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Dear all
A hundred years ago… this week, two
of the most terrible battles of World War I began, in Belgium the second Ypres
(April 22-May 25) and in Turkey the Gallipoli campaign (April 25, 1915-January
9, 1916). So an unusually long context-setting passage for FootSoldierSam’s
memoir extract…
A
massive eruption on the generally static Western Front, Ypres did indeed turn
into another stalemate marked by appalling casualty figures: 70,000 Allied,
35,000 German. The war’s first poison gas attack by the German Army marked the
very first day. With the wind mostly in the required direction, chlorine
drifted across to the French lines and sank into the trenches, driving troops
out to become easy targets or run for their lives.
However,
as a weapon it proved oddly ineffective in terms of making a breakthrough
because German soldiers proved understandably reluctant to follow up their
advantage by charging through the Allied lines – and their own gas cloud. In
these early days of this vile weapon’s deployment the poor bloody Allied
infantry were advised to protect themselves by pissing on a cotton handkerchief
and breathing through it; ammonia apparently had some ameliorative effect.
The
22nd was a Thursday in 1915. On the Sunday, at dawn, British, Anzac, Indian,
Canadian and French Allies landed at six beaches on the Gallipoli peninsula.
Infamously, poor strategy and generalship led to all concerned suffering
terrible losses as the Ottoman/Turkish troops fired down from the hills above.
For example: of the first 200 Royal Dublin Fusiliers attempting to land at V
Beach only 21 actually set foot on the sand; at W Beach 600 of 1000 Lancashire
Fusiliers fell. On the other hand, holding back the fearsome though battered
ANZACs, the Turkish 57th Infantry Regiment was wiped out. I can only refer you
to my father’s view from the trenches (in due course, at Gallipoli, the Somme,
Arras), permanently quoted at the top of this blog...
Meanwhile,
in Malta, lodged in the relative comfort St George's Barracks, north of
Valletta, my father Private Sam Sutcliffe’s 2/1st City Of London Battalion, Royal Fusiliers,
continued their training – feeling a mixture of guilt and relief that they
hadn’t yet been sent to the battlefield (when they sailed from Southampton in
February they’d expected to find themselves on the Western Front within 24
hours).
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Last week, in his Memoir, Sam wrote about some
innocent practical joking in the dormitory. Now he turns to what the lads got
up to when they broke from training and had a day out in their first foreign
country – in particular, what he got up to himself, as a 16-year-old under-age
soldier, only months distant from his boy’s life in Edmonton, north London, as
a Boy Scout and choirboy. No man of the world, thats for sure…
On a
different level, this passage proved notable to my work as my father’s editor
because it shows him venturing away from third-person narrative and reporting
on himself, alias “Tommy”, from the outside. Instead “Tommy”/Sam starts to
speak for himself for a few paragraphs. No literary masterplan, of course, he
just followed his instincts:
‘Thankfully, Saturdays were different with most of the men
free from any duties after 11am. With Friday’s weekly pay in their pockets,
they felt they could really go to town in every sense. “I didn’t wish to
explore the village or town areas alone,” Tommy recalls. “Already one of our
young chaps had been chased by a gang of Maltese youngsters who, according to
him, set upon him for no apparent reason. He merely put his head inside the
doorway of a village drink shop where the local lads were playing cards. As one
man, they came for him. He ran, but they eventually outpaced him and pressed
around him. With his back to the wall, he was spotted by a party of our men who
charged forward, and the village lads ran away. At least one of the attackers
was seen flourishing a knife, so I was glad when a chap called Hayson, who was
probably three years older than me, suggested a Saturday afternoon outing
together.
“Anyway, I felt
eager to see everything on this island. Hayson and I walked along a road
flanked by low, loose-stone walls into a village with several nondescript shops
and a saloon called Old Joe. In the fug I could see some of our men. But we
passed that dingy place, and soon the road joined one by the sea and we found
ourselves in the substantial village of St Paul’s*.
