He had quietly presented the Battalion the year before with service drums. “No mention need be made of who paid.” They were the only battalion of the Brigade which lacked them at that time, and they had been the only battalion to bring them out of the beginning of the war, when, during the retreat from Mons, “the artillery drove over the big drum at Landrecies.”
Temporary Captain A. F. L. Gordon followed Lieutenant Nugent as Adjutant, and the Rev. F. M. Browne from G.H.Q. replaced Father Lane-Fox. They moved into the Salient again on the 6th March, billeting at Wormhoudt, and were told several unpleasant things about the state of the line and the very limited amount of “retaliation” that they might expect from their own artillery.
The snow stopped all training except a little bombing. Opinion as to the value of bombs differed even in those early days, but they were the order of the day, and gave officers the chance to put in practice their pet theories of bowling. A commanding officer of great experience wrote, a year later, after the Battle of Arras, thanking Heaven that that affair had “led to the rediscovery of the rifle as a suitable weapon for infantry,” adding, “I swear a bomb is of all weapons the most futile in which to specialize.”
The French were as keen on the bomb as the rest of the world, and parties of officers visited our bombing competitions at Wormhoudt, where the Battalion lay till the 16th March, moving to billets (Brandhoek) near Vlamertinghe for St. Patrick’s Day and the sports sacred to the occasion. They were played into camp by a naval party to the tune of “A Life on the Ocean Wave,” not a little to their astonishment. A little later they were to be even more astonished.
Then the 1st Guards Brigade took over their sector of the Fourteenth Division’s new front from the Sixth Division and, as usual, complained that the trenches which ran from the east to the town were in bad condition. The Brigade Reserve camp near Vlamertinghe was not much better. It is significant that, at this date, a train, specially oiled and treated to run noiselessly through the night, used to take the reliefs up into Ypres--a journey that did not lack excitement.
On the 23rd March, as the Battalion was going into the trenches on the Ypres Canal bank, the meaning of that “naval party” at Vlamertinghe became plainer. Three naval officers and twenty-five petty officers on special leave appeared among them for the purpose of spending a happy four days with them at their labours. They wore the uniforms of private soldiers without pack or equipment, and were first seen joyously walking and talking on a well-observed road, which combination of miracles led the amazed beholders to assume that they were either lunatics or escaped criminals of the deepest dye; and it was a toss-up that the whole cheery picnic-party was not arrested--or shot to save their lives. One officer, at least, had the liveliest memories of chaperoning for several hours a naval officer with a passion for professional souvenirs in the shape of large-calibre shell fragments. “I’ve never been at the wrong end of this size gun before,” the mariner would say as the German heavies fell. “It’s tremendously interesting! I _must_ just make sure about that fuse, if you don’t mind.” The host, to whom 5.9’s, and much larger, were no novelty (for the Canal bank dug-outs did not keep them out) had to feign an interest he did not feel till it dawned on the sailor that if he pursued his investigations too far he would be cut off by German patrols. The visitors all agreed that ships, under normal circumstances, were the Hotel Ritz compared to the daily trench-routine of the army. We vaingloriously fired several rounds from a 9.2 to please the Senior Service who, naturally, had seen such things before. The enemy replied with two days’ full “retaliation” after the navy had left.