FootSoldierSam retro: his Christmases and New Years past – London at nine and 16, Gallipoli at 17…

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Dear all

A hundred years ago this week, in the aftermath of the Armistice… While President Wilson did a lap of honour around Europe, weeks of turmoil in Germany and Eastern Europe suddenly found their counterpart in a mutinous eruption among British soldiers resting near and returning through two main Channel ports. At Folkestone (January 3), when 2,000 men were ordered back to France, they refused and soon 10,000 in camps around the town had gathered at the Town Hall until mollified. But the same order was issued the next day and this time thousands of soldiers took over the harbour, while 2,000 did likewise at Dover, forming an impromptu soldiers’ union too. Nonplussed generals and Government Ministers sniffed Bolshevism…

    Meanwhile in Russia, the to and fro between the actual Bolsheviks and their Allied/White Russian opponents proceeded with Bolshevik forces attempting to assert themselves in newly independent Baltic states by advancing in Riga (Latvia) and Reval (now Tallinn, Estonia; both on January 2) and to beat back the rebellion led by Admiral Kolchak with supporting Czech legions in east Russia – the Bolsheviks took Ufa and Sterlitamak (December 31) immediately after losing Birsk (30; 808 miles due east of Moscow).

    The uproar spread to Pressburg (now Bratislava, Slovakia) where the newly independent Czechoslovakians occupied the city (January 1) and the following day the Hungarians, who comprised almost half of the population, rose up against them. 

    But Captain Hermann Detzner delivered the eccentric story of the week when he surrendered his German New Guinea Colonial Security force of 20 men to the Australians (January 5) after holding out on the run for four years having yielded the territory to the Aussies in the opening weeks of the war.

[Memoir background: my father, Lance Corporal Signaller Sam Sutcliffe from Edmonton, north London, 16-year-old underage volunteer in September, 1914, fought at Gallipoli with the 2/1st Royal Fusiliers (Blogs September 20, 2015, to January 3, 2016), then on the Somme Front with his second outfit, the Kensingtons (Blogs May 15 to September 25, 2016)… until officialdom spotted his real age – 18, legally too young for the battlefield. They told him he could take a break from the fighting until he turned 19. He accepted, though with an enduring sense of guilt. December, 1916, saw him posted to Harrogate, Yorkshire, and re-allocated to the Essex Regiment Battalion (Blogs November 27, 2016, to November 11, 2017). During this interlude he suffered various illnesses while recovering from trench warfare’s privations. In December, probably, solo, he returned to France – reverting to Private on arrival, I don’t know why – and dogsbodied around Arras until, in mid-March, he ran into his own Essex 2/7th Battalion. They moved into the trenches near Fampoux just in time for the German Spring Offensive. A last stand by the Battalion on March 28, 1918, left 80 alive and “fit” out of the 520 who started the day – the 440 in between being dead, wounded or, like Sam, “missing” and, in his case, a POW (Blog March 25, 2018). For several months he wandered occupied France in randomly-assembled half-starved POW groups doing hard labour, before spending the summer in southern Germany near a village called Hügelheim and finally moving westwards to Lorraine where they remained until Armistice – at which his long trek towards the French Front began. He finally reached safety after tiptoeing through a German minefield (November 15 probably) and then started his recovery from chronic near-starvation – and a brief emotional breakdown – through the ministrations of French, British and American military doctors and nurses in Nancy and Rouen, plus the diverse kindnesses of poilus, an old Frenchwoman who gave him chocolate, (freezing) members of the Chinese Labour Corps who swapped him snaffled cheese for snaffled cardigans… and the less well-conceived efforts of several people who nearly killed him with overfeeding and a Madame who offered him a girl he quite literally wasn’t up to. Finally, on December 10, 1918, he returned to England and another few days in hospital before a tram, a bus and a train took him home to his first “Ma-made cuppa” in a long 12 months. But now a festive-seasonal retrospective…]

FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS – LOOKING BACK
AT MEMOIR CHRISTMASES PAST 

For one week only, just leaving my father where he was directly before Christmas – namely, enjoying his return to the family in north London after a full year away… during which he fought against the German Spring Offensive in a desperate rear guard action outside Arras, then hung on through eight months of near-starvation as a POW. Now, a bit of seasonal retrospection from the Memoir…

    Oddly, perhaps, he mentions only three Christmas-New Year periods in the entire story, but they were all very different – and here they are as one Long Read…

This first snippet carries a certain significance. Sam’s poverty-stricken childhood felt the more grim because of his parents sorrow and bitterness arising from the “ruin” of the family tile business in Manchester just after Sam was born. It caused them to do a flit to London and one of Sam’s constant early memories was, quite simply, feeling hungry. But when he was eight or nine, his friend from the church choir, Reg Curtis, invited him for Christmas dinner at his house – and it wasn’t just the quantity of food that impressed the lad (my father still wrote in the third person at this stage – and in the next excerpt – aliasing himself as “Tommy”]… 

‘One Christmas, they invited Tommy into the family celebration. Reg’s father had a phonograph and he’d bought one of those early records – mainly of a religious, sacred character the tunes were, Jerusalem and similar things. They all made free with the Christmas fare and the happiness there was a revelation to Tommy. Reg shared with him the affection which permeated the family, the brothers and Dad. I don’t mention Mum because, curiously, she remained in the background and Tommy seldom saw her.’

