The work of the R.A.M.C., especially from the 18th October onwards, was evilly affected by the conditions. A man too seriously wounded to walk was in a piteous plight; he had to wait for several hours until men were available to carry him to a dressing station. The usual number of men for a stretcher is two, but eight were scarcely sufficient at the Butte de Warlencourt. It was perhaps inevitable that in a place over which the tide of battle ebbed and flowed for days and nights, a number of wounded should have been missed. For several days after the Ninth took over the line not a few wounded men of the London Division, the ghastly aftermath of an unsuccessful attack, were brought in by patrols. Every man who could be spared was sent to help the R.A.M.C. and the utmost efforts were made by the Division to ensure that no wounded man was overlooked.
The action at the Butte de Warlencourt was the most dismal of all the operations carried out by the Division, but it was ennobled by the great qualities of endurance and heroism displayed by all who had a share in it. In that waste of mud and water the ground captured, though small in extent, represented no mean achievement. The Butte remained impregnable, guarded by slime and weather, and it was not till the enemy voluntarily evacuated the place that it was entered and held by British troops. It may be questionable if the ground gained was worth the cost, but the mud had proved a more powerful ally of the adversary than had been expected.
CHAPTER VIII
ARRAS
November 1916 to April 1917
On the 23rd November the Division was transferred from the Fourth to the Third Army, commanded by Sir Edmund Allenby. Most of the training and reorganisation was carried out in the neighbourhood of St Pol, and during this period several important changes in command took place. On the 21st October, while the Ninth was still engaged at the Somme, Brig.-General Scrase-Dickins was promoted to the command of the Thirty-seventh Division. He had been somewhat unfortunate during his career with the Ninth. At Loos and at Longueval his brigade had the bad luck to run into the enemy’s defences where they had been least damaged by artillery-fire; but these calamities were due not to lack of foresight or leadership, but to circumstances that would have similarly affected any other brigade. The General was noted for his Spartan routine and his extraordinary personal bravery. He was able to subsist on less than most men and limited himself to two meals a day. When his brigade was in the front trenches, he paid a daily visit to the line, and of his gallantry many stories were current. During the fighting in July his H.Q. at Montauban were persistently shelled, but he was never seen to twitch a muscle or dive for shelter; not even under the fiercest bombardment did he forego his daily tub in the open square at Montauban. His departure was viewed with the greatest regret; for he had been with the Ninth since its formation, and he was loved and respected by all who served under him. But his promotion[64] was known to have been thoroughly well earned and he took with him the congratulations and good wishes of the Division. His successor was Brig.-General F. A. Maxwell, V.C., who came from the Eighteenth Division and had the distinction of having led the battalion that took Trones Wood.
There was a change also in the Highland Brigade. On the 4th December Brig.-General Ritchie was appointed to the command of the Sixteenth Division. His service with the Ninth had been attended with almost unbroken success, and both at Loos and the Somme his men had not only shown great brilliancy and dash in securing their objectives, but had proved themselves to be masters of the art of counter-attack. He was succeeded by Brig.-General J. Kennedy of the Argylls.
On the 1st December General Furse[65] was appointed Master-General of the Ordnance. It is safe to say that no name is more closely associated with the annals of the Ninth Division than that of General Furse. In the fourteen months during which he had been in command he had succeeded in effecting that organised co-operation which was the proof of the unity that bound Lowlanders, Highlanders, and South Africans into one complete whole. He loathed water-tight compartments and did his utmost to foster the closest intercourse and co-operation between the various arms—infantry, gunners, sappers, and mounted men—who only by acting in concert could realise severally their highest fighting efficiency. The fighting spirit had never been absent, but in training, in trenches, and in battle, he fostered and encouraged it until it became an instinct. He was a reservoir of power and ideas, and he had a natural flair for striking phrases. Anxious and alert to increase the efficiency of his command, he was alive to the necessity of testing all new tactical appliances, and in his numerous conferences the principal motive was “not fault-finding but fact-finding.” An officer of the Division once remarked, “General Furse made the Ninth Division, and the Ninth Division made General Furse,” and there is much that is true in the statement. The leader had every reason to be proud of his men and the men of their leader. His appointment was viewed with both regret and gratification; regret, because a tried leader had gone, and gratification because his promotion was regarded as a tribute both to himself and to the Division. But though his connection with the Ninth was officially severed, he was able in his new capacity to render it useful service.
He was succeeded by Major-General H. T. Lukin of the South African Brigade, the command of which passed to Brig.-General Dawson of the 1st Regiment. Major-General Lukin had won a great name while in command of the South Africans, and much was expected of him in his new position.
In the course of the next five months there were a few changes among battalion commanders. In the Argylls the new C.O. was Lieut.-Colonel H. G. Sotheby. Lieut.-Colonel Connell was invalided to England after the action of the Butte de Warlencourt, and Lieut.-Colonel G. B. F. Smyth, who had been thrice wounded in the war, left the Sappers of the 90th Field Company to command the 6th K.O.S.B. In March 1917 Lieut.-Colonel Fargus went to England, and Lieut.-Colonel Thorne took over the command of the 12th Royal Scots. There were several adjustments in the South African Brigade. Lieut.-Colonel F. H. Heal became C.O. of the 1st Regiment; Lieut.-Colonel Tanner returned to the 2nd, and Lieut.-Colonel Christian took over the command of the 4th.
The training of the men followed the usual lines, but in one respect there was a significant change. The bomb had proved to be a very useful weapon, but it had been cultivated to such excess that the men were in danger of forgetting how to use their rifles. The rifle is the principal weapon of the infantryman, and practice in its use became the foundation of all our training. The bomb was discouraged, for it had been noted that a man with a rifle and bayonet in his hands was more enterprising and aggressive than one with his pockets full of bombs. About the end of the year a more efficient protection against gas, the box respirator, was issued and the men were drilled in the rapid adjustment of it.