At Ypres with Best-Dunkley | Page 2

one of looking forward, practising and awaiting a
great day which we all knew was not far off, but the actual date of
which none of us knew until it was almost upon us. All this time our
interests (and, perhaps, our fears!) were centred upon one man, the
unpopular Colonel who, few of us guessed in those days, was destined
to win the V.C. on "the day," going down in a blaze of glory which
should ever associate his name with that battle. With that "day," which
was for many of us the end of all earthly troubles and hopes and fears,
or, at any rate, an end for many months, the story reaches its natural
termination.
In these pages I give to the public, for what they are worth, my own
personal impressions of the people and things I saw and with whom I
came into contact. I hope I have revealed the late Colonel
Best-Dunkley to the public just as he was--as he appeared to me and as
he appeared to others. I believe that in this I am doing right. "Paint me
in my true colours!" exclaimed Cromwell to Lely. That is all that any
hero--and Best-Dunkley was certainly a hero--can conscientiously ask.
And I am sure it was all Best-Dunkley himself would ever have asked.

He was a brilliant young man, endowed with a remarkable personality.
It is right that his memory should be preserved; and if his memory is to
be preserved it must be the memory of the Best-Dunkley we knew.
The battalion which Best-Dunkley commanded has, since his death,
achieved great things and acquired great fame under the still more
brilliant leadership of his successor, Colonel Brighten; but we must
never forget that it was Best-Dunkley who led it on the glorious day of
Ypres and that it was the tradition which he inspired which has been
one of the strongest elements of esprit de corps in the 2/5th Lancashire
Fusiliers. All who served under Best-Dunkley remember the fact with a
certain amount of pride, however unfavourably his personality may
have impressed itself upon them at the time--for "All times are good
when old!"
I am fully aware of the many imperfections of this book; but if it
succeeds at all in vividly recalling to those who were in the Ypres
Salient in 1917 the atmosphere of that time, and if it should encourage
others to risk a similar venture, I shall feel amply rewarded.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
FOREWORD vii
I OFF TO THE FRONT 1
II THE PRISON 26
III ENTER BEST-DUNKLEY 49
IV MILLAIN 57
V THE MARCH 63

VI THE GENERAL'S SPEECH 77
VII THE VALE OF ACQUIN 81
VIII BACK TO THE SALIENT 103
IX BILGE TRENCH 113
X THE RAMPARTS 128
XI MUSTARD OIL 136
XII THE CITY AND THE TRENCHES 146
XIII RELIEF 164
XIV WATOU 168
XV THE DAYS BEFORE 179
XVI THE BATTLE OF YPRES 187
APPENDICES
I MURRAY AND ALLENBY 227
II THE INFANTRY AT MINDEN 229
III GENERAL RAWLINSON AND OSTEND 230
IV EDWARD III AND THE ORDER OF THE GARTER 231
V GOLDFISH CHÂTEAU 233

AT YPRES WITH BEST-DUNKLEY

CHAPTER I
OFF TO THE FRONT
I had been to France before--in 1916, during the Battle of the
Somme--but not as an officer; in 1916 I was a private in the Royal
Fusiliers, and I had received orders to return to "Blighty" in order to
proceed to an officer cadet battalion at Gailes, in Ayrshire, before I had
been able to see what a front-line trench was like. So this, then, was my
first experience of war--my "baptism of fire." I had seen and heard
those magnificent bombardments up the line in 1916, and had gazed
with awestruck admiration upon the strange horizon far away from my
tents at Boulogne and Étaples, wondering what it must be like to be
amongst it all, and expecting to be amongst it all in the course of a day
or two; but, as I have already observed, I was recalled to England, and
was not destined to be amongst it until the following summer. But now,
at last, the experience, the great adventure to which I had been looking
forward so long, was to be mine. I was gazetted a second-lieutenant in
the 5th (Territorial) Lancashire Fusiliers on March 1, 1917; on March
26, I reported for duty with the 5th (Reserve) Lancashire Fusiliers at
South Camp, Ripon, where I spent some unpleasant weeks amongst
snow and mud; from Ripon the unit proceeded to Scarborough, where I
rejoined it after having spent a couple of weeks in hospital, with
tonsillitis, at the former place. Shortly after this, I received orders to
proceed overseas, and returned to my home in Middleton Junction to
spend my embarkation