When the brigade moved out into reserve the 7th had to dig themselves into the earth near Chateau-de-la-Haie north of Sailly-au-Bois. In less than twenty-four hours small groups of men had made a hole for themselves, covered it with an elephant shelter, and camouflaged it with sods. It was heavy work while it lasted, but it was necessary to work quickly because of hostile aircraft. A neighbouring battery of 60-pounders were righteously indignant at our invasion, but still the staff said we were to go there, and there we went. On the other hand it was by no means comforting to realise that once the Hun spotted the 60-pounders we should be partakers in the unwelcome attention that would probably follow, so we were quits anyhow. Luckily the enemy did not see us, or he was displaying a lofty contempt, for after five day's residence the battalion moved up into the line at Gommecourt, having had no mishap. During this period our lists of "Bucquoy decorations" came through, and they were very gratifying. In addition to the M.C's. already mentioned, Capt. Nidd and 2nd-Lt. Harland were similarly rewarded for their work as company commanders. Sgt. McHugh, who had acted as C.S.M. of "C" company, received a bar to his M.M., and Sgt. Heath, who had died of wounds, was decorated in like manner. Twenty-four other men received the Military Medal, their names being recorded in the appendix at the end of the book.
On April 30th the new C.O., Lt.-Col. Manger, of the Durham L.I., arrived. A regular soldier of many years' standing, he was pleased to be sent again to a territorial battalion, for he had learnt the value of these troops whilst commanding the 2nd 9th King's Liverpool Regiment of the 57th division. He joined the battalion at Gommecourt and Major Higham immediately went down for a rest. There was very little of outside interest during the succeeding days beyond the usual work of consolidation and keeping the enemy under closest possible observation. Still, the battalion was glad to be relieved on May 6th, the whole division coming out for a good period of rest.
The 127th brigade were given camp areas around Henu, divisional headquarters being at Pas. We made the most of these May weeks, filled with delightful sunshine, and, as events worked out, it was as well we did, for it was the last long rest period we were to get until after the armistice. Important changes took place in the battalion about this time. Major Higham and Capt. Townson, both pre-war officers of the 7th, severed their active service connection with us by being invalided to England, the former's place being taken by Major Rae of the Liverpool Scottish. Amongst a draft of officers that we received from a division that had been broken on the fifth army front was Capt. Allen, M.C., whose original unit was the 6th Manchesters. He was put in command of "A" company. R.S.M. Anlezark, of the 1st battalion, was posted to us for duty, and A/R.S.M. Clough succeeded R.Q.M.S. Ogden, who had returned to England after a long period of hard and useful work with the 7th. It was not many weeks after this period of rest that another long-standing and popular officer was lost to the 7th; this was Capt. Nidd, M.C. We had always known that his grit and determination exceeded his physical capacity, but his splendid sense of duty led him to ignore this fact, although it was common knowledge that had he so wished he could have been invalided out of the army long before. After severe trials on Gallipoli, a campaign he went through from June to the evacuation (he was one of the very few men to whom that evacuation was irksome), he had had a relapse in hospital in Egypt for some weeks. The Bucquoy fight, however, had proved too much for him, and he never really recovered from the ill-effects of it. This was accentuated by the death of two of his near and dear friends—Lt. W. Thorp for whom, as one of his subalterns, he had a particular esteem, and Capt. Tinker. The latter was a pre-war officer of the 7th, while Thorp had gone out to the Sudan in the ranks, served through Gallipoli with distinction (vide Major Hurst's book) and then received a commission early in 1916. Capt. Tinker's record with the battalion was one of steady confidence. After being invalided to England from a wound received on Gallipoli, he rejoined in Egypt in Feb. 1916, and was immediately given command of "A" company. From that day he had always been amongst us, and, except when on leave or on a course, he was with his company, in the line or out of it. In fact, it was a record of "full steam ahead" until the day he was killed amongst his men. What Tinker was to "A" so was Nidd to "B" company, and his greatest regret, when at last hospital claimed him, was in leaving the men whom he knew so well. His departure was followed by a long illness, and it was a great blow to his friends to hear of his death after the armistice in his own home at Cheadle Hulme. His name can be added to the long list of victims of the great German offensive in March.
