1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [281]
Sgt. A. Rule.
At our first meeting our wine order was twelve bottles of vin rouge (tres ordinaire!). The after-effects of immature wine are extremely potent and we were fortunate that the day following our inaugural meeting was a Sunday. At the second – and as it turned out the last – meeting of the ‘Johns’, we condescendingly granted admission to three new members who had given evidence of their fitness and one condition was their ability to treat the foundation members to a round of drinks. Our source of inspiration was also augmented by a bottle of whisky and the ‘Johns’ rapidly got down to business. We opened up with the chorus ‘Varsity Y’Gorra’ in full tongue, and then every member in turn sang a song or told a story. Sandwiched in between these items were rousing student songs and army choruses sung with such magnificent gusto that the old pewter pieces on the walls of the estaminet rattled till they threatened to fall. A party of veterans belonging to the Middlesex and the Suffolk afterwards assured us that they would never forget the honour of being present as privileged spectators at a festive meeting of ‘real students’, as they put it!
We evacuated the farmhouse-kitchen estaminet in reasonably good order and set off on a general bearing that would take us to our billets – although two members were with difficulty prevented from sleeping in each other’s arms in a turnip field along the way. The camp was fully warned of our approach by bursts of song, so we sacrificed the element of surprise, but we still managed with great gallantry to make an irregular frontal assault on the bivouacs. A brilliant feint attack on the right flank was carried out by one member who temporarily lost his bearings and rejoined the main party crawling stealthily on all fours, under the impression that he was in No Man’s Land! We met spirited resistance from the occupants of bivouacs near ours when we suddenly descended through their hessian walls on top of them. It was pandemonium until an avenging angel arrived suddenly in the person of an extremely wrathful Regimental Sergeant-Major, torn from his beauty sleep at an unearthly hour on a cold, raw morning. We made a wild dive for our bivouacs and silence descended on the camp – though it was broken for a time by sounds indicating grievous internal suffering!
It was the last meeting of the ‘Good Johns’. Next day, on the eve of their departure for the front, the Brigade was drawn up in close column and had the privilege of being inspected by Lord Kitchener himself. U Company stood at attention with the rest, spruce and burnished, showing no signs of the excesses of the night before. A band played the National Anthem and if some hung-over members of U Company winced as three thousand or so rifles crashed down in a General Salute it was hardly noticeable. All eyes were on legendary Kitchener – the stern face, familiar from ten thousand recruiting posters, the imposing figure, ramrod straight, the chest bearing the ribbons of medals earned in long years of campaigns and service. He moved along the ranks with an escort of staff officers and inspected the men with a critical eye. When he mounted a rostrum to speak to them he did not mince his words.
Sgt. A. Rule.
He bluntly told us that our attack was in the nature of a sacrifice to help the main offensive which was to be launched ‘elsewhere’. For that reason, he said, no attempt had been made to conceal our preparations. He congratulated us on the position of honour and responsibility that had fallen to us as a Territorial unit and he wished us ‘as much luck as we could expect in the course of the next few days. His final words to us were ‘Goodbye and good luck!’
It was part of the plan to delude the Germans into believing that the main attack was to be in the salient and it was clear that they had taken the point. Even before they left the trenches to march to Ouderdom the Gordons had