Lieut.-Col. C. J. PICKERING, C.M.G., D.S.O.
Lieut.-Col. G. K. SULLIVAN, O.B.E., M.C.
On October 21st, after a heavy trench-mortaring which destroyed several dugouts, the Battalion was relieved by the 1/4th Battalion King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, and went back to the Canal Bank.
(c) The Wet Months.
Towards the end of October His Majesty the King visited Abeele, and there reviewed representatives of all the Divisions of the VI. Corps. To this review the Battalion sent a contingent[6] of twenty-five other ranks, under the command of Lieut. E. N. Marshall. Needless to say they were a carefully picked body of men, and it is worthy of note that the detachment from the 49th Division was specially commended by His Majesty for its smart turn-out that day.
At the end of the month the weather completely broke up and heavy rain became normal. The Battalion was in comparative comfort on the Canal Bank, but ominous reports soon began to come in from the units holding the line. Bad as these reports were, they were mild compared with the actual conditions under which the men were to exist for the next two months. On October 30th the Battalion relieved the 7th Battalion Duke of Wellington’s Regt. in the extreme left sector; and then began for it such a period of hardship and misery as it has never since been called upon to endure for so long a time.
In one way the telling of this part of the Battalion’s history is comparatively easy. During the earlier part of its stay in the Ypres Salient it had seldom done more than two tours in the same sector. But from the end of October, until it was finally relieved in December, the Battalion held no sector of the line except the extreme left; and, in every way, that sector was the worst on the divisional front. Its proximity to the opposing trenches, and the commanding position occupied by the Germans, have already been described. The trenches lay very little above the water level of the Ypres-Commines Canal and, as soon as the rains began, they naturally received much of the drainage from the Pilkem Ridge. They were badly sited and badly constructed. Consisting mainly of sandbag breast-works, they were the worst possible type to inhabit in wet weather. They had been considered the worst on the front during the fine weather; words cannot adequately describe what they became early in November.
When the Battalion took over the sector on October 30th the trenches were already in an appalling condition. The front line was in places more than two feet deep in semi-liquid mud, and parts of it were entirely isolated from neighbouring posts, except by cross-country routes; stretches of the communication trenches were waist deep in water. And this was the result of only about two days of steady rain! For the next two months the conditions gradually became worse and worse; occasional short frosts gave a little temporary relief, but the thaws which followed them only made the trenches more awful than before. Thoroughly undermined by water, the revetments bulged and caved in, literally before the eyes of the men. In a few days, hundreds of yards of trenches had become nothing but cavities filled with mud and water. The shelters of the sector had never been protection against anything but bullets and the weather. They ceased to be even that now. Water from the trenches overflowed into them and flooded the floors, their supports were undermined, and one by one they collapsed, often causing casualties to the men who occupied them, until scarcely a habitable one remained near the front line. The enemy made full use of his higher position. Pumping the water out of his own line, he allowed it to flow across No Man’s Land into the British line. Often the water was so deep in the trenches that thigh-boots became useless. Had there been a well-planned system of drainage, something might have been done. But it was only the coming of the rain that opened the eyes of the authorities to the condition of the sector, and the drainage scheme which was then started was never far enough advanced to be of much use while the 49th Division was there. What was to be done with the water? Most of it had to stop where it was. Occasionally it was possible to divert a little of it elsewhere—in some cases, it is feared, into other people’s lines. Only in one small trench on the extreme left could it be turned back into the enemy lines, and, in order to effect that desirable operation, the whole had to flow right along the British front line first.
The utter collapse, and consequent evacuation, of long stretches of the line considerably altered the method of holding it. Many of the posts were completely cut off from one another, except by movement across the open. Such movement was extremely hazardous by day, for the enemy snipers and machine gunners were only too ready to take advantage of the many opportunities which the new state of affairs gave them. With parapets sliding in and trenches filling, it was soon impossible for a man to move about in daylight without exposing himself. By night there was an additional danger. It required a man, with a very good sense of direction, to move over that area of water-logged and derelict trenches without losing his way. The case of Pte. T. Atkinson—the first prisoner the enemy secured from the Battalion—was a good illustration of this. In company with another man, he had successfully delivered rations to an isolated front line post, but, on the way back, the two disagreed about the direction of their own lines and separated, each going his own way. The other man rejoined his platoon in safety; Pte. Atkinson, apparently, walked straight across No Man’s Land into the arms of the enemy.