IN the farm-houses around Merris the battalion had its first experience of billets. To this experience all looked forward. Imposed regularity is never congenial, and the lines of tents of the fixed camp entail much regularity and supervision. This is not so easily maintained when men are billeted among a civilian population scattered over a wide area. But their introduction to billets was under the most unfavourable conditions. The barns and outhouses in which the men slept were often very draughty, whilst for the remainder of the month of June the weather was cold and rain fell almost constantly. It was in marked contrast with the climate which they had left at the beginning of the month, and many were soon suffering from colds.
Nevertheless all ranks settled down to happy enjoyment of their new manner of lodgment. It was found to be disappointing in so so far as it had promised any greater freedom from military restraint and duties, for parades came as regularly as formerly and had to be as punctiliously attended. Life in billets had other compensations however, and in whatever farmhouse the soldiers found themselves they soon had "the run of the place."
The Australian soldier is an adaptable being, wisely tolerant of a strange civilisation, and ever ready to get into sympathy with a strange people. At night when the day's work was finished he would sit by the kitchen-fire in the French farm-houses, received by them as one of the family. When the old grandfather would pour into his ear a long yarn of the campaign of "Soixante dix," the Australian would listen sympathetically and murmur, "Oui, Oui," though he understood not half of what was being said. When the old woman went to the well for water, the Australian would be there to turn the handle of the quaint pulley, to unhook the bucket off the chain and carry it back to the house. Of an evening he might be seen going off with the daughters of the house to milk the cows, and returning with two pails of milk swinging from a pole on his neck and shoulders after the fashion of the French peasantry.
It was this easy good-nature and innate, unaffected courtesy which gained for him the place he has since occupied in the affections of the French people. For the most part the only people left in the houses were old men, women-folk and children, and in his brief sojourn in the different villages, the Australian casually took the place of the grown-up son of the family and as such was recognised with uproarious merriment. The Madame made him innumerable cups of coffee. The girls sewed the colour patches and the buttons on his tunic, and performed the many other odd jobs of needlework that fall to the soldier on active service. The little fellows of the house played with him, called him "Dee-gair," and climbed on his knee to snatch the wide-brimmed hat off his head, that hat which was a continual source of interest and of envy to the French boy. The baby had no fear of him, but would crow with delight when he perched it on his shoulder and carried it down the village street, calmly ignoring the good-humoured badinage which his grinning comrades shouted at him from every corner.
In some parts the small tradespeople robbed him, doing so in perfectly legal fashion, but none the less effectively. They had the tendency of their class to make hay whilst the sun shone, and the digger had plenty of money and all the soldier's readiness to spend it. So pricelists that were reasonable to civilian customers made very exorbitant demands of the soldier.
Sometimes the small farmers were equally zealous in their efforts to rob his regiment, again in quite a legal manner. No enactment regarding the billeting of foreign troops is better known to the civilian population of northern France and Belgium, than that which authorises them to make a reclamation on the regiment for any damage or loss occasioned by its soldiers. It is an attractive method of making money, since in the subsequent inquiry it is held sufficient if the damage is proved to have been done by soldiers of that regiment. The matter is seldom brought home to the individual soldiers involved, so it is the regiment that pays, and damages are always held to be more easily borne by a corporation than by an individual. When the soldier helped himself to a few of Madame's chickens it was generally known what particular section of the unit had benefited, for chickens create a great row when being caught and a great smell when being cooked. The culprit would readily admit the offence, the men of his section who had partaken of the feast would cheerfully subscribe the amount demanded by Madame, usually twice the value of the chickens, and a sensible platoon officer would hand over the money and say nothing more about the matter. It was different, however, when at the end of a sojourn in a village, claims began to amass at the Battalion Headquarters for damage done to crops by soldiers taking short cuts across the fields, for trees cut down by the battalion cooks to reinforce the scanty supply of firewood allowed them, for clean straw which the soldiers carried from Madame's stacks to make themselves more comfortable beds. These claims could not be brought home to individual soldiers, and fortunately so, for otherwise the soldiers would seldom have drawn pay. The claims were always excessive, the claimant was usually a Madame with all a woman's faculty of exaggeration and of indignant remonstrance. So the regiment paid, sometimes the full amount claimed, and perhaps always more than enough. Yet they were a fine people, those French peasants. And those French women who so bravely managed the farms during the absence of their menfolk at the war, who during four years of that war had to do a man's work in the fields and a man's work in the markets - who can blame them if they were determined to lose nothing by the soldiers and even gain a little from the soldiers? Tradespeople, even tradespeople living in peaceful remoteness from the theatre of war, who sell anything to Jack of the navy, to Tommy or to the Digger, never lose anything by the transaction. His uniform belies his stinted means, his air and manner suggest prodigality, and the sleek man of business regards him as legitimate game. Billeting a foreign army that had come far to help them had long ago lost its glamour of sentiment for those French peasants, and was now rated at its market value. They were a sorely tried people who had to carry on the daily work of their farms, whilst their homes were overrun by soldiers constantly coming and going. The Australian indeed seemed to show a ready understanding of their difficulties. Himself generally a man of the fields he was careful of their crops, and gave little cause for reclamations. He did sometimes cut down their trees, for coming from his own bush-land, where wood is all too plentiful, he could not readily appreciate the present parsimony. But he often changed Madame's sorrow into joy by chopping an equal amount of firewood for her, and presenting it with much grinning politness [sic] and bad French. In his leisure hours he would lend a hand at gathering the crops, and Madame could always be certain of his prompt help in the odd jobs around a farm-house that call for a man's strength.
