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Dear all
A hundred years ago… summer it may
have been but on the Western Front the combatants remained bogged down, despite
small costly advances by the French at Lingekopf (July 27), the Germans at
Hooge (30, via a heavy flamethrower attack) and embryonic air forces bombing
both ways. In the east the Russian Army continued losing ground in Poland
(against Austria-Hungary and Germany) and the Caucasus (against the Ottoman
Army). Heading south, the Italians were still outscoring Austria-Hungary and
occupied Pelagosa Island in the Adriatic. At Gallipoli another week of holding
operations passed while Allied strategists planned major attacks for August. And
Pope Benedict XV, who had declared his neutrality from the outset, called on
all sides to negotiate for peace (July 30) – all sides rejected his entreaties.
Meanwhile...
the thousand men of the 2/1st City Of London
Battalion, Royal Fusiliers – including my father, Private Sam Sutcliffe, his
older brother Ted (both underage volunteers, still 16 and 18 respectively), and
their pals from Edmonton – in their seventh month of training in Malta, enjoyed
their borrowed time (before being sent to Gallipoli some guessed) at a tented
camp in a paradise of a place, Ghajn Tuffieha, on the north-west coast.
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Last week, on night-time lookout for suspected
German submarine activity in liaison with onshore spies, Sam got shot at for the
first time – though probably by an irate farmer suspecting him of thievery –
and his Sergeant suffered the Battalion’s first war wound – albeit more
farcical than deadly, given it occurred when, in pursuit of a notional
miscreant, he jumped off a wall and landed rear-first on a large cactus.
Sam
writes that soon his Signals party, including his new Maori Pioneer Battalion
comrades, returned briefly from their 17th-century lookout tower on the east of
the island to their “beautiful beach” at Ghajn Tuffieha:
‘Soon our small party returned to the Battalion base close
to the beautiful beach. The work routine of early morning start, long afternoon
break, then evening and night training resumed. We spent long, afternoon
periods in the calm, warm sea, with immense benefit to health and morale.
Some of the
combined signals training and practice with our Maori comrades provided my
happiest experiences; those fellows were so mature, so calmly balanced. Worries
which could afflict British town-dwellers appeared unknown to them… Either
that, or maybe they possessed an ability to extract all the joy from the
situation prevailing at any given moment. Their relations with an officer who
sometimes helped with their training were unusually good, I thought; combining
friendship and respect for his rank called for real self-discipline on each
man’s part.
Next, half the
Signallers were packed off to an Army school in Valletta which had the most
up-to-date field telegraph instruments available. Hour upon hour of sending and
receiving messages, using the forms we would handle on active service, and
learning approved abbreviations and message codings and everything timed by the
24-hour clock. Gradually we developed speed in translating the dots and dashes
into letters and words and writing them legibly regardless of noise, talk and
movement going on around us – of which the instructors created a lot.
In Valletta, I
liked to rise even earlier than necessary for the pleasure of breathing the
cool morning air and gazing over the mostly flat rooftops of the neighbouring
village, but particularly to watch an elderly but remarkably agile Navy seaman
perform a nerve-twisting ritual walk on top of the narrow wall bordering the
tall Navy Headquarters building opposite our place. At a given moment every
morning, followed by his pal, he completed a circuit of the entire wall. His
pal by the way was a monkey.’
But, sadly for Sam and
friends, change was in the air:
‘Later, back in the camp I loved, I found myself with three
other Signallers mentioned in Battalion Orders being required to report to
Lieutenant Wickinson* at a certain hour. I didn’t like that at all, because
this camp in its pleasant situation had given me happiness and a feeling of
security. Any threat to the continuity of this beautiful mode of life chilled
my blood. Although such interesting work, performed in almost idyllic
surroundings, had not figured as a possibility for me when I enlisted, I felt
we had indeed struck it rich. I had envisaged frontline service with all its
risks and horrors. So this present respite whetted my appetite for more of the
same treatment… Even though I’d concluded that, the longer this
sheltered-from-reality existence lasted, the greater degree of repugnance and
fear would I feel when I had to face doing real active service close to the
enemy.
The young
Lieutenant told the four of us to sit and informed us that we had been selected
for promotion to the rank of Lance Corporal. Though well aware that this was
the worst possible rank to have, that a Lance Jack was the lackey of all the
NCOs and the butt of many Privates’ ill humour, we yet could not refuse this
pestilential promotion. Dolefully, I assumed it meant separation from my
Signals pals, a return to H Company and the accursed drill and guard duty
routine. Imagine me having to give orders to those older men with whom I had
first soldiered. They would just sneer and dare me to report any lack of
discipline…
Fortunately,
Lieutenant Wickinson said we should remain in the Signals section, each being
responsible for a quarter of its men under the Sergeant’s surveillance. On
active service the Signallers would be posted to various Companies and
Headquarters offices in small groups, each of them in the charge of a Lance
Corporal.
Then followed our
inquest on why we had been selected. The Sergeant said it was because we were
best at the work, and I was eager to believe him, but couldn’t. I feared it was
because those in charge calculated that we four would lack the nerve to say nay
to our young officer.
When the Signals
lads learnt that we had been placed in some sort of authority over them,
reactions were very varied but never complimentary. One thing entirely lacking
in their response was envy. Too well they knew what a thankless number we were
on. When you live and sleep in a tent or barrack room with men, any discipline
you might attempt to uphold is undermined by familiarity. Sergeants, for
instance, had their separate quarters and messes and must not fraternise with
rankers, only coming among them as an urge and a scourge when duty required
them to.’
* Almost certainly an
alias, in line with my father’s policy of anonymising most comrades in order to
avoid any possible upset to those living (when he wrote his Memoir in the 1970s) or to their descendants
then or at any later date.
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: Sam does some ready-reckoning on the World War 1 soldier’s
pay – and how poor boys like him and his brother could use it to benefit their
families back home…
