The following is a vivid description by General Ludendorff in his "Memoirs" of the fighting in the Salient. While written of his own Army, it is also applicable to ours:—
"The fifth act of the great drama in Flanders opened. Enormous masses of ammunition, such as the human mind had never imagined before the war, were hurled on the bodies of men who passed a miserable existence, scattered in mud-filled shell-holes.
"The horror of the shell-hole area of Verdun was surpassed. It was no longer life at all, it was mere unspeakable suffering. Through this world of mud the attackers dragged themselves slowly but steadily. Caught in the advance zone, by our hail of fire, they often collapsed. Then the mass came on again, rifles and machine guns being jammed with mud. Man fought against man, and only too often the mass was successful.... The enemy lost heavily. When we occupied the battlefield in the Spring of 1918 they lay in their thousands. We knew that the enemy suffered heavily, but we also knew he was amazingly strong and, what was equally important, had an extraordinary stubborn will."
As there were no dugouts, and the men were living in shelters only, every tour saw a considerable number of casualties. The enemy had the Menin Road and other tracks carefully taped, and the area behind the front line received almost more attention from the enemy's artillery than the front line itself. The Headquarters were generally in the remains of houses partly protected by concrete, but which would have easily been destroyed by a direct hit. In fact, on more than one occasion the officers at Headquarters left the protection of these buildings and sat in a field watching the enemy bombard them. This, however, proved good for the morale of the front line troops, who often used to be "bucked up" at seeing the Headquarters getting it hot.
The reserve billets in Ecole outside Ypres, and the cellars of the convent in Ypres, did not afford much comfort, for, while they were fairly well protected, the approaches were constantly being shelled, so that the men were more or less confined to the cellars.
We were the first Division to experience the effects of Mustard gas. When we first learned of its power of burning the skin, it was thought that we would probably suffer badly in the kilt. However, it is satisfactory to know that the kilt once again proved its efficiency as a fighting garment. While we have no statistics, we believe it is true that we did not suffer more than the trousered regiments in this respect, the reason being that it was generally the parts of the body where the skin was tender that got burnt. The skin of the legs having got hardened by exposure to the weather, was generally able to withstand the effects of gas in the same way as the hands and face. Again, most of the cases of burning were caused by men sitting down on the ground which was saturated with the gas. The kilt, being thick, the gases could not easily penetrate it, and no doubt its swinging in the air, when the men got up, helped to dispel them. In fact, the men did not suffer much from the effects of burning unless the shell burst close enough to sprinkle them with the liquid.
We regret to record the fact that within a short time of our handing over our Headquarters in Pommern Redoubt, which was a most unhealthy spot, Major Murray, Commanding the Black Watch (better known as "Haggis," and after whom the Divisional rest camp was called), and some of his staff, were killed by a direct hit at the entrance of the shelter. The Headquarters, which consisted of an old German machine gun concrete emplacement, were very low. We could not stand up in them. There was no ventilation except through the door, and when they were filled with signallers, officers, etc., with one or two candles burning, the heat and exhaustion of the air became terrible. After the first phase we experienced great difficulty in getting back the wounded, of whom there were a great number. One must say a word in praise of the splendid work done on this and many other occasions by the stretcher bearers. Lacking the excitement of fighting, they carried on their humane work often under heavy shell fire, always showing a splendid example of devotion to duty. Owing to the mud in the Salient, their work here was exceedingly arduous as well as dangerous. It often took four men to carry a stretcher back to the aid post, and even then it was a slow job. Their work, therefore, during some of the heavy fighting was practically continuous night and day. Often very weary, yet never complaining, they doggedly carried on. Not many of them received honours, although many well deserved them. The mud so delayed the removal of the wounded that some of them lay in dugouts and shelters for a couple of days. At last the Division sent up a large number of men under a Colonel of the R.A.M.C., who finally got them taken down. His energy was splendid. He wandered about at early dawn, even in No Man's Land, looking for the wounded in shell holes, closely followed by his faithful little dog.
The Headquarters at one time were in an old Boche strong point. Unfortunately, as it was the only place protected, some of the men in the trench round about it would rush to it for shelter, whenever heavy shelling started. As many as possible squeezed inside, but it seldom contained all, and as it was no doubt the enemy's target we had several casualties in the trench outside. It was little use telling the men not to come, for each hoped to be fortunate enough to find room inside, and the desire for security overmastered all else. The floor of the dugout was a foot deep in water, which kept slowly getting deeper as the water in the trench increased, and its smell was horrible, as it was partly mixed with the blood of the men killed outside. There was only one bed, which was occupied for the two days we were there by a wounded officer. We all had to sit and sleep on boxes with our feet perched on petrol tins. The usual result of trying to sleep in this position was that we had hardly got off when our feet would slip from the tin into the water, wakening us up, after which we had to start again.
The Adjutant, Signallers and Orderly Room Sergeant had a trying time in carrying on their work. One often admired the way in which the Orderly Room Clerk performed his duties on this and other occasions. Numerous returns had to be sent into Brigade, operation orders, orders for work parties and ration parties had to be written out by him, generally in triplicate at least. There he was stowed away in a corner, without a table, writing on his knee with nothing but a bag to keep his papers in, often working late into the night by the light of a solitary candle balanced on a piece of wood stuck into the wall of the dug-out, yet always doing his work efficiently and well without a grumble or complaint.
The transport had some very severe experiences also in getting up rations, which was no easy job. Carrying parties found many difficulties. There was a great deal of work to be done, and therefore ration parties had to be reduced to a minimum. In the dark it was no easy matter to find the map locations where the rations were dumped, as there was nothing to distinguish one shell-hole from another. On more than one occasion the carrying parties were so wearied with the struggle through the mud with heavy loads that they had to leave the rum ration behind, a convincing proof that they were at the last gasp.