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Dear all
A hundred years ago… today,
the 22nd of February, the Russian Army stemmed the German advance at the 2nd
Battle Of The Masurian Lakes (despite a defeat enumerated by 200,000 casualties
against 16,000), and South African forces made further advances into German
South-West Africa (now Namibia); on the 23rd British Marines moved on to Lemnos
(an Aegean island annexed from the Ottoman Empire by Greece in 1912 – and scene
of the remnants of Sam Sutcliffe Battalion’s 1915 Christmas dinner!), and a
couple of days later began operations against Turkish Dardanelles forts to prepare
the way for the Gallipoli invasion; and, of course, the attritional grind of
the Western Front trenches continued.
Meanwhile, 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, and their pals Harold Mellow and
Len Minns from Edmonton, north London, sailed on… still
some months from their own Gallipoli landing...
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
After last week’s brief
stopover in Gibraltar harbour and, for the Londoners, the exotic experience of
haggling for bargains with the bumboatmen, the Galena, the ungainly tub serving as their troopship, pottered on
into the Mediterranean – destination still unknown to the Fusiliers. At least,
with the Biscay storms behind them, a clean-up and recovery period could begin,
as Sam wrote in his Memoir (NB, new readers, up to this point he still wrote in
the third person, calling himself “Tommy”):
‘Their NCOs outlined a vigorous programme: cleansing of
quarters, polishing of boots and buttons, and daily exercise in small groups.
This was received with enthusiasm. There followed three days during which all
on board improved both appearance and spirits…
Tommy enjoyed the
role of traveller, particularly leaning over the rail at the ship’s stern,
watching the churned-up water, its apparent phosphorescence and the always
widening wake – he felt a sense of urgency, a scurrying away of water humiliated,
thrashed by the propellers…
The present,
happier way of life put him in a state of optimism and appreciation of the
moment’s blessings – able, for instance, to largely ignore the unappetising,
badly cooked and underdone food still served to them, regardless of calmer
seas. Strong tea, often taken with hunks of bread and watery jam, usually
passed for breakfast. That jam wouldn’t have fetched tuppence a pound in a
grocer’s shop; issued in tins and made by a firm seldom heard of before or
since that war, it needed no spoon, it ran like water.
Even the boy
could guess at the sort of profits the villains made and, in idle moments,
soldiers discussed what they would like to do to the manufacturer and the
people in authority who placed the orders and, no doubt, shared his gains and
guilt.
For some reason,
the same low standards did not apply to Army biscuits, as they were called.
Tommy believed that just one firm supplied the square, white, easily chewed
biscuits – very different to the brick-hard squares referred to earlier. Proud
of its product, the company baked its name, Jacob’s, into each biscuit – and
men rejoiced when they were given them. For the rest, as far as Tommy could
see, anonymity concealed the shame of their victuallers. If soldiers’ hopes
have been realised they all live in a hell where the diet consists solely of
their own provender.’
Note that “Tommy enjoyed
the role of traveller”; from time to time, in more tranquil moments, my father
would escape the hardships, terrors and horrors of war by becoming a boy
entranced, imagination flying, as he saw the world outside England for the
first time (and, like most of his working-class generation, he never did go
abroad again after World War 1). This flight of fancy first occurred on the
voyage from Gibraltar, leading him into romantic phantasms about his own thus
far poor and mundane life:
‘At the end
of a day of calm and deep blue sea, the sun hovered for a while, apparently, at
about 30 degrees above the horizon before finally dropping towards the water.
Tommy watched it descend; the whole sphere rested on the sea’s surface for a
moment, then it quickly sank to three-quarters, a half, a quarter, then nothing
remained save a bright glow, and that only briefly. Darkness came and, with a
small amount of lighting permitted at that time, Tommy had flickering
reflections to watch and accompany romantic, boyish thoughts.
Leaning on the
rail, he was joined by Jimmy Green, a nice fellow with whom he had chatted
occasionally – probably four years older than Tommy, he belonged to G Company,
Ted’s lot.
Several months in
the Army had not hardened or toughened Jimmy. His blond hair and pale face had
that fresh, cared-for look Tommy already associated with the upper middle
classes. One wondered how these types achieved it. Ordinary blokes well washed
and scrubbed looked fine, but still ordinary. The Jimmy Greens of that period
had quit their usually pleasant occupations and homes, generally on patriotic
impulses. Their parents must have been terribly shocked but, in many instances,
ensured their sons would at least have the King’s commission to cushion them
against the worst buffetings of war… well, to some degree. Jimmy’s gentleness
and trustfulness, his gay, white-toothed smiles, induced in Tommy a feeling of
untaught inferiority which, he hoped to goodness, didn’t show.
Some sort of
counterbalance seemed to be required, so he said, almost casually, “Ah, there
it is, straight ahead”. “What is?” said Jimmy, peering through the night.
“Algiers, brightly lit up. You can actually trace the layout of the streets by
the lines of the lights. That wide one in the middle comes straight from the
back of the town down to the harbour. Now, taking the ones which branch right
from the main street, can you see the second one up from the sea? That’s where
we used to live.”
Green responded
with immense interest to this lie and begged for more details. Tommy promised
to return to the subject later, but pleaded the urgency of a visit to the
Ohang, as the bog had become known. Leaving Jimmy, he actually entered the
place convulsed with laughter, but also feeling somewhat uneasy about the silly
untruth. Anybody but Jimmy would have jeered jovially and perhaps called him
something chummy like “You lying little sod!” and the boy might have had to
duck a sideswipe, but no harm would have been done.
