Sniping in France/Chapter 10

CHAPTER X. THE TRAINING OF THE PORTUGUESE THEN first we saw the Portuguese troops upon the roads of France, we did not dream that it would fall to our lot to train them in sniping, scouting and observation, but it did so fall, and after one or two Portuguese officers had been attached to the school for instruction, we were suddenly ordered to take an entire Portuguese class. This was the first of three or four, and we usually had eight officers and forty N.C.O.'s and men at a time.

The Portuguese were equipped largely, as is known, by the British, and had served out to them our short service rifle. In the Portuguese Army they use the Mauser, so our rifle was new to all ranks, and had to be carefully explained.

Of course, the great difficulty in training Portuguese troops lay in the necessity for the use of interpreters. One of my N.C.O.'s was able to talk Portuguese, which was of great assistance, and from time to time an English-speaking Portuguese officer was attached ; but for the most part none of the officers and men who came to the school could speak a word of English, and the result, as I say, was that we had to carry on through interpreters.

In one of the first classes there was a Portuguese sergeant who was extremely capable, and very keen on his work. As a mark of appreciation I gave this ser¬geant, when he went away, a very nice telescope. About three weeks later the sergeant, who had spent the inter¬vening time in the trenches, turned up at the school and said that he wished to speak to the Commandant. He said that he had come to thank me again for the telescope, as it had enabled him to spot a concentra¬tion of some fifty Germans, on to whom he had successfully directed artillery fire. He had taken the trouble to walk out quite a number of miles—at least ten or twelve—to inform me of his success. Poor fellow, he was afterwards badly gassed, and when I last saw him was in a very bad way. He was a most useful man as an observer, as he had been the master of some small coasting craft which used to sail up and down the coast between Lisbon and Setubal, and had knowledge of instruments.

Considering that the Portuguese troops did not know anything about our rifle, they really came along very quickly in shooting. One of the classes was at the school when we were informed that the Portuguese Corps Commander and Staff and various British G.S.O.'s would come over to see a " demonstration " two days before the course ended. The demonstra¬tion included shooting at dummy heads exposed for four seconds—five rounds; application on a 6-inch bulls-eye at two hundred yards; an attack upon a position, and a demonstration of the work of scouts. As soon as the Portuguese troops realized that they were to be inspected at the end of the course, there was a tremendous competition among them to get into the shooting team, and when the day arrived the eight who were picked obtained 34 hits out of 40 shots on the dummy head. At the 200 yards application the team scored 208 out of a possible 224. This shows how quickly shooting can be taught when both men and instructors are all out for success.

The greatest difficulty we had was training Portu¬guese as observers ; for none of them had used a telescope before, and it was very difficult to make them realize its possibilities. Of course, I am here talking of the private soldiers. The officers in their observation often made excellent reports, and de¬veloped the greatest keenness on the work. There was one thing which occurred, owing to my attempting to speak Portuguese myself, which always struck me as not without its humorous side.

I had been attempting to point out to a squad of Portuguese scouts the elementary fact that when you were looking through a bush, or through roots or grass, it was sometimes well worth while to put a leaf or two into your cap. I sent them off to do this, keeping with me a few of their number to observe the value of the experiment. The rest went over the brow of the hill, and were away for some period of time, so long that I was just going to see what was hap¬pening when suddenly a bush, followed by several other trees, began to move slowly over the hill! I found that the squad, not quite understanding my instructions, had cut down small trees with their large knives, had bound them upon their backs, and in the shadow of these were advancing upon me!

A part of their training upon which the Portuguese were extraordinarily keen was patrolling in No Man's Land. Usually at the school we used to begin this as soon as it was dark, often in summer, therefore, as late as eleven o'clock at night. After two or three hours' patrolling the Portuguese always still wanted to continue, and once they got out into our large imita¬tion No Man's Land it was not easy to get them back again.

At one time, when we had a class of Portuguese, to whom we had been teaching patrolling, an officer and sergeant, who were making a round of Sniping and Infantry Schools, to give demonstrations on patrolling, turned up at the school. The Portuguese held the trench while the demonstrators set out to show them the way in which a reconnaisance patrol should be conducted. I was lying beside the Portu¬guese trench, and at once realized that something was afoot. Presently one of the Portuguese officers came up, and said, " Our men say that they hear them and can capture them." I told them to go ahead, and do it.

Well, that patrol developed. A battle was going on at the time in the north, and all the plateau was lit with the flashes of the guns and the flares of the Verey lights, which the Germans kept firing into the air. For a long time there was silence. The Portuguese, who had had several days at the school and were learning well, had sent out a strong patrol, which very skilfully worked round and surrounded the hostile reconnaissance. I do not know what happened in No Man's Land, but the sergeant who was doing the demonstration, and who was a ju-jitsu expert, famous in pre-war days in the music halls, was captured and carried in by the Portuguese. There must have been a considerable scrap, for the sergeant was too stiff to come on parade next day ! The Portuguese were much pleased at their success, and almost immediately afterwards they went back to the line, where a German patrol of eleven came out against them. The Portuguese tried their surrounding tactics with such success that they killed eight and captured three.

One day I was asked by the Portuguese Corps commander to attend a review of the Portuguese Army, which was being held at Marthes, some six miles from my Headquarters. When the time for the march past came, I saw the forty observers we had trained go by under their officers, as a separate unit, each with a large white " O " sewn upon his sleeve.

The great difficulty was to obtain telescopes for these observers, for the demand was, all through the war, vastly in excess of the supply. The G.S. (General Service) telescope used by signallers in the British Army was, I believe, afterwards issued to the Portuguese troops, and this was a quite good enough glass for the purpose.

Another part of our training which the Portuguese troops took with enthusiasm was the physical train¬ing and ju-jitsu.

Sometimes when we had mixed classes, it was very difficult indeed, as all lectures had to be repeated in Portuguese, and the ordinary daily morning talks on the care and cleaning of the rifle, the stalking telescope, or on the work of snipers in attack and defence, which usually took from thirty to forty minutes, used to tail out, as each sentence was translated, into a matter of an hour and a half and even two hours.

But I think that, on the whole, the Portuguese troops really enjoyed their time at the school, and I remember our taking the field at Association foot¬ball with a good sprinkling of them in our team.