Strict training was indulged in during these weeks, and in addition hot, laborious days were occupied by rehearsals of the manning of the Red Line in the neighbourhood of Souastre, to say nothing of skeleton counter-attacks upon Beer Trench, Rum Trench, and Stout Trench, near Gommecourt. We never knew the point of these names unless they were to act as a stimulant to the vigour of our thrusts, the troops labouring under the delusion that the trenches were filled with the liquids indicated. At all events they were not there during the rehearsals in spite of the hot weather. But if these diversions caused us to attain the boiling point of excitement, the arrival of General Byng on May 21st to witness a special stunt by the 7th almost burst the thermometer. A source of some interest was the presence of an American battalion consisting of raw troops of three weeks' New York training, to which the 127th brigade was acting as godfather. They worked diligently and with a keen appreciation of any hints supplied to them by their British friends. Also, not to be outdone by our frequent displays of football, they regularly utilised our ground for baseball, of which game they possessed a few brilliant exponents. We soon grew to like our new allies, and we were rather sorry when they departed to join their own division.
On June 6th the 42nd division took over the line once more and were not relieved of responsibility of the front until Sept. 6th, sixteen days after the big offensive had commenced. The 7th occupied the part of the front which we knew so well at Hebuterne, relieving a battalion of the New Zealand Division. The "Diggers" had worked hard upon these trenches with the result that they were now in excellent condition. A good spell of weather also assisted in the comfort of the troops. Col. Manger's policy was to give the Hun no rest, and he began to put his principles into practice at Hebuterne. As soon as we arrived, a thorough reconnaissance of the enemy positions was made, and we began to make preparation for a raid of some magnitude. This was carried out by "B" company, of which Capt. Grey Burn was now in command, and the officers selected to go over with the raiders were Lieut. Wender, D.C.M., who had previously served with the 1st Battalion in Mesopotamia, 2nd-Lt. Milne and 2nd-Lt. Goodier. Goodier had been a sergeant in "C" company, and for his excellent services at Bucquoy had been recommended for promotion in the field to the commissioned ranks, a distinction which came through while we were at Henu.
It was known that the enemy held his front line in a series of isolated posts, each armed with light machine guns. Curiously enough, whether through lack of material or not we never knew, he paid little or no attention to wiring in these days, except in utilising what old wire lay about. One of these posts was located within one hundred yards of our front line in Fusilier Trench, and this, it was decided, should be raided. At 1 a.m. on the morning of June 16th a three minutes' shrapnel barrage was opened on the enemy's trench, while a box barrage of H.E. was placed all round the portion to be raided. At the end of this time the boys leapt over in four parties, three to make for the trench and the fourth to act as support and as a covering party for withdrawal. Then it was found that the shelling had hardly been sufficient for numerous enemy flares went up, throwing daylight over the whole scene, and our men were greeted by heavy machine gun fire. Wender, who was on the right, jumped over first and rapidly dashed off for the Boche trench, leaving his men well behind. He was never seen or heard of again, and it must be presumed that he was killed in the trench. Goodier got his men across on the left and they jumped into the trench, only to find it filled with concertina barbed wire, so they came out again and worked their way along the top to the centre, being by this time heavily bombed. They came to a party of Huns who immediately fled, but Goodier seized one and he and his now tiny party returned triumphantly with their prisoner and with fragments of bombs in their bodies. Milne, having ranged over part of the Boche trench to find no one, covered the withdrawal and then brought his party in. It was an extraordinary show in which everyone had displayed considerable pluck, and the taking of one prisoner had just converted it into a success, but we had sustained a large number of casualties, most of them, fortunately, only slight. Of the officers, Goodier was scratched, and Milne had a bullet through his arm, whilst among those who were not actually with the raiders Lt. C. S. Wood, the signalling officer, was somewhat badly wounded, his work being taken over later by 2nd-Lt. Smith, and Lt. S. J. Wilson was slightly wounded. 2nd-Lt. Goodier was awarded the M.C., Sgt. Fleetwood and Sgt. Green the D.C.M., while five others received the M.M. for this night's work. This was the concluding page of our first chapter in the front line, for we then moved out to Sailly in reserve.
