Sam scrounges a British uniform (pre-owned by a dead Tommy, but still…) and does a bit of business with some freezing Chinese Labour Corps lads. Plus a romantic interlude… but not for him! And, at last, back to dear old Blighty…

Sam’s Memoir (1) – paperback and e-book – and the e-excerpts from it are now available in their third and final editions with added Endnotes and, in the Memoir, added documentation.

For details of how to buy the Memoir or Gallipoli & Somme & Arras 1918/POW etc mini-e-books click here plus see reader reviews here and here  and reviews from the Western Front Association and the Gallipoli Association here.

For AUDIO excerpts click Here  Join Foot Soldier Sam on Facebook Here

The war’s over at last – but Sam’s blog, Facebook page and tweets will continue until his Memoirconcludes with the Centenary of the July 19, 1919, Peace parade in London…

All proceeds from all versions of Sam’s Memoir will always go to the British Red Cross – and the current running donations total as of December 4 is £3,772.16 (I can't update it in the Donations box below because the "edit" tool has vanished!)

Dear all

A hundred years ago this week, in the aftermath of the Armistice… Intermittently organised chaos proceeded with Germany beginning to frame its response to defeat and the end of Empire/monarchy. In Berlin, the Conference Of Soldiers And Workmen (December 16-19) decided on the “socialisation” of industry and set a January 19 date for election of the National Assembly – which would in turn work out a new system of government for the country. Even then (i.e. way before the Treaty Of Versailles and back-stab theory) it seems this did not look like resolving disagreements between the Social Democratic Party, the Spartacists and monarchy loyalists.

    Meanwhile, further east, the 200,000 German troops commanded by Field Marshall Mackensen’s march home from Romania was interrupted near Budapest by an Allied force up from the Salonika campaign and beyond – a wonderfully multinational mix of Greeks, French, Serbians, British and Italians – led by French General Franchet D’Espèry. Mackensen, who’d hoped never to surrender and later as a right-wing politician said he had never surrendered, had to surrender (December 16). 

    Meanwhile, the turmoil around the Baltic evolved uncertainly as the last German troops left Finland, British Naval ships bombarded Bolshevik positions in formerly Russian Wesenberg, Estonia, and Bolshevik troops advanced near Pskov on the Russian side of the Estonian border (all December 16) and entered Walk (18; lately evacuated by the German Army, on the border of Estonia and Latvia, formerly in Russian Livonia).

    Further south, the Ukrainian upheaval continued with the “revolutionary” force led by General Petiyura taking Kiev (December 20). I can’t find any reference to their political angle – do say if you know! – but it’s of only passing significance given that control of the capital (since 1917) changed hands 16 times in the next 20 months.

[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 (he spent his 19th birthday, July 6, 1917, in a Sheffield hospital). In December, probably, solo, he returned to France – reverting to Private on arrival, I don’t know why – and dogsbodied for Brigade HQ in Arras and at the nearby Front. In mid-March, he ran into his own Essex 2/7th Battalion; they moved into the trenches near Fampoux, east of Arras, 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 all sorts of hard labour, before spending the summer in southern Germany between the Rhine and the Black Forest near a village called Hügelheim (tending sick German war horses) and finally moving westwards to a village in Lorraine where they remained until Armistice – at which his long walk towards the French Front began and the events below ensued…

FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS

November 25ish-December 10, 1918, a British RAMC hospital in Nancy, France… where, last week, after eight months of slow starvation as a POW and, post-Armistice, a four-day walk back to the French lines – my father, Signaller Sam Sutcliffe, was recovering from these privations following an initial stint in a French military hospital where he experienced a brief, purgative emotional breakdown, a Champagne-and-brandy cocktail diet to ease his delicate stomach, and the kindness of wounded poilus comrades with whom he shared a massive ward.

    Then, when somewhat restored, he moved on to the RAMC’s returned POWs hospital, to therapeutic Guinness and some light meals. He also witnessed how the degradation of POW life led to a mass theft of bread from the hospital bakery by the patients for whom it was intended anyway – and, walking through the town, found the French Army uniform he’d acquired leading him into awkward situations as local people, naturally expected him to be French and acted accordingly… including a brothel Madame…

    Having, oddly enough, retained his virginity yet again – partly out of enduring innocence, partly because one symptom of malnutrition proved to be total absence of sexual desire – now he tries to tackle at least the superficial problem of his attire:

‘Back at the hospital I asked the storekeeper whether he could give me a British uniform, but he said they had none to issue. So my intention to procure a khaki outfit of some sort set me searching in a marquee, the side curtains or brailing of which I noticed were always closed and secured by cords. I detached one cord loop from its ground-peg and slipped under the canvas.

