Our stay at Estaires was short, and at 9.45 a.m. on the 27th we marched via St. Venant to Berguettes (where we had detrained on our first arrival three months previously), twelve miles distant, on the Nord Railway, and there entrained. The train consisted of the usual enormously long string of closed wagons “8 Chevaux 40 Hommes,” with here and there a dilapidated passenger coach. We passed westward through Hazebrouck and St. Omer, west into the night, and crept slowly over the flats, deeper and darker, until the twinkling lights of Calais, and the fresh fair faces of women, reminded us of home.
The first greys of morning were just showing through the trees when the sleepy-eyed Battalion, once freed from the choking confinement of the wagons, stretched its stiffening limbs and breathed a purer air. First impressions are as a rule deceptive, but our first impressions of the Somme, when we detrained that lovely morning at Mericourt-Ribemont, lingered for many a day as a sweet memory. The period that followed was one of inestimable preciousness to us. The free wholesomeness of the air, the fresh breezes that served but to stir the leaves and ruffle the pools, contrasted strangely with the clogging miasmas of Flanders. We felt ourselves excited with the discovery of a new world. The whole landscape to our appreciative eyes appeared to be lapped with a beauty as yet untarnished by the impurities of war. The skies were tricked out with a new colouring. In the north the dawn came up with splendours that were hidden from us. The mists blinded the sunrise in Flanders.
Lieut. Tillyard, who had motored south to arrange the billets, met us at the station with rosy accounts of our new area. His reception had been enthusiastic, if somewhat overshadowed by the superior attractions of the uniform of our Highland brethren of the Division, especially the kilt, which was a source of unending wonder to the local population.
We marched away from the leafy arches of Mericourt, that seemed to invite the tired traveller to revel in their coolness. New vistas opened out before us. On our right hand a sugar refinery shot its well-known ugly chimney into the skies. On our left hand a roadside shrine seemed to invite a moment’s meditation. But there, in front, joy to our hearts, lay the broad rolling uplands, topped with yellowing corn, that went before the breeze in glistening waves. There were a few early harvesters at work—old men with sunken cheeks and women with toiling hands, who paused for a moment to gaze at the novel sight of the British “Tommee” on the march.
A new wonder now brought amazement to our faces—those marvellous national highways that take no account of contours, but run, arrow straight, for miles. That on which we set foot at this time was known as the “Route Nationale No. 29 de Rouen.” From Amiens to Albert it ran with scarcely a single deflection. And, as was a feature common to all these national roads, magnificent trees bordered it from end to end. Even in the case of secondary roads attempts were made to utilise the waste lands contiguous. Apple and plum trees were growing by the roadside, their boughs bending with fast ripening fruit. These were all communally owned. France and Belgium are, verily, the high schools of thrift.
The Battalion went into billets at the quaint and attractive little village of Bouzincourt. It was not an elegant village. Its houses all looked jerry built; it adopted no particular plan. Bouzincourt was the communal centre of a large agricultural district. There were no outlying isolated farms. All were collected within the boundaries of the village, in order to secure mutual protection. Each house in the village had its barns and byres attached. One man was no richer than his neighbour, and there was no incitement to ambition. The men who remained, not subject to the military levies, were all old men. About the village the most distinguished person was the curé, whose air of aloofness and stern piety was spoiled by the fat and puffy appearance of his housekeeper, visibly addicted to snuff, so that all fine impressions vanished.
The Battalion was soon distributed round the village, the men in comfortable barns and the officers in the farm houses. Dinner had been prepared en route in the travelling kitchens, and was served immediately on settling down. Interest was languid and appetites mechanical, and, due to the incessant movement and cramped travelling of the past thirty-six hours, the troops sank into oblivion in this restful arcadia.
August, 1915
It is usually the unexpected that happens. Instead of going into the trenches straightaway day succeeded day in peaceful routine work, and this period of our history in France approximated more closely to a rest than any we had yet experienced. By this very immunity from trench cares we missed what must have been a most interesting experience—that of taking over trenches from the French army, who were now released for service elsewhere. This engaging duty fell to the 8th Liverpools, who took over the new sector on August 1st.
On August 3rd the commanding officer and two officers per company visited the trenches, which were to the east of Aveluy, a village three or four kilometres to the east of Bouzincourt, a direct road over a ridge connecting the two. This road, the top and eastern slope of which was in view of the enemy, was impracticable in daylight. A wide detour had therefore to be made via Engelbelmer and Albert. On approaching the latter place a first view was obtained of the damaged campanile of the church—the Eglise Notre Dame de Brebières—a pitiful sight and one to linger in the memory. The spectacle of the beautiful gilded statue of the Mother and Child hanging perilously head downward, through the vile attentions of the Hun, was moving in the extreme. There are some phases of this war to be dismissed with a smile, but wanton destruction such as this, the Cloth Hall at Ypres, Rheims Cathedral, and a hundred other tragic horrors of fallen stones, can evoke only tears. Nothing can atone for them, least of all German Kultur!