It was on the 3rd May that the 1st Battalion and the rest of the 16th Brigade first heard of the German gas attacks, which occurred north-east of Ypres and to which reference will be made in the next chapter. Precautionary measures were taken, but the second battle of Ypres did not greatly affect the troops so far south of the town as was the 6th Division, but about 1,500 shells fell into Armentieres on the 6th May. On the last day of this month a move was made to the neighbourhood of Bailleul and Poperinghe—the village of Wittenhoek, four miles south of the latter town, being the Buffs’ billet.
On the 2nd June it so happened that the 2nd Battalion, whose adventures are now to be related, were in Poperinghe, and so, in the nature of things, a meeting, which will be referred to later, had to be arranged.
It must be remembered in reading the foregoing pages, and indeed in studying the next chapter also, that the enemy was, during the last quarter of 1914 and early in the next year, making a well-organized and very determined attempt to gain Calais and the coast of the English Channel, and that enormous masses of men were devoted to this effort, as well as artillery vastly superior in weight of metal to that which our side could then by any possibility bring to bear. The English lines of communication ran across the Channel, and it is a maxim of war that if such lines are lost the army that relies on them must either win an overwhelming victory or surrender. If Calais had been won by the Germans the connection between England and her armies would have been to a great extent severed, for how could reinforcements, munitions and necessaries daily cross the Channel under heavy and continuous fire, and repeated and constant attacks from submarine bases?
At Radinghem and at Ypres then, our regiment was helping to defend England from a dreadful and unprecedented disaster, and Men of Kent must further consider that to a certain extent, at any rate, the Buffs were, more than any other regiment, defending their own homeland, for if hostile batteries of modern long-range guns could have been planted on Cape Gris Nez, not only would Dover harbour and dockyard have been destroyed, but, knowing the Germans as we do now, we may be pretty certain that Hythe, Folkestone, Sandgate and perhaps Deal would soon have been in as ruinous a condition as were, a little later, Rheims, Arras and Ypres.
Leaving the 1st Battalion for a while doing its duty in the neighbourhood of Poperinghe, we will now turn our attention to the story of the 2nd Battalion from India.
CHAPTER II
THE 2ND BATTALION TAKES ITS SHARE
I. Returns to England
The opening of hostilities found the headquarters of the 2nd Battalion at Wellington in India. It was, like most units which have been some time abroad, a very fine body of men, in spite of the fact that Wellington is not exactly a training centre and that three detachments were provided by the battalion. Very early in the war it was called upon to send home, to the assistance of the new armies in course of formation, some of the most useful members of the battalion staff and many of the very best sergeants. Training was, however, continued, and in November orders arrived to sail for England on being relieved by Territorial troops, who had quite forgotten apparently that they were home service soldiers only, directly England wanted them abroad.
On leaving the East the Buffs had to leave behind a depot which consisted of a few men passed unfit, all the women and children, and the property of the messes, regimental institutes, Army Temperance Association and rifle ranges; this was under the command of Captain Howard Smith. The only things that went home with the fighting men were the Colours and the mess silver.
The battalion embarked at Bombay on the 16th November on the Cunard ship Ultonia, which was old, slow and dirty, and fearfully overcrowded owing to the 2nd Battalion East Yorkshire regiment being also on board. The ship was under convoy together with thirty-three others, and the whole made Plymouth instead of Southampton on the 23rd December, after making a wide detour in the Atlantic to avoid submarines. The Buffs were bundled off their ship in great haste and without their kits; they got off somehow to Winchester, where they found themselves on a cold, bleak down, in pouring rain and with but very meagre equipment—cooking-pots being one of the very many items that were deficient. An Army Service wagon or two ultimately came along and threw some blankets upon the wet ground, and some bread and meat on top of them, and went away; but of course their drivers were not responsible for cooking-pots. Christmas, 1914, may have been a merry one in many places, even in the trenches to a certain extent, but it is doubtful if the 2nd Battalion of the Buffs ever spent a more miserable one. Certainly Captain Tomlinson’s company got plum puddings, but that was the one bright spot.