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Dear all
A hundred years ago… to and back
actions proceeded on Western and eastern Fronts with the British repulsing a
German attack near Hulluch in Pas-De-Calais (Oct 19) and advancing somewhat in
the vicinity of Schwaben (21), while the Russian Army captured Chartorysk
(Ukraine) and held on near Riga (Latvia, both 18), and the German Army advanced
on the Dvina (18, Russia) and took Illukst (23, Latvia).
But
the invasion of Serbia did proceed apace with one victory after another for the
Bulgarian, German and Austro-Hungarian Armies, though a longer battle between
the Bulgars and the French started on October 17 at Krivolak. Austria-Hungary
also conducted an effective defensive action against Italy in the Third Battle
Of Isonzo (out of 12 – casualties Oct 18-Nov3 40,400 and 67,100 respectively.)
Meanwhile,
in Gallipoli, as King George V called for more men to enlist because “The end
is not yet in sight”... having landed at Suvla Bay on
September 25, the
thousand men of the 2/1st City Of London Battalion, Royal
Fusiliers, including
my father, Lance Corporal Signaller Sam Sutcliffe from
Edmonton, north London (still underage at 17) and a couple of his pals, experienced
the front line for the first time, lost comrades steadily to bullet and shell, and
tried to keep their fears in check…
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Last week, as a Signaller, Sam took his turn at
running telephone wires out to new advance posts in No Man’s Land under cover
of darkness – while hoping a random sniper’s bullet wouldn’t find him. Already
he shared the prevailing sense that the campaign lacked leadership – “We all
felt it and cursed it” (see 11/10/15 blog).
Young
as he was, he reserved particular scorn for the Commander-in-Chief, General
Hamilton, and derived little encouragement from his Battalion’s Colonel’s lone,
brief appearance in the front line – just to secure a medal, he suspected –
scuttling bent double through a place called Borderers’ Gully.
But Sam
remembered the location for a more personal reason – and its sad aftermath:
‘I suffered
a sad loss in that gully, when we had to leave it and move forward in a hurry.
Through all our travels I had carried in my haversack the flageolet I used in
the Scouts’ band. When I got the chance, I would quietly play some of the
choruses then popular, particularly ragtime songs – Everybody’s Doing It, You
Made Me Love You, and Alexander’s Ragtime Band. It seemed to make a link with
home for a brief moment.
After having a
blow in that gully, I must have laid it down beside me instead of shoving it
into my haversack. Then, when we got the sudden order to advance, I forgot it.
The loss saddened me, made me feel completely cut off from the old life…
I wanted to talk
to somebody like Harold or Len, the intimates of pre-war days. Back in our
front line, I moved around the trenches as much as I dared without permission –
and got shot at once or twice by the apparently tireless Turk snipers. When I
found a hole which sheltered some G Company men, I asked if they could direct
me to Harold and their replies shocked me: “He’s away on a hospital ship,
wounded in a foot. Trouble is, the bullet came from his own rifle. A
self-inflicted wound, which means court martial. He has to convince them it was
accidental. It happened in the dark in one of these holes in the ground. But
how did the rifle muzzle come to be resting on his foot?”
If fear and
desperation had driven Harold to do it, I didn’t blame him, but I said, “I
believe what Harold said and good luck to him”. It was a very serious matter,
depressing to contemplate, and I tried to find Len, but he had vanished too,
wounded or ill.’
Now Sam moves on to recollection of two
encounters with the preposterous Battalion Medical Officer. The second proved
near-fatal…
‘The Medical Officer mentioned above [in last week’s blog] –
he was tall, thin, stooping, and sallow and mournful of countenance – must have
escaped from a civilian practice which, because of his ignorant incompetence,
had yielded barely enough money to keep him supplied with watery soup and a few
crusts. Some of his diagnoses and treatments were so ridiculous as to be
unbelievable by all except his victims.
Early on, I
developed a very painful toothache and, when I eventually traced him to the
hole in the ground wherein he lurked, his advice to me came in the following
words – do believe me, this is true – “I have no instruments with which to
extract teeth. Take this Number 9 pill* for your bowels. Perhaps the artillery
can help you by attaching a string from your bad tooth to a shell. When the gun
is fired, your tooth will be pulled out!”
Well, I had seen
what I assumed to be centipedes moving around in the holes and trenches we
occupied – perhaps an eighth of an inch thick and five inches long. Sometimes,
I would find one curled up in the blanket I wrapped round me when resting. And
one day my left hand swelled painfully. Between my little and third fingers I
found a yellow spot.
For over 24 hours
I stood the pain, but by then the hand and the forearm had swollen to twice
their normal size and, under my left armpit, a swelling throbbed. I knew this
poison was spreading rapidly and could be fatal. I had to visit that wretched
medico. What do you think he said? “You have had a poisonous bite, but I can’t
do anything about it. Take a Number 9 pill. It might help to clear the blood.”
That too is absolutely true.
I walked away, the
pain reducing me to moans and tears. I wandered off towards the beach,
deserting my Company, but not caring any more. To be shot would have been a
relief. At some point along the track I found a small, marquee tent with a Red
Cross flag flying above it. I entered and received a kindly welcome from a
Sergeant member of the Royal Army Medical Corps**, who listened to my story
while I removed my tunic. The shirt also had to come off, the arm so swollen
that the Sergeant helped me by pulling the garment over my head and peeling the
left sleeve off last of all.
