THE YPRES TIMES
23
to me, and I gazed with great interest on our surroundings. Along the straight tree-lined
road passed a continual stream of traffic -transport wagons, limbers, motor lorries,
horsemen, and a few humble foot-sloggers like ourselves, while on either side of the
road were the camouflaged camps composed mostly of wooden or Nissen huts. Occa
sionally a gun would fire, from a position well back from the road, and, to complete the
picture, overhead hovered one or two planes, obviously British. They were not to have
the air entirely to themselves, however, for suddenly, far ahead in the direction of
Ypres, there appeared a couple of silver specks which soon proclaimed themselves
Germans, from the way in which they drew immediately the fire of our "Archies." The
sight of the white shell-bursts in the sunny sky made a pretty picture and did not appear
to trouble the enemy 'planes much.
At length we reached our camp and were received by the Adjutant, and by him
posted to our respective companies. In the battalion mess, at tea that afternoon, we
were introduced to our brother officers, and I was told, rather to my dismay, by one of
them, whom I had known in England, that the Commanding Officer was not keen on
Territorials. That battalion mess never attracted me. To begin with, one unfortunate
batman was expected to do the waiting for the whole party, and a dreadful time the
poor fellow had. I am inclined to be rather diffident amongst strangers, and I think
I should almost have starved had not Denny, a kind-hearted and sympathetic young
officer from the London Regiment, looked after me for the first meal or two. One thing
in the mess interested me the table covers. They were composed of sheets of The
Christian Science Monitor," and provided one with excellent reading at meals without
the trouble of balancing a paper.
The 17th King's Royal Rifle Corps had suffered very badly in the Somme battles
of the previous autumn, and practically none of the original officers were left in fact,
I soon discovered that quite half the company officers had only been with the battalion
a week or so longer than I had myself. Next day I met the men for the first time. While
our officers came from all parts of the world, the rank and file were Londoners to a man
and an excellent lot of fellows they were, not big and many not young, but all cheery,
even-tempered and not afraid of hard work. It would be too much to claim that we were
amongst the outstanding battalions in France, but the 17th/60th, like the 39th Division
of which it was a part, could be relied on to do its bit. Very few troops had such a long
gruelling experience of the Salient. The 39th Division arrived in the St. Omer area in
November, 1916, and did not leave the Ypres neighbourhood till the beginning of Febru
ary, 1918. Nor was that the end of our connection with Flanders, for in April, 1918, we
spent another month in the Salient assisting in repelling the German offensive round
Wytschaete and Dickebusch. On the day after I joined the battalion we moved up to
Ypres and were billeted in the Prison. The weather still being bitterly cold, each man
had provided himself with a piece of firewood, and that, and the fact that my company
commander, Haynes, a tall, handsome youngster of twenty-one, carried a great staff
like a shepherd's crook, interested me more than anything else. It is strange what
trifling incidents imprint themselves on one's memory. We waited till dusk before
moving off, in case the German observers in 'plane or balloon would spot us, and it was
quiet dark when we reached our destination. The prison may havé proved a comfortable
home to ordinary peace-time prisoners, but then it would have glass in the window
frames, no doubt, and the walls would be intact The extreme cold drove us to attempt
lighting a fire in our cell, which, however, owing to the lack of a chimney, soon filled
with smoke, and we gave up the effort in despair and resigned ourselves to the lesser
evil. h
The following day, Haynes received instructions to go up the line to arrange for
our taking over from the 16th Rifle Brigade, which battalion we were to relieve in a
few days' time,' and he asked me to go with him. Never shall I forget our walk that
morning through the deserted streets of Ypres, the ruined buildings standing stark and
white in the brilliant sunshine, accentuated by the glare of the snow which lay all around.