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None of us had ever been to the "Salient," but it was a well known and much dreaded name, and most of us imagined we were likely to have a bad night, and gloomily looked forward to heavy casualties. Starting at 6-40 p.m., we went by motor bus with four hundred Sherwood Foresters through Reninghelst, Ouderdom, and Vlamertinghe to Kruisstraat, which we reached in three hours.
First the Railway dug-outs, to which Battalion Headquarters and half the Battalion should have gone, had been so badly shelled while the Lincolnshires were there that only one company was allowed to go, while the remainder were sent to bivouac at Kruisstraat.
Mud roads and broad cross-country tracks brought us over the plain to the "Indian Transport Field," near Kruisstraat White Chateau, still standing untouched because, it was said, its peace-time owner was a Boche.
By mid-day, however, we had not been used, and as no news of the battle reached us we were preparing to settle down again for another day of peace, when at 2-30 p.m. orders came for us to go to Kruisstraat at once.
On the evening of the 11th June the new Battalion marched by Companies to dug-outs in the grounds of Kruisstraat Château, south of Ypres. The following day the march was resumed via the Lille gate and Maple Copse to Sanctuary Wood, where the Battalion was lent to the 149th Infantry Brigade to provide working parties for the improvement of the Hooge defences.
It was a long and tiresome march, but Barry found himself remarkably fit, and already under the exhilaration of what was before him. At the Chateau Belge they found no word of their battalion, but they were informed that the shelling on the Kruisstraat road had been bad all afternoon, and was still going on. The Boches were paying particular attention indeed to the crossroads.
Weakened with sickness and soaked to the skin, we stumbled through black darkness along the track to Kruisstraat three miles of slippery mud and water-logged shell holes only to find that our bivouac field was flooded, and we must march back to Ouderdom and spend the night in the huts, five miles further west.
Leaving the Chateau on our right, and passing Brigade Headquarters Chalet on our left, we kept to the road through Kruisstraat as far as the outskirts of Ypres, where a track to the right led us to Bridge 14 over the Ypres-Comines Canal.
Early in the morning of the 23rd we reached once more the huts at Ouderdom, having at last had the sense to have the limbers to meet us at Kruisstraat to carry packs, which at this time we always took into the line with us. We had been away from even hut civilisation for twenty-four days quite long enough when those days have to be spent in the mud, noise and discomfort of the Salient.
As soon as it was dark we left Kruisstraat and marched by Bridge 14 and Zillebeke to Maple Copse, where we were told to bivouac for the night, still being ready to move at very short notice if required. Here we found a Battalion of the Sherwood Foresters, from whom we were at last able to learn the truth of the morning's battle.
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