And here’s the last Sutcliffe family Christmas before underage volunteer Royal Fusiliers Sam/”Tommy” (then 16) and his older brother Ted (18) sailed for foreign parts – a voyage that, months later, eventually led to Gallipoli. With Pa in steady work and Ted and Sam contributing from their wages for the previous couple of years, they could loosen the stays a little. But first the brothers had to get through a barrier erected by the Army’s not untypical careless neglect of the Poor Bloody Infantry’s ordinary humanity. At the time, they were billeted in Tonbridge, Sam/”Tommy” with a family called the Fluters:

‘As Christmas 1914 approached, and it appeared likely the Battalion would remain in England during the holiday, the chaps began to speculate about whether they would be allowed home. “They’re sure to grant two or three days leave,” was the general opinion. So warming anticipation of reunions with families gave rise to a happiness which permeated all the men. Officers must have noticed the prevailing joyfulness but, perhaps, did not realise what caused it.

     An announcement that Christmas Eve would be free of parades and work contained no reference to leave of absence. Puzzlement and doubt replaced anticipatory elation. Then, as groups of men discussed the strange silence about Christmas plans, anger caused some men to threaten to go home without permission. “But that would be a crime, either desertion with trial by court martial or else a charge of being absent without leave” – so cautious men told the impatient ones.

     It developed into a serious situation; on the morning of Christmas Eve, no guidance having come from above, a large number of men gathered on the London platform at the railway station. They had bought their tickets and were now committing their threatened breach of military discipline. But somebody had informed the RSM about the looming exodus and his powerful voice could be heard ordering all men to return to their billets.

     Most anxious not to provide authority with any excuse for questioning his stated age and discharging him, Tommy had not made a decision about joining this rebellion. He had found a position outside the station from which he observed the following scene, and even heard much of what was said.

     He saw no general movement by the, shall we say, insurgents to leave the platform and, quite suddenly, the booming voice of the RSM fell silent. All faces turned towards the station entrance. The Colonel marched in with a substantial group of officers, followed by porters carrying a large number of bags. The party stopped abruptly at the sight of the assembled troops.

     The Colonel’s face expressed great surprise, as Tommy could clearly see. Then he turned to confer with Captain Blunt, his adjutant. Other officers moved in closer and there was much quiet discussion.

     Some Privates standing nearby were called forward and, like good soldiers, all saluted correctly together, straight and upright, eyes looking straight ahead and not at the officers asking the questions. They may have contemplated doing a bunk, thought Tommy, but they had remembered their training. Soon the men saluted, turned about and rejoined their comrades. Then the Colonel came forward and addressed the men.

     A terrific cheer followed his speech so Tommy readily guessed its import. He climbed down from his perch, passed through an open gate on into the station coal depot and crossed several railway lines till he came to iron railings and called to men on the platform, asking for information.

     He learnt that the amateur officers had made their first major blunder. They had taken no thought of what was to happen to their men during the Christmas festivities. Vaguely, they had assumed that the rank and file would remain mostly in their billets and take meals with the families. For a start, this rather haughtily assumed that those families would or could supply Christmas fare for comparative strangers and also took for granted that the soldiers would wish to remain in billets in such awkward circumstances. Yet the officers themselves had no doubt as to where they were going to spend the holiday.

     Of course, not all the men had gathered at the railway station, so volunteers offered to go to each CSM and pass on the good news: two-day leave had been granted to all. Thus, the remainder of the men would travel to town by the next train – as Tommy resolved to do.

     Hurrying back to Leigh Drive, he yelled the good news about Christmas leave to the few men he passed. Mrs Fluter, kindliest of women, said she could have managed easily had the lads been staying over the holiday and she thought her husband might even be disappointed that they were not to share the good times together.

A few hours later, Tommy received cheerful greetings at home and found Ted already there, as he’d expected. “Bet your life I got on that first train,” he said. “We knew there would be nothing to do during Christmas, and no order had been given to forbid us leaving Tonbridge, so we were on our way regardless. The officers must have felt foolish when they realised they hadn’t given any instructions as to what we should do during the next two days. Still, who’s grumbling, eh?”

