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Updated: September 12, 2025
The British who by this time were settled in the offensive joked about the deluge of gas shells with a gallant, amazing humor. Going up to the Ridge was going to their regular duty. They did not shirk it or hail it with delight. They simply went, that was all, when it was a battalion's turn to go. July heat became August heat as the grinding proceeded.
Merrily stepped the black battalions, their women-folk raising the usual shrill cry of jubilation, whilst the bands played the favourite air, "O, dem Golden Slippers." Regimental bands do droll things occasionally. I remember in the year of the Dongola Campaign and the cholera visitation, 1896, a grim blunder made by a native battalion's band.
The ample bath-house, laundry, and kitchen of the Asylum, though ravaged by shelling and rifled by the mysterious depredations of looters, more than provided for the Battalion's wants. I have to record a very regrettable incident in connection with St. Venant Asylum.
The Battalion was accommodated in a Nissen hut camp just outside the town, where the company commanders had an opportunity of completing the re-organisation of their companies. On the 13th March the non-commissioned officers celebrated the anniversary of the Battalion's first arrival in France by arranging a kind of concert in one of the estaminets in Estaires.
The S.O.S. went up in several places and our artillery some of which was immediately in rear opened with rapid fire. It transpired later that the enemy raided the Right Brigade sector without success. The usual working parties were provided in the evening. June 2nd. The IV. Corps Commander visited the Battalion's sector.
But to them all, good, indifferent or bad, the Battalion's name and record came FIRST. To no unit, however famed, would they acknowledge superiority and every General who reviewed them was unable to repress appreciation of the outcome of this latent esprit de corps.
The distance of the objective from the Battalion's zero position was approximately a mile and a half, which was at that period of the war a big distance to be called upon to cover in one day. Two hours before zero it became known that the artillery was firing gas shells on the enemy batteries, so that at zero the enemy would not be able to work their guns.
It will be remembered that this company had been sent to support the 6th H.L.I. That battalion's task was to seize the Turkish trenches on the west bank of the Achi Baba nullah trenches officially designated F11, F12 and F12A. Our capture of these would protect the left flank of the E trenches the objective of the remainder of the attack which would otherwise be left very open to counter-attack from the west of the nullah.
I only tell it because I fancy that at the back of it you may find some hint of the spirit that has helped the British Army in many a tight corner. Private Wally Ruthven was knocked out by the bursting of a couple of bombs in his battalion's charge on the front line German trenches.
From the appearance of the houses Wailly had been a prosperous farming village lying within a short distance of Arras. Agricultural implements of the latest manufacture were in evidence, and these could only have been bought by peasants with some capital. This village was to be the Battalion's home for the next five months.
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