Young Fusilier Sam’s mystery cruise continues – he grows a moustache and meets the bumboatmen of Gibraltar

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Dear all

A hundred years ago this week… the German and Austrian Armies chalked up minor successes on Western and Eastern Fronts, with the usual extravagant cost in casualties, the French occupied Oyem in Cameroons (February 16), and U-boats began the “unrestricted” blockade of Great Britain (that is, torpedo attacks without warning; the German Government described their first such strike, on the 19th, against Norwegian merchantman SS Belridge as an error – and the vessel reached port).

      Meanwhile, a fresh campaign began which, a full seven months later, determined the fate of many in the thousand-strong 2/1st City Of London Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, including my father Sam Sutcliffe, still 16, and his brother, Ted, 18, both under-age volunteers from Edmonton, north London… on February 19, 1915, an Anglo-French Naval task force started a long-range bombardment of Ottoman artillery along the Dardanelles Coast. Bad weather interrupted them and rather spoiled their aim because spotter planes couldn’t be launched from the aircraft carrier Ark Royal. Gallipoli had begun in the lumbering manner to which British, Australian and New Zealand servicemen were to become accustomed…

FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS

Last week, Sam’s troopship from Southampton to a destination unknown to the rankers emerged from a terrifying and gut-churning Bay of Biscay storm and, in the distance, they could make out the coast of… somewhere or other. As my father picks up the story “on the morning of the seventh day at sea”, new readers please note that up to this point he was still conducting his Memoir in the third person, referring to himself as “Tommy”:

‘The land mass now assumed a recognisable shape, presenting a picture which had faced Tommy every time he walked out of the classroom into the corridor during his last years at school. “That’s the rock of Gibraltar,” he yelled to all within hearing.

     Soon the regular throbbing of the engines changed to a slower beat and the shape of the rock altered as the Galena’s course changed, barely moving now, just veering slightly to the left. Excited soldiers packed the formerly unused, lonely decks.

     “There goes the Marook*,” shouted someone as a massive chain roared across the foredeck and vanished through an aperture. The chain stopped moving and slackened. A noisy week of raging winds and crashing waves and vibrating engines ended with a calm… in which men could converse without shouting and once more regard one another with interest, to see what degree of suffering had been endured by their comrades.

     An elderly H Company man looked at Tommy almost with amazement. He had obviously never been deceived about the boy’s age for he said: “I can’t believe it — a kid like you and you’ve grown a moustache”.

     Tommy borrowed a pocket mirror and saw that the beginnings, fine and fair, had indeed emerged since he last saw his face over a week ago. Elated, and knowing that repeated shaving resulted in stiff whiskers, he scraped it off as soon as possible — but without the desired effect as, next day, no further sign of a moustache appeared, nor did this herald of approaching manhood darken his upper lip for many a day to come. Had it grown, it would have helped; so far he believed he had performed everything asked as well as any of his comrades, yet for peace of mind he needed to feel accepted as an equal.’

For the rest of that day, the Fusiliers, most of them away from England for the first time in their lives, experienced as much of the colourful life of a Mediterranean port as possible without actually stepping ashore. Sam recalled:

‘Numerous craft of various shapes and sizes moved about in the sheltered harbour and the bustle of activity lifted the weight of boredom from those — and they were the majority — who had wilted under it for a week. Bumboatmen rowed and bumped and jockeyed to secure positions near the ship’s sides, displaying their wares, holding up articles and deploying limited English to declaim their merits: “Very good, very nice, very cheap!” The soldiers called “How much?”, a question asked and understood in most parts of the world.

     Haggling about prices, with much use of fingers as counters, sometimes brought agreement. Then the seller would sling up a thin, coiled rope which the soldier endeavoured to catch. Eventually succeeding, the soldier coiled a couple of turns around his hand and let fall the rest of it, so that the seller could secure it to the handle of a basket.

