"Then (officer) Tuxford noticed a group of men from the 8th,
7th, and 10th battalions, maybe as many as three hundred"
["Kitcheners Woods* today. Even now, farmers must watch
out for live munitions when tilling these fields each spring."]
The Strange Alchemy
Their orders, he knew, were to stop
halfway through a crossroads and dig in -
to provide some covering fire for his
men's retreat. But the men failed to stop,
for "all cohesion had vanished."
Like valour, cohesion is there one minute,
gone the next. Its presences is determined
by the strange alchemy that exists between
a fighting formation and its leader,
by an emotional calculus by which each man
believes that his mission is worthwhile.
Tuxford, who had led men in battle for all
of four days, tipped the balance. He ran to
the crossroads and found forty or so men.
Of them he later wrote:
"Upon being ordered, (they) immediately
advanced up this high-mile slope, under
heavy machine gun fire at 400 yards, and then
under the most intense artillery fire, shrapnel
and H.E. (high explosive), and as soon as I
put them in the trenches on top of the hill...
these men immediately snapped their bayonets
in and said, "Just tell us what to do, Sir, and
in and said, "Just tell us what to do, Sir, and
we will do it," as cheerful as could be."
(page 319 - 320)
*The scene of WWI battles near Ypres, Belgium in the spring of 1915. Photo in book, mentioned above, is courtesy of the In Flanders Field Museum.
Photo by GH
*The scene of WWI battles near Ypres, Belgium in the spring of 1915. Photo in book, mentioned above, is courtesy of the In Flanders Field Museum.
Photo by GH
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