     Immediately, I saw a large, rectangular stack of clothing and kitbags, much of which had belonged to soldiers of the British Empire. Although the RAMC had established this Field Hospital to care for Independent Air Force personnel, in some emergency they must have taken in and treated ground Forces. Discovering some bundles comprising complete kits – a kitbag filled with underwear, boots, socks, tied to a uniform, greatcoat and headgear – I realised that the former owners had died.

     I spread out one of these outfits, tried on the trousers and found they fitted perfectly. The quality of every item in the bundle was much superior to that of the usual Army garments – the grey socks of thick wool, plain not ribbed, the greatcoat a gem of fine, close-woven wool with shoulders somewhat padded to produce a natty squareness. No epaulettes, though, and I feared their absence might be noticed (almost unbelievably, it was never commented on).

     Knowing that all this gear would be destroyed or sold off, I dressed myself in the fine, warm clothes, with a cosy cardigan under the tunic – this must have been late November or early December – and filled a kitbag with spare underwear, socks, shaving tackle, towels, and even tablets of soap. I easily found a comfortable pair of boots in my medium size, and very well-made of supple leather, not too heavy. My French blue uniform I folded neatly, laying that too-small forage cap on top before selecting a replacement with no Regimental badge, but definitely of a size large enough for my big bonce (it had ear flaps too which folded neatly round the brim when not in use). My old, dingy underwear I threw into a corner of the tent, together with those tattered German jackboots I had worn for several months past.

     Donning all these fine clothes, I felt warm in a way that had been unknown to me as a war prisoner. Kitbag over my shoulder, I marched away from the marquee feeling, at last, a Britisher once more.

Nearing the end of the year, living under canvas could have been unpleasantly cold, but a huge, anthracite stove kept each marquee warm inside. Its metal chimney poked through a fire-proofed exit hole in the ridge of the tent.

     Fuel was brought in by men of a nation I had previously encountered only in the pages of cheap magazines which portrayed them as rather sinister people who moved in the sleazy atmosphere of Docklands eating houses, opium dens, the cabins of mist-enshrouded ships – even sewers. Occasionally, the action took place in a London West End mansion, the interior a replica of a Chinese temple wherein the vile Fu Manchu tortured and murdered his victims. Unless, of course, the great and remorseless Mr Something Smith(2) chanced to be around to circumvent him.

     Nothing sinister, though, about the two Chinese men who refilled our stove so frequently. I made friends of them and we talked for a moment or two at each of their visits. No language problem; they spoke English well enough for me to learn they belonged to the Chinese Labour Corps(3) formed to do chores for our Army and, thus, free the maximum number of British men to fight in the front line. I never heard of a similar scheme to free Staff Officers for front-line duty.

     These chaps told me they did most of their work in the officers’ kitchens and mess, not far from the hospital. Although well-fed, they found living in tents in winter-time very cold. They said they needed warmer clothing as the cotton garments they wore were thin and they shivered all the time – none of them knew the English for “shivering”, they conveyed it by illustration.

     This reminded me of the dead men’s clothes tent and that pile of cardigans, one of which I had appropriated, lying spare. Soon we had devised a contract which resulted in a daily rendezvous near the entrance to the officers’ quarters and the swift exchange of small parcels, a cardigan for a piece of cheese or some other tasty morsel.

     This did not seem to me a terribly wicked trade, for my friends needed warm clothing and I, still weak and thin, could benefit from additions to the necessarily austere diet available to an ordinary soldier at the end of a long war. So, as long as the supply of cardigans lasted, I met my customers’ requirements, conscience easily salved by averring that the transfer of unused clothing from one branch of our Service to another served the purposes of all concerned. Certainly my Chinese friends agreed with my line of argument, and their smiles and thanks and reciprocal nourishing gifts did me a power of good(4).

Washing and shaving daily, showering when my turn came, and feeling comfortably warm in my new clothing, all helped to restore lost confidence. In fact, throughout my stay at the Independent Air Force Field Hospital happiness was my lot, with the generous spirit of the Major matched by the all-male staff’s efforts to rehabilitate us.

     But decisions made somewhere resulted in us returned prisoners being removed to an American hospital near Rouen(5). Strange that, at the end of the war, I should spend the last of my days in France in the place where I had camped after arriving from Egypt in 1916… That seemed way back to me.

     This time, I was not allowed to go into town, but such was the kindly treatment freely given by the American doctors and the lovely nurses that only an ingrate would have wished for more freedom. They told me I could be examined and treated by doctors at any time, and a cheery chap showed me round the place.

     When we entered the large hall where they served meals, he told me that an order issued regarding returned prisoners gave us the privilege of going back to the service counter after finishing our first plateful – up to three times if we so wished. I did this, but not three times, two proving the limit of my greedy capacity. First the generous American Air Force officer in Nancy, now the open-handed Yanks at Rouen… I could think of no way to show my appreciation of their many kindnesses, except by thanking them on every appropriate occasion.

     The hospital wards consisted of roomy Nissen huts with two rows of beds separated by a gangway – quite similar to the civilian equivalent. We had no money, but GIs welcomed us into their combined canteen and entertainment hall, curious about us because they had not met many Britishers. Some of them had come straight to France without landing in Britain, I gathered.

     When fully satisfied with regard to food and drink, one could mooch across to the rows of chairs facing a stage on which some kind of performer would be doing his stuff. Certainly the best of all the “turns”, in my opinion, was the American chaplain, whose straight-faced jokes and yarns kept the troops in stitches – without, of course, using any smutty gags, he kept going for longer than any comedian I had seen before and could have converted me to whatever his religion was, had he been so inclined.

     German prisoners did chores around this hospital… And how, I felt, have the tables been turned. I sometimes watched them working in the grounds and noticed that they often found reason to be in the vicinity of the kitchens. I moved closer and saw that, when the cooks dumped food waste into tubs outside the kitchen doors there, the Germans would dash to get at the swill and reach in up to their elbows, searching for solids. When all had been taken, they returned to their labours. But on one occasion – as I could see from my position on the highest point of the grounds – soon after raiding the tubs and resuming their tasks, most of them began to totter around and then collapse. Unaffected prisoners ran for help and soon stretcher-bearers were carrying sick men away.

     Later, I learnt that, by some accident, a poisonous substance had found its way into the waste food. Conjecture was rife about an American taking revenge on the Jerries for the horrible treatment inflicted on some Allied prisoners. But I thought it more likely that someone who had no knowledge that the German prisoners searched the waste tubs for food had dumped the poisonous stuff there.

Lying in my bed one dark night when most of the men were asleep, I heard the voices of a man and a girl, then some quiet laughter and kissing. I realised the couple were leaning against the thin wall of our hut about six inches from my head. Your imagination can improve on what would have been my description of subsequent developments, but I recall feeling glad for them. What sort of a war had they had, I wondered. At last, the stream of bloody and broken men had dried up and they could relax and give some really leisurely attention to more attractive occupations.

     With improving health and strength, I thought even I might, ere long, have opportunities to try something along similar lines. Not that I believed war had put a stop to love-making, but thousands of couples, married or courting (that word meant going steady in those distant days), had been deprived of their oats (that meant loving in those etc) and Peace would release all their pent-up emotions…

     For the first time in many a day I thought about girls and all that. Evidently nothing wrong with me that a few stouts and oysters wouldn’t put right – I hadn’t so far tried that diet, but had often heard it recommended for older men who had failed to rise to significant occasions.

     “The bloody war is over, the ruddy war is finished…” Thoughts of that kind swirled around my nut constantly as I roamed the hospital grounds, canteen and community hall. Happy days indeed and most of those kind American guys obviously had similar joyful feelings, although some thousands of miles and a long, maybe rough, sea crossing lay between them and home – at that time, not even Alcock and Brown(6) had made an air crossing…

Then suddenly, I was joining a hospital train, off to Boulogne, across the Channel, “The white cliffs of Dover!”, disembarkation and off through the lovely English countryside into Victoria station and dear old London town…(7) ‘

(2) Mr Something Smith: that’s Denis Nayland Smith who, along with his Dr Watson-style back-up, Dr Petrie, regularly foiled Fu Manchu in the Sax Rohmer “Yellow Peril” stories published from 1912 onwards.

(3) The Chinese Labour Corps: founded 1916, after then General Haig said he needed 21,000 labourers; the first CLC ship-load sailed from China in January, 1917, and arrived in France three months later; by Armistice Day, they numbered 96,000; most were given transport home in 1919-20; perhaps 10-20,000 are said to have died during the war, chiefly from Spanish Flu; other Labour Corps recruited more than 300,000 men from British colonies, including Egypt, Fiji, India, Malta, Mauritius, Seychelles, the British West Indies and South Africa.

(4) Regular readers of my father’s Blog may recall his holding forth against “scrounging” on several occasions. And here he is, scrounging. Well, I’d say he was a very solid citizen, but not quite saintly in consistent application of his high moral standards to himself.

(5) American hospital near Rouen: information at http://ow.ly/ygaa30kUzLRsuggests this was probably Base Hospital 21, located on the Champs Des Courses racetrack, and staffed mainly by doctors and nurses from Washington University Hospital, St Louis (they took it over from the British in summer, 1917); it had 1,300 beds and remained active caring for former POWs until January, 1919. Although dates are impossible to pin down with certainty after my father crossed the French front line, his reference to staying at the RAMC hospital in what “must have been late November or early December” suggests his short Rouen sojourn occurred roughly December 1-10 (see footnote 7).

(6) Alcock and Brown: John Alcock from Manchester and Arthur Brown from Glasgow, both POWs during World War I, the former shot down in Turkey, the latter in Germany, made the first non-stop Transatlantic flight in June, 1919.

(7) One of two records of his return to England occurs on an Army pensions document, ‘Medical Report on a Soldier Boarded Prior to Discharge or Transfer to Class W., W (T), P., or P. (T), of the Reserve’ (where “boarded” means examined by doctors to check his medical condition ergo his disability pension entitlement – 10 per cent of Army wages the verdict in my father’s case). It says he was “Repatriated 10.12.18” (see below: scrawled date and “diagnosis” bottom right), which could well be correct or close to (bearing in mind these documents can be wrong - including in my father’s case a couple of times). This date occurs also, in different scrawl, on the second page of his ‘Casualty Form – Active Service’ (also below, noted twice, once in faded ink in the middle of the page, then again last of the list of dates – most correct, one or two probably not – handwritten very small to the lower middle right; apologies, you may need a magnifying glass if you’re curious about all the detail).

See footnote (7) immediately above for details about these two documents.

All the best– FSS

Next week: Sam’s settles into another hospital, but it’s in London this time – his father, who’d had no idea where he was, visits and looks “happier than I could ever remember”… and finally, he’s home, “I pushed the old iron gate open…”

(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.

Sam, after his breakdown in a French hospital, is tended by poilu pal Paul and braced by a medicinal diet of champagne and brandy. Then an English visitor whisks him away and the medical regime switches to Guinness. Recovering, he takes a walk and a Madame makes him an offer he…

Sam’s Memoir(1) – paperback and e-book – and the e-excerpts from it are now available in their third and final editions with added Endnotes and, in the Memoir, added documentation.

For details of how to buy the Memoir or Gallipoli & Somme & Arras 1918/POW etc mini-e-books click here plus see reader reviews here and here and reviews from the Western Front Association and the Gallipoli Association here.

For AUDIO excerpts click Here  Join Foot Soldier Sam on Facebook Here

The war’s over at last – but Sam’s blog, Facebook page and tweets will continue until his Memoir concludes with the Centenary of the July 19, 1919, Peace parade in London…

All proceeds from all versions of Sam’s Memoir will always go to the British Red Cross – and the current running donations total as of December 4 is £3,772.16 (I can't update it in the Donations box below because the "edit" tool has vanished!)

Dear all

A hundred years ago this week, in the aftermath of the Armistice… The peace continued to evolve, the main event for the British being the General Election on December 14 – the result delayed for a further two weeks so that servicemen overseas could vote. Swift legislation had ensured that women could vote for the first time (although only the over-30s) and all men over 21 too (they didn’t have to own property any more; combined, this enfranchised 13.7 million people, an increase of more than 250 per cent).

    Meanwhile, the Allies’ occupation of Germany proceeded quite slowly. American troops reached the Rhine between Brohl and Rolandseck (December 9; 38 miles apart) and Coblenz two days later; the British military governor of Cologne, Sir Charles Fergusson, entered the city and hoisted the Union Jack (11), British troops there soon joined by the Canadians; and the French entered Mainz (14; all of these towns in Rhineland-Palatinate).

    As peace treaty negotiations went on, the Allies agreed an extension to the Armistice for a month until January 17 (December 14) – and that same day their controversial and ambivalent ally, the dictatorial President Sidonio Pais of Portugal, was assassinated.

    Further east, Ukrainian revolutionary forces occupied Odessa, on the Black Sea (December 11), but I can’t find any reference to clarify whether this came from left or right. And the consolidation of Romania saw Bessarabia (now mostly in Moldova) volunteer union (10).

    Mopping up after the Ottoman surrender in the Middle East led to the British occupying Hodeida as the Turkish Army surrendered and retreated (December 13; then in southern Arabia, now in Yemen).

[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 2/7th Battalion (Blogs November 27, 2016, to November 11, 2017). During this interlude he suffered various illnesses while recovering from trench warfare’s privations (he spent his 19th birthday, July 6, 1917, in a Sheffield hospital). In December, probably, solo, he returned to France – reverting to Private on arrival, I don’t know why – and dogsbodied for Brigade HQ in Arras and at the nearby Front. In mid-March, he ran into his own Essex Battalion; they moved into the trenches near Fampoux, about six miles east of Arras 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 all sorts of hard labour, before spending the summer in southern Germany between the Rhine and the Black Forest near a village called Hügelheim (tending sick German war horses) and finally moving westwards to a village in Lorraine where they remained until Armistice – at which his long walk towards the French Front began and the events below ensued… ]

FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS

November 20-25ish, 1918, a French military hospital in Nancy, France… My father, Signaller Sam Sutcliffe – after eight months of slow starvation and much brutality as a POW and, post-Armistice, a four-day walk back to the French lines – last week collapsed on the street because of a big meal his tortured guts just couldn’t take and was picked up by two poilus(the “hairies” as the French called their Tommies) who took him to their own hospital.

    There Sam received much kindness, but had his one brief “breakdown” – his own word for it – succumbing to floods of tears, shaking… “a right mess”. He couldn’t even stand up and, again, a poilu picked him up off the floor – this time a fellow patient, Paul, who then, via soldierly communication in fragments of French, German and English, became his good friend and temporary chief carer:

‘I was then 20 years old, Paul about 30. A man of infinite kindness and patience, he forbade me to leave my bed except to use the “seau” or bucket. I must call him when in need and say “Portez le seau”. A patient himself, but almost recovered from his disability, he thereafter made his care of me almost a full-time job. Except during necessary absences, Paul sat at the bottom of my bed and we exchanged thoughts in our peculiar way or looked around this large square area jammed tight with beds and wounded men, most of them mobile.

     My friend did step aside when the nurse who had admitted me guided a doctor to my bed… English books and weekly magazines of that period would depict French doctors as men in long, white coats, pale of face but wearing rather full black beards. And thus I would describe this doctor who looked down at me, took my pulse, examined eyes and tongue, took my temperature, and examined my distended belly with his hands. After his visit, I was given no solid food but, four times daily, a small measure of, according to Paul, champagne and brandy.

     Injured-but-convalescentpoilusconstantly arrived and departed, but I cannot recall ever seeing a nurse in that area except when with a doctor on one of their rare visits. Not a bad system, though, where mobile patients would benefit from walking to appropriate clinics… Such thoughts occur to me now, but I doubt if they did then.

     However, the picture of that blue-clad crowd remains clearly in my mind; there could be but one explanation for their cheery self-help and mutual regard for one another’s welfare. Under stress of warfare, general tension made men most regardful of their personal survival and available comforts. But fighting had stopped, risk of imminent injury or death had gone, and soldiers could now allow themselves to relax and enjoy all those little things which, for them, had passed unnoticed when life itself was an uncertain possibility.

     While not a real member of their community, I could feel their happiness and daylong pleasure in this new way of living as they sat about or lay abed or went about their little bits of business. They’d be back in the city or down on the farm very soon; if they had survived a long and awful war, then coping with peace conditions would be simple. That sort of ease and hope pervaded the place.

     Quiet Paul would mix with the crowd from time to time, then return to tell me about some detail he’d picked up. Most of this I understood from our partial language and gesture system, but if it was too difficult I would signify partial comprehension by facial expressions and he might have another go or use the familiar “sanfairyann(2)" as we British soldiers pronounced it and the French didn’t. We compried(3) all right.

     After a few days, the doctor allowed me some sort of milk food and, believing I had regained strength, I sat up, stood up, and then fell back on the bed. But, daily, I drew away from that condition of weakness which had culminated in a breakdown. It became obvious I would soon need outer clothing – my papery prisoner’s garb(4) had vanished at some point, not to my regret, but I couldn’t very well walk around in dirty vest and underpants. Paul went off to attend to this important matter and returned with a brand-new French tunic, trousers and forage cap, all in the well-known medium-blue seen in every city and village throughout France in those war years.

     Voilà, I was a poilu who couldn’t speak his people’s language – and wearing a cap about two sizes smaller than I needed, so just as well we had no mirror and I couldn’t see what a ’nana I looked. Still, it was good to be able to walk, if only a few paces to begin with. I thanked Paul and asked him to convey my thanks to the French Army equipment officer for giving me the uniform.

     I still had to rest on my bed quite a lot and I was dozing under the blankets one afternoon when Paul roused me and I awoke to see a lady standing at the foot of the bed. Smiling like a good-looking mum, she said she was the wife of a Major So-And-So and she had been told that an English soldier was recovering in the Nancy military hospital. I gave her my name, Regiment and recent history, and she said she would make arrangements for an ambulance to take me to her husband’s Royal Army Medical Corps hospital.

     Off she went, and I received my last visit from the good docteurand thanked him for all the kindness accorded me by the French hospital. Really sorry to leave Paul without being able to walk outside and get to know him away from the medical setting, I had to say goodbye too hurriedly when the RAMC Corporal came for me. In a trice, the contact with French friends was broken and lost forever(5).

Our ambulance pulled up amid a forest of large tents, marquees and, on one side of the encampment, a border of Nissen huts – those long corrugated-iron arches with wooden ends and doors which served so many temporary wartime purposes, housing people warmly and protecting stores of all kinds from weather and scroungers alike.

     The Major, RAMC doctor and conspicuously respected boss of the medical side of this huge casualty camp, had assembled a collection of ex-prisoners who needed hospital care after being set free by the Germans. On my arrival, a doctor examined me and an officer wearing an Air Force uniform questioned me in a general sort of way. He told me that, originally, the hospital had been set up to care for casualties of the Independent Air Force(6), a new organisation composed of specially trained Allied and British Empire flyers. Their work took them deeper into enemy territory than had previously been attempted.

     The doctor ordered a light diet for me, with an additional half-pint of Guinness every day – a homely touch indeed and, though no tippler, I knew it would be good for me(7).

     Next morning, having chatted late into the night in our marquee with some other British ex-prisoner, as ordered I went to the camp’s canteen tent. There, the Major explained to a group of us newcomers that he understood some of the problems which might now worry us; we should ask for any help we might require and it would be freely given, he said – before adding an “as far as possible in the circumstances”. Meanwhile, we should adapt to the changed life as quickly as possible, follow doctors’ instructions, and so avoid certain possible adverse reactions – which he didn’t specify.

     Although we who were still at least semi-confined to bed got the same food as the patients who could walk to the mess-tent for meals, I heard many complain of feeling hungry. I’m sure they were grateful for the kind treatment they received, but living as they had done in prison camps had reduced them almost to the level of wild animals and they could not change their behaviour overnight. I would notice men prying into tents or sheds, anywhere something edible might be found and filched. They still regarded one another with suspicious eyes too; they did not smile and generally maintained, even in this pleasant hospital camp, the stale, hopeless atmosphere of the Kriegsgefangenenlager(8).

     When I started to move about a little myself, I came across a number of these men robbing the hospital bakery – the limit in predatory idiocy, surely. They had opened a small window on one side of the small, brick building; one man stood on the shoulders of another, reaching in, grabbing loaves and dropping them down to those waiting below. From some short distance away, on rising ground, I saw that loaves slid past the window on trays, propelled by some means, mechanical or manual. The bakers must have been taking them from the ovens to store for the next morning’s issue.

     This all seemed like the dog eating his own tail and then gobbling his mate’s. At this rate, there would be no food for anybody tomorrow.

