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By Root 1714 0

thinned and weakened by casualties. But it was the best that could be done – and it was a dangerous ‘best’ because although a third of the strength was strung out in a ‘second line’ just behind the fluid front, every man was in the line. If the Germans made a move and poured through the gaps or broke through the embryo defences of the new flank before reinforcements arrived, there would be no reserves at all to stop them. Forty-two German battalions were on the march and only seventeen battalions of British and Canadians stood in their path. They could be brushed aside as easily as a single finger might push open a well-oiled door and, even with the paltry amount of information at their disposal, the senior officers knew it.

Colonel Geddes’s orders were not only to fill the gaps and extend his line to cover the open French front. He was ordered to attack, where he could, to pin the Germans down and, if possible, to push ahead and recover lost ground.

Geddes was as ignorant of the situation as anyone and, with no staff, with only a Brigade Major to assist him, and a platoon of cyclists as a makeshift signalling section, he hardly knew the whereabouts at any one time of all the scattered troops of his command. It was a mammoth task for any Battalion Commander to undertake. But somehow it had to be done.

Chapter 15

All down the line from Ploegstreet to Merville troops were ordered to prepare to move off at short notice but those in reserve or at rest nearest to Ypres were sent for first. They at least could cover some of the distance reasonably fast on foot. Telephone wires hummed and lights burned in Headquarters’ offices far into the night – and the next night, and the next. No matter how desperate the situation, Battalions and reserves could not be suddenly withdrawn from the line without first making complicated arrangements to ensure the safety of the line when they had gone. Vehicles had to be provided to carry them north and to follow them up with supplies of rations and ammunition, so transport parks were scoured for lorries and limbers, trains were rescheduled and diverted, and long lines of London buses trundled up to camps and villages behind the front to carry the troops away. No one had the faintest idea what had happened, or where or what they were bound for.

The London Rifle Brigade was rudely interrupted at the start of a spell of rest, made all the more enjoyable by the fact that the weather was fine. A sports day was planned to keep the men entertained, the Adjutant had already been to Bailleul to purchase prizes from battalion funds, and the athletes, excused from parades and fatigues, were spending energetic days training for the various events, sprinting, jumping and pole-vaulting in the mild spring weather.

The train they boarded at Steenwerck jolted first towards Hazebrouck on the first leg of the journey and prompted wild speculation. Various wagers were staked in cigarettes, although the joker who suggested that the war was over and they were bound for Calais and home found few takers. But at Hazebrouck, after much delay and shunting, the engine was reversed, the train began to head north and if there were still any doubts about their destination the trainloads of refugees they passed soon dispelled them. It was clear that something serious had happened and that it had happened at Ypres.

The three squadrons of the Queen’s Own Oxfordshire Hussars were in billets round the small village of Pradelles on the road from Hazebrouck to Bailleul, but when the colonel received the order to turn out his men as quickly as possible he had some difficulty in laying his hands on them. They had already trotted off on various training schemes in different parts of the countryside, but it was a fine morning for a gallop, they had let the horses have their heads, and there was no sign of them for miles. It took more than an hour before dispatch-riders, scouring the countryside on motor bikes, were able to track them down and bring them back and it was well after mid-day before they reached the rendezvous