Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1228 page)

On the dawn of the 10th October, Battalion Headquarters moved forward again to the second objective line, but except for some low-flying enemy planes, the day passed quietly till the afternoon when the same French “seventy-five,” which had been firing short the day before, took it into its misdirected head to shell No. 1 Company so savagely that that had to be shifted to the left in haste. There was no explanation, and while the company was on the move the enemy put down a two hours’ barrage just behind the second objective. It has often been remarked that when the Hun leads off on the wrong foot, so to say, at the beginning of a fray, he keeps on putting his foot into it throughout. Luckily, the barrage did not do much harm.

The Welsh Guards relieved in the late evening, and by eleven o’clock the whole Battalion was safe in Dulwich Camp with an amazingly small casualty list. The only officer killed had been Captain Hanbury. Lieutenants Close and Bagot were wounded and also Alexander and Father Browne, these last two so slightly that they still remained on duty. Of other ranks they had but twenty dead, eighty-nine wounded, and two missing. The Wurtembergers’ raid had cost them more. And that, too, was the luck of war.

None of them knew particularly how the fight outside their limited vision had gone. The Scots Guards were comfortably on their right, keeping step for step; and the French on the left, barring their incontinent gun, had moved equally level. But they were all abominably stiff from negotiating the slippery-sided shell-holes and the mud, and it took them two days’ hard work to clean up.

On the 13th October they relieved the 1st Scots Guards for fatigue-parties to the front, and lay in a camp of sand-bag and corrugated iron hovels where the men had to manufacture shelter for themselves, while a long-range German gun prevented that work from being too dull. But again there was no damage. They were relieved on the 16th October from these duties by a battalion of the Cheshires and marched to Elverdinghe, leaving the Pioneers behind for a little to put up crosses over the graves of the newly dead. That closed the chapter and they lapsed back to “the usual routine,” of drill, inspections, and sports. They were at Houlle Camp near Watten on the 21st when the 2nd Guards Brigade was inspected by H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught, and the Battalion, in walking-out order, lined the roads and cheered. Sir Douglas Haig, too, inspected them on the 25th October with the whole of their Division, dealt them all those compliments on past work which were their undeniable right, and congratulated them on their turn-out. The Battalion then was specially well set up and hard-bitten, running to largish men even in No. 2 Company. Their new drafts had all been worked up and worked down; the new C.O.’s hand and systems were firmly established; company cooks and their satellites had been reformed, and — which puts a bloom on men as quickly as food — they were “happy” under a justice which allowed an immense amount of honest, intimate, domestic fun.

Of the tales which ran about at that period there is one perhaps worth recording. During the fatigues on the Boesinghe front it fell to them to relieve some battalion or other which, after much manœuvring in the mud, at last drew clear of its trenches to let in the wet and impatient Irish. The latter’s C.O., wearied to the bone, was sitting in the drizzling dark beside the communication-trench, his head on his hand and on his wrist his campaign watch with its luminous dial. Suddenly, as the relieved shadows dragged themselves by, he felt his wrist gently taken, slightly turned, and after an instant’s inspection, loosed again. Naturally, he demanded by all the Gods of the Army what the unseen caitiff meant by his outrageous deed. To him, from the dark, in irresistible Cockney, “Beg pardon, Sir, but I thought it was a glow-worm,” and the poor devil who had been cut off from all knowledge of earthly time for the past three days shuffled on, leaving behind him a lieut.-colonel of the Brigade of Guards defeated and shaken with mirth.

Their rest lasted till the 9th November, during which time 2nd Lieutenants Cary-Elwes and A. F. Synge joined, and Captain Sassoon came up from the base and took over No. 3 Company. Lieut.-Colonel Pawlett of the Canadian Army was attached to the Battalion from the 6th of the month, and Captain the Hon. H. A. V. Harmsworth rejoined from the staff where, like a brother-officer in the entrenching battalion, his heart was not. On the 9th, too, Lieutenant Lysaght and Sergeant R. Macfarlane were decorated with the Croix de Guerre by General Antoine commanding the First French Army.