     In most cases, this was the moment for fresh argument to commence. Naturally the boatman wished the buyer to haul up the basket, place in it the purchase money and lower it back down, whereas the buyer thought the goods should be sent up first – and used more gestures than words to make this point. Somebody had to give way, but the great reluctance down below to trust the doubtless honest man above suggested that some unscrupulous cads in uniform had passed that way before. Could there be a man so wicked as to empty a basket of its contents and then vanish among the men swarming over the decks without paying? Apparently so. Nonetheless, some small deals did reach completion.

     Tommy ventured a sixpenny purchase comprising four packets of ten cigarettes. He tried to smoke one, but it tasted awful. Blaming the strong sea air, he put them away for later use.

     After some hours at Gibraltar, the Galena moved quietly onwards. With changed weather, all began to feel cheerful, even energetic. On the calm, warm Mediterranean a renewed feeling of purpose and comradeship prevailed. Smiles replaced the bleak, hopeless, solemn expressions seen on most faces during the week of low, grey skies, heaving seas and roaring winds which had reduced many averagely good men to neglecting all the usual habits of self-care.’

* I transcribed this from a hand-written section of my father’s Memoir and “Marook” is how it seemed to be spelt. Can’t find the work anywhere! But it must surely mean “anchor”. One guess is Sam heard a distorted pronunciation of “mudhook”, the slang word back then (maybe still?), especially in the gambling game Crown & Anchor. Other suggestions welcome…

All the best — FSS

Next week: Finally, the Fusiliers step on to dry land – in Malta.

FootSoldierSam’s (rough) life on the ocean waves…

For Details Of How To Buy Sam’s Memoir In Paperback Or E-Book See Right-Hand Column – All Proceeds To The British Red Cross

For Free Sampler Gallipoli Chapter See Right-Hand Column

For Excerpts In AUDIO Look Right Or Click Here

Join Foot Soldier Sam on Facebook Here

Dear all

A hundred years ago… tomorrow (February 9) the first Canadian troops to join the battle sailed from England to France and… yesterday (the 7th), in a snowstorm, the German 8th Army launched a surprise attack on the Russians in East Prussia (now Polish territory) – the Battle Of The Masurian Lakes. They advanced 70 miles in a week, a near-massacre with 200,000 Russian casualties to 16,200 German. (A remote connection to Sam Sutcliffe, my father, is that German commander General Otto Von Below later switched Fronts and oversaw the March 28, 1918, Arras wing of the Spring Offensive, one of the micro-outcomes of which was Sam being taken POW.)

      Meanwhile, Sam, still 16, his brother, Ted, 18, both under-age volunteers, their pals Len Minns and Harold Mellow from Edmonton, north London, and a thousand other comrades in the 2/1st City Of London Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, sailed through a terrible storm for a destination unknown…

FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS

Hardly any of the rankers had left England before. Their introduction to the traveller’s life proved less than comfortable. Last week, Sam climbed out of H Company’s stinking chamber below to take his first look at rough seas and use the, shall we say, open-plan latrines – perched over the side. Now he tried to settle in (here, for new readers, still writing in the third-person and calling himself “Tommy”):

‘…he found that a blanket had been issued to each man. Removing his boots, he folded his greatcoat to form a pillow and arranged the blanket with a quarter of it hanging over the side to tuck around himself as he made himself comfortable. After several ungainly attempts, he succeeded in mounting the hammock and lay suspended perhaps 24 inches from the ceiling.

     One advantage to sleeping in a swinging net soon became obvious. When the ship did a sideways roll the hammock did not, it just hung there. However, when the ship’s nose dipped into a trough one could feel that all right. Head up, feet down… then vice versa, of course. A strange night, that first night at sea; half-awake for the most part, fully awake several times when the forepart of the ship seemed to receive a terrific blow. No alarm call followed… she hadn’t struck a rock… so one dozed off for a while.

     Large, two-handled urine tubs had been placed in an area where no hammocks hung and, as the night wore on and the ship’s wallowing increased, the homely sound of men pissing gradually gave way to the horrible noises of men vomiting into it.’

