The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry | Page 4

to no one in particular and had never been fitted
with saddlery at all. In addition, every one had been collecting every
conceivable sort of kit "indispensable for active service," presents from
kind friends and purchases from plausible haberdashers, with the result
that quite 50 per cent. of our gear had to be left behind or sent home.
To add to our confusion a draft arrived from our second line to bring us
up to War Establishment, and they had to be fitted out with horses, etc.
However, we got off up to time and entrained at Huntingdon,
wondering if it would be three days or a week (at most) before we were
charging Uhlans.
But our destination was only the Lincolnshire coast--Grimsby.
Fortunately thirty-six hours terminated our stay there, and we trekked
off south, eventually halting at Hogsthorpe, a village about three miles

from the coast. The two remaining regiments of the Brigade were one
in Skegness and the other half-way between us and Skegness.
For the next few months we moved from one village to another in the
neighbourhood of Skegness. "We dug miles of trenches along the
coast--we erected barbed wire entanglements for the sea to play
with--we patrolled bleak stretches of coast day and night, and in all
sorts of weather--we watched patiently for spies and Zeppelins, and we
were disappointed. Nothing happened; the Germans would not come."
Christmas was spent at Skegness, and in spite of alarms and excursions
we had an excellent regimental dinner, very largely due to the
generosity of our friends in Scotland. The ladies of the Regiment
opened subscription lists for "Comforts" for the Regiment, and
everyone who was asked not only gave but gave generously. Wherever
we went our "Comforts" followed us, whatever we asked for we got
and, except on Gallipoli, we were never without our own private stock
of Grant's or Inglis' oatmeal. We owe a lot to the generosity of our
friends in Scotland.
[Illustration: CROSSING THE BRIDGE, ST IVES. To face page 6]
[Illustration: LIEUT. R.G.O. HUTCHISON AND MACHINE GUN
SECTION, 1915. To face page 6]
From Lincolnshire we moved again south to Norfolk. King's Lynn was
found to be unsatisfactory as a billeting area, so we trekked on to
Fakenham which proved to be our final resting place in England. By
now our training had so far advanced that we were not kept at it quite
so hard, and we had more time for sports. We had polo, cricket, and all
kinds of games, and on 3rd June mounted sports which were most
successful.
We spent the summer putting on the finishing touches, and did some
very useful bits of training, including some fairly ambitious schemes of
trench digging and planning, which proved invaluable later on, and
which was a branch of knowledge in which many Yeomanries were
conspicuously lacking. Also, by this time, a few courses of instruction

had been started at the larger military centres, and we had several
officers and men trained at these courses in musketry and other
branches who were then able to pass their information on to the rest of
us. We were given an army gymnastic instructor who brushed up our
physical training--on which we had always been very keen--and also
started to put us through a thorough course of bayonet fighting. There
was also a busy time among our machine gunners, who trained spare
teams up to nearly three times our establishment, which was invaluable,
as it enabled us to take advantage of the chance which came to us of
going abroad with six machine guns per regiment instead of three. As
our usual role on Gallipoli was to take over with three squadrons,
whose effective strength was never more than 100 each at the most, and
generally considerably less, from four companies of infantry, each
numbering anything from 150 to 180 strong, these extra machine guns
were worth their weight in gold.
By this time a good many were thoroughly "fed up" with so long a spell
of home service, fearing that the war would be over before we got out
at all. And it was not till nearly the end of August that we got definite
news that at last we were to receive the reward of all our hard training
and see service overseas. We were inspected and addressed by General
Sir H. Smith-Dorrien. Our horses, that had done us so well on many a
strenuous field day, that knew cavalry drill better than some of us, that
had taken part in our famous charge with fixed bayonets on the
common at St Ives, were taken from us and sent, some to our second
line and some to remount depots. In return for a horse we were each
given a heavy cavalry sword, presumably to prevent