1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [282]
General Haking in command of XI Corps which now included the newly formed Guards Division, was a good deal more sanguine than Lord Kitchener had been about the outcome of the battle. He rode over to meet the officers and senior NCOs of the 2nd Guards Brigade to brief them personally on the plans for the battle. He exuded confidence. He compared the German line to the crust of a pie – one thrust and it would be broken and behind it he expected there would be so little resistance that they would have no trouble in carving a way through. But the Coldstream were old campaigners and the general perhaps noticed a look of scepticism on the faces of the men who had been out since Mons. He paused, then added earnestly, Τ don’t tell you this to cheer you up. I tell you because I really believe it.’
The 24th Division was on the move. So was the 21st, somewhat to the surprise of Captain Pole who had expected his battalion to spend weeks or even months in training. They had been just ten days in France, but they were anything but despondent to be marching towards the battle. True, they were only intended to be in general reserve ‘in case of need’, but at least they would be where the action was. It was a long way to march, but they moved off in the early evening, marched late into the night and rested, roughing it, by day. And the days were sunny and nights were fine. A golden harvest moon hung low, growing bigger on every night of the march. There would be a full moon for the battle.
At their first stop David Pole scribbled an answer to a letter he had been surprised to receive on the day that they set off. It was from the worried wife of his commanding officer, Colonel Harry Warwick.
Collingham
Newark-on-Trent
September 19th, 1915.
Dear Captain Pole
I have only met you once but my husband has so often talked to me about you. I want to ask you if you would try to let me know about Harry if he were not well, or if anything was wrong and he could not write to me himself. There is no one else I know well enough to write and ask this, and it would be such a comfort to me to feel there is someone who would let me know at once if possible. I wish I could be less anxious, but I do find it so difficult in these times. I don’t want Harry to think I am worrying so I shall not tell him I have written. I am hoping I may hear from him again soon, but of course he cannot give me any idea where he is and I can’t get used to not knowing yet. But I must just be patient and I do realise it does not help one bit to worry and I am one of the lucky mothers with three little children to take up most of my time, so that I can’t sit down long and think. I am sure you won’t mind doing what I have asked.
Yours sincerely
Margaret J. Warwick
By 23 September, after three nights’ marching, the battalion had reached Allouagne, ten miles behind the front. They were ‘resting’ until further orders. C Company’s officers were squeezed into the house of a French soldier who had been at the front for fourteen months and was home on his first leave. It had expired that morning. He embraced his wife and children and shook hands with all the officers before he left, and now his red-eyed wife was doing her best to make them comfortable. After they had breakfasted on rations supplemented by the last of their sardines, and by pears from the garden, Pole went off to scour the local shops for delicacies to replenish the officers’ mess box. He returned with some tins of asparagus, mushrooms and peas. It was decided unanimously that they should ‘test’ them for lunch and Madame was requested, for a small consideration, to use them as a filling for a few twelve-egg omelettes.
It took Captain Pole the rest of the morning to inspect C Company’s billets. The men were housed in three large barns and Harry Fellowes, who had been dead to the world for some hours, was having some difficulty in fitting his swollen feet into his army boots. The Tommies