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Dear all
A hundred years ago this week… Verdun
remained the Western Front’s inferno, though disagreements among the German
commanders about the effective balance of caution and aggression may have
played a part in them having an unsuccessful seven days – the French Army
repulsed the German at Meuse and Mort Homme (April 10), Douaumont-Vaux (11) and
advanced south of that village (15).
On
Eastern Front, the Russian Army continued its run of handy victories at Dvinsk
(April 12, Latvia) and Lake Naroch (14, now Belarus) against the Germans and
likewise versus the Ottomans down in Armenia as their Trebizond Campaign neared
a conclusion.
In
Turkey itself, British air attacks (flying from Mudros) on Constantinople and
Adrianople probably comprised a rather flea-bite retaliation for the Gallipoli
debacle. But down in German East Africa (now Tanzania/Rwanda/Burundi), the
British Army and new ally Portugal, occupied Kionga (April 11, on the east
coast), Kothersheim (12) and Salanga (14).
Meanwhile,
in Egypt, my father, Lance Corporal Signaller Sam Sutcliffe
from Edmonton, north London (still under-age at 17), his older brother Ted (19,
lately converted from foot-slogging to horse wrangling, which proves highly
relevant to this week’s excerpt), and their mates – the 200-odd 2/1st
City Of London Battalion Royal Fusiliers comrades who’d come through Gallipoli – remained
encamped on
the banks of the Nile and the edge of the Sahara at Beni Salama, 30 miles north-west of Cairo… waiting for whatever
came next which, as usual, nobody was informing them about.
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Last week, Sam enjoyed the last of his
Battalion’s time in Egypt, taking the mickey out of the 53rd Welsh Division’s
mail-voice choir, having a day at the races as the officers in camp pitted
their mounts against one another – though also training hard as the Battalion’s
survivors of Gallipoli fought for their life.
At
this point, though they didn’t know it, they were about to set sail for France,
the Western Front… the Somme. It seems appropriate to pause the blog’s storytelling
for a moment to look back on what made Sam, the 17-year-old boy, the man he was
as he stood poised, in April 1916, between the Scylla of Gallipoli and the Charybdis
of the Somme. It’s a good (long) read, but worth the retrospection I hope – or
a nice introduction to new FootSoldierSam readers.
To
start at the very beginning, the early part of his Memoir records a few
memories of 1900-01 (Sam born 1898) when his family was wealthy and then
suddenly fell into “ruin” and basic working-class poverty:
‘The boy found they were living in a much poorer area. A row
of houses, small Going out of the back door one came to a long, continuous yard
common to all the houses. No dividing fences at all. Privies against the yard’s
rear wall. The people were kindly to him and his brothers and sister. But worry
and anxiety hung over all. Each day seemed dark and drab and dull in a heavy
way, which only the weather in a Northern industrial town can contrive. So
oppressive to a child.’
Soon they moved to London,
still penniless. For Sam that experience began with an assault course on his
accent by his Cockney classmates (my father wrote in the third person, calling
himself Tommy at this stage):
‘The trouble really started when, for some reason, he had to
say “photograph”. With his Mancunian vowels, it came out “phawtawgraph”, with a
short, hard “a” in the final syllable. They all laughed – many, it seemed to
him, with that mean, harsh, forced laugh children produce when they want to
wound one of their fellows. “It’s ‘phoetoegraaph’!” one of them yelled and in a
trice the whole class was chanting “Phoetoegraaph! Phoetoegraaph!
Phoetoegraaph!” until [the teacher] Miss Tasket exerted her rather languid
authority and quietened them, though saying only that the noise must stop
without explaining that their mockery was wrong and cruel.’
But his natural curiosity
fed his powers of observation and he lived vividly enough within himself, while
the local vicar, Mr Frusher, became his mentor and led him into the delights of
music – the choir and learning to play the piano – but also the practical
outdoor skills fostered by the new Boy Scout movement. These, he realised,
eventually made their own, no doubt accidental, connections with the needs of a
country heading for war:
‘… after training at the church hall on Saturday afternoons,
Tommy and other seniors could go to a rifle club where, for half an hour, they
practised shooting on a covered range about 300 yards long, using old Army
rifles (surplus from the Boer War, fitted with Morris tubes which allowed them
to fire .22 ammunition). Supervisors checked their scores and entered them on
competition cards… Mr Frusher also undertook courses in first aid. Adapting his
instruction from the Red Cross manual, he paid a good deal of attention to
treating wounds…
… Scouting, Tommy
realised, had taught him a good deal that would be useful to a soldier. He
could help erect a tent, use a rifle, and communicate efficiently by semaphore
or Morse code or a simple field telegraph. As a Patrol Leader, he had acquired
the ability to stand up in front of a group of lads and give brief orders.
If any of these
things might appear to have been intended to prepare youngsters for military
service this was certainly not the intention behind Mr Frusher’s work. As a
practising Christian, at heart a pacifist, he never said anything to Scout
meetings about the war scare and the training had nothing of a military
character to it — no yelling of orders or foot-stamping drill.’
