In 1915, the Third Army was far and away the best sniping Army in France. There was hardly an incorrect sight in the 10th or 7th Corps, and scores of officers and hundreds of men had been through courses at Colonel Lloyd’s 10th Corps School, or with me. It was while I was with one of the Infantry Brigades of the 37th Division that I received a letter which gave me immense pleasure. It was to the effect that Lieut.-General Haking, the Corps Commander of the 11th Corps in the First Army, wished to borrow me, so that I might lecture on sniping to his Corps, and go through their telescopic sights. Here was a splendid chance of carrying the work outside my own Army.
About this time I was attached to the Third Army Infantry School, then just formed under its first and very capable Commandant, Brig.-General R.J. Kentish, D.S.O. I lectured there on sniping and started a range and demonstrations, but I found myself lecturing to Company Commanders, whereas I ought to have been doing so to sniping officers, in order to get the best results. The Company Commanders liked, or appeared to like, the lectures, but, in the Army phrase, it was “not their pidgin,” and I soon felt that I should do better work nearer the line.
From the school, however, I journeyed up into the First Army area, and went through the sights and fulfilled my engagement with the 11th Corps. I think these days as the guest of the various Corps Commanders of the First Army—for I was passed on from the 11th Corps to the 3rd, and from the 3rd to the 1st—were the best days I had in France, for the extraordinary keenness in the First Army was very marked. It was here that I had to go through the ordeal of having to lecture to the Guards Divisional Staff and Snipers at nine o’clock in the morning. In lecturing, even on an interesting subject like sniping, it has always seemed to me much easier to be successful in a warm room at five o’clock rather than in a cold one at nine.
After finishing with the First Army and correcting some 250 telescopic sights, I went back to the Third Army Infantry School. Here I found that the Army Commander of the Third Army, Sir E. H. H. Allenby, had applied for my services for the Third Army, and had received the reply that these could be granted provided I relinquished the staff pay I was receiving and was willing to accept instead the lower rate of an Infantry Captain. This, of course, I agreed to do. Evidently, however, there was some further hitch, for I received no pay for the next eight months, nor did I dare to raise the question lest I should be sent back to G.H.Q.
I remember one General saying to me upon this question, not without a smile, “You are not here officially, you know, and any Germans you may have killed, or caused to be killed, are, of course, only unofficially dead.”
I will conclude this chapter with a letter that I wrote in November, 1915, which gives my impressions at that date.
My Dear ——
Since I have been with the 3rd Army, I have had an Officer from every battalion in the 7th Corps through my course. These Officers in their turn train snipers, and so the thing permeates quickly and, I think, with really good results.
Sniping seems to me to be the art of—
I.—Finding your mark.