On the 10th of November they were ordered out into the St. Pol area which, as a jumping-off place, offered as many possibilities as Charing Cross station on a Bank holiday. One knows from the record of the 1st Battalion that the whole Division now on the move were prepared for and given to believe anything — even that they might be despatched to Italy, to retrieve October’s disaster of Caporetto. But it is known now that the long series of operations round the Salient — Messines, the two months’ agony of the Third Battle of Ypres, and the rest — had drawn the enemy forces and held them more and more to the northward of our front; and that Sir Julian Byng had been entrusted to drive at the Hindenburg Line on the Somme with the Sixth, Fourth, Third, and Seventh Army Corps, from Bullecourt southward to a little south of Gonnelieu.

It was to be a surprise without artillery preparation, but very many tanks were to do the guns’ work in rooting out trenches, barbed wire, and machine-gun nests.

The main attack was on a front of six miles, and, as has been noted elsewhere, the official idea was not to make the capture of Cambrai, behind the Hindenburg Line, a main feature of the affair, but to get as far into the enemy’s ground as could be, and above all, to secure a clean flank for ourselves to the north-east of Bourlon Wood near Cambrai where the lie of the Somme Downs gave vital observation and command. The Guards Division, as usual, would wait upon the results. If the thing was a success they would advance on Cambrai. If not, they would assist as requisite.

It was late in the year, and the weather was no treat as the 2nd Battalion Irish Guards marched out in the wet from Houlle on the 10th November to Ecques, and, in billets there, made its first acquaintance with a battalion of Portuguese troops. Two days more brought them to Ostreville’s bad billets and a draft of a hundred new hands with Lieutenant M. R. Hely-Hutchinson and 2nd Lieutenant F. C. Lynch-Blosse. Not a man had fallen out on the road, but they were glad of a four days’ halt and clean-up, though that included instruction in outpost companies and positions.

On the 17th they continued their march south to Ambrines over the large, untouched lands of the high water-shed between the Scarpe and the little streams that feed the Authies River. The next day carried them no longer south, but east towards the noise of the unquiet Somme guns, and had they any doubts as to their future, it was settled by one significant gas-helmet drill. (“But we knew, or at least, I did, having done my trick here before, that we were for it. Ye could begin to smell the dam’ Somme as soon as ye was across that Arras railway.”)

They heard the opening of Cambrai fight from Courcelles in the early morn of the 20th November — a sudden and immense grunt, rather than roar, of a barrage that lasted half an hour as the tanks rolled out through the morning mists, and for the first time the Hindenburg Line was broken.

BOURLON WOOD

They held on, under two hours’ notice, through Achiet-le-Grand, Bapaume, and Riencourt to Beaulencourt in icy rain and mud. The wreckage of battle was coming back to them now, as they moved in the wake of the Fifty-first Division that was pressing on towards Flesquières, and passed a number of prisoners taken round Noyelles and Marcoing. Here were rumours of vast captures, of Cambrai fallen, and of cavalry pushing through beyond. The 24th November brought them, in continuous drizzle, to the smoking and ruined land between Trescault and Ribecourt, which was crowded with infantry and the Second Cavalry Division near by; and they lay out in a sound unoccupied trench, once part of the Hindenburg Line. Our tanks had left their trails everywhere, and the trodden-down breadths of wire-entanglements, studded here and there with crushed bodies, suggested to one beholder “the currants in the biscuits one used to buy at school.” Suddenly news of Cambrai fight began to change colour. They were told that it had “stuck” round Bourlon Wood, a sullen hundred-acre plantation which commanded all the ground we had won north of Flesquières, and was the key to the whole position at the northern end of the field. Seldom had woodland and coppice cost more for a few days’ rental, even at the expensive rates then current on the Somme. Here are some of the items in the account: On the 21st November the Fifty-first Division, supported by tanks, had captured Fontaine-Notre-Dame village which lay between Bourlon Wood and Cambrai, and, till beaten out again by the enemy, had worked into the Wood itself. Fontaine was lost on the 22nd, and attacked on the 23rd November by the Fifty-first Division again, but without definite result. The Fortieth Division were put in on the evening of the same day and managed to take the whole of the Wood, even reaching Bourlon village behind it. Here they held up a fierce counter attack of German Grenadiers, but, in the long run, were pushed out and back to the lower ground, and by the evening of the 25th were very nearly exhausted. Five days of expensive fighting had gained everything except those vital positions necessary to security and command of gun-fire. Hence the employment of the Guards Division, to see what could be fished out of the deadlock. The decision was taken swiftly. The 1st and 3rd Guards Brigade had been sent up on the 23rd November to relieve two brigades of the Fifty-first Division round Flesquières, and also to assist the Fortieth then battling in the Wood. It was understood that the whole of the Guards Division would now be employed, but no one knew for sure in which direction.