     With money in their pockets, the brothers bought a turkey in the market place along with fruit, sweets… and Turkish cigarettes, probably costing 4d(2) for ten instead of the usual 2d for English – their rich aroma seemed to lend an air of opulence to that small home.

     So they all settled down to spend a really happy Christmas together. This might be the last family gathering for several years and, for once, all of them did their utmost to make the occasion memorable – starting that night with the collective manufacture of decorative chains from strips of coloured paper and flour paste. A gay touch in the living room.

     Mother spent much time at the coal-fired cooking range. It took skill to stoke it and arrange the dampers so that pots of vegetables on top kept boiling while the bird and stuffing in the oven roasted without burning.

     Pa had bought a bottle of cheap claret, a favourite of mother’s though, to put it mildly, a bit sharp for the tastes of the youngsters. But all protested that they liked it. Drinking some fizzy mineral water, of which they’d bought several large bottles – “penny monsters” – soon softened its harshness. What with playing games, telling yarns about Army experiences, and resting between unusually large meals, the hours passed quickly.

     They all praised Ma’s cooking and even Dad put aside the load of worry which always appeared to be crushing him… and smiled occasionally. The war was hardly mentioned, although this Christmas should have marked the end of hostilities according to many forecasters. Everyone knew it was not going well, and flickers of fear disturbed even reasonably optimistic people.

     But, just for the moment, self-indulgence quite rightly ousted serious thinking and all felt the happier for trying to encourage forgetfulness and joyfulness among others.’

(2) £1 in 1914 would equal £109.69 in 2017 according to the Bank Of England inflation calculator. 4d/fourpence then would be the uninflated equivalent of 3.33p now so… £3 65p with 103 years worth of inflation (but then consider all the VAT and purchase tax changes in the interim).

A year on and, now a Lance Corporal Signaller, Sam, 17, experienced a very different Christmas and New Year – in and around Gallipoli. This excerpt begins just before the evacuation from Suvla Bay where he and the 2/1 Royal Fusiliers had experienced their first battlefield, from the moment they landed (under fire) in the small-hours darkness of September 25, 1915, and started digging the trenches they were to live in for the next three months:

‘Christmas Day coming up… All we were missing was the Christmas tree, the holly, the oranges, Christmas puddings, iced cakes and booze. We did have ample bully beef, hard biscuits, tea, tinned milk, sugar and, because of our Army’s reduced numbers, two or three pints of water each day.

     But one could feel how appropriate it was that, as the season of good will to all men drew near, the tension which had been spoiling one’s life, waking or sleeping, had vanished. With luck we’d be up and away from this depressing place before John Turk had time to miss us.’

To their great relief, the Battalion joined the mass evacuation on December 18-19, Saturday-Sunday overnight. Singing their own variation on a music-hall song – “We were sailing away from Suvla Bay” – they voyaged the few hours to Allied Mediterranean HQ at Lemnos. There, Sam’s sense of gloom and guilt about the defeat lifted to a degree when he reunited with brother Ted – who’d missed Suvla Bay after being dragooned off the troopship that carried the Battalion to Lemnos back in September… because he’d lost his front teeth in a fight and was deemed unfit to be shot at until he’d had them replaced (yes, I know, that ruling wasn’t entirely daft, but it is odd and funny). 

     The following festive Christmas Day did them a bit of good too, even though it hardly turned out pleasure unalloyed: 

‘Christmas nearly upon us and, next morning, our generous Major(3) had our crowd assemble and announced that arrangements had been made for a supply of beer, lots of it, to be collected from the Forces’ Canteen. Volunteers, genuine on this occasion, set off, carrying the large dixies in which the cooks normally prepared stews or tea. When they returned, noticeably more talkative and cheerful than before, they carried far more beer than it appeared likely we could cope with. The distribution of cakes, biscuits, Christmas puddings and sweets from the parcels of absent comrades followed – such a plenitude of good eatables compared with the scarcity during recent months.

     Ted spent as much time with me that day as his odd-job duties at the nearby Field Hospital allowed. To work off the heaviness from over-eating and drinking, we two took a walk – nostalgia and the effects of strong beer rendering us untypically sentimental about the dear dead days beyond recall as we strolled, perhaps a little unsteadily, in no particular direction. The day was dull, the sky grey, the wind very chilly, but divil a bit cared we… until we came to the hole.

     Yes, yet another hole after all those others I’d lived in recently. This, however, was a big one, circular and possibly 15 feet deep. When, why or by whom it had been excavated we had no idea, but now it provided shelter from the winter for a number of Arabs. Dressed in the usual poor man’s gowns and hood-like headgear, they crouched in circles well below the rim. They looked ill and miserable. Dotted all around, above and below them was their excreta, all noticeably coloured by the blood which escapes from dysentery sufferers.

