The Highland Division

by Eric Linklater

In the morning they could hear firing from the direction of Tully, to the north, but that died down about noon. They had no idea where the nearest British troops were, and decided to make for one of the crossings of the Bresle, seize it, and find out who was on the other side. Gamaches was too big: Le Lieu Dieu was a better prospect. The route was decided, and the compass-bearings, to clear Dargnies and Embreville.

  At eleven o’clock they left the whins, and when crossing the Beauchamps road were fired on by an enemy sentry-group from a distance of about twenty yards. After some hesitation, they went on. The Germans ran off, but turned to fire again a few seconds later. The Argylls had come close to a battery position: they could see the aiming lamps, and then saw them hurriedly put out. The alarm was given. A reconnaissance plane came searching for them, circling the darkness overhead, and parachute flares were fired from every village for miles around. From Dargnies shots were fired at them, and at Embreville they had to wait for a confused column of German vehicles moving across their line of march. A motor-cyclist gave them a little trouble, and then they found themselves not far from a German battery that British guns were shelling.

  One More River …

  It was getting light, but there was no use stopping, and they climbed the ridge north-east of the Bresle. Just as they reached the top they were challenged from all round with shouts of “Hallo!”—French troops? It was quite possible. They halted, and Campbell shouted, “Etes vous Français?” He was answered in German, so they marched on and were half-way over before the enemy opened fire with machine-guns. The Germans, who were not very numerous, had been taken by surprise and did not fire much. The Argylls were soon over the ridge with no one hurt.

  Le Lieu Dieu lay below them. A rearguard was left under the imperturbable Captain Webb, and “B” company formed for an attack. The village was reconnoitred, and it became apparent that the Argylls had come into No Man’s Land. The morning mist lay in the valley. They hurried on and crossed the channels of the Bresle by the wreckage of two blown bridges, then waded a third stream. A rear party covered each crossing. Now their only danger was of being shot by their own side, but Second-Lieutenant Mackinnon with his patrol went forward at some risk, and the first man he saw was a private of the Black Watch carrying a pail and looking for a cow to milk. The Argylls had found their own Brigade and at least a temporary safety.

  About the same time a diminutive gunner rejoined. Very young, short and slight, he had been taken prisoner at Béthencourt. A German officer, with some mercy and a small humour, told him he was too little to kill, but threatening him with a revolver, ordered him to stay where he was or he would be shot. Then he went off. The gunner waited for a while, but presently made friends with some French refugees, and when night came changed his uniform for civilian clothes. He pretended to be deaf and dumb, and came into our lines holding the hand of an old woman. The refugees were examined, and a sergeant-major who had searched the boy, and no doubt felt sorry for his infirmity, shouted to him in a kindly way, “Voulez-vous une bicyclette?” “I don’t want a bloody bicycle,” said the refugee. “I want to see an officer!”

  10. Rumour and Retreat

  During most of the day—the 8th—our artillery was active, and so was the German Air Force. The enemy’s mortars—ubiquitous, innumerably reinforced, magnificently handled—continued to do damage, and Bren-carriers hunted his patrols in the Incheville woods. Southeast of Incheville the 4th Black Watch were feeling the strain of unceasing German pressure, and from the extreme right of the front came the news that inland the situation grew worse and worse, where the French, like the Stock Exchange at Budget time, were a prey to rumours.

  Not that rumours were necessary to create despondency and alarm: the truth was bad enough. Two Panzer divisions, the 5th and 7th, were already at Buchy, fifteen miles north-east of Rouen. With German tanks thirty miles behind it, there was no longer any hope of holding the line of the Bresle. There was no longer any purpose in fighting to deny the enemy every rood and furlong of the ground. There was no chance, for the Fifty-First, or any of the French IXth Corps, of a retirement east of Rouen. The only way of continued retreat was over the Seine west of Rouen, where some motor barges had been collected and the regular ferries warned of what they might have to do. But the utmost speed would be necessary if they were to reach the Seine. To avoid encirclement the slow rearguard action must become a swift and decisive withdrawal.

