Owing to the continuance of the shelling, Battalion Headquarters moved to Hens Post near Windy Corner, but again were not left alone, as the enemy put over some eight-inch and gas shells in the vicinity. Altogether it was a decidedly unpleasant day, and we were not sorry to hear that the 19th Division were to relieve us the same night. The relieving Battalion, the 9th Cheshires, fortunately for them did not arrive until things had quietened down, and the relief, if somewhat lengthy, was carried out more or less in peace. The lucky ones got a ride from Le Touret on the light railway, but the trains for the rest failed to turn up, and they had to foot it back to Beuvry, where the Battalion was billeted, with Major Andrews in temporary command.
CHAPTER XIV
AUCHEL TO PONTRUET
Sept. 7th, 1918.— Sept. 26th, 1918.
We left Beuvry on the morning of Sept. 7th and were taken back on the light railway to Ferfay. On this occasion, much to our surprise, the trains moved off at the scheduled time. From Ferfay it was but a short march to Auchel, another mining village, where we found very good billets, and were welcomed in their usual hospitable way by the French miners and their families. Thanks to a most generous Town Major we got all sorts of little billet comforts, of which he seemed to have an unlimited supply, whilst opposite the Headquarters Mess was a very comfortable little restaurant, bearing the sign, "Cosy Corner," where we found helping to run the show, an old friend known to us in earlier days at Béthune as "Lily."
On the day after our arrival Lieut.-Col. J. F. Dempster, D.S.O., 2nd Manchesters, took over command of the Battalion, Major Andrews resuming the duties of Second-in-Command, and Lieut. C. H. Powell temporarily acting as Adjutant. Changes had also taken place in the Higher Commands in the Division. Brigadier-General John Harington, D.S.O., from the 46th Machine Gun Battalion, had succeeded General Wood in command of the 139th Brigade, and Major-General Thwaites, who had laboured so assiduously to keep the Division up to the highest pitch of perfection in every respect, had gone to England to take up the duties of Director of Military Intelligence at the War Office, and we now had the pleasure of meeting his successor, Major-General G. F. Boyd, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., D.C.M., who was to command the Division for the rest of the war. He came to see us at Auchel, and we soon realised that under his leadership, given ordinary luck, we could not help doing well. Fresh from the battles of the South, he had much to tell us about the latest forms of attack, particularly those carried out in conjunction with Tanks, and we were not long in finding out that what he could not tell us about the kind of fighting that was going on was not worth knowing. He introduced to us the system of advancing in the early stages of the attack in the "Blob" formation, that is, with Companies on wide frontages, echelonned in depth, with each Platoon in a line of sections in "blobs," or small and somewhat open groups. With this formation there was less likelihood of severe casualties from shelling or machine guns, whilst it was a most simple formation from which extensions could be carried out, and at the same time it allowed the Section Commander to retain control of his men up to the last possible moment. This system we at once set about practising, and later on used it in all the battles in which we took part. Very little training was possible during the few days spent at Auchel owing to the bad weather.
It was, of course, general knowledge that we were shortly to take an active part in the fighting in the South, and therefore no surprise when we received orders to entrain. This was carried out in the early hours of Sept. 12th, at Calonne-Ricouart Station, and was rendered extremely uncomfortable by a torrential downpour, which made it specially difficult to get the transport vehicles up the steep ramps on to the trucks. C Company had to do the loading for the whole Brigade, and were at the station for nearly twenty-four hours, working in shifts. They left by the last train at 12.40 p.m., the main body having left at 3.16 a.m. This was our farewell to a district of which we had got to know practically every inch, and of which we shall always retain most happy recollections. We had been there for seventeen months without a break.
Slowly but surely we wended our way Southwards, until we reached Amiens. At one period the town had been emptied of all civilians, but they were just beginning to come back and the streets were now showing slight signs of life again. A certain amount of damage had been done by shell-fire, and as we moved Eastward from Amiens, signs of the one-time proximity of the front line became more marked. Eventually we came to a stop at Corbie Station, where we detrained during the afternoon, after a journey of about twelve hours. After most welcome and refreshing tea, which we owed to the forethought of Capt. Salter, the Acting Staff-Captain, we marched to billets at La Houssoye, some five miles away, where C Company joined us early the following morning. We were now in the IX Corps, which formed part of General Rawlinson's Fourth Army. We were soon able to make ourselves comfortable, though the village was somewhat battered and contained very few inhabitants. When we moved further forward, it was, from a purely military point of view, a decided advantage to find no civilians at all. All around was a delightfully free rolling country, and we could wander anywhere according to our own sweet will, those lucky enough to have horses getting some lovely gallops across the chalk downs. This area had been too near the front line for the past few months for any work to be carried out on the land, and such crops as there were were now being harvested by soldier labour, mostly Canadian.
The enemy had been driven back from the neighbourhood during August by the Australians, who had had particularly hard fighting about Villers-Bretonneux, not many miles distant from where we were billeted, and the work of clearing the battlefield was already in hand. Gangs of Chinese were employed in the task, but we were not impressed by their industry. Everything had to be carried to dumps by the roadside, and no matter what the burden the only authorised way of carrying it was by putting it on the end of a pole, which the "Chink" carried over his shoulder. It seemed decidedly comical, to say the least, to see a man walk several hundred yards to retrieve a coat, for example, hang it on the pole, and walk several more hundred yards with it to a dump! Nevertheless, this seemed to be the recognised way of working.
Such training as we carried out was mostly in the attack and other operations, such as advanced guards, likely to be required in open warfare. Little was done in the way of bombing, which had had its day. There was a good deal of Lewis gun work, and "field-firing" practice in the shape of Platoon attacks on strong points. Flags to represent Tanks were introduced into the scheme with a view to giving some idea of how to follow up a Tank and take possession of the ground it gained. A good deal of practice in Map Reading and Compass work was carried out by Officers and N.C.O.'s, which proved most useful in the days to come. Several Officers and N.C.O.'s here enjoyed their first aeroplane flight through the kindness of the Officer commanding a Bombing Squadron in the vicinity.