     Of course, I stated my belief that it was wrong to bring these people from a very poor sort of life in Egypt to an even worse one in this cheerless island, but Ted informed me they had competed for the opportunity to come and earn some cash, a chance seldom available to them at home. Things had not been all that good for me in recent months, but I still had pity to spare for these poor devils. Even more so when Ted told me how they, and others, had travelled from Egypt; he knew because he had been ordered to escort some of them on to a ship, to send them below and close the hatches. During the voyage, the labourers had to be kept down there at all times, their guards armed with trenching tool handles to quell any revolt that might occur.

     It all seemed wrong to me. We walked away discussing the wisdom of the officials concerned in deciding that these poor, debilitated souls should be sent across the sea to finish up shivering in a hole in the ground surrounded by shit…

We came upon a village with several small shops and a number of our fellow soldiers, British and ANZAC, wandering about. We had no money, but out of curiosity we entered one shop and were surprised to see the Greek man and woman who ran it, and all their stock, sat behind iron bars. We had seen something similar in post offices and banks back home, but usually those bars were made of brass, whereas this black, iron enclosure had the aspect of a prison.

     However, justification for the bars appeared almost instantly when an altercation between a Scot and an Australian flared up. The Scot wanted a loaf of bread similar to one he’d purchased previously at about eightpence. The shopkeeper told him today’s price was two shillings. The colonies were paying this without demur, while the Scot knew that, at home, a bigger loaf than this could be bought for threepence or less. So the eightpence he offered appeared more than generous to him out of about seven shillings weekly Army pay. He upbraided the Aussies for spoiling the market just because their Government treated them far more generously than ours did British soldiers.

     We left them still pursuing their argument and returned to our camp where Christmas parcel goodies, lashings of beer or tea, Christmas puddings, and all things nice, were there for the picking-up and guzzling. What a reversal of fortune – we looked forward to some days of ease and over-indulgence. Late that night, Ted left me to return to his tent and we, the very happy brothers, promised ourselves another lovely day tomorrow.’

I had slept for possibly five hours when the unwelcome roar of a Sergeant roused us all. We had to pack up as quickly as possible, he bellowed, and be ready to move.

     Into every available space in pack, haversack and mess tin, I crammed as much food as possible. Cooks handed out fresh-baked loaves – enough to last a few days – and fried bacon in quantity. They had opened a long, wooden case containing two large sides of bacon packed in salt, so we ate our fill, stored the remaining rashers in our tubular cap comforters, and tied these to our belts. Hanging all the usual pieces of equipment about our persons we picked up our rifles, slogged down to the landing stage and boarded a small ship, similar to the Robin Redbreast, which had evacuated us from Suvla Bay.

     Whither away we knew not, nor cared overmuch, for disappointment at the interruption of our Christmas celebrations was deep and our mood doleful. To hell with everything and everybody; wasn’t that war over? So what were They up to? Many hours later we heard the unwelcome sounds of occasional gunfire and now, in darkness, when we could just make out land ahead, a shell screamed overhead and burst somewhere ashore. Our ship crept slowly forward, far too slowly for my liking, because, added to the likelihood of injury, was the unpleasant one of drowning as well; and we should by rights have been feasting and lounging on that Greek island(4).’

(3) Major Harry Nathan, that is, a revered figure in Sam’s 2/1 Royal Fusiliers period who crops up again, in a cameo role, towards  the end of the Memoir. Throughout, in line with his policy of aliasing most people and places for one reason or another, my father calls him “Booth”. Rapidly promoted from Lieutenant when the Battalion formed in September, 1914, Nathan became CO at Suvla in mid-November, according to his biographer H. Montgomery Hyde (Strong For Service, W.H. Allen, 1968, long out of print – but merited because in subsequent civilian life he became an MP, a Lord, and ultimately a Minister in Attlee’s post-WWII Government). 

(4) Strong For Service says that, while he was eating his Christmas dinner, Nathan received the order that the Battalion remnants must return to Gallipoli, and they shipped out on Boxing Day, December 26.

Soon they discovered their destination – V Beach on Cape Helles – and their (rather negative) purpose: to help with the second wave of Gallipoli evacuations, which they did on January 6. Still, from V Beach comes the Memoir’s final festive reference:

‘No Signals work was required at that time, for the Battalion’s numbers had dwindled to about Company strength [200] and our work concerned simply helping to prepare for evacuation.Our Signals group landed a lovely job which consisted of going to a large dump near the beach and gradually dispersing its contents: canned and bottled food and drink intended as extras for officers – anything that would keep well in cans, boxes, cartons, with smoked items in cotton wraps, also biscuits, some cakes and sweets, wines, beers, but not much in the way of spirits. We loaded these good things on to small mule carts.

