Front line trenches between San Sisto and Poslen.
The recent cold, wet weather continued, with showers of
rain, sleet and snow.
According to the Battalion War Diary, overnight 14th/15th
a small reconnoitring patrol encountered a strong Austrian patrol and “had to
fight its way back to our lines which it did with success. The enemy patrol
afterwards attacked one of our posts and was driven off with considerable
loss”. This rather bald narrative was greatly expanded in an account written
some years later by 2Lt. Bernard Garside
(see 12th April):
“Well, in reserve, we didn’t escape having a job. Every
night we had to find an outpost from our Company – that meant a platoon with
its officer, about 30 men. We had to go out at dusk and come in at dawn. The
outpost our Company had to man was about 600 yards in front of the front line,
all on its own with another outpost about 300 yards away on each side of it.
The outpost was a little hill on top of which we could lie down and be still,
because we didn’t want the Austrians to know we were there and we did want to
hear any Austrian patrols which might come near us. Then we could give them a
nasty shock by firing on them. I had been out, doing my turn, me and my
platoon, several times, when one night I heard some firing near the outpost on
our left. I told my sergeant to take two men to go and see what was the matter.
He was back very quickly and said everything was all right. I said had he
talked to the next outpost. He said no. I knew then he hadn’t been at all and
was frightened to. I felt sorry for him for I was frightened too. But I knew we
must find out what it was. So I told him to look after my men and I took two
other men and went myself. We went, going very carefully and listening and when
we got close, instead of being very quiet, everything suddenly became as if we
were in a big thunder and lightning storm, only it wasn’t in the sky but right
in our ear; or as if we had dropped suddenly into the middle of a huge noisy
firework display. The noise came from rifles a few yards away and bombs and I
don’t know what. Very fortunately we were just in a little hollow in the side
of the ridge. We flopped down and suddenly the noise became twice as big, a lot
of it coming from the outpost next to mine. We wriggled and wriggled back
towards the front line with all the bullets about a yard above us and soon the
noise died down. In all the noise I couldn’t really tell whether my platoon had
been attacked as well, so I went to look for it and couldn’t find it where I
had left it. I thought all sorts of things and went to one or two hillocks
nearby not knowing whether to expect my men or Austrians to be there. It was
very terrible wondering where my men were and wondering if a whole lot of
bullets might riddle me as I went about looking. Presently I thought I had
better not go wandering round any longer in case I came across a whole gang of
Austrians, so I went back to the front line and explained that I wanted some
men to go back with. I was given some and went back searching the hillocks.
Presently I found my men. The sergeant, I’m afraid, had thought I must be
killed, for he knew all the noise had come from just where we were going and
had gone back a little towards the front line. I told you he had been
frightened and had become more so after I left him. You see all soldiers aren’t
brave people.
Well, next morning, I had to report on what had happened and
I’ll tell you what had happened, not only what I’ve told you, but what we got
to know afterwards. An Austrian party of about 40 men (a prisoner taken later
told us) had set out to raid and kill or capture all the outpost next to mine.
They had all got into the farm house ready to spring out on the outpost when I
surprised them by turning up from nowhere just in front. This alarmed them and
they started shooting. (That was just when were in the hollow and flopped down
quietly). This caused the outpost (not mine) to start shooting and there we
were in between them. That was when we wriggled and a good job too for we could
tell there were a lot of men from the noise. Now all this caused a funny thing
to happen. Both lots of men got frightened and went off back home and so, I’m
afraid, did some of the outpost (not mine), including the officer. I won’t tell
you his name, for he was very nearly court-martialled, partly because, when he
got back to our front line, he told a lot of stories about all his men having
been killed except those with him. So you see, I had, without knowing it,
prevented the Austrians from doing what they came to do. When I told the
Adjutant my part he said, “Well now Garside, it was the right spirit for you to
go in place of your sergeant when you thought he hadn’t done the job, but you
should have stayed with your men really, and sent someone else. An officer’s
place is with his men”. I always remembered that afterwards”.
Pte. George Binns
(see 29th July 1916), who
had been wounded while serving with 10DWR in July 1916, and had subsequently
been posted to 1st/4th DWR was killed in action; he has
no known grave and is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial.
 |
| Pte. George Binns |
Pte. Thomas Cragg
was killed in action while serving with 1st/7th DWR; he
was 39 years old, from Sedbergh and married with two children. He had been one
of the original members of 10DWR but, in the absence of a surviving service
record, it has not been possible to establish when, or under what circumstances
he had left the Battalion, although it is known that he had also served with
8DWR.
 |
| Pte. Thomas Cragg |
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