Keep the Home Fires Burning - detailing wartime life in the towns and villages mentioned.

NBT 1916 Dec. 5th Tue.
On November 13th, from France Gunner O. Trasler, Royal Field Artillery, writes home to Bedford;

“We are now in action at a very quiet part of the line, where there is hardly any firing, having left the rough part of the line about a fortnight ago. The four of us, who were working the telephone exchange in the German dug-out, had some adventures in coming away. We left there about 7p.m. one evening, to walk two miles to a place where our horses were to meet us. No sooner had we started than Fritz started sending over his souvenirs (5.9 shells) right on the track that we were following. We decided to go by a circuitous route and set off in another direction. Suddenly I sank into the mud up to my waist, with my blankets and full kit on, and it took the other three a good time to pull me out again. The night was so black that it was only by chance that we kept our direction, and once we found ourselves just in front of a French heavy battery. We reached the place where our horses were to meet us about 11p.m., only to find that they had left. We were dead beat, having had no food all day, so smothered in mud from head to foot, and wet through, we sheltered in a shell hole and managed to sleep. At daybreak we discovered two tins of Army issue sardines (which some French soldier had left behind), and we soon made short work of them, without any bread. We reached our headquarters 1½ hours later, only to find that our brigade had left. There was one officer left behind, and he gave us a ten franc note with which to get some food. He told us that we were to get to a certain town, where our brigade was going to stop for the night, but how we were to get there he did not know. We plodded off again, and came at length to a French mule camp, where they gave us a breakfast of horse flesh steak, bread, vin rouge and rum, which made us feel like walking. The French soldier is always very kind. We then rode on an ammunition limber to a small pretty town, with tree lined streets, then by motor lorry to another town in the fighting area, and had a bottle of wine given to us. We left there in an old Paris motor ’bus, and travelled farther away from the firing line, which we were not at all sorry to leave. At length we came to civilisation, a town with well dressed women and girls walking about, which was a strange sight for us to see. We entered a restaurant, and had four fried eggs each, plenty of bread and butter and café-au-lait, and there wasn’t much of the ten franc note left by the time we had finished eating. A French soldier gave us a lift upon a wood cart, and we reached our destination in the evening, had a good drink of hot tea and some bread and cheese, and turned into bed. We woke up next morning as stiff as planks all over, but five days on the road took the stiffness away, leaving us none the worse.”

NBT 1917 Jan. 2nd Tues.
Baron Hubert de Reuter, who for five years was modern languages master at Elstow School, was killed in action at Beaumont Hamel on November 13th, whilst fighting as a private with the Black Watch in France. He was the only son of the late Baron de Reuter, and fell during a gallant fight in which he won high distinction for his adroitness, bravery and self-sacrifice. His Colonel writes;

“He would have gained a very high decoration had he lived. He was with his platoon in the attack, and through his courage and resource they captured ninety-seven Germans. The whole of the platoon went over the first line of German trenches into the second. De Reuter went down a 20 ft. dug-out, shouted out in German, asking if any men were there. No answer - so he threw two bombs round the corner and came up two steps until they exploded. He then again shouted ‘Anybody there?’ Answer came, ‘One officer and thirty-five men.’ These he made file out past him. He then found that some Germans had been passed over in the first line, and were shooting from behind and from the right rear, so he put the German officer up on the parapet, threatening him with his bayonet, and made him order the men to surrender: 62 men came over. He then carried in three badly wounded men into cover under heavy machine-gun fire, and went back over ‘No Man’s Land’ for the stretcher-bearers. He was hit on the way back, and was buried the next day. By his gallant conduct and daring example this one platoon (one sergeant and 20 men) captured one officer and 97 men.”

W.E. 1917 Aug. 10th
On Saturday evening, Bedfordians learned that whilst charging an enemy machine gun post Lieutenant Colonel Edgar Mobbs, D.S.O., of the 7th Battalion, Northamptonshire Regiment, had fallen at the Battle of Passchendale on Tuesday, July 31st. He was aged 37, and the son of Oliver and Elizabeth Mobbs, of Northampton. Renowned as a sportsman, during the time that the Saints were at the peak of their form he had been the inimitable captain of the Northampton Rugby team, and played in 1909-1910 for England in all the International games, including those against Australia and France. The following season he then captained England against France in Paris, and also played against Ireland. In the autumn of 1914, when calls were made for sportsmen to join the forces (specifically in their own battalions) he came forward with an offer to raise a company of athletes, and within 48 hours had recruited 250 men. In fact many were Bedford footballers who had played with and against him, and these included Jack Gillam, whose parents had formerly lived at Lathbury. Being too old to take his commission, Edgar Mobbs enlisted as a private in his own company, but he quickly rose to C.S.M. and then Lieutenant, and within 18 months was commanding his Battalion of the Northamptons in action. After being wounded, it would be whilst convalescing in England that, last winter, he watched one of the games played on the field of the Modern School, Bedford, where, living for a while at Olney, Bucks, he had once been a pupil.

(A memorial fund to perpetuate his memory would attract contributions from sportsmen everywhere, and the total received by late September 1917 amounted to £1,400, not including £100 from the officers and men of his battalion. The memorial was duly erected in Northampton.)