officers of the 74th Brigade take part in a staff ride held by their Commanding Officer, Brigadier-General Armytage. During this period the Divisional Engineers train six men for each battalion in visual signalling. A second trained signalling officer is now posted to the 11th Battalion, Second Lieutenant Leslie Risdon Huxtable. – Tolkien revises his poem The Mermaid’s Flute (first composed in March 1915), and probably writes a new poem, later dated ‘Franqueville? Sept[ember].’ The latter, beginning ‘O Lady Mother throned amid the stars’, will be called Consolatrix Afflictorum and Stella Vespertina.
15 September 1916 *John Mackreth of Exeter College, once a member of the Apolausticks, is killed in action on the Somme.
16 September 1916 Smith writes to Tolkien, enclosing a letter from Wiseman. Wiseman has sent copies of the letters Smith and Tolkien had sent Wiseman in the winter of 1914, and while reading them Smith realizes that Tolkien was right when he said that they have changed. Smith apparently has had a letter from Tolkien letting off steam, as he says: ‘I am intensely sorry to hear of your frictions with others. I know how one officer can make a beast of himself to his junior, if he is a swine enough to do so’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford). Wiseman, writing from HMS Superb on 30 August and 4 September, says that he has been reading through his ‘TCBSian’ archive of correspondence and can see the changes and development in the group.
25–27 September 1916 The 11th Battalion makes its way back to the front line, mainly on foot, but on 25 September partly by motor bus. The men spend the night of the 25th at Forceville and of the 26th at Hédauville. They reach bivouacs near Bouzincourt on the 27th. On that evening they make their way through the communication trenches and relieve the 1/7 West Yorkshire Regiment at the front near Thiepval Wood. The battle for Thiepval Ridge having begun on 26 September, the village itself has just fallen, and the Joseph, Schwaben, Zollern, and Hessian Trenches have been captured, but beyond is a German strongpoint, the Schwaben Redoubt. Tolkien will note in his diary that on the night of 26 September he shared a tent with Second Lieutenant Huxtable, and on the night of the 27th he slept in a dugout at Thiepval.
26 September 1916 One of the tanks just introduced into the war by the British Army sticks fast and cannot be moved. It will be one of the sights of Thiepval for months to come.
28–29 September 1916 For much of 28 September the men of the 11th Battalion, in the front line trenches on the edge of Thiepval Wood, have a good view of the attack by the 18th Division on Schwaben Redoubt. At about 6.00 p.m. three patrols from the 11th Battalion, each consisting of thirty men and a Lewis Gun detachment and led by an officer, are sent to occupy trenches the enemy is believed to have abandoned. By 6.45 p.m. they have achieved their objective and taken twenty-one prisoners. They explore the communication trenches leading to the enemy’s close-support line, and during the night take twenty more prisoners and find a quantity of maps and an unopened mailbag. A signaller from the 11th Battalion, Lance-Corporal A. Fletcher, later will be awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for using a discarded German torch to communicate with the front line when his own lamp is smashed, and for rescuing a wounded man. Early on the morning of 29 September, with the enemy still strongly holding its support line, an advance position is moved back slightly to consolidate and strengthen the front line. Tolkien will note in his diary that he was in action at Thiepval during the nights of 28 and 29 September. – The prisoners taken at the Schwaben Redoubt include men from a Saxon regiment which had fought alongside the Lancashire Fusiliers against the French at Minden in 1759. Tolkien speaks in German to one of the captured officers and offers him a drink of water; the officer corrects his pronunciation. In a moment of calm while the guns are silent, Tolkien’s hand is on the receiver of a trench telephone when a field-mouse runs across his fingers.
30 September 1916 The 11th Battalion is relieved by the 7th Royal West Kents during the early morning and marches to Englebelmer, arriving at 8.00 a.m. The men spend the day cleaning up and resting.
