"Sgt. Rowe Used To Radiate Sympathy And Cups of Tea Without Ever Speaking A Word"

For the 4th Battalion, the month of July was one of training, sport and more training behind the lines at Warlus behind Arras.
It was a chance for the Battalion to recover following it's heavy fighting at Arras on the 23rd April and the months afterwards. It was normal for a Battalion to be rested every ten weeks or so and pulled right out from the front line into a rear area, where they could for a few days, feel they were away from the fight.
For the Adjutant, Captain C.C.S. Gibbs, these periods of rest were not ones of calm, but ones of great fevered activity as he tried to put the Battalion back into a semblance of order. "All our officer were new, drafted in from all sources" he recalled "many not Suffolks at all. In a few days we should be in the line again with new officers and for the most part new men, all easily trained and more hastily absorbed. The only element of permanency in the Battalion seemed to be the CO, the Doc (who was then quite new) and Richards, the transport officer, and old Hudson the Quartermaster".
For Gibbs it was a trying time for after time in the front line, he could not rest like the others for the day-to-day running of the Battalion had to continue. Drafts had to organised and collected, returns for required men and material submitted to Brigade, casualty reports to be written or dictated, and arrangements made for the billeting of men in their new positions.
In amongst all this, Gibbs recalled fondly of his return to his old Company (B) when he had the time: "It was always good to setback to 'B' Echelon after a long tim in the line - especially after a 'show' in the line. There was my welcoming orderly rom staff, Sergeant Rowe, Corporal herring and theta clerks - always more welcoming because they themselves remained behind in safety with their typewritters. As I sand worn out in my office chair, or whatever substituted for one, after an all night march from the trenches, Sergeant Rowe used to radiate sympathy and cups of tea without every speaking a word".
Soon 4th Suffolk would too be committed to the fight at Third Ypres and Gibb's workload as Adjutant would become an awful lot heavier.

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