REMINISCENCES

Southland Times, Issue 20831, 20 July 1929, Page 13

REMINISCENCES

INTO THE LINE

(By

65144.)

The New Zealand base camp at Etaples was built on the sand dunes and was of a very temporary nature. We were housed in tents and were very much overcrowded but slept fairly well on the night of our arrival. 'We could hear the distant rumble of guns and saw aeroplanes moving about overhead but did not--'trouble much about the war which was raging so near at hand. We were paraded and marched some miles into the sandhills to where a long narrow hut was , built. This hut was filled with gas and we were ordered to put our gas masks on and were then marched through the hut. We all came through safely and I think that the gas masks- nearly always proved reliable. When accidents occurred in the gas hut they were usually due to rash acts on the part of the wearers of the masks.

We returned to the camp at Etaples and were dismissed for the day and as I was walking towards my tent I was stopped by Tommy Templeton, who used to drive the coach between Tokanui and Waikawa. We spent the afternoon talking of old times and went over- to Paris Place for the evening. I spent a very bad night in the tent that night for someone on the opposite side kept kicking me. I grew exasperated at last and kicked back and upset the peace and quietness of the whole tent. We spent the following day in comparative idleness being paraded once only, when iron rations and an extra bandolier of ammunition were issued to each man. I met Tommy Templeton during the afternoon and he informed me that he would be going up to the line on the following Saturday. He was convalescing from a bullet wound in the calf of his leg which was his first “smack” although he had been with the Expeditionary Force from the beginning. I asked him why he was being sent up the line so soon and he replied: “They wanted me to do physical jerks here but I refused, so of course they put me on- the mat. When I appeared before the O.C. he wanted to know why, I would not <’ > the drill and I said, ‘lf I'm fit to do physical jerks I'm fit for the line’. He said, ‘lf you talk to me like that I will very soon send you up the line.’ I said, ‘That suits me. They are men up in the line but they’re nothing but a lot of s down here.’ He ordered me to go up the line with the next contingent so I’ll not be long behind you.” Tommy did so well among the "men” in the line that he later received the Military Medal and the Distinguished Conduct Medal. We packed our kits that evening and inarched down to the station about dusk. After innumerable delays we climbed into trucks labelled “40 hommes ou S chevaux.” There may have been room in those trucks for eight horses but there certainly was not room for forty men to sit down. We travelled all night in the trucks and I spent the most of the time with my legs hanging out at the door on one side. The train moved along very slowly and we did not know where we were going and did not much care. The train stopped suddenly about midnight and we heard aeroplanes roaring overhead. Word was passed along for strict silence as German planes were evidently searching for the train. We kept very quiet for about half-an-hour and then we heard the roar of exploding bombs. Evidently the German airmen had grown tired and had speculated. Our engine driver must have suspected a trap for he did not attempt to move the train until about 2 a.m. We reached Doullens at 5 a.m. and were marched into huts near the railway line. I was so tired that I did not wait to remove my puttees and boots but lay down and fell asleep. We were called out at 8 a.m. and received a drink of tea and a few biscuits. We were lined up and marched out of the town and hurried along, we knew not where. We reached a small village about mid-day and halted there to get a drink of water and take a nibble at our 'biscuits. Our onward march was then continued and as the sun was getting hotter and hotter some of the troops found the journey very trying. Jock Frood and I started the march near the rear of the column but when others fell out we moved forward until the closing stages of the march found us in the lead. Motor lorries frequently passed us and those who had fallen out of the ranks were picked up by some of these. Some of the lazy ones thus reached the horse lines first but others were not so fortunate and straggled in some hours after we arrived there.

We approached the horse lines at Louvencourt at about 4 p.m. and as we entered the _ town we passed a wayside shrine. A soldier was lying at the foot of the cross reading a book and the peacefulness of the scene, with the rumble of an occasional gun in the background, reminded me of a painting I had seen somewhere. We entered the horse lines and sat down to rest, but were not left long in peace for we had to parade to the tailors and have our battalion blazes sewn on. Jock and I received triangular blazes with the base downwards for we were going to the third battalion. After a great deal of trouble we obtained some tea to drink but could not get anything to eat and had to be content with the biscuits we had received that morning. We left Louvencourt at about 7 p.m., after having filled our water bottles at the well of St. Mary, and marched towards Saiily au Bois. We reached that village at. 11 p.m. only to find that battalion headquarters had been shelled out that afternoon and had departed no one knew whither. Our guide left us on the outskirts of the village and went in search of information. We sat down by the roadside feeling very weary, but had no more than settled ourselves comfortably than a salvo of flashes and explosions broke out almost in our midst and we all concluded that we were being shelled. Some of the troops started to run and fell into muddy shellholes, but the majority of us stayed where we were for the simple reason that we did not know where to run to. The guide returned just then and explained that we had been sitting in the midst of a battery of 18-pounders and they had just sent a few dozen shells over to the German line.

Our guide had discovered that the headquarters staff had moved off towards Colin Camps so we set out in that direction and wandered around the countryside until 2 a.m. We came upon a number of bivouacs or bivvy as they were called and our guide reached in to one of them and caught some one by the legs and pulled hard. A volley of profanity issued from the bivvy and an enraged officer wriggled out and asked what was meant by such a liberty. The guide stuttered out that he was looking for headquarters and the enraged officer said: “What headquarters, you blockhead?” "Third battalion headquarters,” replied the guide. The officer calmed down at that and explained that he was adjutant of the third battalion. He divided us into four groups and Jock and I were parted. I went to B company and Jock was sent to C company. Fresh guides were obtained and we set out into the darkness once more in search of company headquarters.