After two tours in this sector the Battalion went back for its second spell in Divisional Reserve. Casualties had been a good deal heavier than the Battalion had experienced previously, but the men had stuck to their work splendidly, and many instances of gallantry and devotion to duty brighten the otherwise sordid picture. The little sap on the extreme left was the main centre of activity and there trench-mortaring and bombing were almost continuous. It was constantly being damaged, and as frequently repaired; on one occasion a heavy trench mortar dropped right into it, causing six casualties. How near it was to the Germans is shown by the fact that, on August 26th, they were able to throw the following message from their lines into it:—
“Dear Tommy,—Brest Litovsk fallen to-day. Rippelin, Lieut.”
An hour or two after the arrival of this message loud cheering was heard in the enemy lines, presumably rejoicing at the news. During this tour Sec.-Lieut. W. L. Anderton was shot through the head and died almost immediately.
On August 26th, the Battalion moved back to the woods near Coppernollehoek for twelve days’ rest. A little more training was done this time, but large working parties were still the order of the day. Endeavours were made to smarten up the men; among other things the cleaning of buttons was instituted for the first time since the Battalion had left England. A somewhat novel duty was the rounding up of spies in the neighbourhood of Proven; this was entrusted to Capt. E. E. Sykes, with a party of forty-five other ranks. He was away for thirty-six hours, but no record has been preserved of what success, if any, he had. While near Coppernollehoek the Battalion was again inspected by General Plumer, who was accompanied by the Earl of Scarborough and Brigadier-General Mends. Probably the G.O.C., Second Army, noticed a change in the men whom he had reviewed about two months before; they were no longer light-hearted and cheery novices, but fully-blooded and hard-bitten veterans. A short time in the Ypres Salient had worked wonders. A sad loss to the Battalion about this time was Sergt. D. H. Fenton, who was accidentally killed by a bomb on the very day his commission was announced.
When the Battalion again returned to the line it took over the Turco Farm Sector, on the extreme right, abutting on the 6th Division. This was the best and quietest sector on the divisional front. In places No Man’s Land was several hundreds of yards across. Of course there was plenty of work to be done, but the trenches were, on the whole, good. After a quiet tour the Battalion came out to a new position on the Canal Bank. Here there was little shelling and the opportunity was seized to hold some swimming sports; D Company won the inter-company team race. During this period in Brigade Reserve, Lieut.-Colonel E. J. Pickering, formerly Brigade Major of the 148th Infantry Brigade, arrived to take command of the Battalion.
On September 21st, the Battalion returned to the Turco Farm Sector. The tour which followed is chiefly noteworthy for the events of September 25th—the day on which the battle of Loos began. No very serious operation was planned for the Ypres front, but a demonstration was arranged in the hope of distracting the enemy’s attention and drawing his reserves northwards. The 6th Division was to attack on the right and capture Bellewaarde Farm and Lake. At the same time the British artillery was to cut gaps in the German wire opposite the 4th Battalion, while a smoke screen was to be put up on both its flanks. It was hoped that this demonstration would cause the enemy to evacuate his front line, in which case the Battalion was to advance and seize the unoccupied trenches. At 4-30 a.m. the bombardment and smoke screen began. The enemy retaliation was quick and heavy. Shells rained down on the front line and the communication trenches; machine gun and rifle fire swept the ground. It was soon obvious that the Germans had no intention of evacuating any part of their trenches, and so no advance was attempted on the front of the 49th Division. By 7-30 a.m. the artillery fire on both sides had practically ceased. So far as the Battalion was concerned, the only results of the day were a number of casualties and much damage to the lines from the enemy bombardment.
The last days of September were spent at Elverdinghe, where Battalion H.Q. occupied the Chateau and officers and men were accommodated in tents in the grounds. Early in October a move was made to a camp by the Poperinghe-Woesten Road, where another period, very similar to the previous ones, was spent in Divisional Reserve. The Battalion had now been about three months in the Ypres Salient. During that time, in addition to the normal wastage through sickness, 120 casualties had been incurred in action. But far worse was in store. Before, however, entering on an account of the events of October 16th, and of the terrible wet months which culminated in the gas attack of December 19th, there are one or two points which deserve fuller treatment than they have yet received.
The high proficiency of the enemy in sniping has already been mentioned on more than one occasion. Gradually the Battalion came to realise that the most effective way of dealing with this form of annoyance was to adopt similar tactics. Luckily, the very man was to hand—Sergt. A. McNulty. A combination of all the qualities needed by a first-class sniper is rarely to be found in one individual; but this N.C.O. possessed them all to an exceptional degree. A magnificent rifle shot and a first-class observer, he had the patience of a Job, and was also an exceptionally good instructor. Before long there was little that he did not know about marksmanship, telescopic sights, the building of snipers’ posts, and observation. He constructed his own posts and waited in them patiently, hour after hour, for suitable targets. How many Germans he had to his credit, no one ever knew; it is more than doubtful whether he knew himself. But certain it is that the enemy had good reason to curse that Winchester of his, and he did much to counteract the hostile sniping which was menacing the Battalion so much. For a time he was taken away to be an instructor at the newly-formed Divisional Technical School, where his energies were not restricted to sniping. Among other things, he was one of the very few men who mastered the intricacies of that awful invention—the West Spring Gun. The Battalion had much to thank Sergt. McNulty for and, later in the war, when he went to America as an instructor—how the Americans ever understood his accent was beyond the Battalion—he was greatly missed.
Another feature of the period was the appearance of trench mortars. Almost from the very beginning of trench warfare the Germans had made use of these weapons and, so effective did they prove, that the British soon tried to imitate them. Their first attempts were very crude. The earliest trench mortars to appear in the line had, apparently, been dragged from the obscurity of some museum, and, needless to say, were not to be compared with the “minnie.” The two-inch trench mortar followed, firing its weird, round cannon-ball—affectionately known as a “plum-pudding”—on the end of a rod. Stokes guns were unknown at that early period.