An officer made an
examination; his speech suggested American origin, especially when he, with a
penetrating gaze right into my eyes, asked, “Can you stand some?” Of course, I
assured him I could stand anything but the current pain. Whereupon he told the
Sergeant to hold my swollen hand – which looked remarkably like some sort of
puffed-up frog – over a large basin, keeping apart the little finger and its
neighbour. The Sergeant took a firm grip and the Yankee doctor inserted his
small blade into the palm side of my hand first, then cut upwards between the
fingers and a little way across the back of the hand.
Normally, I would
have let out a howl but, as the pressure eased, I experienced only relief. Then
the surgeon, using both hands, commenced squeezing, starting at the top near
the shoulder…
Amazed at the
quantity of red and yellow muck which had almost filled the basin, overjoyed by
the pain receding, I told the doctor about our strange MO. Etiquette, I
suppose, prevented him pursuing the subject, but his sympathetic eyes and his
care during the following fortnight dispersed all my bitterness. That was my
first experience of American kindness and efficiency; more such generous aid
from our future allies came my way before that war concluded.
The Sergeant led
me up a hillside to a small encampment consisting of a marquee and half a dozen
bell tents. For beds, the patients had stretchers, the sort that folded up when
not in use; each of us had a pillow and two blankets. At regular hours, the
only nursing staff I saw – the Sergeant and a Corporal – brought us food, drink
and medicines. If not serious, wounds were dressed. Mine they kept open by more
squeezing, but the swelling subsided rapidly, while whatever medicine they
administered improved my general condition.
Most of all,
within a few days, the kindness of those men, the generous helpings of good,
plain food, and lots of restful sleep, turned a doleful kid into something once
more resembling a soldier.
I began to take a
real interest in everything. Looking around, I saw that this little Field
Dressing Station stood on a hilltop in full view of the enemy, its only
protection the large Red Cross flag at the top of the flagpole. Occasionally,
Turk shells would howl past us, but none would hit us, of that we were sure.
Could one rely on that today?
From the part of
the Front my pals occupied, sounds of the usual sort drifted up to us; frequent
rifle shots, bursts of machine-gun fire, the bang-howl-crash of shells from
smallish field guns.
Turning to my
right, I faced a difficult sort of battlefield; in the background, a range of
harsh-looking hills called, I believe, the Anafarta Heights (I did know the names of the
main, geographical features at that time, but this is the only one I remember,
probably because, with my low-level type of imagination, this name suggested
the possible condition and emissions of this girl Ana after she had eaten one
of the tall tins of baked beans and fat pork which all too rarely came my way). Ranges of lesser hills ran roughly parallel to them.
On my extreme right was
the sea and, rather nearer to me, a strip of land jutted out into it. On its
tip I could see an Australian gun battery… for Anzac Cove, of beloved memory,
was nearby. The acoustics were such that, when they fired a shell from that
position, it set up a terrific roar like all hell let loose.
Chocolate Hill***
was inland from that point and when, one afternoon, the Aussies mounted an
attack, in that huge panorama it looked like a play staged by midgets: puffs of
smoke, flashes, then tiny figures running forward, pausing, dropping down
prone, then mingling with the terrain, becoming invisible. I could do no more
than wish them success in their raid.
I saw a monitor –
really a floating gun platform – supporting the action by, from time to time,
sending a huge shell into the Turkish rear positions. Anchored some distance
out to sea, the monitor had, I was told, just one big gun and a stock of
shells.
Another day, a
huge battleship, which I believe was the Queen Elizabeth****, bombarded Turkish
roads miles behind the firing line. I heard that one of her shells killed 62
Turks, but could not imagine who counted them or how.
My fitness for
return to my Battalion became obvious. On the very day when the good American
doc decided I could depart, I was shocked to hear a battery of our own guns
open fire from a position directly behind our little hospital. This was all
wrong, absolutely wicked, and I walked away from that little bit of heaven
feeling that it had been befouled by some brainless British officer. Now you
wouldn’t blame the Turks for strafing the Red Cross tents – and that is what
happened. I heard that bad news a few days later, and just hoped the good
American and all staff survived intact.’
*
Number 9: a
laxative often issued as a cure-all by Army doctors – and said to be the source
of the bingo caller’s somewhat mysterious “Doctor’s orders, Number 9”.
** Royal Army Medical
Corps: referred to by its initials RAMC for most of the memoir.
*** Chocolate Hill: scene
of fierce fighting throughout the campaign; the soldiers named it for its
colour, to distinguish it from Green Hill.
**** Queen Elizabeth: probably not, as she had been Hamilton’s flagship
for the invasion but, according to Wikipedia, was withdrawn to “a safer
position” – namely, Scapa Flow, the Orkney islands, north of Scotland – after
the sinking of the battleship HMS Goliath
by a Turkish torpedo boat on May 12, 1915, with the loss of 570 crew.
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: Recovered, Sam finds his Battalion’s given him up for dead…
and nicked his water purifiers! He’s sent up to a front-line hilltop signalling
post for the campaign’s duration…
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