  From the French IXth Corps orders came to retire to the general line of the Béthune. In the late afternoon there was a conference of Sector Commanders at St Rémy, where detailed instructions were issued. The Division was to use all its available R.A.S.C. vehicles as troop-carriers. If every truck did a double journey, the whole Division could be motor-borne. But each round trip would be about twenty-eight miles, and the roads were still crowded with human wreckage, with fugitives and burdened carts and broken motor-cars. The arteries of France were choked, and she was visibly dying. Audibly dying too, for dogs tied to the doors of deserted houses howled of starvation and cows unmilked in the fields bellowed with the agony of their bursting udders.

  Withdrawal of the infantry from their forward positions was in some places a delicate process; but the Germans, with their dislike of nocturnal adventure, did not interfere, and from eleven at night till four in the morning the successive battalions were embussed and driven down the dark and crowded roads to their new lines. There had been no time to reconnoitre, and positions were not finally occupied till well after daybreak.

  The 153rd Brigade and “A” Brigade, with the 75th and 17th Field Regiments and the 1st Royal Horse Artillery, were disposed along the river Eaulne from Envermeu to Ancourt, and thence northward to the coast at Belleville. The 154th Brigade was on the Varenne, from Martigny to Arques-la-Bataille; and the 152nd Brigade with the 23rd Field Regiment held the river from Arques to Dieppe. The 31st Division of the French IXth Corps, withdrawing with the Fifty-First, was responsible for the line of the Eaulne from Envermeu to the south-east.

  The troops, tired though they were, set to work on defensive positions; but the Germans did not closely follow the withdrawal. The Lothians and Border Horse, covering the left flank of the withdrawal, were still in touch with the enemy, but to the rest of the Division the day brought no fighting.

  During the morning of the 9th, officers of the Royal Navy arrived at Divisional Headquarters, at the château of La Chaussée, to discuss evacuation from Havre, where it was estimated that 23,000 men of the Fifty-First would require to be embarked. All arrangements had been made for this at Portsmouth and nine destroyers with a number of transports assembled off Havre that night (June 9th) ready for the task. The plight of the French and their Highland allies had become as desperate as that. The German penetration towards Rouen would certainly be exploited—and swiftly exploited—and the prevailing belief was that the enemy would spread westward along the north bank of the Seine, to cut the IXth Corps’ retreat and pen it against the sea. There was, perhaps, a danger even more imminent: when the last ammunition-train from Rouen failed to arrive at Foucart, and could nowhere be found, the Divisional Ammunition Company sent trucks to a dump in the forest of St Saêns—and found the forest on fire, the ammunition dumps exploding. If the enemy were at St Saêns in any strength, they might swing from there northward to the Channel: in that case, the only port from which the Allied Forces could hope to be evacuated was Dieppe, But in view of the rapid approach of the enemy, blocking vessels were on their way to that port, and the entrance was in fact blocked at dawn on June 10th just before the entry of the enemy. Twenty miles west of it was a small fishing harbour, St Valéry-en-Caux, drying at low water, and difficult both to find and to enter. According to naval opinion, the only practicable port for embarkation was Havre which, therefore, would have to be defended against the presumptive German advance from Rouen.

  11. Ark Force

  At four o’clock in the afternoon, Brigadier Stanley-Clarke was instructed to undertake the defence o
f Le Havre with a force composed of the Headquarters of his own Brigade, the remnants of the two Argyll and Sutherland battalions, the 4th Black Watch, the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers, Royal Artillery, Sappers, and the scratch group known as “A” Brigade.2 This command was created in the village of Arques-la-Bataille, that lies beside the ruins of a castle built by an uncle of William the Conqueror, which William undutifully besieged and captured, and after its birthplace it was christened Ark Force.

  It was a memorable christening. The evening flight of German bombers was drumming through the clear sky towards Le Havre, and sitting on the warm summer turf, the senior officers of the Division heard General Fortune relate his plans and their growing danger. He had sent, he said, a personal appeal to the Prime Minister for all the air support that England could spare. The Navy was ready to do everything in its power to embark the Division and their Allies, but no one could promise a safe conclusion of their efforts. The Germans might strike north, between them and their goal. Fortune said nothing to smooth or lessen the perils of their situation, but he affirmed his confidence in success, and wished them good luck. This was also the day on which Weygand made elsewhere his cryptic statement: “Nous sommes au dernier quart d’heure. Tenez bon.”

