the whole Army was shivering and awake. So bad
were the conditions that the question was considered
as to whether it would not be advisable to postpone
the attack, but General Chetwode, than whom no general
had a greater sympathy for his men, decided that as
the 53rd Division were within striking distance by
the enemy the attack must go forward on the date fixed.
That night was calculated to make the stoutest hearts
faint. Men whose blood had been thinned by summer
heat in the desert were now called upon to endure
long hours of piercing cold, with their clothes wet
through and water oozing out of their boots as they
stood, with equipment made doubly heavy by rain, caked
with mud from steel helmet to heel, and the toughened
skin of old campaigners rendered sore by rain driven
against it with the force of a gale. Groups of
men huddled together in the effort to keep warm:
a vain hope. And all welcomed the order to fall
in preparatory to moving off in the darkness and mist
to a battle which, perhaps more than any other in
this war, stirred the emotions of countless millions
in the Old and New Worlds. Yet their spirits
remained the same. Nearly frozen, very tired,
‘fed up’ with the weather, as all of them
were, they were always cheerful, and the man who missed
his footing and floundered in the mud regarded the
incident as light-heartedly as his fellows. An
Army which could face the trials of such a night with
cheerfulness was unbeatable. One section of the
force did regard the prospects with rueful countenances.
This was the Divisional artillery. Tractors,
those wonderfully ugly but efficient engines which
triumphed over most obstacles, had got the heavies
into position. The 96th Heavy Group, consisting
of three 6-inch howitzer batteries, one complete 60-pounder
battery, and a section of another 60-pounder battery,
and the Hong Kong and Singapore Mountain Battery,
were attached to and up with the 74th Division.
The 10 and B 9 Mountain Batteries were with the 60th
Division waiting to try their luck down the hills,
and the 91st Heavy Battery (60-pounders) was being
hauled forward with the 53rd. The heavies could
get in long-range fire from Kustul, but what thought
the 18-pounder batteries? With the country in
such a deplorable state it looked hopeless for them
to expect to be in the show, and the prospect of remaining
out of the big thing had more effect upon the gunners
than the weather. As a matter of fact but few
field batteries managed to get into action. Those
which succeeded in opening fire during the afternoon
of December 8 did most gallant work for hours, with
enemy riflemen shooting at them from close range,
and their work formed a worthy part in the victory.
The other field gunners could console themselves with
the fact that the difficulties which were too great
for them—and really field-gun fire on the
steep slopes could not be very effective—prevented
even the mountain batteries, which can go almost anywhere,
from fully co-operating with the infantry.