At 2 p.m. I rode forward with an orderly and visited the Brigade and all batteries. Heavy rain set in again, and as every one seemed fairly comfortable and there was no accommodation forward I decided to spend another night at the canal. The road is blocked with traffic from morning till night, and I am afraid it will break up badly if the rain continues—the whole show depends on that one, blessed road, and apparently it is going to be my job for two or three days more until the Corps troops can get up. The Brigade was in action when I reached them and a stiff fight was going on around the last ridges—the Huns are sticking a bit and a fierce counter-attack had just been driven back—rifle and machine-gun fire was very intense. I saw a lot of Hun dead about the roads and a few of our fellows. The Huns have left a lot of guns behind and should be fairly hard hit.
It was dark when I got back, and the horses could hardly crawl along. Rations and forage came up shortly afterwards, so we turned in and had a good night’s rest.
Sept. 30. Heavy rain all last night. At 8 a.m. I sent two orderlies up to Brigade and my groom back to the company to change my mare—she was completely exhausted. Pending receipt of orders we rigged up a shelter for the horses, as they were shivering badly and I began to be frightened for them—the poor beasts are caked with mud, and even their eyes are hardly free from it.
At noon received orders to go forward as early as possible, so I sent half the limber back for rations and moved up with the section. After a really terrific struggle we got as far as the batteries and managed to find a bit of cover in some old German concrete dug-outs. Worked till dark on the road and then started to fix things up for the night. The dug-outs were in the middle of a swamp about 500 yards from the road, and in the dark it took us three-quarters of an hour to reach them. I had to give up all idea of getting the horses across, and finally found a place where they could stand about a mile from the dug-outs. The drivers were quite worn out, so we had to mount a stable-guard of sappers, with instructions to move the horses every hour to prevent them sinking in the mud. It is still raining, bitterly cold, and I can’t understand how the poor beasts live. The wagons are nearly axle deep. Shortly after midnight I had every one settled and then crawled, literally, into my own shack. It is an old Bosche concrete place and stinks like Hell—there are two wooden bunks in it, but it is dry. My man lit a fire on the floor and we warmed up some old tea in my shaving mug. I was chilled to the bone and there was nothing to eat, but I shall always believe that that tea saved my life. There was no room for officer and servant there—just two very weary men, we sat on either side the fire drying our socks and the smell mingled with the fetid odours of the dug-out. Our eyes grew red and tearful with the smoke, which eventually drove us to the uninviting boards, where we slept like the Babes in the Wood. Several times during the night I woke up shivering with cold and the clammy clothes sticking to my skin, but—we were over the hills and I would not have missed that night for all the gold in Africa.
Oct. 1. Up at 5.30 and immensely cheered to see a blue sky, although I didn’t begin to feel normally warm until about noon. Bully and biscuit for breakfast as a change from the biscuit and bully of the preceding days. Received an official note of thanks from the Brigade for our work, and orders from the C.R.E. to rejoin the company. Apparently the advance is held up for a few days until heavy guns and supplies can get forward again. I sent No. 2 Section forward to work on the new plank avoiding road and returned to meet the Major at 8 a.m. He returned to the company and sent up Nos. 1 and 4 Sections to me from reserve billets. No. 3 Section also rejoined, so I fixed the lot in billets as well as possible and then took out Nos. 1, 3, 4 to work on the road with No. 2. We have now got all our limbers and tool-carts as far as the batteries, and I am commanding all the sections—Cooper remains with the heavy transport on the other side of the mud. Rode round the work during the afternoon and met the C.R.E., who was full of congratulations. Withdrew to billets at 5 p.m. to give the men a chance to dry their clothes and have a warm meal—the first they have had since the 27th.
We are without definite news, but apparently the whole show has been a great success, and the Army is only waiting until we can get the roads through. I can never forget the great change which seemed to spread like wildfire over the spirit of the Army on the evening of the 28th–29th.
We were in the midst of the worst of the mud area, miles of transport wagons were bogged along our single road, it was raining hard, and few of us had eaten anything for twenty-four hours. Nobody was looking forward to the dawn. But from somewhere behind us a rumour came through that Bulgaria had asked for Peace. There was no cheering, no demonstration of any sort, but the news seemed to put new spirit into the tired troops. The weary mud-caked horses were lashed and spurred again, men put their aching shoulders to the wheels, and once more the limbers lumbered forward. All night long the wagons toiled painfully up those fateful ridges where scores of thousands of our finest infantry had died, and in the drizzling dawn they saw their reward at last—behind them lay the dull, dead plain, with its memories of misery and mud—before them, they looked down upon a new, unbroken country, and the spire of Tenbrielen church, untouched of shot or shell, beckoned like a winning post against the eastern sky.
Oct. 2. Heavy rain again last night, but it hasn’t damped our spirits. We could meet almost any call again now.
At 5.30 a.m. an orderly came in with orders from the C.R.E. saying that we are to work from six to nine on the Divisional main road. By dashing off without any breakfast we were able to start at 7.30, and returned for a meal at noon—our first since yesterday evening. In the afternoon Day worked the sections on the road while the Major and I brought up the heavy transport.
Artillery horse-lines just forward of our own were heavily shelled for about five minutes and a lot of horses were knocked out—about 100 of the poor beasts stampeded, and it was a pitiful sight to see some of them dragging their entrails along the ground.