Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 19, 2025
The band of the Gloucesters were practising scales in unison to slow time. Suddenly a kind of feeling came into the air that something was happening. I noticed the waggon stopped; the oxen at once lay down in the dust; the music ceased and was packed away. I met the Gordons coming into town and asking for their ground. Riding up the mile or two to camp, I found the whole dusty plateau astir.
We were convinced in a night that we had greatly underestimated his abilities as a marksman. As for his all-round inferiority as a fighting man, one of the Gloucesters put it rather well: "'Ere! If the Germans is so bloomin' rotten, 'ow is it we ain't a-fightin' 'em sommers along the Rhine, or in Austry-Hungry? No, they ain't a-firin' wild, I give you my word!
When a relief took place the Gloucesters went to the front line, ourselves to Holnon, and the Berks back to Ugny. The Battalion holding the line was similarly disposed in 'depth, for its headquarters and one company were placed more than a mile behind the actual front. After the January frost and snow had gone, a period of fine, clement weather set in. This, in a military sense, was a golden age.
Macpherson and Hordern had found themselves in a particularly warm corner. Some fifteen men of the Gloucesters, with an officer, were in a donga which provided hardly any cover, and the two chaplains going out to the Field Hospital had perforce to share with their comrades the dangers of the terrible position.
Their aeroplanes flutter over the British positions and give the gunners the exact range, and then they let go. "I can only figure it out as being something worse than the mouth of hell," declares Private John Stiles, 1st Gloucesters, and it may be here left at that, as the devastating effects of artillery have already been dealt with in a previous chapter.
Groups of Tommies, in comfortable nooks and corners, were boiling tea or frying bacon over little stoves made of old iron buckets or biscuit tins. I marveled at the skill of our trench guide who went confidently on in the darkness, with scarcely a pause. At length, after a winding, zigzag journey, we arrived at our trench where we met the Gloucesters.
C.S.M. Rider, who had joined the Battalion not long before, had the first opportunity of showing that combination of bravery and capacity which afterwards earned him a M.C. After the counter-attack had been repulsed there remained only a few hours to hold on until the 5th Gloucesters relieved us, and we were able to get back to bivouacs near Albert to enjoy a hot meal and fall asleep.
One night, after a heavy bombardment with 4.2s, the Germans rushed one of their posts. It had recently been evacuated, and the enemy spent his trouble in vain. For April 6 Good Friday, 1917 an attack on a large scale had been arranged. The 59th Division on our left, the Gloucesters and the 182nd Brigade on our right, shared in the operations.
It seems certain, however, from concordance of evidence, that the Gloucesters and Fusiliers, instead of outflanking the Boers, were actually between two strong bodies of Free State men, when they seized a strong position and established themselves there.
On either side the black loom of the hills bulked vaguely through the darkness. The column tramped stolidly along, the Fusiliers in front, the guns and Gloucesters behind. Several times a short halt was called to make sure of the bearings. At last, in the black cold hours which come between midnight and morning, the column swung to the left out of the road.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking