Needless to say all ranks of the Battalion were deeply disappointed at the Commander-in-Chief's decision, which was received as a calamity. The highest traditions of the Battalion had been maintained throughout, and the esprit de corps and good comradeship of all ranks made the news almost unbearable.
As soon as the official notification arrived the Battalion was relieved by the First Battalion, the Dorset Regiment, and was withdrawn to Hospital Camp near Woesten where the disbanding was to be carried out. From then onwards an enormous amount of work fell on everybody, especially on the Adjutant, Captain Dunsmuir, M.C., who was responsible for compiling the rolls of the different drafts, which were to proceed to the various H.L.I. Battalions in France, comprising the 10/11th, 12th, 14th, 15th, 16th, and 18th Battalions.
On the 11th of February the first draft, consisting of about seven officers and 200 other ranks marched out of camp to the tune of the pipes en route for the railway station at Boesinghe, where it entrained and proceeded to join the 10/11th Battalion H.L.I. Although there was much cheering as the train steamed away, yet there were many men with sad hearts at leaving the Battalion they had served in from the beginning, which had become their home in the Army.
For the next few days that followed, similar drafts were sent off until the strength of the Battalion was reduced to the establishment for Headquarters with Transport. For about a week this small unit carried on, until the Transport section, under the Transport Officer, Lieut. Smith, was detached, and was attached to the Division where it remained for some time until it was sent to the base for drafting. All that remained now was the Headquarters establishment, commanded by Lieut.-Colonel Inglis, D.S.O., who had returned from leave, and this establishment was sent to take over another camp which was to be run as a Divisional Reception Camp for men returning to their units from leave. About a week later orders were received that some of the H.Q. personnel were to be drafted away, and on the next day a draft of about thirty men under R.S.M. Burns proceeded to join the 13th Entrenching Battalion. A few days later all that was left of the Battalion under Captain Dunsmuir, M.C., was drafted to the same Battalion, and Lieut.-Colonel Inglis, D.S.O., and Major Morton, who was again with the Battalion, were ordered to report to Divisional Headquarters.
All that remained now of the 17th Battalion Highland Light Infantry was the name, but that name will always remain in the minds of those who served in the Battalion, and the mere mention of it brings back happy memories of days spent both at home and abroad to those who knew it.
As William Glennie of "A" Company, writes:—"That the good old Battalion would end, we all expected, as the happy sequence of completed duty, and somehow we all imagined we would be there. In our ideal picture of the scene, George Square was clearly outlined; somehow we fancied old Hughie would order 'Officers, fall out please,' and while the ranks took the rhythmical right turn, the 'Faither' would step forward from the right of 'C' Company, give his characteristic red army salute, shake his cane and rap out 'Quick time off the parade ground' in his best Troon parade style. But we forgot the war, as too often in our ideal outlook we did.
"'Fall out ... the 17th Highland Light Infantry....' That was at No. 6 Camp, Calais, in the chill dusk of 6th February, 1918. Back from Blighty leave, as the news spread, we took it philosophically—the old Battalion had been disbanded, and scattered to various sister battalions. Here we were, practically all the originals to the number of about 50, the sole remnants of 26 months of war, welcomed back to France for the second time, but not to the Seventeenth; orphans to be adopted by strange parents.
"'Quick march.' The party swung slowly down the rough track between the huts. It was one of those innumerable hutted campments behind Poperinghe. At the junction of the road stood Colonel Inglis, Majors Morton and Paterson, Captain Dunsmuir and R.S.M. Kelly. It all seemed so usual, save that there was more handshaking and waving of bonnets. 'Cheerio, old chap—best of luck.' Gone, those pals of three years in camp, trench, billet and shell hole; but we never knew how great a part of our life they had become. Then in the look in each other's eyes, in the huskiness of the voice, rather than in the ill-concealed tear, came the full realisation of the undying spirit of our old Chamber of Commerce Battalion, and the certainty that the death of the Battalion had bequeathed to us the Living Soul of the Seventeenth."