1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [313]
Hulluch and the quarries remained in German hands. Now everything depended on the Guards – the last remaining reserves. They had been a long time on the way, for although the order to bring them into battle had been sent out early in the morning it had only reached some of the brigades at noon. But they had made good time marching through the throng of returning troops and vehicles, pressing on, hardly faltering in the shell-fire that sped them along the road. Late in the afternoon they reached the trenches outside Loos.
Pte. W. Jackman, 4th Grenadier Guards, 3rd Guards Brig.
Getting nearer our destination we kept seeing wounded chaps passing us and when we saw a lot of Highland regiments, they had aprons over their kilts, so we knew we were getting nearer to the firing line.
My company was Number 1 Company, leading, and we went up from Vermelles over a ridge. It was like a big valley. In front of us was Hill 70. Then we came under fire. Well, I didn’t understand it was fire! It was like a lot of whips cracking. And the order came, ‘Get into artillery formation.’ Well, artillery formation is about ten feet between each soldier, and we went down in line like that, straight down the hillside, and it was a most eerie affair because it sounded like whips cracking, and then you’d see the man on the left, he’d just flop down and that was that!
Capt. G. A. Brett, DSO, MC, 23rd Bn., London Regt.
Looking backward from the village into Loos Valley, the late No Man’s Land, the straw-coloured ground rose gently up to the ridge and the mining hamlets of Philosophe and Maroc stood against the sky some fifteen hundred yards away. A platoon of troops appeared over the sky-line near Maroc, marching in fours towards us. Another showed to their right, then another and another, until the crest of the ridge was dotted with moving black squares. More and more followed until the whole straw-coloured slope began to look like a gigantic moving chess-board.
Soon after the leading platoons came over the crest German batteries opened fire on them, and quickly every possible enemy gun was concentrating on the chess-board. The platoons never hesitated. They came steadily on, more and more of them, through a real hell of explosion and flame – no halting, every gap filled immediately it was made. ‘It’s the Guards,’ said someone, ‘the Guards Division coming into action for the first time.’
Pte. W. Spencer, 4th Bn., Grenadier Guards, Guards Div.
Well, I wasn’t really frightened to tell you the truth. We were all marching in fours, you know, the same as we might do in England. Then all of a sudden when the first shell burst near the road as we were marching up, we all deployed left and right of the road and spread out, and we kept on marching. Some were knocked out, but we kept on going and we did feel a little excited but not frightened – that’s the impression it gave me. As a matter of fact, I was a bit disappointed with the first two shells. I thought they’d make more explosion. But I found out afterwards it wasn’t always the ones that made the most explosion that caused the most damage. No! We advanced roughly about a mile and then we saw some old trenches which had been occupied previously by British troops that had gone forward and they were mostly Scotsmen who were laying about on the ground and I always remember two who were actually hanging on the barbed wire. In kilts. That’s very vivid in my memory. We paused by those trenches and then went forward again and our battalion went straight forward for the town of Loos.
Capt. G. A. Brett. DSO, MC.
Our men leapt spontaneously from their cover into machine-gun fire to pull aside barbed wire and throw plank bridges across the trenches, anything to help these magnificent soldiers through. They reached us and passed through us, every man in step, rank closed up, heads erect, probably the finest men the world has ever seen.
Next day, it was hoped, the Guards would recapture the Chalk Pit and Puits