When the brigade went into the line again it was to take over the sector to the right of Hebuterne on the ridge previously mentioned. The most important feature about this part of the line was La Signy Farm, which lay just below the crest on the eastern side of the ridge. The ruins of the farm building were in Boche hands, but the eastern side of the five hundred yards square hedge that surrounded the grounds ran along our front line. North of the grounds our line was echeloned forward and then ran due north to the corner of Hebuterne. Skeletons of large trees stood up like tall sentinels over the piles of bricks and stones which had once made up the farm buildings. At the farthest corner of the hedge was a shell-pitted patch of ground in a slight depression marked on the map as Basin Wood. This was known to be honeycombed with deep dug-outs and galleries and was therefore a frequent target for our heavy howitzers. Further south the two opposing lines were almost parallel as far as the vicinity of Watling Street—then a Boche trench. In the dead ground behind our line was Euston Dump, which had gone up with a tremendous roar in the early days of the March fighting, leaving a large hole. Stoke's mortar shells, "footballs," etc., were scattered about in all directions. Not far away from here was the Sugar Factory, which, from the attention it received, the Hun regarded as more important than we did.
The C.O. maintained his policy of worrying the Hun in every possible manner, the fullest use being made of the artillery liaison officers and the Stokes and Newton trench mortars for this purpose. Every night little strafes were planned which must have kept Fritz in a constant state of speculation as to what might happen next. To assist in these annoying tactics a special company of R.E., whose particular devilry was gas, came up and dug in 1,000 gas projectiles behind the support lines. On two separate nights, after everything had been considered favourable, they gleefully let them off at La Signy Farm and its environs, and then disappeared down their dug-outs to gloat over the picture of choking and writhing Huns. We consoled ourselves with the probability that the enemy had sustained more casualties than we had.
On July 8th Corps had a sudden recurrence of "attackitis," and, doubtless at the instigation of a junior intelligence officer, they sent out a frantic request to "all whom it may concern" to ascertain who the enemy were in front. They had feared a relief by large German soldiers who were anxious to smell the blood of the Hated English. This message, or an adulterated form of it, filtered "through the usual channels" and so reached the 7th in the late afternoon. Two hours before darkness it had been answered in the following manner.
Reconnaissance had indicated an enemy post within eighty yards of our line close to where the Serre road crossed it, but it was protected by concertina barbed wire. "D" company were holding that part of the line, and they were asked to furnish a party prepared to go over almost at once for a Hun. An enterprising artillery liaison officer, Lt. Bates, obtained permission to make use of a couple of 4.5 howitzers which he said were new and very accurate, and these, firing graze fuse shells at his correction would smash the wire. The only place from which observation on this wire could be obtained was in our front line directly opposite to it, and here a temporary O.P. with telephonic communication to the battery was rigged up, the garrison of this part being moved off left and right for safety. It was a nerve-racking experience in that O.P., as may be gathered from the fact that we were trying to hit an object less than 70 yards away! It took over an hour to get a satisfactory result, and then 2nd-Lt. Gorst, Sgt. Horsfield and seven other men, in shirt sleeves and armed with revolvers, hopped quickly over, ran along a shallow trench or ditch, and entered the Hun post. It was empty with the exception of one dead man who had just been killed by one of our shells. He was quickly carted back, but with great difficulty for he was a big heavy fellow, while Gorst and Horsfield searched along the trench both ways for more Huns. None were to be found, however—evidently our inexplicable shelling had scared them off altogether. Still the dead man was good enough for the purpose, for he furnished the required identification, and his regiment was immediately wired to H.Q. There had been no relief, so calm reigned once more.