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.

HISTORISCHE KRANTEN

The Ypres Times (1921-1936) | 1936 | | pagina 25