As far as the 2nd Guards Brigade was concerned, their brigadier was not told of the intended attack on Bourlon till the afternoon of the 26th; the C.O.’s of battalions not till four o’clock, and company commanders not till midnight of that date. No one engaged had seen the ground before, or knew anything about the enemy’s dispositions. Their instructions ran that they were to work with the 186th Brigade on their left “with the object of gaining the whole of Bourlon Wood, La Fontaine, and the high ground behind it.” As a matter of fact, they were to be brought up in the dark through utterly unknown surroundings; given a compass-bearing, and despatched at dawn into a dense wood, on a front of seven hundred yards, to reach an objective a thousand yards ahead. This pleasing news was decanted upon them at Brigade Headquarters in the dusk of a November evening hailstorm, after the C.O., the Assistant Adjutant, and all company commanders had spent the day reconnoitring the road from Trescault to the front line by Anneux and making arrangements for taking over from the 2nd Scots Guards, who were supporting the Fortieth Division outside the Wood.

The official idea of the Brigade’s work was that, while the 3rd Grenadiers were attacking La Fontaine, the 2nd Irish Guards should sweep through Bourlon Wood and consolidate on its northern edge; the 1st Coldstream filling any gap between the Irish Guards and the Grenadiers. When all objectives had been reached, the 1st Scots Guards were to push up and get touch with the 3rd Grenadiers who should have captured La Fontaine. (It may be noted that the attack was to be a diverging one.) They would advance under a creeping barrage, that jumped back a hundred yards every five minutes, and they would be assisted by fourteen tanks. Above all, they were to be quick because the enemy seemed to be strong and growing stronger, both in and behind the Wood.

The Battalion spent the night of the 26th working its way up to the front line, through Flesquières where bombs were issued, two per man; then to La Justice by Graincourt; and thence, cross-country, by companies through the dark to the Bapaume–Cambrai road, where they found the guides for their relief of the Scots Guards. Just as they reached the south edge of Bourlon Wood, the enemy put down a barrage which cost forty casualties. Next it was necessary for the C.O. (Alexander) to explain the details of the coming attack to his company commanders, who re-explained it to their N.C.O.’s, while the companies dressed in attack-order, bombs were detonated and shovels issued. (“There was not any need to tell us we were for it. We knew that, and we knew we was to be quick. But that was all we
did
know — except we was to go dancin’ into that great Wood in the wet, beyond the duckboards. The ground, ye’ll understand, had been used by them that had gone before us — used and messed about; and at the back, outside Bourlon, all Jerry’s guns was rangin’ on it. A dirty an’ a noisy business was Bourlon.”)