    A very fair way had been devised to consign them to the troops in equal quantities. Those up at the Front got the first deliveries, naturally. The officer in charge at the dump had records of all the units in benefit. We could only work at night, but during breaks for rest, or while awaiting transports, we were allowed to eat and drink. Chicken, asparagus, Irish bitter from round brass-coloured tins, Schweppes lemon squash or Seltzer water, thin lunch biscuits and other luxuries… for a brief period our small, but fortunate group guzzled these lush items…

A few days after our disembarkation at V Beach, around midnight someone called out “It’s New Year’s Eve!” and a special search produced several bottles of what may have been cider, although some called it champagne. We didn’t know which, but heartily toasted each other and anyone else we fancied, before renewing our onslaught on that marvellous giveaway job.’

All the best– FSS

Next week: Back to the continuing this-week-100-years-ago story – Sam’s “wonderfully happy days” back home reach a climax when brilliant older brother Ted returns on a week’s leave and they tell each other old soldiers’ tales... but inwardly Sam’s grieving already as he listens to Ted wheeze and gasp for breath… 

(1) In his 70s, Sam Sutcliffe wrote Nobody Of Any Importance, a Memoir of his life from childhood through Gallipoli, the Somme, Arras 1918 and eight months as a POW to the 1919 Peace parade.

Seasonal Rewind 2 – Sam’s Gallipoli Christmas and New Year… landing at V Beach through the bowels of the River Clyde, getting acquainted with the lovely Asiatic Annie and German planes dropping darts and bombs… but a New Year/evacuation feast offers much consolation – Happy New Year from Cape Helles!

For details of how to buy Sam’s full Memoir(1) in paperback or e-book & excerpted Gallipoli & Somme episode mini-e-books & reader reviews see right-hand column

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Dear all

A hundred years ago this week… The war in Europe did no more than smoulder, whether it was the Western Front around Ypres and Verdun, or the Eastern Front where peace negotiations seemed to have gone chaotic with the Russians demanding a move to Stockholm from Brest-Litovsk (Belarussia) and General Kaledin’s “volunteer army” perhaps causing the Bolsheviks more concern than anticipated. Down in Italy the Austrians, ultimately held back after their long attempt to sweep south, took some revenge by bombing Treviso, Vicenza, Castelfranco, Bassano, and Padua (December 31 and January 3-4).

    The more striking events were German successes at sea against British troopships and even hospital ships. The Osmanieh succumbed to a mine off Alexandria (December 31; 198 casualties), and the Rewa, with a 279 wounded/sick officers on board, sailing from Malta to Britain, was torpedoed and sank in the Bristol Channel (January 4; all crew and patients saved bar four engineers killed by the explosion).

[Memoir background: my father, Lance Corporal Signaller Sam Sutcliffe from Edmonton, north London, under-age 2/1st Royal Fusiliers volunteer and Gallipoli veteran (Blogs September 20, 2015, to January 3, 2016), had fought on the Somme Front with his second outfit the Kensingtons (Blogs May 15 to September 25, 2016)… until officialdom spotted his real age – 18 on July 6, 1916, legally too young for the battlefield. So they told him he could take a break from the fighting until he turned 19. He took up the offer, though with an enduring sense of guilt. By December, 1916, he ended up posted to Harrogate, Yorkshire, and re-allocated again, this time to the Essex Regiment 2/7th Battalion. An interesting year ensued – four months of blizzards, a meningitis scare, special training in various northern locations, and then a few summer weeks stomping around Yorkshire on a route march… which in due course led him to hospital again, to recover from lurking effects of trench warfare’s privations – and prepare for more of the same (he was 19 on July 6, 1917, while in hospital). During that period, his Company Officer told him he’d been offered the chance to train as a commissioned officer, but Sam detested ordering men around – especially when death might be the outcome – so he refused; one immediate-post-war pension form suggests this defiance brought about his “reversion” to Private, but it’s not clear. He spent several autumn weeks refreshing his signalling skills at an Army training camp outside Crowborough, Sussex, and, come November/December, enjoyed what turned out to be the final home leave of his military career. Come December/January 1917/8, he’s returned to France with the Western Front coming up once more… However, pro tem the main narrative is subject to a two-week seasonal interruption…]

FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS

Last week, with no Christmas/New Year story to tell from 1917/18 – because Sam filed it as “forgettable” in the Memoir via the simple device of forgetting it, we returned to his festive season of 1915/16 in and around Gallipoli, a period of a few weeks which really did demand writing about.

