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Updated: June 21, 2025
Outside a square brick building, which was the Town Hall of Lillers, and for a time a casualty clearing-station, the "bad" cases were unloaded; men with chunks of steel in their lungs and bowels were vomiting great gobs of blood, men with arms and legs torn from their trunks, men without noses, and their brains throbbing through opened scalps, men without faces...
During the first three weeks in September, the Battalion was out of the line and spent most of the time at Burbure, a quiet little village outside Lillers, where the men enjoyed a period of peace well removed from the battle zone. The training was devoted almost entirely to the practice of the attack preparatory to the impending fight.
Two days later, on the 28th March, we marched to Saleux and entrained for the North. Passing through Doullens we arrived at Lillers early the next morning, and marched thence to Laires, twelve miles through the driving rain. We reached billets all wet through. "B" Company followed by a later train, and joined us in billets just after midnight.
In case of this, the C.O. and Adjutant spent a day reconnoitering the Locon, le Hamel, le Touret area and its keeps and strong points, many of which we afterwards occupied when the Portuguese had been driven out. On the 8th of February, we moved to Fiefs through Lillers, and the following day marched to Reclinghem in the Bomy training area.
For days and weeks that followed there was always a procession of ambulances on the way to the dirty little town of Lillers, and going along the roads I used to look back at them and see the soles of muddy boots upturned below brown blankets.
Leave opened, and the prospect of a trip to England was cheering to those who expected one. The rest at Lillers was pleasantly spent and it was a long time before the men enjoyed a similar holiday. On the 15th November the Battalion paraded on the Church Square and then marched to Houchin, a particularly dirty little village, where a week was spent.
We had expected in due course to go into the trenches somewhere near Grenay, but it suddenly became known that the brigade was to march back to the neighbourhood of Lillers preparatory to entraining for an unknown destination. Half the battalion that day had done their daily trip to Sailly and came back about 4 p.m., after marching 8 miles and digging for four hours.
As the evening drew in the train wandered slowly through Lillers and Hazebrouck, vast centres of activity, finally drawing up at Godewaersvelde at 10.45 p.m., whence a weary march ended at dawn at Houtkerque, which, curiously enough, was next door to our first resting place in Flanders, Winnezeele.
Farmer when he next went on leave. On the 27th we again moved, this time to some farms round Widdebroucq, just west of Aire, to be nearer our entraining station Berguette, which with Lillers had already been reconnoitred.
This reserve was the more necessary owing to the fact that the Tenth French Army had to postpone its attack until one o'clock in the day; and further, that the corps operating on the French left had to be directed in a more or less southeasterly direction, involving, in case of our success, a considerable gap in our line. The Guards Division was in the neighborhood of Lillers on the same night."
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