At the moment, however, we had little time to trouble about the town ourselves, as on April 24th, we moved out again. After a novel and amusing cricket match—if such it could be called—in the Barrack Square in the afternoon, we relieved at night the 2nd Royal Scots in the right sub-sector of the Essars sector, with two Companies in the front line and two in support, Battalion Headquarters being at Le Hamel, in the cellar of a farmhouse. Company Commanders at this time were: A, Capt. Andrews; B, Capt. C. P. Elliott; C, 2nd Lieut. Kent, who had taken over command when Major Cursham went to hospital; D, Capt. Simonet. It was fortunate that they had been up to reconnoitre the day before, for when platoons reached the appointed rendezvous, the guides were not there. We had had sufficient experience by this time to know that, although all possible precautions were taken, it was a most difficult problem to make certain that every guide was a picked man, knew exactly where he was to meet his party, what that party was, and where it was to be guided to, and to be able to do all this by night without a hitch. Ian Hay has classified guides in two grades (a) the guide who doesn't know the way and tells you so; (b) the guide who doesn't know the way and doesn't tell you so until he has lost both you and himself. We might add to this (c) the guide who doesn't turn up! In this case however, nothing desperate happened, and in due course the relief was carried out.
The conditions here were indeed novel, and more like those of "open warfare" than any we had yet experienced. It might almost be said that we had now bidden farewell to real trenches, for, though the line in the Gorre and Essars sectors, remained stationary for nearly four months and trenches certainly were dug, from now onwards we never had quite the same type of front line as we had hitherto been accustomed to. The German rush had been brought to a halt, not many days before we took over, so that there were practically no defences of any kind. The outpost line consisted of a few shell-holes, and small slits dug in the ground at intervals with a very small amount of barbed wire in front. The support line, known as the "Liverpool Line," consisted mainly of a few slits, but was protected for a great portion of its length by the Beuvry River, and a fair barbed wire entanglement. A few shelters had already been made in both lines, by putting sheets of corrugated iron over some of the small trenches which had been dug, and camouflaging them with earth. Some distance behind the Liverpool Line there were some old breastworks, forming part of a reserve line, which some of us remembered seeing the French constructing in the Autumn of 1915, when we were in the Vieille Chapelle area, just North of this. In some of these there were small concrete shelters very much like old-fashioned pigsties, which on the left of the Essars sector, were used for Battalion Headquarters. There were of course no communication trenches whatever, all communication to the front posts being over the top, mostly by tracks through the growing crops.
The whole area was perfectly flat, and almost entirely under observation, so that by day no movement was possible, and no work could be done, and as the nights were now getting shorter and shorter, very few hours in every 24 could be utilised for doing the work we were so anxious to get on with. There was nothing to be done by day, apart from ordinary sentry duty, except to keep out of sight and make ourselves as comfortable as very cramped quarters would allow.
A further disadvantage was that the water level in the ground was very near the surface, so that dug-outs were impossible, and the most we could do was to put up small corrugated iron shelters, mainly in T-shaped saps running back from the trenches. These we pushed on with as rapidly as possible, in order to afford some protection in case of bad weather. In this respect we were extremely lucky, and for a very great part of our stay the weather was delightful, days and sometimes weeks together passing without a single drop of rain.
The first tour of four days was quiet, except for some gas shelling, which the Boche was doing much more extensively now, especially about sunrise and sunset, when he was particularly fond of dosing Battalion Headquarters at Le Hamel, and Essars and Gorre. At the latter place the château and the wood were the favourite targets, and on several occasions were absolutely drenched with gas. At this time it was mainly "yellow cross" or "mustard" gas that was used, a very deadly gas, affecting any part of the body exposed to it, and particularly dangerous when the sun was up. A certain amount of "green cross" or "phosgene" which was decidedly dangerous, was also used, as well as a little "blue cross," which apart from making one sneeze had no very ill effect, unless inhaled in large quantities. During this tour we did little except get used to the new conditions, and try to find our way about. It was the simplest thing in the world to get in front of the outpost line without knowing you were there, and on occasions people were even discovered in No Man's Land asking for the support line! Visiting the posts in the front line was also at first more or less a matter of conjecture, but in course of time most of them were joined up by a continuous trench. At first the novelty of it all amused us, and after all it was a very welcome change from ordinary trench life.
It was during the first tour that we had the great misfortune to lose a very gallant Officer and sportsman—H. K. Simonet. He had moved his Company Headquarters from an unprotected shell-hole to a cottage at Les Façons, in the outpost line itself, only to get a direct hit on it almost immediately which resulted in Simonet and his runner, Pvte. Garratt, one of the most reliable and gallant men in the Battalion, being badly wounded. Neither recovered, and they were buried near each other in the Cemetery at Lapugnoy. A most capable Officer, of fine leadership and magnificent character, "Simmy" was liked by all and his loss was felt most keenly throughout the Battalion. He was succeeded in command of D Company by Lieut. Warner, whose place as Signalling Officer was taken by 2nd Lieut. Stephenson.
On April 28th, we were relieved by the 5th Leicesters, and moved back into Divisional Reserve at Fouquières, where we stayed four days, during which the chief excitement was that we had to stand to in the early hours of May 1st, as there were rumours of another German attack, which fortunately did not mature.
We took over from the 6th South Staffords in support in the Gorre sector, on May 2nd, and had something of a shock on finding that they had lost nearly 50 per cent. of their numbers during their tour by mustard gas poisoning, with which the Boche had literally drenched the whole of Gorre Wood and château, and most of the village. It was not a comfortable introduction to the sector! Fortunately most of the casualties proved to be slight, and the greater part were able to rejoin a few days later.
