1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [319]
So far as the Staff were concerned the lack of progress was a hard pill to swallow after the success of the first breakthrough. And just as Hill 70 had baulked the British, the operations of the French Army on their right had come to a standstill in front of the bastion of the Vimy Ridge. But neither the French nor the British Command had given up hope. It was necessary to pause, it was even more necessary to reorganise, and it was clearly necessary to bring in fresh troops, but there could be no question of abandoning the offensive. At Sir John French’s urgent insistence, and in the light of his concern that his reserves were being so rapidly used up, General Joffre agreed to draw a division from his own reserve to relieve the 47th Division and the Guards and to carry his line northwards to include the Double Crassier, the ruined village of Loos and the killing field on Hill 70. And when the relief was completed, as soon as plans could be made for a new, and this time a joint attack, the French would do their utmost to regain it.
Slowly the hardest hit battalions were recovering. They had cleaned up, they were comparatively well rested, and a few square meals had done a good deal to restore them. Most now had a roof over their heads, even if it was only the roof of a barn, but they had not yet fully recovered their morale. Despite the efforts of officers to get up sports and football matches and despite the return to normal routine, the air of depression was slow to dissipate. All too often there were reminders.
Pte. G. Cribley, 8th Bn., Gloucestershire Regt., 57 Brig., 19 Div.
My friend was killed. We lived next door to each other at home. We were boys together. After we came out the line the Post Corporal said to me, There’s a parcel for your mate, George’ – parcels couldn’t be sent home so they were divided up between the rest of us. There was a gooseberry pie in his parcel and it was all mildewed and had to be thrown away. I thought of his poor old mother picking those gooseberries as I’d often seen her do, and bottling them, because it was past the gooseberry season, and I thought of how she would feel when she got to hear of his death. The sight of those dead I will never forget. They were a ghastly sight, and I used to think what their mothers would have felt if they could see their boys now. It was that gooseberry pie brought it home to me.
It was quickly brought home to the new drafts, now arriving to make up the numbers, that they had been brought in to fill the gaps. Less than a week after their fight at Hill 70 Carson Stewart joined the 7th Camerons.
Pte. C. Stewart, 7th Bn., Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders, 44 Brig., 15 Div.
A while before I left I went to see a pal of mine in hospital, George Sutherland. He’d been wounded at Festubert and sent home, and he said to me, ‘You’d better take your running shoes to France for you’ll have to get off your mark at the double.’ He wasn’t keen on going back. Oh, no! But I was full of beans. I was attached to the 44th Brigade (all Scots Regiments, kilty lads) and we were in reserve at the coal-mining village of Noeux-les-Mines. My battalion hadn’t long come out of the attack. It was a very badly arranged attack. The lads that came back said that the Colonel of the 7th Camerons, Colonel Sandilands, wouldn’t give them their usual drop of rum before the Battle of Loos. He told them that if they were going to meet their Maker, then he wanted them to be sober and he poured the rum into the trench before they went into action on the morning of the 25th. They talked more about that than they did about their losses. But they told us all about it.
They took the small hill at Loos just beyond the coal-pit, but they met with terrible machine-gun fire – so much so that the 44th Brigade were cut to ribbons. They couldn’t hold on to the hill and so they were ordered to