Now, for the
moment, he relegated the matter to his mental storeroom as he looked along the
spotless seating with its circular holes evenly spaced – how many could it
accommodate at a sitting? How many had suffered frozen bums while attending to
natural requirements in that novel latrine? Indeed how many had almost drowned
when the raging sea thrust upward through the holes, rushed along the deck and
away through the scuppers? He could grin now as he thought about this formerly
filthy, wet, and slippery contraption and recalled the hymn, For Those In Peril
On The Sea.’
Soon enough – on February
11, eleven days after leaving Southampton – Sam/”Tommy”, the happy traveller, had to resume soldiering, albeit not too close to the battle lines for some
while yet:
‘On the
third day after Gibraltar, a blur on the horizon rapidly took shape as an
island and the ship approached it at what appeared to be almost indecent speed
for the old tub. Tommy was so enjoying his first Mediterranean cruise that the
sight of land ahead failed to excite him.
For an hour or
two, the ship lay off the island, just outside a bay with rocky headlands at
each extremity, a lookout tower on each. Beyond the shore, the land rose
gradually in levels defined by walls, with some houses visible of a type which
pleased Tommy’s eye. In England most houses had roofs of blue-grey slates
sloping from a ridge – frequently seen against a grey sky, often in chilly, wet
weather… the lad’s mind associated them with feelings of depressing discomfort.
But here the houses – some in groups, others isolated – all had flat roofs,
their walls white or cream or pastel shades of yellow or green. At that
distance, under a blue sky, the bay appeared to be the home of wealthy,
fortunate people, living in abodes of luxury and romance.
Tommy concluded
that the possibility of being put ashore in this heavenly place must be remote,
but he enjoyed the experience of gazing at its beauty. Regret, he felt, when
the ship moved off… then renewed excitement when she sailed into a large and
wonderful harbour, busy with several freighters and other troopships – naval
vessels anchored on the far side in front of a cluster of dockland cranes. As
at Gibraltar, many small boats quickly surrounded the Galena, each with a man standing in its stern
skilfully manoeuvring among the swarm by wiggling an oar from side to side.
Looking back to the harbour entrance, Tommy saw stone buildings everywhere, not
a brick in sight. Occasional horse-drawn carriages passed along a road on the
side nearest the Galena.
Soon NCOs moved
around advising any who hadn’t heard that the island was Malta and telling
their men to pack kitbags and prepare to gather in Companies. H Company grouped
around the forecastle area…’
While still aboard, a
Captain Boden – unseen on their voyage until that point – introduced himself as
H Company’s new officer. This was the first they’d heard about the replacement
of Lieutenant Swickenham, who Sam described as “kindly, but rather ineffectual”
(see blog 28 “Sam and the lads get a lantern lecture on VD – and Malta?”). The
men prepared to disembark:
‘Tommy
procured his rations and chewed busily while trying to take in the great
harbour scene: the naval ships, sailing craft, one of those fishing boats with
a funnel and a sail at the stern, and lots of small boats being rowed or
paddled busily between shore and ships.
On the Galena’s foredeck, three horses, presumably
officers’ mounts, were being released from the small containers in which they
had spent the entire voyage, poor devils. Tommy could see these containers had
sides and tops of padded leather, but the horses’ legs and bodies bore awful
lacerations and discolourations. Tommy wondered if they could ever be restored
to a decent condition. What a hell they had endured, confined thus and, for the
first week, thrown about day and night.
Tommy met up with
Ted and Harold briefly and enjoyed pleasant speculation about the island, where
they would live, and for how long they would remain there. One thing they knew
for certain already – the temperature was higher than they had ever
experienced, except on the very hottest days at home. They shared a particular
happiness because they and the Galena would
shortly part company. That ship was a bad’un and they’d had enough of her.
Even while the men
gathered in Companies, the ship eased towards a quay where the crew made it
fast and placed two gangways in position. Captain Boden announced that six men
would be needed from each Company to offload stores. CSM West asked H Company
for volunteers… who would later travel on the transport wagons, he shrewdly
added, whereas everyone else would march to their destination carrying their
kitbags. Since the whole Company suddenly became volunteers, the CSM selected
the biggest and beefiest.
The Captain led
his men ashore past an enterprising member of the ship’s crew who positioned
himself at the head of the gangway and sold pictures of the Galena to those who wanted to treasure a memory of
that floating palace. Tommy bought one, and never regretted the financial
outlay of 2d – shown to friends, it provided many a laugh in later years.*
On reaching the
road, Captain Boden turned left and, followed by his men in no particular
formation, continued walking for some distance. Then he stopped and, loudly,
requested the CSM to carry on. After ten days of confinement in the old ship,
the smartness in drill which had become customary in England could not be
regained immediately. All had recovered from their sickness, but lack of
exercise and indifferent food had taken their toll. However, the novelty of
being in a strange country – first steps on foreign soil for nearly all of them
– and the certainty of release from their hammocks in the cargo holds made them
anxious for a fresh start under their new officer.
The Company soon
lined up in correct sections and platoons with their Corporals and Sergeants;
the roll was called and the CSM reported, “All present and correct, sir!”’
* Unfortunately, we’ve long since lost my father’s postcard
of the Galeka (Galena being one of the many slight aliases he used in his memoir, for
reasons I never wholly understood), but you can see what may well be the same
image at http://www.simplonpc.co.uk/UnionCastle1.html
- anchor5228
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: The Fusiliers settle into their new “home” in Malta…