My father, like his
beloved older brother Ted before him, left school at 14 because his parents
couldn’t afford to pay for the exams which might have enabled him to stay on.
He got a job as a junior office boy at a tin-mining company in the Liverpool
Street area. At first, he relished the new experience. But two years on he’d
become frustrated, even depressed about his prospects:
‘On Saturdays, for his half-day’s work Tommy had to get up
just as early as on weekdays and hurry to catch the 7.18 train. On those days
he often felt stale and played out. Leaving the office around 1pm, it seemed
that he, his clothes, the big station, and the crowds rushing away from the
City, were all dingy, condemned to a life of hopelessness and frustration.’
By then, though, it was
the fine summer of 1914. War fever raised the national temperature even
further, Sam/”Tommy” caught up in the fever like so many around him:
‘Without thinking too deeply, one could become part of this
emotion and go about one’s daily activities lightened and illumined by a
self-righteous glow. Probably
the nation had smarted under the German threat hanging over their heads for
some years. Tommy and his like caught the
infection. To the enthusiastic, people who behaved and talked rationally or, at
least, just as they had always done, seemed selfish, perhaps even scared. This
national surge flowed through the millions of men who were more emotional than
thoughtful… Tommy’s generation was experiencing the last of the great patriotic
upsurges in this country. Wonderful while it lasted.’
Barely a month after the
declaration of war against Germany in August, 1914, Sam/”Tommy”, aged 16, and
Ted, 18, lied about their age and enlisted with the Royal Fusiliers. After that
their first task was to persuade their father and mother not to shop them:
‘Later
that evening, when father returned from work and mother told him the news, the
brothers awaited the outcome of their discussion. Eventually, their parents
called them together and told them they could agree to Ted staying in the Army,
but they would have to get Tommy out. At this, Tommy played his trump card. He
said he knew, strictly speaking, he’d done a very dishonest thing, but pointed
out that his motives weren’t bad – and, finally, that he didn’t know what
prison sentence would be inflicted on him for making a false declaration
regarding his age… In conclusion, he pleaded with his parents for permission to
carry on as a soldier for a time, at any rate, and prove he could do the job
for which he had volunteered.
Father talked of the physical strain a boy could suffer in
trying to do the tasks expected of full-grown men. Still Tommy begged to be
allowed to try. Then, perhaps, he won the day by explaining that in all, while
living at home, he would be paid 21/- a week, a guinea. That is, 1/- a day
soldier’s pay, plus 2/- a day subsistence money. That rate, though temporary,
matched what many full-grown men earned — a very good wage, in fact, for
unskilled work. Eventually, they agreed that Tommy should, for the moment,
carry on soldiering.’
Rather to their surprise,
the tyro Fusiliers went through a couple of months of square-bashing in London
before moving to billets in Tonbridge where their duties largely involved
digging a southern ring of trench defence around London – part prepare for the worst,
part practice for the real thing in strategic terms, no doubt. Still no sign of
rifles being issued; not enough to go round they were given to understand. When
they sailed from Southampton on February 1, 1915, they presumed France and the
Western Front would be their destination – nobody told them anything. But some
ten days later they went ashore in Malta…
There, Sam/”Tommy” had a rather lovely time, despite the
continuance of often arduous training and, for the most part, accommodation in
tents rather than barracks – the barracks, they were uncomfortably aware,
having been converted in April or May to a hospital for Gallipoli casualties.
He loved the sights and sounds of his first foreign country from the moment he
stepped ashore:
‘… thrilling to every new sensation, he scanned the long
waterfront: buildings all of the light-coloured stone he found so pleasing,
among them one or two shops, the names above their windows emphasising the
exciting foreignness of the place – “Mateoti,” for instance, what did that
mean?*; next door to that a homely touch, The Seamen’s Mission; a cab with
curtained windows clattered by, drawn by a skinny horse, its bones too
prominent, the sallow-faced driver wearing a floppy hat, a dark red shirt and
very old trousers, his feet bare…’
* In fact, a Maltese
friend advises me that “Mateoti” wasn’t a trade, but the tradesman’s name.
His excited reactions to
every hint of the exotic remind me that my father’s travels in WW1 comprised
the only “trip” abroad he ever took – true for the majority of his
working-class contemporaries, of course. But he also felt the pleasures of
sights and sunshine in Malta mitigated by fear that he might at any moment be
exposed as under-age i.e. an attested law-breaking liar and by a background unease
that he should be enjoying this (rather rigourous) holiday while others fought
and died.
But the latter concern got taken care of soon enough. First came
real rifles – albeit the old, long Lee-Enfields – and training in their use. In
one passage, Sam – now switched to first-person for the rest of the book –
explained the intricacies of the mechanism, then remarked:
‘Now, dear reader, you are almost as proficient as I was in
the mechanics of a lethal weapon and probably hoping, as I was, that you may never
have to shoot a fellow human. You may say so freely, but I kept my trap shut,
perforce.’
