The Story of the 9th Kings in France | Page 4

battalions which were
holding the line.
At Oblinghem the men learnt for the first time what French billets were
like and experienced the insanitary conditions prevailing on the small
farms and the draughty and dirty barns. Looking around the
countryside all seemed quiet and peaceful. The ploughman ploughed
the fields, others sowed and the miners went to their daily tasks as
usual. At times it was difficult to realise that the firing line was within a
few miles, but the boom of the distant guns and the laden Red Cross
motors indicated the proximity of the fighting. A lot of old ideas as to
the rigours of a campaign were lost, and warfare in some respects was
found not to be so bad as had been expected. Wine and beer at any rate
were plentiful, though the potency of the beer was not quite sufficient
for the taste of the older men. Other regiments, lent officers to give a
helping hand in organisation and training. Company messes for officers
were formed, as anything in the nature of a battalion mess was
impracticable.
The men soon learnt that the estaminets were the equivalent in France
of the public houses at home, and thither they repaired in the evening to
spend their time. Many good young men who had never taken a drop of
the more invigorating liquors learnt that soldiers drank them, and the
cause of teetotalism began to wane.
On the 24th a move was made to Les Facons, a straggling village
outside Bethune. Here on quiet nights one could easily hear the
fusillade in the trenches while the distant gun flashes lit up the night
sky. The terrors of the trenches were coming nearer.
Early in April the various companies were attached each in turn to
another battalion in the Brigade, and went into the line for instruction
in trench duty at Port Arthur by Neuve Chapelle, and it was here that

the first casualties were sustained. It is claimed that the first shot fired
by the Battalion killed an enemy sniper. The men soon learnt the duties
that fell upon them as a consequence of trench warfare: the early
morning stand-to, the constant vigil of the neutral ground between the
lines, and the imperative necessity of keeping one's head low. Hitherto
the men knew little of the nature or use of guns, but now glimmerings
of the mystery surrounding artillery fire soon dawned. The men learnt
the natures of German shell, and the difference between shrapnel and
high explosives and what targets the enemy generally selected. Facts
like these were explained to them by the "real soldiers" of the Regular
units to which they were attached. On relief the Battalion marched back
to Oblinghem once more, where it stayed a week or two, and later in
the month took over a portion of the line at Richebourg St. Vaast where
it was subjected to a very heavy artillery bombardment on the 1st May.
The military training of the men can be said to have been complete as
regards pre-war standard, but the war had introduced the use of two
new instruments of death. One was gas, the other the bomb. A
primitive form of respirator was given out in consequence of the use by
the Germans of chlorine at the Second Battle of Ypres. Instruction was
given in the use of bombs, of which the men had hitherto no knowledge.
In those days the bomb first in use was the jam-tin bomb. The men
were taught how to cut fuses, fix them into the detonator, attach the
lighter and wire the whole together preparatory for use against the
enemy. Jam-tin bombs were soon discarded for the Bethune bomb, and
there was no regular bomb until much later, when the use of the Mills
bomb became universal. The Hairbrush and Hales bombs were also
studied in addition to the Bethune. A few also received some
instruction in a rather primitive form of trench mortar.
In April, Lieut.-Colonel Lloyd, V.D., was invalided home, and in his
stead Major T.J. Bolland took over the command of the Battalion.
THE BATTLE OF AUBERS RIDGE
The disastrous enterprise of the 9th May was the first major action of
the war in which the "Ninth" took part. Shattered at its inception, the
whole attack soon came to an end. The lack of high explosive shells

and the consequent failure of the British artillery to destroy the enemy
wire entanglements were probably the main causes of the holocaust that
took place on that day. Though one of the biggest disasters the British
arms sustained throughout the war, it was scarcely noted in the
newspapers, and would seem to a casual observer quite insignificant
compared with the sinking of the "Lusitania," which had taken place
some days before,