tramping we came to a lot of tents beside the road. Here we learnt that the whole brigade had moved very recently, and these people were the thirty-three and a third per cent who were now always left out when a battalion went into battle, so as to help reform it when it came out. Captain Macdermid was in charge of the 14 th Battalion’s section in that camp, and on my reporting to him he told me to attach myself to him for the time being. There were four lines of tents in all, each line representing one battalion in the brigade. C.Q.M.S. Granigan was at the wagon-lines, and as soon as he saw me he called me all the silly — he could think of for coming back just then, in face of a killing-off. Stunt or no stunt, I was so pleased to get back that it never worried me at all. We spent the night in the tents, and next day put up some shelters to make more room. That evening, 9 April, before we crawled in, we received orders to leave at 2 a.m. next morning for the line. The 14 th Battalion’s section was the only one concerned – the other three battalions never called for their men, though why we were called and not they, I’ve never heard. At 2 a.m. we got moving along the road and settled down to a couple of hours’ steady march. All packs were being sent forward also; this looked as if we were preparing to drive the Huns for miles. The reason for all this was that in the south General Nivelle, the French Commander-in-Chief, was about to attack the Huns near Soissons and at Rheims and finish the war; as a matter of fact, after bitter fighting in which he captured 20,000 prisoners, he came a great crash. But anyway, the part of the British in the whole show was to make a big attack in the north to draw off the enemy’s reserve troops from the French. This big British attack began on 9 April, and, a little to the northward of us, Vimy Ridge had been taken by the Canadians, and the British had made a big advance from Arras. Although we were so close to all this fighting, we were in no position to help, as the Hun had only just reached his Hindenburg Line, which was strongly wired, and we were not nearly ready to tackle such formidable defences. Our railway was miles behind us, and our artillery was very feeble. All main roads were mined at awkward places, and these conditions held up the bringing forward of the artillery and ammunition. At this particular time our newspapers were making a great song about our advance from the Somme battlefield and the enemy’s ‘discomfiture’ but they gave people a totally false impression. True, he had given up ground, but the way he made us pay for it put him on the credit side of the account. In spite of the difficulties, however, we had suddenly been ordered to attack on 10 April with the object: first, of breaking the Hindenburg Line at Bullecourt and Riencourt; second, of allowing the cavalry to sweep up behind the Hindenburg Line to meet the British farther north and capture all the German artillery and stores. A couple of miles south of Riencourt was the town of Queant, and it was at this place that the Hindenburg Line joined with the Wotan Line, the second German defence, lying behind the Hindenburg Line. We were to attack near the junction of the two. As a rule, nearly all schemes of military operations look nice on paper, no matter how rotten they are, but this one was an exception; at any rate, all our Australian chiefs were opposed to it. Maybe it looked all right to General Gough, of whose army we formed part, but he took no notice of General Birdwood and the rest of the Aussie generals when they implored him to change the scheme and give the men a chance. Later, out at Mametz camp, I heard both General Birdwood and General Brand apologise to the men who were left, and with tears in their eyes tell them how they had done everything in their power to have the plan altered, but without success. The plan to which our generals objected was that of attacking the Hindenburg Line.
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