1–5 October 1916 At 11.00 a.m. on 1 October the 11th Battalion parades and marches to a camp at W8 Central, near Bouzincourt, arriving at about 12.30 p.m. The men spend the next few days in company and specialist training, including a battalion attack practice on 2 October.
3 October 1916 Smith writes to Tolkien, saying he has not heard from him for a very long time.
6–9 October 1916 On 6–7 October the 74th Brigade relieves the 75th Brigade at Mouquet Farm, a fortified position recently captured from the Germans. The 11th Lancashire Fusiliers relieve the 11th Cheshires and take up position in the front line in the recently captured Zollern and Hessian Trenches and in the Fabeck support trench east of Thiepval. Although the Germans have lost their forward trenches they are holding out in parts of the Schwaben and Stuff Redoubts. During the next few days and nights the men of the 11th Battalion spend much of their time under heavy shelling, repairing and deepening old trenches, digging new trenches to gunpits in No Man’s Land, and laying and burying new communication lines. – On 7 October the signal office of the 74th Brigade is moved two hundred yards from its original site, entailing extra cable-laying for the signals engineers. On 9 October two shells hit the signals dugout, and communications have to be repaired. The Stuff Redoubt is finally taken on this date. – Tolkien will note in his diary that he spent the nights of 6 to 12 October at Battalion headquarters in front of Mouquet Farm.
10–12 October 1916 On 10 October B Company of the 11th Battalion stays in the front line in Zollern Trench while A, C, and D companies are relieved by the 9th Loyal North Lancashires and the 13th Cheshires and retire to Fabeck and Midway support trenches near Mouquet Farm. The men continue to dig and improve trenches. On 10 October Second Lieutenant Huxtable is wounded. Throughout this period at the front Tolkien is probably kept very busy, as the new buried communication lines are difficult to install and some are damaged by shelling.
13–16 October 1916 On 13 October the 11th Battalion relieves the 13th Cheshires and returns to the front line in Zollern and Hessian Trenches. They again spend time digging and rewiring. Battalion headquarters is moved to Zollern Redoubt, where Tolkien spends the nights of 13 to 16 October. On 14 October the Schwaben Redoubt is finally taken.
16–17 October 1916 The 11th Cheshires relieve A and B Companies of the 11th Battalion on 16 October and D Company on 17 October; these retire to support trenches near Mouquet Farm while C Company stays in the front line. In the afternoon of 16 October three German planes fly overhead. In the evening of 17 October the 11th Lancashire Fusiliers move to Ovillers Post, where Tolkien spends the night at Battalion headquarters. – The British generals are planning another major assault, hoping to capture the German Regina Trench and the high ground held by the enemy before winter comes. The attack will be made from Hessian Trench, which faces Regina Trench and is separated from it by a space varying from two hundred to five hundred yards. Every effort is made to obtain as much information about the terrain and enemy positions as possible. A map issued to Tolkien shows ‘information obtained from prisoners [and] Trenches corrected from air photos taken 17-10-16’; at some point he adds to it the position of a ‘phone’ and ‘WF’, code letters for the 11th Lancashire Fusiliers (a reproduction of the map appears in Life and Legend, p. 32).
18 October 1916 The 11th Battalion receives Operation Order No. T26 (see note) and spends the day preparing for battle. At 10.30 p.m. the men march towards the front line. A patrol consisting of a captain and a second lieutenant examines the enemy wire. Tolkien will note in his diary that he spent that night at Battalion headquarters near ‘Lancs Trench’ (Zollern Trench).
19 October 1916 The 11th Battalion reaches Hessian Trench at 4.00 a.m. The attack is meant to take place this day, but constant heavy rain has damaged the trenches, the saturated ground makes movement difficult, the lines of communication between Brigade and Division headquarters have gone down during the night, and the rain, together with mist, makes visual signals impossible. The assault postponed for forty-eight hours, the battalion returns to Ovillers Post, where Tolkien spends the night at Battalion headquarters.
20 October 1916 In the afternoon, the 11th Battalion is drawn up at Ovillers