However, all this occurred at a later date, and I must pick up my narrative when we left the 11th Corps School in the lorry. Those who were to start the First Army School got aboard after an early breakfast. They were only six in number, Lieut. Gray, Armourer Staff-Sergeant Carr, Private Fensome (an extremely capable and skilled carpenter), myself and two batmen. We took with us all the spares we could obtain from the 11th Corps School as well as a lot of sniping kit belonging to Gray and myself.
As we rode through the country in the direction of Aire we passed a huge desolate camp which, I believe, had once been inhabited by Australians. No doubt it had boasted a guard at one time, but it had now fallen into sad disrepair, the Flemish peasantry having appropriated all the stoves and most of the wooden walls. A little further on we came upon two or three Armstrong huts standing in a field adjacent to the deserted camp, and as these were in better preservation, and we had no Armstrong hut of our own, it seemed a pity to leave them for the French, so we set to and took one down and loaded it on the lorry. This was, no doubt, a very wrong thing to do, but when you have no “establishment,” you can have no conscience either, or, at least, if you allow yourself such a luxury you will find that your job becomes impossible.
First Army School of S.O.S.
Presently we rolled into Aire over the canal bridge, which was afterwards destroyed by long-range guns, and in Aire we made the little purchases which are necessary for the formation of officers’ and men’s messes. We then passed through the old town by the Cathedral. Army Headquarters had moved away, and there was now only the Town Major and one or two A.S.C. columns in possession. On the far side of Aire we took the Lambres and St. Hilaire Road, and passed on through the level country. As we turned off through Lambres, we saw, rising in front of us, the high ridge which formed the plateau on which our school was to be situated, and not long afterwards we rode into the village of Linghem. The lorry then went round and disembarked our Armstrong hut upon the plateau, where we at once erected it, and a fortunate thing it was that we did so, for that night there were some heavy showers of rain which would have destroyed a good deal of our kit, and more especially our target-paper and dummy heads, had we not put them under proper shelter.
And now, I think, began one of the most interesting periods which I spent in France. Various fatigue men were added to the Staff, and a working party from the Army Service Corps was sent up. We were rather amused to see that the men of this working party, who had been well behind the line for at least a year previously, thought it quite an adventure to come up to the school. When they rolled up their sleeves for digging, we noticed, too, that their arms were white, forming in this a great contrast to our fatigue men. It was necessary to dig trenches, make stop-butts, build snipers’ posts and observation posts, and all this hard work the A.S.C. working party tackled with extraordinary energy. We put up goal-posts, and they had a game of football each evening. Several of the A.S.C. party, I believe, were professional football players of repute.
FIRST ARMY SCHOOL OF S.O.S.
No. 1 Flat Parapet. The easiest possible form of parapet to spot movement behind—practically a death-trap.
But it would be tedious to describe the growth of the school step by step. Suffice it to say that, beginning with a class of a dozen to fifteen officers, who were dealt with by two officer instructors, our classes grew until we had twenty-five officers and forty or fifty N.C.O.’s at each course. But the actual teaching was only one side of the work of the school, for it was soon thoroughly known throughout the Army that if any Division, Brigade or Battalion wanted its telescopic sights tested, or if any individual sniper found himself shooting incorrectly, all that had to be done was to apply to the First Army Sniping School. The divisional snipers came up in ’busloads, and single snipers often came on foot. This continual testing of rifles kept Armourer Staff-Sergeant Carr busy both on the range and in his armourer’s shop. Fortunately, as well as being an excellent armourer, Sergeant Carr was also a shot of no mean order, having shot in the King’s Hundred at Bisley.