By five in the morning, after a most wearing night, the Battalion was in position, the 2/5th West Riding of the 1st Brigade on its left and the 1st Coldstream on its right; and the Wood in front alive with concealed machine-guns and spattered with shells. They led off at 6.20 behind their own barrage, in two waves; No. 1 Company on the right and No. 2 Company on the left, supported by No. 3 Company and No. 4. Everything was ready for them, and machine-guns opened on well-chosen and converging ranges. Almost at the outset they met a line of enemy posts held in strength, where many of the occupants had chosen to shelter themselves at the bottom of the trenches under oil-sheets, a protection hampering them equally in their efforts to fight or to surrender. Here there was some quick killing and a despatch of prisoners to the rear; but the Wood offered many chances of escape, and as our guards were necessarily few, for every rifle was needed, a number broke away and returned. Meantime, the Battalion took half a dozen machine-guns and lost more men at each blind step. In some respects Bourlon was like Villers-Cotterêts on a large scale, with the added handicap of severe and well-placed shelling. A man once down in the coppice, or bogged in a wood-pool, was as good as lost, and the in-and-out work through the trees and stumpage broke up the formations. Nor, when the affair was well launched, was there much help from “the officer with the compass” who was supposed to direct the outer flank of each company. The ground on the right of the Battalion’s attack, which the Coldstream were handling, was thick with undestroyed houses and buildings of all sorts that gave perfect shelter to the machine-guns; but it is questionable whether Bourlon Wood itself, in its lack of points to concentrate upon, and in the confusion of forest rides all exactly like each other, was not, after all, the worst. Early in the advance, No. 2 Company lost touch on the left, while the rest of the Battalion, which was still somehow keeping together, managed to get forward through the Wood as far as its north-east corner, where they made touch with the 1st Coldstream. Not long after this, they tried to dig in among the wet tree-roots, just beyond the Wood’s north edge. It seemed to them that the enemy had fallen back to the railway line which skirted it, as well as to the north of La Fontaine village. Officially, the objective was reached, but our attacking strength had been used up, and there were no reserves. A barrage of big stuff, supplemented by field-guns, was steadily threshing out the centre and north of the Wood, and, somewhere to the rear of the Battalion a nest of machine-guns broke out viciously and unexpectedly. Then the whole fabric of the fight appeared to crumble, as, through one or other of the many gaps between the Battalions, the enemy thrust in, and the 2nd Irish guards, hanging on to their thin front line, realized him suddenly at their backs. What remained of them split up into little fighting groups; sometimes taking prisoners, sometimes themselves being taken, and again breaking away from their captors, dodging, turning, and ducking in dripping coppices and over the slippery soil, while the shells impartially smote both parties. Such as had kept their sense of direction headed back by twos and threes to their original starting-point; but at noon Battalion Headquarters had lost all touch of the Battalion, and the patrols that got forward to investigate reported there was no sign of it. It looked like complete and unqualified disaster. But men say that the very blindness of the ground hid this fact to a certain extent both from us and the enemy, and the multiplied clamours in the Wood supplied an additional blindage. As one man said: “If Jerry had only shut off his dam’ guns and
listened
he’d ha’ heard we was knocked out; but he kept on hammer-hammering an’ rushin’ his parties back and forth the Wood, and so, ye see, them that could of us, slipped back quiet in the height of the noise.” Another observer compared it to the chopping of many foxes in cover — not pleasant, but diversified by some hideously comic incidents. All agreed that it was defeat for the Guards — the first complete one they had sustained; but the admitted fact was that they had been turned on at a few hours’ notice to achieve the impossible, did not spoil their tempers. The records say that the 2nd Guards Brigade with the rest of the Division “fell back to its original line.” Unofficially: “We did — but I don’t know how we did it. There wasn’t any Battalion worth mentioning when the Welsh Guards relieved us in the dark, but stray men kept on casting up all night long.” The losses were in proportion to the failure. Of officers, two were killed — Cary-Elwes, just as they reached their objective, by a bullet through the head, and A. F. Synge shot down at the beginning of the attack, both of them men without fear and with knowledge. Three were missing, which is to say, dead — 2nd Lieutenants N. D. Bayly of No. 2 Company, W. G. Rea of No. 3, and N. F. Durant of No. 4 who was also believed to have been wounded. Four were wounded — Captain the Hon. H. A. V. Harmsworth, No. 1; Captain Reford, No. 3, bullet through the shoulder; and Lieutenant S. S. Wordley, of the same company, in the head. Also 2nd Lieut. F. C. Lynch-Blosse of No. 2 blown up, but able to get back. The C.O. (Colonel the Hon. H. R. Alexander), the Second in Command (Captain the Hon. W. S. Alexander), Captain Nugent, Adjutant, 2nd Lieutenant W. D. Faulkner, Assistant Adjutant Captain Sassoon and Lieutenant O’Connor, these last two being company officers in reserve who were kept with Battalion Headquarters, were unhurt. Twenty-five men were known to be dead on comrades’ evidence; one hundred and forty-six were missing, of whom a number would naturally be dead; and one hundred and forty-two were wounded and brought back. Total, three hundred and twenty-two.