Divisional Exercise and Mimic Warfare

Divisional exercise is a great game of
make-believe. All sorts of liberties
are taken, the clock is put forward
or back at the command of the general, a
great enemy army is created in the twinkling
of an eye, day is turned into night and a
regular game of topsy-turvydom indulged
in. On the occasion of which I write the
whole division was out. The time was nine
o’clock in the forenoon, and an imaginary
forced march was nearly completed, and an
imaginary day was at an end. We were
being hurried up as reinforcements to the
main army, which was in touch with the
enemy ahead and an engagement was developing. Our battalion came to a halt
on the roadway, closing in to the left in order
to give full play to the field telephone service in process of being laid.

Our officers went out in front to seek
[pg 86]
a position for a bivouac; the doctor accompanied
them to examine the place chosen,
see to the water supply, the drainage, and
sanitation. In addition to this, our commanders
had to find the battalion a resting-ground easy to defend and of merit as a
tactical position.

At ten o’clock we lay down, battalion after
battalion, just as we halted: equipment
on, our packs unloosened but shoved up
under our heads, and our rifles by our sides,
muzzles towards the enemy. One word of
command would bring twenty thousand men
from their beds, ready in an instant, rifles
loaded, bayonets at hips, quick to the route
and ready for battle. We would rise, as we
slept, in full marching order, and the space
of a moment would find us hurrying, fully
armed, into battle, with the sleep of night still heavy in our eyes.

For miles around the soldiers lay down, each
in his place and every place occupied. Hardly a word was spoken; commands
were whispered, and our officers crept round
explaining the work ahead. Two miles in
front the enemy was assembled in great
strength on a river, and by dawn, if all went
[pg 87]
well, we would enter the firing line. At
present we had to lie still; no man was to
move about, and sentries with fixed bayonets
were stationed at front, flank, and rear,
ready to give the alarm at the first sign of danger.

Behind us were the kitchen, horse-lines,
and latrines. The position of these varies
as the wind changes, and it is imperative
that unhealthy odours are not blown across
the bivouac. The battalion lay in two
parallel squares, with a gangway, blocked
up with baggage and various necessaries,
between. On these squares no refuse was
to be thrown down; the ground had to be
kept clean; papers, scraps of meat, and
pieces of bread, if not eaten, had to be buried.

Even as we lay, and while the officers
were explaining the work in hand, the
artillery took up its stand on several wooded
knolls that rose behind us. What a splendid
sight, the artillery going into action! Heavy
guns, an endless line of them, swept over
the greensward and rattled into place. Six
horses strained at each gun, which was
accompanied by two ammunition wagons
with six horses to each wagon. How many
[pg 88]
horses! How many guns! Out of nowhere
in particular they came, and disappeared
as if behind a curtain barely four hundred
yards away. Thirty minutes afterwards I
fancied as I looked in their direction that
I could see black, ominous muzzles peering
through the undergrowth. Probably I was
mistaken. Anyhow, they were there, guarding
us while we slept, our silent watchers!

About eleven o’clock an orderly stole in
and spoke to the colonel, a hurried consultation
in which all the officers took part was
held, and the messenger departed. Again
followed an interval of silence, only broken
by the officers creeping round and giving
us further information. The enemy was
repulsed, they told us, and was now in retreat,
but before moving off he had blown up all
the bridges on the river. The artillery of
our main army in front was shelling the
fleeing foe, and our engineers had just set
off to build three pontoon bridges, so that the
now sleeping division could cross at dawn and follow the army in retreat.

Our dawn came at one o’clock in the
afternoon; a whistle was blown somewhere
near at hand, and the battalion sprang to
[pg 89]
life; every unit, with pack on back, cartridge
pouches full, rifle at the order, was
afoot and ready. Only two hours before
had the engineers set out to build the bridges
which the whole division, with its regiment
after regiment, with its artillery, its guns,
ammunition wagons and horses, its transport
section, and vehicles of all descriptions, was
now to cross. The landscape had changed
utterly, the country was alive, and had
found voice; the horse-lines were broken,
and all the animals, from the colonel’s charger
to the humble pack horse, were on the move.
The little squares, dotted brown, had taken
on new shape, and were transformed into
companies of moving men in khaki. We
were out on the heels of the retreating foe.

