The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914-1919 | Page 9

of what we were to meet in France, and therefore of considerable practical value. That our work was satisfactory was testified to by the insertion in Central Force Orders of January 23rd, 1915, of the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief's keen appreciation of the soldierly spirit and enthusiasm shewn for the work by all ranks. All the same, we have no regrets that it was never necessary to occupy the trenches for actual warfare.
Owing to another scare Christmas leave was cancelled. Scarborough had been bombarded on December 22nd, and there was apparently a bit of a "breeze." According to one writer this was due to a little lack of liaison between our Naval and Military authorities. The former had apparently spread a rumour that an invasion of the German Coast was to take place, and the enemy concentrated numbers of troops there in case it happened. This concentration came to the knowledge of our military spies, who, however were not told of the cause, and their report appears to have caused our War Office to think that an invasion of England was contemplated. We were not, however, by any means dull at Christmas. On December 24th, we beat the 6th Battalion 2--1 in the first round of the Divisional Football competition, Vann being skipper, and in the evening the Warrant Officers and N.C.O.'s had a dance at Braintree Corn Exchange. On Christmas Day there was Church Parade at Braintree, when the Bishop of Derby preached. Later, dinners were issued on a sumptuous scale, and in the evening the Officers were entertained at the White Hart by the Colonel and Major Fowler.
In a later round of the Divisional Cup Competition, we beat the Divisional Mechanical Transport Column 3--0, and got into the semi-final, when, however, we were badly beaten by the 4th Leicesters at Bishop's Stortford, by 3 goals to nil. In a Brigade paper chase which was held on December 26th, Pvte. Allen of E Company came in first.
On December 28th, we returned to Luton by train to carry out final firing practices at the Wardown and Galley Hill Ranges, and field firing practice at Dunstable in appalling weather, when frost, snow and rain made accurate shooting perfectly impossible, and we were glad indeed to get back to Bocking on January 6th, 1915.
The rest of our time was spent in final training, mainly carried out at Gosfield Park and Abbot's Hall, and in preparations for going out, in which the inspection and completion of equipment of all kinds played a prominent part. This was not too easy a job for the young Company or Section Commanders, as the men by this time were up to all the "old soldier" tricks, and were very clever at making one article appear almost simultaneously in half-a-dozen different kits. Drill included a certain amount of new bayonet fighting and other exercises under Major A. C. Clarke, who had attended a course at Chelsea. Mules arrived in January and were objects of much interest; our miscellaneous transport vehicles were discarded and replaced by new ordnance pattern issues, to which were added two Lune Valley Cookers, kindly presented by the ladies of Nottinghamshire. At the end of January the Battalion had to be completely reorganised in order to come into line with the regular Battalions: the old 8-Company system was abolished, and the 1914 Double Company organisation introduced, entailing an immense amount of work and keeping us busy right up to the time of our departure. The situation was not helped by the absence of Major Fowler with eight Subalterns and 407 recruits, who were away carrying out musketry classification practices at Luton from February 3rd to 20th.
Our chief relaxation at Bocking in the early part of 1915 was night searching for elusive spies, who were supposed to carry on lamp signalling; more often than not when these were tracked down they turned out to be innocent stable guards doing their nightly rounds. At other times we picketed the roads to hold up motor cars which were supposed to be acting as guides to Zeppelins, but it is doubtful whether either of these occupations did a great deal towards bringing about the more rapid conclusion of the war.
One also remembers the excitement caused by the first Boche aeroplane dropping bombs within a mile of the village, which we, of course, imagined had been dropped for our especial benefit. One of the Scouts secured a "dud," which was the object of much interest to everyone, up to the Divisional Commander.
It was about this time that the first distinguishing patches were allotted to Battalions. Our first was a square green patch worn behind the cap badge, undoubtedly very smart, and the envy of the other Battalions in the Brigade. When we got to France the Officers of the Battalion had