Across the Bridge by Black Robert Grieve

Author:Black, Robert Grieve [Black, Robert Grieve]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-10-17T23:00:00+00:00

14. ROSES OF PICARDIE

Friville-Escarbotin-Belloy, June 1940

This is Picardie and the roses are shining just like in the song, wild yellow roses in large bushes by the roadside. A kestrel is hovering, its wings flickering gently as it prepares to pounce on its prey in the field below. Some cows graze peacefully with a backdrop of a wooded copse behind which nestles the Chateau of Belloy. About a mile to the northwest on the road to St. Blimont is the public cemetery. If you look carefully you will find in the far end of this cemetery a neatly tended row of light grey headstones, ten in number, all matching. On seven of these stones you will find a Scottish name and underneath “8 Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders”. The remaining three carry the inscription, “Known only unto God”. We know the names: we just have to guess which is which. All died in June 1940.

If you have time or indeed the desire to wander in the villages of St. Blimont, Pende, Bailly-en-Riviere, Cayeux-sur-mer, Veulerres-sur-mer, St. Ever, St. Riquier, St. Valery-sur-Somme, Lancheres, Inchville, Escoublac, Grandcourt and St. Hilaire, here you will find in total thirty more 8th Argylls. At Dunkirk you will find ten more, strange you may think, because in life they were never near Dunkirk. Between the 5 of June and the 7 of June 1940 there were fifty 8 Argylls who fell in Picardie.

The battalion, as already seen, was thrown together hastily. The seams were sewn with tacking stitches; just a few experienced soldiers borrowed from other battalions or other regiments to hold together the platoons. The officers, while highly motivated, lacked experience in tactics and in leadership under pressure. And so when the decision was made to attack the German bridgehead at Abbeville the 8 Argylls were well back from the front line. Colonel Grant wanted to attack the bridgehead at St. Valery but this was turned down in order to concentrate minds and wills on Abbeville.

In spearhead position were the 1 Gordons. Kenny MacKenzie was about to have his taste of “real soldiering”. Behind and on the flanks were 2 and 4 Seaforths, 5 Gordons, and 4 Camerons. This in essence was 153 Brigade and at their backs they had five battalions of artillery and two machine-gun battalions. Air support was piecemeal and without radio contact. Back between the Somme and the Bresle was 154 Brigade, which included 8 Argylls, straggled from the coast to near Amiens, trying to hold a defence line that required five times the numbers that they had.

Here, the elite of Britain’s best division was readying for battle in a bid to stop the Nazi march across Europe. They didn’t know they were just pawns in a game. They didn’t know that, no-matter how hard they fought, they would never win. Rommel and friends had stopped for a rest after encircling Dunkirk. They let more than three hundred thousand troops go home. They were saving their strength and fire power for the push south to take Paris from the western side.

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