They are moving us again by night march to-night to a new area, and we don't know what they are going to do with us. There is a good deal of work involved in re-organizing a Battalion that has lost so heavily, and we can only do it up to the capacity of the personnel we have got left. They do not appear to consider it necessary to take us really far back to do this, as we had four Officers (all we could spare) and 200 men out working near the trenches last night.
SABBATH EVENING, JUNE 27, 1915.
I am sorry I missed our Church Parade this morning. We got a message early that we were to go to a place to make arrangements for taking over a section of trenches to-night, so Captain Graham and I went and made the necessary arrangements.
We feel so glad that they have taken us away from the section of trenches that has such unhappy associations. Graham and I went into the trenches this morning to see the section that we are taking over to-night. They are well made, and are quite close to the section we held many weeks ago under our last Division that we liked so well. Things are quite quiet, and there is no suggestion of anything more than just the holding of the line. This we are very thankful for.
In the Colonel's letter to Captain Lusk in reply to the long letter given above, the following sentence occurs:—'I want to thank you, my dear fellow, for the absolutely splendid way in which you took hold of things under very, very trying circumstances. The Regiment will never forget it.'
The mother of one of the fallen Officers wrote to Mrs. Lusk on June 20th:—
'Your dear son is still spared to be a comfort and help to others, and he so bravely led the party who tried to find our dead and wounded, but alas! they had fallen, I fear, within the German lines. It would have brought comfort to know that our dear son was buried by loving hands, and that they knew his grave, and I'm sure they nobly tried to reach the place. I read yesterday a letter from one of the men (spared, though his brother is "missing"); he said "Our Captain wept, I think, when the General told him it would be certain death to venture." I felt sure this was your dear son. God bless him.'
The official statement of the matter is found in the Divisional Orders which mention the award as being 'for gallantry displayed at Rue d'Ouvert on 15th June, 1915; when a large number of Officers had been killed he voluntarily proceeded to the firing line, took command of what was left of the Battalion and successfully brought the troops out of action.'
Captain Lusk was gazetted Adjutant of the Battalion shortly after the Battle of Festubert, and continued to act in that capacity to the end. During Major Graham's absence on leave, he acted as Commanding Officer as well.
The Battalion was moved south to the neighbourhood of Albert and the Somme[[5]] about the end of July:—