sparing of his words.' Wetherall was just a rattling good Commanding Officer, a true friend, and a fine soldier. His successor, E. M. Woulfe-Flanagan, came from the East Surreys. He bore a distinguished record of pre-war service and had been wounded in the Mons retreat. A regular soldier of the old school, in ideas and methods he differed widely from his predecessor. But he was worth his salt every time. Certainly no braver officer ever set foot in France.
After we had finished our first tour in the Nieppe Forest sector, both the Berks and Gloucester were sent forward against the enemy, who was rightly suspected by the staff to be on the point of retreating from the Lys salient. The attack had to cross the Plate Becque, whose eastern bank the enemy was fighting hard to hold. Gloucesters and Berks rushed forward at misty dawn and flung bridges over the stream; but the machine-gun fire was too intense, and though some parties got across, others did not, co-operation broke down, and the attack gained no result. A few days afterwards the Germans went back, giving up Calonne, Merville, and Neuf Berquin-villages which our artillery had utterly pulverised. As in the March retreat of 1917, the 184th Brigade had no immediate share in following up the enemy as he retired. The Oxfords had withdrawn on August 14 to Spresiano Camp, in the forest, and waited without eagerness to be ordered forward to the new devastated area. It is curious to reflect that at this time, so distant did the end of the war still seem, we grumbled at losing our comfortable base at Steenbecque, which we hoped to keep perhaps through the winter. Most thinking people could see neither value nor wisdom in pursuing the Germans in their retreats, planned and carried out in their own time, from salients. Hardly on one occasion did we hustle them, and the policy, deprecated by most commanders of lower formations, of snatching at the first morsels of abandoned territory always cost us heavy casualties. Between war and chess there is a close analogy. In front of Nieppe Forest there were now a hopeless crowding of the pieces, moves aimlessly made from square to square, and the reckless calling of 'check,' which to a good opponent means time and renewed chances to escape defeat.