In this way did the Australian soldier become a most popular figure throughout northern France. However late at night his battalion marched away from any village, the whole population remained out of bed to bid him farewell. The French were no less popular with the Australian. In his far-off land he had none of those insular prejudices against "the continental" which the war has done much to remove from the people of the British Isles. He came prepared to like the French people as he is prepared to like any people worth liking. He found the French worth liking and he liked them.
The battalion settled down to these conditions during the month of June. Training was resumed immediately. Officers and men went off to different schools of instruction in bayonet-fighting, in bombing, in sniping. Here shrapnel helmets were issued for the first time, and the men got their first instruction in the precautions to be taken against gas. The box-respirator of later days was then unknown and they received the old form of gas-mask, in which they practised marching, advancing to attack and various movements.
These things were all characteristic of the war on the Western front, to them a new and unfamiliar war, and everyone yearned to see it at closer quarters. Of a morning the guns could be heard in the distance, but in that quiet country district removed from the main lines of military traffic, there was no other indication of war.
The next destination of the battalion and the task to be allotted to it was always a favourite topic of conversation, and during those few weeks many rumours were abroad. Finally on July 3 the battalion marched towards the sound of guns, until it arrived at the village of Doulieu, where it was billeted for the night. Next day the march was resumed, the river Lys was crossed at Sailly. That night the men had their first experience of German shrapnel, bursting high and ineffectively over their heads as they entered the village of Fleurbaix.
Two of the companies immediately went on to the support line of trenches, I whilst the remaining companies were billeted in the village. The village was occasionally shelled heavily, the church and several other buildings had been badly damaged. But quite a number of civilians still remained in the place, retiring to great cellars under their houses whilst danger lasted. During the day it was usually so peaceful that one could scarcely believe the German trenches were but a short distance away.
In the support trenches things were almost equally quiet. The ground was low. and marshy and there was much draining of communication-saps, cleaning out of old trench shelters and laying down of fresh duckboards. Very few shells fell in the area, and only some minor casualties were sustained by the battalion during its term there.
Even a visit to comrades in other battalions in the front line did not afford much greater interest. The weather, was now warm, and men who had been out on patrol the previous night might be seen hanging round listlessly, playing cards with a weary, disinterested air, or stretched out on the duckboards asleep. Others manned the look-out post and occasionally fired a shot across no-man's-land at "Parapet-Joe," an elusive German sniper who was almost sole source of interest during the day. At night or in the early morning things were sometimes lively enough. Taken generally the front line at Fleurbaix was a disappointment, and all ranks considered that either the war in France was much over-rated or they had not seen the war in France. That they had not yet seen the war in France proved afterwards to be the true explanation.
On the night of the 12th the battalion was relieved by troops of the Fifth Australian Division, which suffered so heavily a week later in its attack launched from the same trenches. That same night the unit marched back to Doulieu, and next day set out again for Merris which was reached about 8 o'clock in the evening.
The second stay at Merris was but a short one, for the Fourth Australian Division was then under orders to proceed to the Somme. So on the morning of the 14th the battalion entrained at Bailleul and arrived at Doullens in the evening. The detraining of the transport, of horses and mules, of limbers and cookers was a tedious business, and a considerable time elapsed before the battalion started for Berteaucourt.
The march was a long one, about 15 miles. The men had had an early breakfast, and since then had been travelling in an overcrowded troop-train where it was impossible to give them their regular midday meal. No hot meal was ready for them when they detrained, for standing orders regarding troop-trains strictly forbade the lighting of fires in cookers during the train journey. The battalion was then comparatively new to standing orders regarding troop-trains and conscientiously obeyed them. Moreover the late arrival of the train had made further delay impossible if Berteaucourt was to be reached that night. So the men started off on their long march with light stomachs, and with heavy packs that had become a little heavier by the addition of the steel helmet and gas-mask which were now part of their equipment.
It is not a very uncommon thing for a soldier to fall out on the line of march, and certainly it is not a sight which his comrades view sadly. Yet if he be not a known malingerer he is deserving of all sympathy. Perhaps he has been at the head of the column, and as file after file goes past he is lying at the side of the road, reclining on the pack which he has been too weary to remove from his shoulders; his hat pushed back from his brow, his rifle fallen across his out-stretched legs, his hand loosely grasping his uncorked water bottle, his eyes looking surly defiance at his grinning comrades. He has "given in" and although he and they fully agree that soldiers should not have to march at all, still it is "giving in" and "giving in" is generally thought to deserve at the best to be treated with a good-humoured contempt. His platoon officer has already stopped with him for one strenuous moment, to tell him he has brought disgrace irreparable on the fair name of the platoon. Then the poor fellow runs the gauntlet of the passing column's humour, mock concern for his health, advice on his choice of a more suitable career, and apparently harmless references to the motion of swinging lead which never fail to draw the most violent language from him who has fallen by the wayside. When finally he is interviewed by the medical officer at the rear of the column, he is usually in a state of defiance and ill-temper that enable him to do but scant, justice to himself in stating his probably good reasons for falling out of the march.
Men thus fell out on the march to Berteaucourt. Darkness came and the pace of the battalion slackened and became uneven on the hilly road, and the column proceeded with that concertina movement so hateful to the exponents of good marching. Berteaucourt was finally reached at midnight.