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"We come under the th Divisional Artillery at 7.30, and have to settle in Lieramont and await orders," explained Major Veasey. "They don't want our Brigade to push on.... They say that the infantry could have walked into Epéhy without trouble, but they were too fagged. The latest report is that the Boche is back there again."
And remember, it was the civilian soldier unversed in war, save actual war who accepted and pushed home the glorious opportunities of achievement that these wondrous days offered. The colonel and I mounted our horses at eight o'clock, saw C and D Batteries begin their march, and called upon the new C.R.A. in his hut-headquarters at Lieramont.
But on this move-up we were agog with the day's fine news. We were in the mood to calculate on the extent of the enemy's retirement: for the moment his long-range guns had ceased to fire. We talked seriously of the war ending by Christmas. We laughed when I opened the first Divisional message delivered at our new Headquarters: "Divisional Cinema will open at Lieramont to-morrow.
And now on the 16th of September we had pitched tents a mile south of Lieramont, which we had left on the 9th, on the confines of a wood that stretched down to a road and fringed it for three parts of a mile to the village of Templeux la Fosse. Wilde and the adjutant had departed in high spirits, and their best clothes, to catch the leave train, and I was doing adjutant.
Our march had brought us through Lieramont and beyond the shell-mauled cemetery where the Boche in his quest of safety had transformed the very vaults into dug-outs.
Our chief aim when we walked back towards Lieramont was to secure decent quarters before troops coming up should flood the village. Our first discovery was a Nissen hut in a dank field on the eastern outskirts. It wanted a good deal of tidying up, but 'twould serve. We were ravenous for breakfast, and the cook got his wood-fire going very quickly.
Another large building could accommodate the men, and I found also a cook-house and an office. I used chalk freely in "staking-out" our claim, and hurried back to the major in a fever of fear lest some one else should come before we could install ourselves. There were three incidents by which I shall remember our one night's stay in Lieramont.
The village of Lieramont was the first objective, and afterwards the infantry were to push on and oust the Boche from Guyencourt and Saulcourt. It was to be an attack on the grand scale, for the enemy had brought up one fresh Division and two others of known fighting capacity. He was likely to hold very stoutly to the high ground at Epéhy.
I finished talking to the staff captain and walked to the colonel's tent. I told him of Garstin's death. "Wounded last night taking up ammunition, wasn't he?" said the colonel gravely. "Yes, sir. He had finished the job and was coming back towards Lieramont. Two of the men were wounded as well." The colonel pulled out the note-book in which he kept his list of the officers in the Brigade.
We stuck to the valley, and, passing a dressing station where a batch of walking cases were receiving attention, drew near to the conglomeration of tin huts, broken walls, and tumbled red roofs that stood for Lieramont. We stopped to talk to two wounded infantry officers on their way to a casualty clearing station.
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