Weatherby and I walked across to Rolt's farm, across a series of big fields, with only an occasional bullet or shell pitching in the distance. Lord, what a poor place it was; Rolt and his staff had lived there for the last week, all lying together on straw in one or two rooms: it must have been most uncomfortable. The windows towards the north-east had been plugged up with sandbags, so that the rooms were very dark, and the floors were deep in caked mud and dirt of all sorts. The only attraction in the main room was a big open fireplace with a huge sort of witches' cauldron standing over the hot ashes, and this was most useful in providing us with hot baths later on.
Rolt explained his position and the places which the different battalions were occupying; but beyond an occasional bombardment of Missy and losses from German snipers in trees and elsewhere, he had not suffered overmuch. However, he and his Brigade were not sorry to leave, and leave they did at 4 A.M. next morning. The awkward part of it was that one could never go out in the daytime, as the road in front of the farm leading towards Missy was under perpetual rifle-fire directly any one showed up, and several holes had been made in the farmyard gate, windows, and walls, not to mention bits of the roof taken off by shrapnel. Why they did not shell the farm more I cannot conceive. Perhaps the enemy thought it was deserted, but whilst we were there no shells fell within a couple of hundred yards of it, though some were pitched well over it, and exploded 500 yards to the rear.
I had gone to see the Dorsets and 13th Brigade in Missy on the evening before, and found them fairly well ensconced. The Dorsets were in Missy itself, with their headquarters in a really nice house with carpets and big shaded lamps, and a cellar full of excellent wine, and a nice garden all complete, and charming bedrooms—infinitely superior to our pig-sty of a farm. I seriously thought of turning them out and taking the house for the Brigade Staff, especially as our farm was not at all central but quite on the left of our line; but all our cable-lines converged on to the farm, and, in addition, the Dorset house would have been impossible to get out of for further control if Missy were shelled; so I settled to remain at the farm. The 13th Brigade—i.e., K.O.Y.L.I., and West Kents, were further on, the K.O.Y.L.I., on the eastern outskirts, and the West Kents in trenches beyond them. The K.O.S.B.'s were still further south-eastwards, and reached back to the river, but there were only one or two weak companies of them.
Before dawn, and just after Rolt had left, I went to inspect the Bedfords' position, which was close to Rolt's farm, in the wood in front of it, and a beastly position it was. The wood was very damp, and when one tried to dig trenches one struck water only a foot below ground, so most of the line had to be made of breastworks. There were German trenches within 20 yards of our advanced trench there, and ours was remarkably badly situated and liable to be rushed at a moment's notice; yet it was impossible from the lie of the ground to dig suitable ones unless we retired altogether for 200 yards, which of course was out of the question. So we chanced it and stuck it out, and luckily were never attacked there. The men suffered there from damp and cold, I'm afraid, for every morning a wet and freezing fog arose in the wood, although the weather was clear elsewhere; but it could not be helped.
We stayed in Rolt's farm and in the positions described for just a week. On one day, the 27th, we had a false alarm, for the enemy was reported as crossing the Condé bridge at 4 A.M. in large numbers, and everybody was at once on the qui vive, the Cheshires, who were in bivouac behind Rolt's farm, being sent back (by Sir C. Fergusson's orders) to Rupreux, the other side of the river. We rather doubted the news from the start, as the Condé bridge had, we knew, been blown up, and there was only one girder left, by which a few men at a time could conceivably have crossed; but the information was so circumstantial that it sounded possible. Eventually it turned out all to be owing to the heated imagination of a Hibernian patrol officer of the West Kents, and we turned in again.
Missy was shelled particularly heavily that day from 10 to 6, and it was painful to watch great bouquets of 8-in. H.E. shells exploding in the village, and whole houses coming down with a crash; it seemed as though there must be frightfully heavy casualties, and I trembled in anticipation of the casualty return that night.
But the Dorsets and K.O.Y.L.I. had dug themselves in so thoroughly in deep funk-holes and cellars that they did not have a single casualty; and literally the only men wounded were three K.O.S.B.'s and six West Kents outside the village in a trench, who were hit by about the last shell of the day; whilst a Bedford sniper, an excellent shot, one Sergeant Hunt, unfortunately got a bullet through two fingers of his right hand.
During that week it was moderately quiet, with nothing like so many casualties as we had expected. Our supply waggons rolled up after dark right into Missy village and never lost a man, whilst the village was so thoroughly barricaded and strengthened and scientifically defended—mostly Dorset work—that we could have held out against any number. The sappers too, 17th Co. R.E., worked like Trojans under young Pottinger, a most plucky and capable youth wearing the weirdest of clothes—a short and filthy mackintosh, ragged coat and breeches, and a huge revolver.[10]
We put Rolt's farm and the mill (between that and Missy) and La Bizaie farm in a thorough state of defence, and dug hundreds of yards of trenches. In fact we should have welcomed an infantry attack, but it never came—only artillery long bowls.