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I heard no singing all day long not a song. Men may sing as they are marching into training-camps; they may sing when they board the boats for France now; they may sing as they march into rest-billets, but they were not singing that day as they marched into the great battle-line of Europe. I heard no laughter.
The Battalion returned to Havrincourt Wood on December 15 and remained in its frozen tents until the Division was relieved by the 63rd. After one night at Lechelle the Battalion entrained at Ytres and moved back to Christmas rest-billets at Suzanne, near Bray. Huts, built by the French but vacated more than a year ago and now very dilapidated, formed the accommodation.
No sense of anti-climax could be demanded of the English soldier, whose daily shilling was paid him whether he was in rest-billets, on working-party, or sent into the attack. On the part also of the Artillery less was done than the scheme promised or our attacking Infantry had counted on. By shell-fire the issue of Hill 35 was to have been placed beyond doubt.
For British long-range guns were hurling high explosives into distant villages, barraging crossroads, reaching out to rail-heads and ammunition-dumps, while British airmen were on bombing flights over railway stations and rest-billets and highroads down which the German troops came marching at Cambrai, Bapaume, in the valley between Irles and Warlencourt, at Ligny-Thilloy, Busigny, and many other places on the lines of route.
Twenty-eight had been withdrawn, broken and exhausted, to quieter areas. Eleven more had been withdrawn to rest-billets. Under the Allies' artillery fire and infantry attacks the average life of a German division as a unit fit for service on the Somme was nineteen days.
Well, we out here cannot be said to live in our boxes, for we do not possess any; but we do most undoubtedly live in our haversacks and packs. And this brings us to the matter in hand namely, so-called "Rest-Billets." The whole of the hinterland of this great trench-line is full of tired men, seeking for a place to lie down in, and living in their boxes when they find one.
The conversation dropped; other and more intimate topics anent the fair ones at home took its place; but in the mind of Percy FitzPercy the germ of invention was sown. When he went back to his battalion that night, in their so-called rest-billets, he was thinking. Which was always a perilous proceeding for Percy.
"Weel, it's cauld onyway," Bogle would rejoin, anxious to endorse his superior's decision. Or in the same spirit "Wull I luft the soup now, sir?" "No!" "Varra weel: I'll jist let it bide the way it is." Lastly, Angus M'Lachlan proved himself a useful acquisition especially in rest-billets as an athlete.
The impulsive Angus apologised; and the draft, having been safely manoeuvred on to the road, formed fours and set out upon its march. "Are the Battalion in the trenches at present, sir?" inquired Angus. "No. Rest-billets two miles from here. About time, too! You'll get lots of work to do, though." "I shall welcome that," said Angus simply. "In the dépôt at home we were terribly idle.
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