Two hours’ forced marching brought us
to the river, a real one, with three pontoon
bridges, newly built and held firm on flat-bottomed
boats moored in mid-stream. We
took our way across, and bent to the hill
on the other side. Half-way up, in a narrow
lane, a wagon got stuck in the front of our
battalion, and we were forced to come to
a halt for a moment. Looking back, I could
see immediately behind three lines of men
[pg 90]
straining to the hill; farther back the same
lines were crossing the bridges and, away
in the far distance, pencilled brown on the
ploughed fields, the three lines of khaki
crawled along like long threads endlessly
unwinding from some invisible ball. Now
and again I could see the artillery coming into
sight, only to disappear again over a wooded
knoll or into an almost invisible hollow.

Thus the division, the apparently limitless
lines of men, horses, and guns crawled
on the track of the fleeing enemy. As we
stood there, held in check by the wagon, and
as I looked back at the thousands of soldiers
in the rear, I felt indeed that I was a minute
mite amongst the many. And then a second
thought struck me. The whole mass of
men around me was a small thing in relation
to the numbers engaged in the great war.
Even I, Rifleman Something or Another, No.
So-and-so, bulked larger in the division as
one of its units than the division did in the
war as a unit of the Allied Forces.

Even more interesting than divisional
exercises is the mimic warfare that is heralded
by a notice in battalion orders such as the
following: “The battalion will take part
[pg 91]
in brigade exercise to-day. Ten rounds of
blank ammunition and haversack rations will be carried.”

At eight o’clock in the morning whistles
were blown at the bottom of the street in
which my company is billeted, and the
soldiers, rubbing the sleep from their eyes
or munching the last mouthful of a hasty
breakfast, came trooping out from the snug
middle-class houses in which they are quartered.
The morning was bitterly cold, and
the falling rain splashed soberly on the
pavement, every drop coming slowly to
ground as if selecting a spot to rest on. The
colour-sergeant, standing at the end of the
street, whistle in hand, was in a nasty temper.

“Hurry up, you heavy-footed beggars,”
he yelled to the men. “The parade takes
place to-day, not to-morrow! And you,
what’s wrong with your understandings?”
he called to a man who came along wearing carpet slippers.

“My boots are bad, colour,” is the answer. “I cannot march in them.”

“And are you goin’ to march in them
drorin’-room abominations?” roared the
[pg 92]
sergeant. “Get your boots mended and grease out of it.”

At roll-call three of the company were
found to be absent; two were sick, and one
who had been found guilty of using bad
language to a N.C.O. was confined to the
guard-room. Those who answered their
names were served out with packets of blank
ammunition, one packet per man, and each
containing ten cartridges wrapped in brown paper and tied with a blue string.

The captain read the following instructions: “The enemy is reported to be in
strong force on X hill, and Battalions A and
B are ordered to dislodge him from that
position. A will form first line of attack,
B will send up reserves and supports as
needed.” The rifles were examined by our
young lieutenant, after which inspection the
company joined the battalion, and presently
a thousand men with rifles on shoulder,
bayonets and haversacks on left hip, and
ammunition in pouches, were marching
through the rain along the muddy streets, out into the open country.

The day promised to be an interesting one
from my point of view; I had never taken
[pg 93]
part in a mimic battle before, and the day’s
work was to be in many ways similar to
operations on the real field of battle. “Only
nobody gets killed, of course,” my mate told
me. He had taken part in this kind of work
before, and was wise in his superior knowledge.

“One-half of the brigade, two thousand
men, is our enemy,” he explained; “and
we’re going to fight them. The battalion
that’s helping us is on in front, and it will
soon be fighting. When it’s hard pressed
we’ll go up to help, for we’re the supports.
It won’t be long till we hear the firing.”

An hour’s brisk march was followed by a
halt, when we were ordered to draw well into
the left of the road to let the company guns go
by. Dark-nosed and cold, they wheeled
past, the horses sweating as they strained at
the carriage shafts; the drivers, by deft
handling, pulling the steeds clear of the ruts;
out in front they swung, and the battalion
closed up and resumed its march behind.