  Ark Force was ordered to proceed that night to a position reaching from Fécamp to Lillebonne. From this line it would cover (such was the intention) the withdrawal to Le Havre of the remainder of the Division and the French IXth Corps. According to the French General’s directives, the period of withdrawal would be three nights—it was considered inadvisable to move by day—and evacuation would not begin before June 13th.

  The danger of so leisurely a plan must have been apparent to all, and was certainly obvious to General Fortune, who initially proposed a much faster retirement; but the French were unable to move with any speed. The greater part of their forces was marching infantry, and much of their transport was horse-drawn. The Fifty-First had sufficient motor vehicles to carry, if necessary, every man in the Division; if Fortune were to admit no responsibility but the safety of his own men he could very speedily arrive in Le Havre. But to retire at his own pace would expose the left flank of the French 31st Division. Loyalty had a greater claim than self-interest; and Fortune, accepting the burden that loyalty put upon him, ordered his withdrawal according to the French time-table.

  Under a Ceiling of Smoke

  The night of the 9th was preternaturally dark. Oil refineries at Le Havre and along the river Seine had been bombed and set on fire, and a great ceiling of black smoke, greasy and impenetrable, was spreading to the north-east. Even when daylight came above the smoke, the country beneath it lay for hours in a dun twilight, and the monstrous cloud, stretching more thinly over the Channel, covered the sea with a sullen fog. At night the transport drivers on the coast-road to Fécamp had to navigate a darkness so thick and evil-smelling as almost to be palpable. The roads, as they were at all times, were clotted with refugees, and French batteries were also on the move. Ark Force fumbled its way between gross but invisible obstacles, and struggled through black confusion to its goal.

  By ten o’clock on the following morning a number of units had not yet reached Fécamp, and if the French intelligence reports were true, the Germans were already in its neighbourhood. The enemy was said to be within a few miles of Fécamp, within a few miles of Bolbec. And shortly after midday, Major C. P. R. Johnston arrived at Ark Force Headquarters with the news that the Fifty-First now appeared to be cut off from Le Havre. The General’s instructions were that Brigadier Stanley-Clarke must, in these new circumstances, use his own judgment when selecting a defensive line. Ark Force might no longer be required to cover the Allied withdrawal.

  There had been no time to make detailed reconnaissance of the Fécamp-Lillebonne line, but a much shorter line from Octeville to Montivilliers and thence south to Gonserville—enclosing the mere tip of the nose of the debatable land—had previously been reconnoitred by garrison troops in Le Havre. To meet the new and alarming situation it was hurriedly decided to hold the forward line between Lillebonne and Goderville with “A” Brigade, supported by the 17th Field Regiment, R.A., and a company of machine-gunners, in conjunction with certain French fixed posts between Lillebonne and Fécamp; and to concentrate on the inner line the remnants of the 154th Brigade, supported by the 75th Field Regiment and the remaining machine-gun company.

  All that was left of the 154th Brigade withdrew during the 10th to the inner position, but the disposal of “A” Brigade on the Lillebonne-Goderville line was less accurately known. Its situation-reports were fragmentary, and news of it was difficult to obtain. It was learnt subsequently that the Buffs, arriving very late at Fécamp, had found Germans on the high ground east of the town, and in action against them had suffered severely. The 17th Field Regiment of Royal Artillery, surviving the confusion in Fécamp, took up a position between Lillebonne and Bréaute with no infantry to support it, and disposed its guns in an anti-tank role to guard approaches from the east.

  12. Fate was in a Hurry

  At half-past three on the same morning, June 10th—the day of Italy’s bold entry into the war—the 1st Black Watch, retiring from the Forêt d’Arques, occupied a position on the river Varenne with their left at Martigny. The men were so tired that they slept on their feet. Since May 30th they had, without rest, been fighting or marching or digging, they had rarely been out of range of field-gun or machine-gun, mortar or dive-bomber, and now if they halted for a few minutes they fell to the grass in a sleep so profound that boot and fist were needed to waken them. But somewhere within their dreadful weariness lay a reserve of strength, a fount of valour that was to carry them through another day, and yet another.

