In practice also the line was not at all bad. The trenches were deep and narrow, and afforded good protection against shell fire. At the beginning of February everything was frozen hard, and so there was no trouble with the mud; but when a thaw set in, shortly before the Battalion left the sector, the support line and several communication trenches soon became impassable. Accommodation was adequate; most of the dugouts were sufficiently deep to withstand any ordinary bombardment and a few were really comfortable. In short, the line had been carefully constructed, in accordance with ideas now quickly becoming obsolete; it had been well looked after, and might have been a pleasure to live in—but for the enemy. The archaic atmosphere was rather heightened by the presence of such “prehistoric” appliances as the West Spring Gun, and rifle batteries.
One of the most interesting features of the sector was a Russian sap, near the boundary between the centre and left companies. About 75 yards out in No Man’s Land, and nearly parallel to the left company front, was a bank, behind which patrols could move quite out of sight of the enemy. The remains of a derelict sap ran out to its southern end, but this had been replaced by a Russian sap—that is, a covered-in passage—well revetted with timber. A listening post was permanently established at the end of this sap; during the day it remained under cover, but at night it occupied a shell hole in the open. It was in touch with a second post, at the entrance to the sap, by means of a bell worked by a string. This apparatus was tested frequently to make sure that it was in working order. The existence of both listening post and sap was supposed to be unknown to the enemy; probably he knew all about them, but, at any rate, he was not supposed to.
The front system, embracing both front and support lines, was divided into three company sectors. The fourth company was in battalion reserve. Battalion H.Q. was, of course, in its “correct” position, a little in rear of the reserve line. Companies did not always hold the same sectors, for the right was generally considered to be the most uncomfortable; but there was not much to choose between them.
The F1 Sub-sector was the “liveliest” the Battalion held while it was with the Third Army, but it is not to be compared with such places as Thiepval Wood or Nieuport. Heavy artillery was not much used by the enemy, though the reserve company H.Q. had the reputation of being the datum point for 5.9’s. But the German field guns were very active on many parts of the front. The most frequently-shelled spot was the top of Forest Street—the communication trench on the extreme right. That point was constantly and very accurately “whizz-banged,” for the enemy could easily detect any movement there. All parts of the front line came in for attention. The enemy also used “rum-jars” and vane bombs very freely. The latter probably caused far more annoyance than casualties. However, Lieut.-Col. H. A. S. Stanton, D.S.O.,[8] was severely wounded by one of them.
There was also a good deal of back area shelling, and the transport was harassed more than once on its nightly journey with rations. Near Basseux its route led through the position of a 6-inch howitzer battery, which the enemy frequently shelled. There Pte. H. Bibby, while driving a limber up to Riviére one night, had his ride horse killed under him. He coolly cut it out of the traces and completed his journey with one horse, himself walking by the side and supporting the pole for a distance of a mile and a half. It was not the first time that he had been brought to notice, and the award of a Military Medal, which followed, was well deserved.
The British were not idle. Their artillery did plenty of work on that front, and their trench mortars were always ready to fire. There were some excellent and well-hidden Stokes mortar positions, and also some 2-inch in the line. Both of these were eager to retaliate, and it was soon found that the former quickly stopped the enemy’s use of vane bombs. Targets for Lewis guns or rifles were not common, but C.S.M. A. McNulty did some excellent practice with his Winchester. His gory tale of how, after more than four hours’ waiting, he saw the blood splash from the forehead of a German officer, was much appreciated by all who heard it. The snow made patrolling difficult at first, but it did not stop it. The higher authorities were clamouring for identification, and every possible means was tried. But enemy patrols were conspicuous by their absence. Once a working party was located near the head of the Russian sap, and a plan was made to secure a dead or wounded German. A party was to lie in wait in the sap, and, when it heard the enemy, to signal to the artillery, who would open a heavy burst of shrapnel fire; the party was then to rush out, pick up the killed and wounded, and return. But though Lieut. F. H. Kelsall waited in the sap for several hours, on more than one occasion, the enemy party did not again appear. So, when all other means of obtaining identification had been tried without success, the Battalion was ordered to make a raid on the enemy line.
Capt. J. G. Mowat was selected to command the raiders. Arrangements were made for the whole party to stop out of the line during the next tour, to rehearse the operation. Comfortable billets were provided for the men, they were not worked too hard, and they enjoyed themselves thoroughly. Once their billets were changed owing to a rumour about a spy. There may have been some truth in the report. Certainly the inhabitants of Riviére, in some unknown way, learned much about the operation beforehand. They even knew zero hour, a point which had been kept secret from nearly all the raiders themselves.
Raid near Ficheux.
17.2.17.