Then came the daunting
day for every young soldier, his debut at the butts with live ammunition. Sam’s
instructor lay right beside him muttering instructions – and the occasional
mild sarcasm:
‘No need to hurry for the first exercise, he stressed, just
concentrate on every detail of what you have practised. Although the gun is
stronger than you, you be the master… I took aim — the target, at 400 yards
initially, represented the appearance of a man’s head and shoulders, grey with
no white background to help the marksman’s focus… I pressed the butt back hard
and, with thumb against trigger guard, forefinger on trigger, I squeezed.
Nothing happened.
“What about the safety
catch?” my trainer asked quietly. My right hand fumbled about and pressed the
catch forward. Back to firing position, trigger squeezed… and for a fraction of
a second the gun came alive with awful power. The jolt almost detached my head
from my shoulders, the explosion deafened me, the shock shot through my whole
body.
Firing .22s with
the Scouts had not remotely prepared me and I had to repeat that shattering
experience between 50 and 60 times that day. The old long Lee-Enfield was the
very devil, a hellish shoulder-bruiser.’
The Battalion finally
left Malta on August 27 and enjoyed a brief stopover in Egypt – my father
taking advantage of the odd free day to visit Cairo and the Pyramids… and
refuse the offer of a prostitute as he did on several occasions throughout the
war, the Boy Scout in him shining through on all such occasions. Then they
sailed for Gallipoli on September 17 and within a week my father had his first
experience of the battlefield – at first, from a safe-ish distance on a small ship
approaching the Turkish coast:
‘… on land rifles fired continuously and artillery lit up
the blackness, each flash followed by a bang, a shriek or a strange whine which
often increased in volume then ended up in a big explosion. Guns were being
fired with intent to kill and here was my first experience of warfare.’
They transferred
to lighter and moved closer, Sam encountering his own chemical reaction to
increasing fear:
‘A howl became a shriek, then a shattering explosion – and a
short silence was followed by numerous thuds as what had gone up came down on
the nearby beach. While still at sea I heard for the first time that sad,
though urgent call, “Stretcher-bearers!” A tightening of the gut and clamping
together of the jaws accompanied an inner alarm which then and many times
afterwards seemed to produce an acid-like smell on hands and other parts of the
body.’
Once they’d landed under
sporadic rifle and shell fire, run up the beach and begun a series of short
forward moves, sheltering behind a ridge as much as possible, Sam encountered
his first death:
‘We hugged the ground, of course, to let the bullets pass
harmlessly above us, but one of those wretched things broke that rule. When one
move forward started, young Nibs, more of a boy even than I was, didn’t get up.
The Captain was told, all paused again, and the shocking news came along that
he was dead, shot through the head. Had he been standing up, that bullet would
presumably have damaged a foot or ankle. Stretcher-bearers carried him to the beach.
Our first
casualty, I thought, young Nibs, the cheerful Cockney; a victim of random
firing, not an aimed shot…’
It didn’t take long for
the Battalion to fall into the declining Gallipoli campaign’s atmosphere of
despondency. Sam felt it miserably, while enduring a wide range of suffering
from deplorable victualling and water shortages, to the relentless attentions
of lice and near-death from an infected centipede bite, to the horror of the
late November blizzard. At that point, stationed for weeks on end with one
other man in a hole in the ground – the Signalling post – on top of a hill
overlooking the Turkish lines he ran out of food entirely and went down to
Battalion HQ where he found this sorry sight:
‘A dreadful sight confronted me when I reached low-lying
Essex Ravine. Rising water had forced our men to quit their trenches and,
already very chilled and wet, stand exposed to the biting cold wind and sleet
with nowhere to rest. Their resourceful officer told them to form circles and
bend forwards with arms around each other’s shoulders. He and others then
covered each circular group with their rubberised groundsheets tucked in here
and there to prevent them being blown away. Thus they stood all night, pressed
close for warmth, and most of them were still in that situation when I
arrived.’
But I’ll conclude these
snapshots of some of the events that went into forming his character as, still
only 17, he began the journey that led him to the Somme with this description
of almost insouciant derring-do – I locate at the end of this blog in a way
because it’s so hard to see this young chancer as my solid, stoic father,
already in his middle years (49) when I was born. This is how, after the
blizzard, Sam fetched melt-water from an adjoining trench:
‘… fetching it became risky because a sniper had spotted my
movements as I darted hither and thither to fox his aim.
I carried a can to
which I had tied a length of string to lower it into the trench. I would climb
out of our trench and dash several yards, freeze there for a moment while I
pictured John Turk taking aim at me, then make another short dash while the
bullet smacked somewhere behind me. One more pause, then run to the trench,
lower and raise the can, and return via another pause or two before a final,
fearful charge back to and into our trench, having retained as much water in
the can as possible. The bullets always seemed to arrive at the spot near where
I had last paused. But I was careful to operate in poor light, morning and
evening, because I had rightly assumed that the sniper was a good shot…’
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: Sam and the
2/1st Fusiliers sail for France! Wine, women and… the Western Front.
