Читать книгу The Motor-Bus in War - A. M. Beatson - Страница 9

Table of Contents

Supply trains, which, as their name denotes, bring up supplies for the troops in the field, are made up and loaded at the Base, and possibly certain of their contents are loaded at intermediate points en route in the line of communications. They then proceed to the regulating station, which is to all intents and purposes the terminus of the lines of communication, and from there they are dispatched to the railhead of the Division for which the supplies are intended.

The railhead of a Division is the furthest point along the railway line in the direction of the Division in question to which the supply train travels. From that point motor-lorries are loaded up with rations and forage drawn from the supply train, and in due course convey them by road to the vicinity of the troops, where they either dump their contents in bulk at a prearranged point, deliver it to each regiment individually, or, in the case of an Infantry Division, off-load it to the divisional horse train. This consists of a number of thirty hundred-weight carrying capacity General Service wagons, which in turn carry and deliver the supplies to the Brigade or regimental ration dumps. From there they are taken on by carrying parties into the trenches when necessary—the plan adopted being, of course, in accordance with tactical considerations and the conditions prevailing.

The railhead usually consists of a station yard; fortunately, in France they are nearly all large, rather more so, I think, than those of country villages or small towns of corresponding size at home. They are all built on the same pattern and have the same attributes. In winter they are covered with a sea of ankle-deep mud and in summer they are as dusty as the Sahara. In any season of the year they are places to avoid from a pleasure point of view.

We will try to picture a typical railhead. It is about 6 a.m. Drawn up in the yard of some country station, possibly one that has been blown to bits by shell fire, are one or more goods trains. They are composed of large closed-in trucks, each of which is marked "Hommes 40. Chevaux [en long] 8." One reads this for the first time with feelings of sympathy, for either the "hommes" or the "chevaux." But, for the trucks we are going to deal with, the inscription is misleading, for they actually contain rations for men and horses, and go to make up a supply train.

The Column Supply Officer arrives in his car and "takes over the train" from the Railhead Supply Officer. The sealed trucks are opened up by the supply personnel. A convoy of perhaps sixty to eighty empty motor-lorries appears on the scene. They draw up outside the railhead and are checked into the yard in batches and detailed for the load they are to carry. Entering the yard, they "back" one by one up against the open trucks and are loaded up from the train. The grocery trucks in particular present a scene of great animation. The men who "issue" the groceries are experts at their job, and can ladle out tea or sugar and cut off given weights of cheese and bacon with a rapidity which is amazing. So accurate are they, through long practice, that weights and scales are almost unnecessary. Each railhead has attached to it several officers of considerable importance, namely: Railway Transport Officer, Railhead Supply Officer, Railhead Ordnance Officer, and a representative of the Assistant Military Forwarding Officer, officially designated and known only by their initials, R.T.O., R.S.O., R.O.O., and A.M.F.O. respectively—not forgetting the "Commissaire Militaire," an officer of the French Army, usually of advanced age and senior rank, who is the liaison officer between the French and British Armies in matters of traffic regulation and organization. The only other personnel at railheads are a few military police, a handful of A.S.C. details, and usually a company or so of some line regiment in charge of a subaltern. These latter are employed as sentries over trains and on various fatigues, and are usually part of the remnants of a battalion that has had a rough time in the trenches and is out on rest, awaiting the arrival from England of reinforcements to bring it up once more to its fighting strength. The duties of the R.T.O. include all matters in connection with the regulation of the railway traffic of his railhead, such as the arrival and departure of supply and ammunition trains; the entraining and detraining of troops, reinforcements and remounts; the evacuation of sick and wounded men and horses; and last, but surely not least, the issue of "movement orders" to officers and men travelling by train, including the "leave train," which, being apparently of little or no importance in the scheme of things, has to make way for all other traffic on the line, and usually occupies from ten to twenty-four hours to accomplish the journey from the front to Boulogne or Le Havre, as the case may be; sometimes even longer in making the return journey. French trains, at any rate in war-time, are anything but rapid, and to get to one place from another by train is not always so easy a matter as might at first appear.

* * * * *

The R.S.O. is responsible for the issue of all rations and forage at railhead, whether from the supply trains or from the railhead "dump" or "detail" trucks, while the R.O.O. deals with the classification and return to the Base of all unserviceable and worn out material classed as Ordnance Stores, which term includes such items as used shell cases, rifles, boots, clothing, horseshoes, saddlery, and various equipment.

The A.M.P.O. receives and distributes the various boxes of presents, luxuries, and so forth, sent by friends at home through the M.F.O., Southampton, a task more arduous than it may appear, particularly about Christmas-time, and also dispatches home surplus personal and deceased officers' kits, etc. At each railhead there is to be found also a field post office. I need hardly add that from it His Majesty's mails, always so eagerly awaited by all of us, are distributed and loaded on to postal lorries of the Supply Column allotted for the purpose, which take the mails on to the units of the Division. The field post offices are in charge of the R.E.'s. What a wonderful corps the Sappers are! Their versatility and multifarious duties are truly remarkable, varying as they do from "tunnelling" and the administration of asphyxiating gases to the Huns from our front line trenches to the maintenance of telephone wires and the running of field post offices.

One of the excitements of railhead is the passing through of convoys of German prisoners en route to internment camps. On one occasion I happened to be at Merville and saw a party of prisoners marched into the railhead yard, where they were to entrain; their escort consisted of some Gurkhas, whom they looked on with evident signs of alarm and suspicion. The R.T.O. happened to be able to speak German, and very soon formed the prisoners up in two ranks and marched them to the train, giving his words of command in their own language, greatly, it need scarcely be added, to their surprise.

On such occasions as the entraining of German prisoners, "souvenirs" are in great demand, in the shape of German uniform buttons and helmets, though the latter are more uncommon than was formerly the case. This word "souvenir," which is frequently put in the form of a request by the inhabitants to English soldiers, appears to cover a variety of articles, from an empty shell case to a full tin of "bully." It is the recognized custom within the war zone for every one to ask every one else for a souvenir.

There is a current story of one Tommy who, writing home, remarked in the course of his letter that the French were funny people, and the only word of English they seemed to understand was "souvenir"!