The never ending stream of soldiers to Beechlands  also continued to provide  material for Nurse Oliver’s album.  Some of the soldiers just recorded their name and number.  Others added where they had been wounded, their address in England – perhaps in the hope that the tall VAD nurse would write to them – or a sketch.  Private Alexander Geddes of the 1/7^th Gordon Highlanders combined in his entry a mixture of homesickness for his country and affection for the woman who was helping to nurse him back to health.  He had been wounded on 9^th September; not on the Somme but at Armentieres.  It was all the same to him.  The end result was a ‘Blighty One’ and the chance to escape the horror of the trenches, at least for a short while. 

 

Private Proctor of The West Riding Regiment did not even bother to record the battalion of the West Riding Regiment that he had served and been gassed with at High Wood.  He was an ‘English Tommy’ as simple as that.  There was really nothing more to say

Private T W Brown of The Durham Light Infantry had a little more to say.  Like Private Proctor before him, he did not deem his regimental number or the Battalion in which he had served of sufficient importance to record in the tall nurse’s book.  What was important was that he was recovering from the wounds he had received on The Somme and would shortly be heading back to the Regimental Depot.  Soon Chailey would just be a memory, and a fond one at that. 

 

 

20 year old Private Herbert Maginnis of The Scottish Rifles had been in France for less than two months before he had been wounded.  An office clerk living in Glasgow he had been posted to the Regiment’s 10^th Battalion shortly after arriving in France. The battalion formed part of the 46^th Brigade of the 15^th Scottish Division and had he arrived a few days earlier he would have found himself in the forefront of an attack on German trenches south of Martinpuich.  As it was, he had disembarked on the 18^th August, six days after the initial attack had been launched and by the time he reached the battalion, it was a period of relative quiet, the 46^th Brigade having just been relieved by the 45^th.  The Switch Line opposite them had been discovered by patrols to be empty so this had promptly been occupied and consolidated by the men and re-named Cameron and Sanderson Trench by them.  One line of trenches now stood between the Scotsmen and the village of Martinpuich to their north.  The Intermediate Line had withstood numerous attacks already and now it was decided to surround it and force the garrison to surrender.  In order to achieve this, a chain of posts was established between Sanderson Trench on the left and Clarke’s Trench on the right.  The work was carried out on the night of August 29^th/30^th and the following afternoon, the defenders, realising they had been surrounded, surrendered to the 45^th Brigade. 

 

With the capture of The Intermediate Line, the British line had advanced beyond the crest of the rising ground to the south of Martinpuich and from it, the occupying troops could now see the village laid out in front of them.  This was to be their next objective but it would take some preparation and for the next three weeks, the men busied themselves preparing for the coming assault.  As well as arranging all the support necessary for a large scale attack such as ammunition dumps, advanced dressing stations and water supply, four new jumping off trenches were also dug in front of the line.

 

Assailed throughout by German artillery fire coming from High Wood which was still in their hands, the trenches were christened Ham, Egg, Liver and Bacon by the men who had constructed them. 

 

The attack was timed to take place on 15^th September.  On the right, the 45^th Brigade would advance from Ham and Egg Trench.  The 13^th Royal Scots and the 11^th Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders would lead the assault supported by the 6/7^th Royal Scots Fusiliers and the 6^th Camerons.  On the left, the 10^th Scottish Rifles, 7/8^th King’s Own Scottish Borderers and 10^th/11^th Highland Light Infantry would lead the 46^th Brigade’s advance.  They would be supported by the 12^th Highland Light Infantry.

 

The whole procedure was meticulously planned.  Resting behind the line, the 45^th and 46^th Brigades had spent eight days rehearsing the assault over ground marked out with flags.  In this way, it was hoped, every man knew what was expected of him and the role he would have to play.  To further support the effort, four ‘tanks’ were also allotted to the Division from ‘D’ Company of The Heavy Machine Gun Corps.  ‘Tank’ was still the cover word for this new secret weapon which would be used for the first time in the coming attack.  While the men advanced under a creeping barrage at 50 yards per minute, a lane 100 yards wide would be left in the barrage so that the tanks could accompany them.  Perhaps learning the lessons of previous failed assaults, although the German lines had already been subjected to a steady and continuous bombardment, it was decided not to herald the start of the attack by a preliminary bombardment but to rely on the barrage and the surprise offered by these new lumbering beasts that would growl into Martinpuich. In order to maintain the element of surprise that it was hoped the tanks would bring, aeroplanes were instructed to fly over the German trenches while the tanks were being moved into position in case the noise of their exhausts should give the game away.

 

At 6.20am the attack was launched and by 4pm, the whole of Martinpuich  had been captured.  “A better conceived and better executed operation it would be difficult to find,” reported the Fifteenth Divisional History ten years later.  “Artillery, Engineers and infantry worked together in a manner little short of marvellous; losses were not excessive and a serious blow had been dealt to the enemy.”

 

The GOC Fourth Army also added his congratulations. “Please convey to my old friends in the Fifteenth Division my congratulations on their splendid performance the day before yesterday.  To have captured Martinpuich after having been a month in the line is a very fine performance and I greatly appreciate their gallantry and vigorous fighting spirit.”

 

Total casualties sustained by the Division numbered 1854 of whom 221 were killed and 351 reported missing.  Herbert Maginnis was one of the 1208 Other Ranks wounded in the advance.  He had made it into Martinpuich itself before he had been shot through both legs, one bullet smashing the tibia in his right leg, another going through his left knee.  It was ironic, he was a qualified Lewis Gunner himself and now he had fallen victim to a German machine gun.  It was something he would always remember and there would be plenty of reminders over the coming years.  Whenever the air was damp or there was wet weather, both legs would ache and trouble him.  But all that was in the future.  For now he had to find cover until he could get to safety.

 

Had the battle gone against the Fifteenth Division, Herbert Maginnis’s fate, and that of other wounded soldiers like him, might have been a good deal worse.  Gas gangrene was what every wounded man feared and in the conditions in which men fought, it didn’t take long for exposed wounds to become infected.  Fortunately for Herbert, the battle had been won and he had not had to lie out in the open for too long before he was picked up.  Five days later he was in England and being stretchered off the train at Brighton.  Eventually, posted to another battalion of the Scottish Rifles, he would find his way to Newick and Nurse Oliver’s album.  Although he would not be discharged from the Army until April 1919, his role as a fighting infantryman was over.  Eventually he would wind up with the 30^th London Regiment at Walton on the Naze in Essex but his war had effectively ended at Martinpuich.