1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [62]
General Capper, in command of the 7th Division, was far from happy, for he was equally impatient to get going, and his Division, spread along the line north of the Moated Grange, had been standing by all morning, anxious to get into the fight. There was no resistance in front of them, the church spire in the village of Aubers beckoned tantalisingly across the open ground, and by now they should have been – he believed they could have been – ensconced in the village itself. At noon, two and a half hours after the time originally fixed for the advance, in the absence of definite orders, he could restrain his impatience no longer. He managed, with difficulty, to telephone to IV Corps Headquarters and literally begged the Corps Commander for permission to press on. Sir Henry Rawlinson refused, but he took time to explain the situation and General Capper was obliged to be satisfied with a promise that, as soon as the orchard was secured, the advance would begin.
But, even as they spoke, the orchard had already been secured. The troops had strolled across without a shot being fired. The orchard was empty. There were no strongpoints, not even a trench among the tree stumps, and there was no sign that the enemy had ever thought of defending it.
Another hour had been lost. Communications were already slowing down, and it was more than an hour before the news reached corps headquarters. It took twenty more minutes for Rawlinson to prepare his report. At Merville, Sir Douglas Haig was at luncheon with his staff, but despite the excellent food, the well-appointed table, the discreet service of mess-waiters going imperturbably about their duties, it was an anxious meal and the Army Commander was glad to be interrupted when Rawlinson’s message arrived. He read his summary of the situation, noted that he proposed to issue orders for a general advance at 2 p.m. and dictated a message of approval. It reached Rawlinson’s Headquarters at twenty-five minutes to two. But now it was Rawlinson’s turn to champ at the bit. He had every reason to believe that the Indian Corps, by now, would have captured the segment of line – a mere two hundred yards – where the enemy was still holding out in front of Port Arthur, but a telephone call to Sir James Willcocks at Indian Corps Headquarters swiftly disabused him.
The gap was still open. The trenches had not been captured – but it was not for want of trying. The Leicesters had bombed their way into a section of the trench, at a cost of many men, and had even succeeded in building a barricade before they were forced back. The 3rd Londons had helped too. It was Harry Pulman’s company that had dashed through machine-gun fire and struggled in the wire to get at the enemy holding out behind it. Now Pulman was dead, as were Stevens and Bertie Mathieson, and Captain Reeves and ‘Evie’ Noël had been brought back badly wounded. The Germans still held out.
Now the two remaining companies were to try again. They waited all morning, and half the afternoon for orders.
Capt. G. Hawes, DSO, MC, Adjutant (City of London) Bn., London Regt., Royal Fusiliers (TF).
I went forward to a circular breastwork with Captain Livingston and Captain Moore and their companies on the right and the Colonel went with Captain Pulman and Captain Reeves on the left. Here in this circular breastwork we remained until about 4.30 p.m. I can’t describe what the breastwork was like, a mass of blackened, ruined walls of some old farm, built round with walls of earth and sandbags with machine-guns mounted on them, bodies lying about everywhere, dirt and squalor and misery on all sides. By this time the battle was in full blast. The shells were flying overhead, the noise was deafening and the sky was full of our aeroplanes. About 2 p.m. we got word that poor Captain Pulman, Mr Mathieson