The Roses of No Man's Land by Lyn MacDonald

Author:Lyn MacDonald
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780141960326
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 1993-06-23T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

The 1st Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment was in urgent need of the draft of reinforcements that arrived on board the Viper, but it would take more than one such draft to restore its fighting spirit and its fighting strength. It did not have a single officer left. All twenty-six had become casualties on the first day of the battle of the Somme and 559 of their men had also fallen. Of the men who had marched up to the assembly point before the battle, rather less than half limped out again. The same appalling pattern was repeated in several score battalions. Except in the southern part of the line where there had been a measure of success, in spite of the valour of the troops, in spite of their spirit and perseverance, the line had advanced a few hundred yards at most and in some places at the northern end of the sector, hardly at all.

Now the survivors needed rest, time to recover to lick their wounds, absorb reinforcements and pull themselves together again into composite fighting units. The 1st Hampshires travelled to the north and there, at the beginning of August, the new boys joined them at Elverdinghe in the back area of the Ypres salient. It was far enough back for relaxation, for swimming and boating in the fine hot weather, and for the battle-scarred remnants to restore themselves. It was also peaceful enough for the new contingent of officers to get to know each other at convivial dinners in the Officers’ Mess in Elverdinghe Château. Nevertheless, although there was little activity in the Ypres salient, Elverdinghe was near enough to the line for the new men to become accustomed to being under shellfire. The guns were still busy. Jack Girling found it ‘blissful’ to be near the action at last, although he was surprised to discover that, on the whole, he could do without the palpitations induced by explosions that came a bit too near. But it was all part of a plan to accustom the schoolboy soldiers to the sounds of war. Gradually they moved towards the line, first into dugouts in the banks of the Yser Canal, and then into the trenches in front of Ypres at the apex of the salient.

It was thrilling to move through the shattered city, to see the now-legendary ruins of the Cloth Hall tower silhouetted against the darkening sky, to feel that you were walking in the steps of countless stalwart battalions, to march as they had done up the notorious Menin Road, to cut across the fields to Sanctuary Wood and, at last, file into the trenches at the head of your platoon. They were within yards of Hooge, where this time last year The Rifle Brigade and the King’s Royal Rifle Corps had fought their terrible battle in the face of liquid fire. Now it was a ‘quiet sector’. Both Allies and Germans were busy elsewhere, at Verdun where the French were gradually gaining the upper hand, and on the Somme where the battle would continue for three long months.

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