  The first attack on their new position came from German infantry who, advancing behind a screen of refugees, opened fire from four hundred yards range on “B” Company Headquarters. By early afternoon the whole position was being shelled or mortar-bombed, and the forward companies were closely engaged. Communication with them was very difficult, as the approach-roads were under fire and there was no telephone-cable except a broken drum or two which had been salvaged from previous occasions. A supporting battery of Field Artillery, however, maintained a forward observation-post near the advanced companies, and messages were sent through it. The gunners were beginning to be short of ammunition.

  The Germans attacked heavily about five o’clock, and a report came that they had broken through on the left. The Black Watch had orders to hold the river-bank till nine. They did.

  New orders came to hold it for another hour, and this was done. Then it must be denied to the enemy till eleven, and with this last command came instructions to throw everything away but their weapons and the clothes they wore, to make room for all in the ammunition-trucks that were waiting for them. There was rapid destruction of all manner of gear, from tartan trews to wireless transmitters, and then, thinning out from their positions, they marched for some miles, found their transport, and were driven to Ouville.

  But they had no rest at Ouville. Before the dawn broke they were ordered to move again and hold a line along the railway that runs through St Pierre-le-Viger. The Division was marching now to the last chapter of its story, and Fate was in a hurry.

  Falling Back on St Valéry

  To Divisional Headquarters at La Chaussée the early morning of the 10th had brought the news that German tanks were approaching Dieppe from the neighbourhood of Tôtes, which the French were believed to be holding. This report came in at half-past five. An hour later it was confirmed by information that the tanks were then within six miles of La Chaussée. Two-pounder anti-tank guns were ordered to block the road, and at eight o’clock the tanks were temporarily halted after they had advanced another three miles.

  This was the altered situation which Major Johnston had to report to the Commander of Ark Force at Le Havre, and within a few hours of his leaving the apparent isolation of the Division had become a certainty. News came that enemy tanks
had been seen west of the river Durdent, which empties itself into the Channel some five or six miles beyond St Valéry, and the hope of withdrawing to Le Havre had to be discarded. The General called his Brigadiers into conference: though St Valéry-en-Caux was a poor, unhandy port, the Navy was prepared to do all in its power to evacuate the Allied forces from it, and they must move rapidly to hold and cover the little town. A perimeter was drawn, like a box, about St Valéry, and the dispositions were made.

  The proposal to evacuate to St Valéry had reached the Navy at 4 a.m. on June 10th. The Commander-in-Chief himself proceeded to Havre to examine the changed situation. Immediate preparations were made, and destroyers were sent along the coast. They found that the enemy had already mounted guns on the cliffs. The destroyer Ambuscade was hit at 3.30 p.m. on June 10th while reconnoitring St Valéry, and the destroyer Boadicea was heavily engaged at Veulettes at 4.30 some four miles west of St Valéry whilst taking off 60 soldiers. The ships were off St Valéry on the night of the 10th, and boats entered the harbour to bring troops off, but could not find any there, though the rescue tug Stalwart took off a number of wounded. Early next day, June 11th, the destroyer Restigouche went along to Veulles, four miles to the eastward and took off some troops from the beach. It was understood at the time that the French had not consented to the evacuation, and their consent did not arrive until 5 p.m. on the 11th.

  On the general line of the Béthune there had been four battalions forward, and three in rear. The latter—the 2nd Seaforths, the 4th Gordons, and the 1st Gordons—were ordered to establish the western side of the box along the Durdent, the forward battalions would retire and hold a line running southward from Veules-les-Roses to Fontaine-le-Dun, or thereabout. A battalion of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment—a part of Beauman Division, picked up in Dieppe—would form the left flank at Veules, with the 4th Seaforths and the 5th Gordons to south of them, and the 1st Black Watch on the right. These were the sides of the box, and the French, it was intended, would fill the bottom of it. But the French were slow on the road., and until they could take position the Lothians would reconnoitre the gap, and the Norfolks, the Pioneer Battalion, in Divisional reserve, would be prepared to cover it. Even on the Saar the Pioneers had had experience of the fact that their duty always includes fighting as well as pick-and-shovel work; and the Yeomanry, under the indefatigable Colonel Ansell—who had a kind of genius for suddenly appearing in the very place where he was needed—had throughout the brief campaign been busy as a maid-of-all-work, as fiercely mobile as His Majesty’s destroyers.