The rain ceased and a cold sun shot feeble
rays over the sullen December landscape.
Again a halt was called; the brigadier-general,
followed by two officers and several
[pg 94]
orderlies, galloped up, and a hurried consultation
with our colonel took place. In a
moment the battalion moved ahead only to
come to a dead stop again after ten minutes’
slow marching, and find a company detailed
off to guard the rear. The other companies,
led by their officers, turned off the road and
moved in sections across the newly furrowed
and soggy fields. A level sweep of December
England broken only by leafless hedgerows
and wire fencing stretched out in front towards
a wooded hillock, that stood up black against
the sky-line two miles away. The enemy
held this wood; we could hear his guns
booming and now considered ourselves under
shell fire. Each squad of sixteen men marched
in the rear or on the flank of its neighbour;
this method of progression minimises the
dangers of bursting shrapnel, for a shell
falling in the midst of one body of men and
causing considerable damage will do no harm to the adjacent party.

Somewhere near us our gunners were
answering the enemy’s fire; but so well
hidden were the guns that I could not locate
them. We still crept slowly forward; section
after section crawled across the black, ploughed
[pg 95]
fields, now rising up like giant caterpillars
to the crest of a mound, and again dropping
out of sight in the hollow land like corks on
a comber. On our heels the ambulance
corps followed with its stretchers, and in front
the enemy was firing vigorously; over the
belt of trees that lined the summit of the hillock
little wisps of smoke could be seen rising and fading in the air.

Suddenly we came into line with our guns
hidden in a deep narrow cart-track, their
dark muzzles trained on the enemy, and the
gunners, knee-deep in the mire of the lane,
sweating at their work. “We’re under covering
fire now,” our young lieutenant explained,
as we trudged forward, lifting enormous
masses of clay on our boots at every step.
“One battalion is engaged already; hear the shots.”

The rifles were barking on the left front;
in a moment the reports from that quarter
died away, and the right found voice. The
men of the first line were in the trenches dug
by us a fortnight earlier, and there they
would remain, we knew, until their supports
came to their aid. Already we passed
several of them, who were detailed off on the
[pg 96]
anticipated casualty list in the morning. These
wore white labels in their buttonholes, telling
of the nature of their wounds. One label bore
the words: “Shot in right shoulder; wound
not dangerous.” Another read: “Leg blown
off,” and a third ran: “Flesh wounds in
arm and leg.” These men would be taken
into the care of the ambulance party when it arrived.

When within fifteen hundred yards of the
enemy, the command for extended order
advance was given, and the section spread
out in one long line, fronting the knoll, with
five pace intervals between the men. We
were now under rifle-fire, and all further
movements forward were made in short sharp
rushes, punctuated by halts, during which we
lay flat on the ground, our bodies deep in the
soft earth, and the rain, which again commenced to fall, wetting us to the skin.

Six hundred yards from the enemy’s front
we tumbled into the trenches already in
possession of Battalion B, and I found myself
ankle-deep in mire, beside a unit of another
regiment who was enjoying a cigarette and
blowing rings of smoke into the air. Although
no enemy was visible we got the order
[pg 97]
to fire, and I discharged three rounds in rapid succession.

“Don’t fire, you fool!” said the man who
was blowing the smoke rings. “Them blanks
dirty ‘orrible, and when you’ve clean’t the
clay from your clothes t’night you’ll not
want to muck about with your rifle. There’s
a price for copper, and I always sell my cartridge
cases. The first time I came out I fired, but never since.”

Several rushes forward followed, and the
penultimate hundred yards were covered with
fixed bayonets. In this manner we were
prepared for any surprise. The enemy replied
fitfully to our fire, and we could now
see several khaki-clad figures with white
hat-bands—the differential symbols—moving
backwards and forwards amidst the trees.
Presently they disappeared as we worked
nearer to their lines. We were now rushing
forward, lying down to fire, rising and running
only to drop down again and discharge
another round. Within fifty yards of the
coppice the order to charge was given. A
yell, almost fiendish in its intensity, issued
from a thousand throats; anticipation of
the real work which is to be done some day,
[pg 98]
lent spirit to our rush. In an instant we
were in the wood, smashing the branches
with our bayonets, thrusting at imaginary
enemies, roaring at the top of our voices, and
capping a novel fight with a triumphant final.

And our enemies? Having finished their
day’s work they were now fifteen minutes’
march ahead of us on the way back to their rest and rations.

[pg 99]