The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade | Page 4

a hot day," and their scarlet streaming
faces certainly bore out their views. To do them justice, they practically
all did turn up. I was afraid that, in spite of great care and the numerous
orders I had issued about the fitting and greasing of new boots, it was
the boots which were at fault; but it was not so, except in a very few
cases.

Our billeting parties had, of course, been sent ahead and started on their
work. It was naturally quite new work to them, and it took a lot of time
at first--two and three hours--before the men were settled. Nowadays it
takes half an hour, or at most an hour, as everybody knows his job, and
also takes what is given him at once, squash or no squash. After a little
campaigning men very quickly find out that it is better to shake down
at once, even in uncomfortable billets, than to hang about and try to get
better ones. Here we got first touch, though very indirectly, with the
enemy, in the shape of a French patrol of Chasseurs à Cheval (in
extraordinarily voyant light-blue tunics and shakos), who had come in
from somewhere north after having seen some "Uhlans" and hunted
them off. I sent the news, such as it was, on to the Division.
And here I must lay stress on the fact that throughout the campaign we
did not know in the least what was happening elsewhere. Beyond the
fact that the 3rd Division was somewhere on our right, and that the
French cavalry was believed to be covering our left front, we did not
know at this period what the movement was about or where the
Germans were supposed to be. We trusted to our superiors to do what
was necessary, and plunged blindly into the "fog of war."
The usual proceedings on the ordinary line of march were that, on
receiving "Divisional Orders," which arrived at any time in the
afternoon, or often at night, we compiled "Brigade Orders" on them.
Divisional Orders give one first of all any information about the enemy
which it is advisable to impart, then the intention of the Divisional
General--whether he means to fight on the morrow, or march, or stay
where he is, &c., &c.; and if he means to march he gives the direction
in which the Division is to proceed, the order of march, by brigades,
artillery, divisional troops such as R.E., heavy batteries, divisional
cavalry, &c., &c., and generally says where and how the transport is to
march, whether with its own troops or some way behind, and if so,
where; and gives directions as to the supplies, where the refilling-point,
rendezvous for supply carts, and railhead are, and many other odds and
ends, especially as to which brigade is to provide the advanced- or
rear-guard, who is to command it, at what time the head of the column
and the heads of all the formations are to pass a given point, and so on.

On receiving these orders we have to make out and issue similarly
composed Brigade Orders in detail, giving the order of march of the
battalions and Brigade Headquarters, how much rations are to be
carried on the men and in the cook-waggons, what is to happen to the
supply and baggage waggons, whether B transport (vehicles not
absolutely necessary in the fighting line) are to be with the A transport
in rear of their respective battalions, or to be bunched up by themselves
behind the Brigade, with similar detailed orders about the
advanced-guard or rear-guard, and the time to a minute as to when each
detail is to pass a given point, the position of the Brigadier in the
column, the point to which reports are to be sent, &c., &c. These orders
might be written in anything from fifteen to fifty minutes according to
the movement required, and then had to be quadruplicated and sent out
to the battalions by their respective orderlies, or by wire. By the time
the battalions had written out and transmitted their own orders to their
companies it was sometimes very late indeed; but as the campaign went
on, orders got more and more simplified somehow, and things got done
quicker than at the beginning of the premier pas.
The country through which we were passing was that technically
described by novelists as "smiling." That is to say, it was pretty, in a
mild sort of way, clean, green, with tidy farmhouses and cottages, and
fields about ripe for the harvest. Plenty of orchards there were too, with
lots of fruit-trees alongside the roads, and the people were most kind in
offering us fruit and milk and water and coffee and even wine as we
went along. But this could