The Menin Gate of Ypres.
We had come into action at the beginning of July. Our instructions had been to get “in” and camouflaged and registered and then wait for “the day,” and that waiting had been sorely trying to the patience. It had been far worse than sitting on the Messines Ridge in June. We had been told we should be “silent,” but we had fired steadily nevertheless, and this meant, of course, more ammunition and added risk of casualties amongst horses and men. It had meant having the men out of cover to shift the shells from their depôts to the gun-pits; and such things were considerations when we were losing men at the rate of about two a day and the stock of capable gunners and N.C.O.’s, depleted at Messines, was beginning to run dangerously low. “D” Battery on our immediate right had had an even worse time. Poor old “D.” They were always getting the rough of it since Courcelette, and this time they had got it very rough indeed. They had had no cellar to put their gun-crews in and we had been unable to spare them a share in ours, so they had left emergency crews at the guns and worked them by nucleus shifts, the remainder sleeping a long way behind.
The preparations had dragged their slow course along, and we had gone on with our daily routine, never knowing what the next minute was not going to produce, unloading and storing the ammunition, and heaving a sigh of relief when the last pack-horse had discharged his daily load and that anxiety at least was off our shoulders for the day; checking the sights and aiming-posts, strengthening so far as we could the pits, watching and shepherding the men; gassed one night and on duty all the next and then gassed again the third—the deadly mustard fellow had just made his costly début; counting the leaden hours, congratulating ourselves each time that—our duty over—we made the dug-out door afresh; and ever and anon looking hopefully through the tattered screen which still served to shield our part of the Menin Road from hostile observation to where Passchendaele Church stood prominent and quite intact on the opposite slope.
In five weeks the Corps Artillery alone had lost (I believe the figure is correct) 568 officers, killed, wounded, or gassed, and other ranks also had lost in proportion. We ourselves had lost one officer (gassed almost as soon as we had got in), five out of our six N.C.O.’s, and twelve gunners or bombardiers. “D” had had a young officer just out from England killed with a sergeant immediately behind our own guns, and a direct hit on one of their dug-outs had deprived them of three more sergeants and two gunners at one fell swoop. The toll had mounted up steadily, and though the C.-in-C. had issued a special appreciation of the bearing of the artillery in these difficult circumstances, we had day by day been feeling more the heavy strain.
Then had come the last days of July. All the conceivable practice barrages had been fired and the Huns made wise to the uttermost.
Then again—amidst rumours that the French were two days late—the storm clouds had gathered from the unfavourable quarter, and finally on the 31st July the great unwieldy barrage had unwound its complicated length in drizzling rain on the Hun lines. The infantry had gone over and reached the “black line” up to scheduled time: but on the “black line” they had lost co-ordination; when the barrage advanced again they had been late to follow up; the barrage had rolled on unheeding; our men, floundering in its wake on hopeless ground and now in a steady downpour, had had to come back and consolidate on the “black line,” while the batteries awaited in vain the longed-for order to advance.
Well, what was one job more or less after all? One might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, and I should go down to waggon-lines with all the clearer conscience on the 6th, and sleep.... How I would sleep! I would get down there for lunch if I could, have a quiet ride in the afternoon into “Pop,” and come back to waggon-lines for an early dinner and bed. How glorious to wake up once more, and to hear the birds twittering outside! It seemed ages ago since one had done so last, and it was in reality just eight days. My waggon-line billet was in a small farm-house. Madame and her man had been, for those parts, friendly enough. I remembered having tried to convey to Madame that next time I visited her, Ypres would be free. She had not understood, and perhaps it had been just as well.