“Now we strolled
among pleasant houses and people walking around in a good-class district, which
gave me a thrill after a period spent exclusively among men. Women, girls,
children — so, still such human beings to be seen and heard from. One could not
understand what they said as they passed, but their voices were as sweet music
to me. I liked the occasional whiff of perfume too, though all the women seemed
to use the same heavy brand. Having grown up with the range of hair colourings
between blonde and brunette at home, I found the uniform black hair and dark
complexion somewhat unattractive.
“But it was good
to be clear of the military environment for a few hours. Always, in those days,
I had the feeling of something quite marvellous awaiting me at the end of each
new road. New to me, that is; the older in years, the better the prospect of an
interesting discovery.”
Really, Sam/Tommy – an
ordinary working man who never travelled abroad again after WW1 although he
lived until 1987 – found himself a natural tourist, fascinated by everything he
saw, heared, smelled… and then even moreso by the stranger places he
encountered in Valletta, like the Chapel Of Bones…
‘Another place in which Tommy and Hayson spent an hour or so
probably had a depressing effect on some visitors, but amazement was a better
word to describe Tommy’s reaction. Known in those days as the Chapel Of Bones**,
it was just that. A smallish man in a black cassock admitted them and,
unbidden, pointed out features of the decoration on ceiling and walls, which
appeared to have been lined with a black fabric.
Set against this
sombre background were intricate designs, all composed of human bones. Consider
the possibilities. The bigger part of some motifs would be made of femurs, the
small intricate patterns composed of finger bones. Ribs used generously
suggested ripples on water. Sternums portrayed daggers (with small bones
arranged as hilts), while a scapula with a tibia for a handle made a fair axe.
The main effort
had been directed towards achieving very ingenious geometric patterns. The
whole gained a gruesome dignity from four complete human skeletons, one in each
corner of the chapel, guardians of the treasure which filled deep bins the
length of each wall – namely, the thousands of bones remaining surplus to
artistic requirements. “All,” intoned the cheerless guide, “are the remains of
hundreds of French soldiers.”
Malta had suffered
many attacks by invaders who tended to remain on the pleasant island after rape
and debauchery had ceased to amuse them. The French, however, had proved just
that much too repressive and the populace slaughtered their garrison to a man.
Mass burial had been quickly followed by disinterment lest the wicked dead’uns
should sleep quietly when they did not deserve any sort of peace. The Maltese
decided the invaders’ remains should be set to work again, their bones earning
some small remuneration for the church by attracting visitors to see the pretty
patterns they made – and hear the tale of French misdeeds. Thus, at any rate,
said the priest. As luck would have it, Tommy had little money on him and, with
some embarrassment, he handed the priest threepence farthing, all he could find
in his pockets.
On that visit to
town, having still some time on his hands but no money in his pocket, Tommy
urged his pal Hayson to go his own way and enjoy himself. Strolling alone in a
paved area, quite spacious, between dwellings, he stopped to watch some women
making lace. Each thread, attached to a pencil-shaped weight, hung down over a
cylinder which the lacemaker turned occasionally as she plaited and shaped the
threads into delicate and beautiful designs. The lad knew that well-off ladies
in England valued Maltese lace and wondered how it found its way from quiet
squares and side streets in Valletta to the shops and stores of London.’
* St Paul’s village in St Paul’s Bay,
on the northeast of the island, 16 kilometres from Valletta, allegedly the spot
where St Paul was shipwrecked during his voyage from Caesarea to Rome.
* Chapel Of Bones, built
from 1612, apparently; one online source says it was destroyed during World War
II, a second reckons it was merely buried and may be rediscovered; neither
supports my father’s guide’s line about the bones being the remains of “French
soldiers”. If anyone knows who the original owners were, do tell…
All the best –
FSS
Next week: Embarrassment rules: “Tommy”/Sam visits the red-light
district… and meets a girl… and doesn’t know whether to pay or propose…
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