    So that story so far, in summary, is the 2/1st Royal Fusiliers evacuated Suvla Bay on the night of December 18-19 and enjoyed a high old time on Lemnos – Sam more than most, because of a surprise reunion there with his older brother Ted – the main event being a massive feast (in nalnourished-men terms) on Christmas Day with normal rations richly reinforced by bonus beer from the Army and parcels from home, the 200-odd Suvla survivors being advised they could devour their absent comrades’ Christmas goodies too.

    However, this proved much too good to last. At 5am Boxing Day their Sergeant roared out that they must all get up and prepare to sail away again. As usual, no one told them where to, much less why, though the sound of gunfire and the black looming of cliffs against the night sky soon put them in the picture…

‘Now we could make out the black shape of a big ship, berthed in the shallows head-on to the shore(3). Moving closer, we saw a large, square opening in her side and, the tide being just right, our shallower ship could tie up to her and we could step across into her innards and eventually emerge on to a sort of landing stage. We hurried along it before gathering, briefly, on the beach beneath towering cliffs… But no enemy fire came our way.

     Excitement and interest now replaced resentment, as we filed some way up a gully and waited. I saw someone approach our Major, who then led us further upwards into this rising gully. A great flash some miles distant seawards gave short illumination to the scene; we saw we were passing a strange, wooden tower… and at that moment, almost unbelievably, from the top of it a hunting horn sounded.

     “Lie down!” yelled an unidentified voice and, being no strangers to this life-saving precaution, we were probably flat on the ground before he was. We heard the usual tearing scream, the crash, and below us – about the spot where we had first paused – we saw a brilliant flash and a large cloud of smoke, followed by the whinings of many flying pieces of shrapnel, the phuts as some of them landed nearby.

     Said the voice who had given us the warning, “That shell was from Asiatic Annie(2), a real big gun across the sea there in Asia Minor. When the lookout up above sees her fire, he blows his horn and we have about 30 seconds to take cover. The shells don’t always land here, of course, but we assume they will.” The informative bloke added that we had landed at V Beach and that the ship we had come through was the River Clyde beached there in the first Gallipoli landings months earlier.

     So at last we knew that a complete evacuation of Gallipoli had not taken place, that we were once more stuck on that ill-starred Turkish peninsula. I recall wondering what brother Ted would think of my second disappearance; he would be mad about not travelling with us, that was certain. Still, although he really belonged to us, he was attached to the Field Hospital for duty; what a surprise he must have had when he found our tents empty.

     We moved steadily upwards along a track which eventually brought us to flat ground at the top of the cliff. Now, away in the distance, we recognised all the audible and visible indications that over there was a battlefront; personally, I felt once more the growing nervous tension, the alertness generated by the desire for self-preservation.

     Even so, through a few days good living and the contact with normal people provided by the letters from home and those lovely parcels, I felt changed and strengthened; I knew this tautness was not, at present, allied to fear, as it sometimes had been when lack of food and sleep had caused debility. I’d had proof the normal world still carried on, albeit with certain difficulties, and that we had not been forgotten or given up for lost.

     We few remaining Signallers stood together talking quietly. Short, sturdy Nieter recalled our days and nights together on that hill(4); I hope I told him how much his faith in the cause and his cheery optimism had helped me when the physical after-effects of the blizzard got me down.’

(2) SS River Clyde: a collier launched in March, 1905, adapted as a landing ship in 1915; that April, she sailed from Mudros to Cape Helles V Beach; bombarded from the cliffs, she was beached to serve as a bridge for landings and then for returning wounded; six of the River Clyde’s crew were awarded VCs; the apparent hulk was later repaired and sold to Spanish owners who used her as a Mediterranean tramp steamer until finally scrapping her in 1966; on April 15, V Beach, only 300 yards long, became one of five main Allied landing places on Cape Helles; it was overlooked by cliffs, a fort and an ancient castle, Sedd el Bahr Kale (Anglo spelling varies), occupied and defended by the Turkish Army, though captured on April 26, during the initial attacks.

(3) According to  an invisionzone page which no longer seems to be available three years on from my original search, Asiatic Annie fired from a place called Tepe, aiming at V Beach (where my father’s Battalion had landed) and W Beach on Cape Helles; https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/history/conflicts/gallipoli-and-anzacs/locations/explore-asian-shore-sites/kumkale says the gun was set up in a 17th-century fort called Kumkalle, five kilometres from the site of ancient Troy.

(4) Old friends from training in Malta for six months earlier that year, they’d lately spent several winter weeks, including the fearsome blizzard after math running a two-man Signals outpost (better described as a hole) on top of a hill overlooking the Turkish lines on 24-hour rotation day after day without relief.