The voyage - not to France and the Western Front they soon realised with some relief – took ten days. So, in hopes readers aren’t feeling too queasy, we necessarily continue the alimentary theme. The soldiers could think of little else. Sam/”Tommy” found his own way through, spending as much time as possible away from that foul hold, the Company’s living quarters:

‘He clung to a rail, amazed to see and feel the forepart of the ship rise high, then plunge… at which his side of the ship would sink down, then rise up, up, while the far side almost vanished beneath the waves. These plunge-and-wallow movements increased in depth and height as the weather grew worse. And so the thing he had been fighting for several hours took possession of him and his loss was the fishes’ gain… he felt so ill that fear vanished…

     When the ship wallowed in a trough, various sideways rolls occurred, but fore and aft movements were only slight. Then, when the peak of the next huge wave rushed at the ship and looked to be about to fall on and bury her… at the last moment her bow rose about 50 degrees until, as she started to level out on top of the wave, a big bang for’ard preceded a horrible vibration shaking the whole ship as the propeller, now out of the water, raced madly before… the slide down the other side of the water mountain began and a foot or two of water scurried across the deck. Seeing this coming, Tommy raced towards the stairway leading to a higher level and just beat this on-board wave. Happily, there he found that only an occasional fine spray wafted his way…

     The weather only worsened… Tommy thought even experienced sailors must have worried that the ship would, at some time, either fail to come out of a sideways roll and capsize or continue one of those mad slides down the distal side of a huge wave and maintain that stern-up 50-degree plunge straight down to the ocean’s bottom.’

A crew member later told him the Galena* was “noted for her wallow”! Always nauseated, Sam nonetheless resolved to keep eating whenever he could – “he chewed and swallowed with determination for seasickness seemed harder to endure if the stomach was empty”. He ate dry bread and hard biscuits – no butter because what the Battalion Lieutenant Quartermaster provided proved rancid (for Sam, this man remained a hate figure all the way through to the beaches of Gallipoli). Some cheese. Stew from the communal dixie.

      And then he found a sanctuary. Wandering the upper decks – not an officer in sight for days – and then down again when he reached the stern, he entered a passageway, opened a door and stepped into… a throne room in more senses than the obvious, a place of “heavenly calm”:

‘… [it contained] a washbasin and a lavatory with hinged seat and flush tank above. Faint light came through a small fixed porthole. He bolted the door and dealt with a wave of sickness which assailed him. The weakness caused by this regular vomiting made him appreciate the warmth and privacy of this little room. He sat and dozed at first, while endeavouring to keep wakeful in case someone really entitled to use the place should come along. However, no one disturbed him and, in due course, deep sleep for an hour or two did him a lot of good.

     There was a homely touch about this little room and he had no wish to leave it. Hoping to come back, he slipped out, closing the door carefully.’

Eventually, after three days, given the respite afforded by that small sanctum – an unused crew toilet, he deduced – his stomach settled. He got talking to a couple of the sailors, a gleeful experience, Sam observes, “to make friends with civilians, already regarded as a separate race… That gap grew wider as the war grew older and bridging it demanded ever greater effort.” Officers emerged from their cabins to order a clean-up and Sam volunteered to fetch the unappetising rations for his mates, now he felt capable. He wandered some more – and ran into his brother (and hero, more or less) Ted, previously immured in G Company’s hold:

‘A reunion more demonstrative than ever before ensued. Normally, they greeted one another with the studiedly casualness befitting men of the world. But pleasure and relief at each discovering the other safe and well compelled them in that unguarded moment to throw their arms around each other and behave as humans should. Typically, Ted appeared to have remained well throughout.’

They met and wandered and talked for hours every day after that. But one more scare awaited:

‘At dusk, though, someone shouted orders for all to get below and H Company’s Sergeant West told them no lights must be shown, no matches struck. A submarine which, in darkness, could only locate them precisely if lights were exposed, was following them. So, down below with hatches covered, portholes shielded. Terrible, just terrible. And the fear that, if a torpedo struck the ship, the imprisoned crowds of men would not stand a chance of surviving. Only the really sick showed no sign of concern.’

No torpedoes came their way, though, and, finally, the old ship turned east. In the distance, land loomed.

* Actual name SS  Galeka     – another of my father’s mysteriously discreet, thin disguises of actual names, in the spirit of calling Tonbridge Bunbridge!

All the best — FSS

Next week: Gibraltar at last!