1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [54]
Capt. A. J. Agius, MC.
Until five o’clock we worked on the guns then we pushed up to the front again, via Richebourg St Vaast and Windy Corner. Our brigade was to make the attack on the Indian Corps frontage, four Battalions in the front line, with ours in support, and behind them the remainder of the Corps. The Brigade Machine-Guns were divided into two; half went forward with their own Battalions just behind the attacking line, the remainder were to bring supporting fire to bear from the trenches on the left flank south of Pont Logy and this was where I was with my colleague, Johnnie Sutcliffe.
Lt. C. Tennant.
On 9 March we were still at Vieille Chapelle, because our brigade had been in reserve. We had received orders on the 8th to be ready for a move and we spent the 9th packing up and sending away all superfluous kit to store at la Couture. We took nothing with us but rations, coats, a spare pair of socks and twenty rounds per man.
I turned in at 10.30 leaving orders that I was to be woken at one o’clock. Breakfast for the men was punctually at 2 a.m. and the Battalion was ready formed up in the road by 2.55. It was dry, but cold and rather misty. We marched to Richebourg and passed through it to a redoubt in an orchard and the companies were put into trenches and dug-outs and were all settled by about 5.30. An occasional shot from a field battery made the morning sound like any other morning during the last two months.
The troops were packed so tightly, the narrow country roads were so congested, and their progress was so slow and full of checks that it was dangerously close to dawn before the last of them reached the line. It was no bad thing that waiting time was shortened, for the assembly points were still wet and muddy and trenches that had been put into reasonable order had been soaked yet again by frequent showers of rain and sleet. It was dry now, but it was cold. A light mist carried frost across the battlefield and in the early hours, mercifully for the men who would advance across it, the ground froze hard. Stew that was still more or less hot had been carried up in dixies for the soldiers of the first wave who had been longest in position and, as they chewed and waited, they could hear movement in front, a medley of muffled voices, of chinking and loud twangs, as parties of Royal Engineers cut wide openings in their own barbed wire. In a little while the first wave would be charging through them on their way to the enemy line.
L/cpl. W. L. Andrews.
Snow swept down on us as we waited in the flooded trenches near Neuve Chapelle. We grew colder and colder – so cold that I never thought I could be so chilled and still live. It was sheer biting torture. We could hardly drag our feet along when the orders came to move from the trench to the Port Arthur dug-outs for a few hours sleep before the battle.
At five in the morning my platoon was routed out again to move to a reserve trench. We shambled over ground hardened by frost. It was colder than ever. We called it a trench, but it was more of a breastwork like a stockade strengthened with sandbags of earth, my pals Nicholson and Joe Lee and myself huddled together close to each other with our backs to the stockade. When dawn came we peered across at the German lines, wondering if Jerry knew we were coming.
Dawn broke on the day of battle at half past six in the morning. At just about that time