At first it seemed a straightforward Signalling job was required. Sam Peter and two others settled in an eyrie on the cliffside high above the River Clyde - interest added to the experience because the seaward side had no barrier so you could easily roll out and down in your sleep. Fortunately, before any harm befell them, they had to move.

‘Soon, an order came through for us Signallers to disconnect everything, take all the equipment down to a store on the beach, then rejoin our Battalion. A guide took us to where they were living in a series of square holes not far from the beach all connected by a long trench. At last, we learned the reason for our return to Gallipoli; we were to work every night at dismantling and loading stores on to lighters and small ships. Night work only, in order to conceal evacuation preparations. We could take some rest during the day — but, should enemy planes appear, like the occasional small groups of Taubes we’d seen high above Suvla, we must expose ourselves, move around as though busy upon routine matters, and generally try to convince the observers that our numbers were as great as at any previous time.

     Shortly after dawn that first morning back with our crowd, a lone plane did fly back and forth over our area, so we put on our busy act for the pilot’s amusement and information. Quite rightly, acting on instructions, some of our men fired their rifles upwards — imagine our surprise, though, when the pilot dropped a bomb(5). It exploded much too close for our liking and caused a brief interruption to our “busy bee” programme.

     That was the first time I’d thought about the possibility of planes carrying bombs. Probably the pilot hurled it out of his cockpit. Although it could only have been a small one, it made quite an impressive bang. Still, no harm done, so nobody worried too much about air-bomb possibilities.’

(5) Of course, planes dropping bombs had become common in Europe, but down in Gallipoli, in this rather less organised campaign, low priorities and tight budgets presumably restricted innovative approaches.

But soon one of these crudest of aerial bombs “disintegrates” a comrade on the beach in front of Sam‘s eyes – plus they get heavy darts dropped on them, pilots unloading them by the boxfull.

    With their professional specialism – Signalling – redundant, the Signallers now find an unrelated expertise in boozing and noshing called to the colours once more. You wouldn’t want to leave anything for the enemy, would you?

’Our Signals group landed a lovely job which consisted of going to a large dump near the beach and gradually dispersing its contents: canned and bottled food and drink intended as extras for officers – anything that would keep well in cans, boxes, cartons, with smoked items in cotton wraps, also biscuits, some cakes and sweets, wines, beers, but not much in the way of spirits. We loaded these good things on to small mule carts.

     A very fair way had been devised to consign them to the troops in equal quantities. Those up at the Front got the first deliveries, naturally. The officer in charge at the dump had records of all the units in benefit. We could only work at night, but during breaks for rest, or while awaiting transports, we were allowed to eat and drink. Chicken, asparagus, Irish bitter from round brass-coloured tins, Schweppes lemon squash or Seltzer water, thin lunch biscuits and other luxuries…  for a brief period our small, but fortunate group guzzled these lush items.

     Quite fairly, we were not allowed to take anything away from the dump for our own use; but we would be entitled to a share of what was delivered to our Battalion. In fact, we Signallers hadn’t the gall to accept our share when it was offered since we stuffed ourselves to capacity during the night and, in daytime, only wanted to sleep. But we did work with a will on the job — and so shortened its duration, unfortunately.’

The festive season hadn’t been much on their minds since the disruption of their Xmas festivities at 5am, Boxing Day, but suddenly they got a reminder:

‘A few days after our disembarkation at V Beach, around midnight someone called out “It’s New Year’s Eve!” and a special search produced several bottles of what may have been cider, although some called it champagne. We didn’t know which, but heartily toasted each other and anyone else we fancied, before renewing our onslaught on that marvellous giveaway job.’

(6) In fact, six days after they arrived at V Beach.

The evacuation date remained secret, of course. The next order to include the Signallers and other 2/1st comrades really made them wonder what was going on – and put the wind up them, as Sam would say.

‘… a few nights later [so January 3 or 4?], our little group was detailed to join other men and trail off behind a guide in the general direction of the front line. In faint light from a clear sky we could see the nature of the terrain: sometimes fairly level, sometimes hillocks, ridges, low areas. Halting at the entrance to a gully, the leader said, “We now enter Krithea Nullah, which leads to our front line. It gives good cover against rifle and machine-gun fire, but the odd shell can be dangerous; the Turks have got it taped as a route we use regularly, so flop if you hear one coming.”

     We reached what I assumed was the support-line trench where all the men, except lookouts, were dozing. Forward again and the front line was our next stop. There, we were each handed a pick or a shovel and our guide led the way up over the firing step and parapet into No Man’s Land, the space between us and the enemy. He spaced us out in groups of four and told us to start digging holes. The picks made more than enough noise on that hard, peculiar ground and we were sitting ducks for any Turk who cared to take a pot shot. I wished I was still way back helping with the charitable work at the officers’ food dump…

     When several Turk light field guns let fly, their nearness surprised me; a strange feature was the thin, red line visible as each shell left its gun, making me wonder if they used rather antique pieces. Their trajectory was high, its zenith roughly above us, yet the shells – not trench mortar bombs, their whine confirmed – burst only a couple of hundred yards behind us.

     No one told us why, at this stage of the campaign, we poor mugs were digging holes in front of the Turk trenches at great risk to ourselves and our underpants, but even we of the lower orders could guess that we played a part in the great game of bluff. Our top brass hoped John Turk would reason, “They can’t be leaving yet or they wouldn’t be digging works in advanced positions”. I wonder if they were right – if the enemy even cared what we were up to? Perhaps he too had seen enough of the farce. We suffered no casualties.’

The laundry hazards concluded, the Battalion finally got their second set of evacuation instructions – which arrived in Battalion CO Major Nathan’s words, as researched by H Montgomery Ward for his biography Strong For Service, “on the night of Thursday 6th at ten minutes notice [and] in the middle of tea”.

“Once again the quiet line-up in the darkness, the very quiet roll-call, but then the strong, firm voice of our idolised Major saying “Forward!” Little artillery activity as, in two lines, we followed him…

     After we had walked for some time, I saw the dark shape of a large building on our left-hand side. We stopped 30 yards away and I could see that light escaped from several slits in doors or windows. Apart from slight indications of habitation behind enemy lines up Krithea way, this was the first real building I’d seen near V Beach, so I was interested when the voice of one of our best officers informed us that there stood the fort of Sedd el Bahr, possibly dating from Crusade times.

     Cautious no longer, the Major’s voice boomed out, “Corporal Bebb! Corporal Bebb!” It appeared that this popular chap, friend of my brother’s, well known to and admired by me, had taken a small party on an assignment to the front line with orders to return to us in time for our move off, but they were still missing.

     I felt an atmosphere of mystery just then… standing near the ancient fort, Bebb and his little party missing, our contingent now so small that some months before had been nigh a thousand strong, all our senior officers missing, apart from Major Booth; we had successfully crawled away from one battlefront and now we were at it again. Would the Turks let us do it twice?

     Only a few hundred yards to go and our ears told us that the enemy guns were dropping more shells around the beaches than they had done for many a day. Why?

     Hope of Bebb’s party abandoned because we had to follow a precise timetable, our Major said we must now move. As we reached the cutting at the landward end of the beach area Asiatic Annie flashed and one of her huge shells crashed down a couple of hundred yards away, but we walked steadily forward, hoping to be spared. A sad thing it would be if she wiped most of us out when we’d got this far…’

But it proved another brilliant evacuation. Hardly any casualties – much though many of the troops shared the sourness about “doing what we do best - running away”. The 2/1st remnants passed through the River Clyde to board a lighter and then a small steamer…

‘Partridge, probably related to the Robin Redbreast that lifted us from Suvla, chugged off into the night, taking us away from all the nasty bangs and flashes and wounds and deaths which make life on active service so unpleasant for us who would much prefer life in an equable clime with a full belly under a tree with a glass of wine and thou and that sort of thing.

     Enjoying myself, I recall, leaning on the ship’s rail, looking at the dark sea with its occasional streaks and flurries of white foam, I heard a conversation in which one speaker was a nice chap and very good worker named Harry Greengrass, a member of our Pioneer section. Harry and his mates did most of the unpopular jobs. He said to someone unknown to me, “The Padre insisted on doing a short burial service over Lewis’s body. You remember, don’t you? The man who copped that bomb from the plane. We collected as many pieces as we could find and sewed them up in a sack, but as we went to lower it slowly into the grave his legs fell out. That scared me because I was sure I had stitched up the bag properly.”

     I moved away. Poor Lewis. A year earlier, who would have imagined it — in pieces in a sack in a bleak strip of Turkey.’

And so they sailed on to Mudros harbour again. They didn’t go ashore, just waited awhile before moving back to Egypt on a large troopship, the Minneapolis. They were to spend four months there on training and r&r before their turn came around to head for the Western Front and the Somme…

All the best – FSS

Next week: Back to Arras, January, 1918, Sam still a free agent exploring his lodgings in the old Prison, freelancing around as a Signaller while he awaits re-attachment to his 2/7th Essex Battalion - and taking inspiration from the sight of a Guards outfit sprucing themselves up, top to toe, despite it all …

(1) In his 70s, Sam Sutcliffe wrote Nobody Of Any Importance, a Memoir of his life from childhood through Gallipoli, the Somme, Arras 1918 and eight months as a POW to the 1919 Peace parade.