     Next morning, all of us were summoned to a meeting in the canteen to hear a statement by the Major. It gave further proof of his tolerance and understanding – a mild reproof about the mass larceny, followed by a surprising instruction to those who still felt hungry after eating the meals provided. They should, said the Major, go to the Quartermaster’s tent at nine o’clock each morning; a ticket would be issued entitling the bearer to a packet of biscuits from the canteen (none of us had any money, and would get none till we rejoined our Regiments).

     How the Major financed the free biscuits issue I couldn’t begin to guess – nor how he came to have such a knowledge of degraded men’s psychology.

Regular meals and ample rest worked wonders for me. One morning, without hindrance, I walked out through the camp gates and entered a village. Walking along the main street, I noticed a woman, probably about the same age as my mother, leaning from an upstairs window. For no particular reason, I continued to look her way as I walked and when she waved and signalled that I should cross the road and join her, I did so.

     When I entered the open front door, I was faced by an open stairway made of rough wood and devoid of bannisters. At the top, I found myself in a large room almost without furniture, but the woman from the balcony now sat there at a sewing-machine. By signs, she indicated that I should seat myself on a box facing her machine. Having some vague idea that she had asked me into her home out of a kindly intention to perhaps offer me a cup of coffee, I sat and awaited developments. But she said nothing, resumed her machining, and thereafter ignored me.

     Embarrassment kept me alternately glancing at her and looking away out of the window. Perhaps she was expecting somebody who could speak her language? Perhaps, maybe, I wonder, and such passed through my confused mind, but never a guess at what, perhaps, should have been obvious… With much relief, I heard footsteps climbing the stairs and, turning that way, I beheld a girl dressed in what seemed to be the most popular colour among French ladies at that time, namely, black. I observed that she had bare legs and feet and somewhat dirty, ragged clothes.

     She stood there, silent, and then I got the shock of all shocks; the machinist indicated that I should go with the beggar-girl (such she appeared to be) to a bed in the far corner of the room. Meanwhile, she, I assumed, would get on with her work and collect cash when I had been served by the poor girl. What a set-up, what a knocking shop! And what a customer – sansmoney, sans desire, and lacking even the strength to raise a stand. Apart from the fact that I had never had a woman and this would not have been my choice either of place or person…(9)

     So I walked out and thus concluded my unforeseen meeting with a Madame and her unwashed Mam’selle.

     I continued my walk, my bewilderment gradually subsiding as I remembered that I was wearing a French Army uniform – Madame must have assumed I was one of her lot and perhaps in search of sexual relief…

I came to a railway with a train stopped and, in absence of a station and platform, several would-be passengers being pushed aloft to board and one or two cautious disembarkations in progress. Then the predicament: a sweet, little, old lady asking me, perhaps, if that was the train to so-and-so. I should have known it was bound to happen. Standing there, enjoying the freedom to look on and to share the pleasures and anxieties of departing and arriving travellers, but in a uniform I could not live up to, since French people naturally expected their soldiery to be helpful.’

(2) “Sanfairyann”: British soldierese for “Ça ne fait rien,” meaning “It doesn’t matter”.

 (3) “Compried” would be derived from French people constantly saying “Avez-vous compris?” to British soldiers i.e. “Did you understand?”

(4) The filthy British Army uniform he’d worn since the March 28 battle at Fampoux had been replaced with the ersatz POW jacket and trousers at the Hügelheim camp during the summer, see Blog August 12, 2018.

(5) It’s difficult to date events in this period as my father refers to nothing more specific than being “a few days” here and another few there. But, given he reached the French lines on November 15 almost certainly, spent a “short period” with other returned British POWs in a village near the trenches, then moved to Nancy where his collapse on the street led to the poilus taking him to the French military hospital – this documented as being on the 20th – for his “few days” of being very ill, I’m guessing the RAMC intervened no earlier than the 25th(-ish). As per a footnote to last week’s Blog, following Armistice the RAMC hospital “42 STY H” (STY meant Stationary Hospital, even though they moved around a good deal) transported itself from Camiers (way up in the Pas-de-Calais) 322 miles southeast to Nancy (Meurthe-et-Moselle) on November 18, 1918, and remained there until March 19, 1919 – and no doubt the French hospital informed the British that they were caring for a Tommy and told them when my father became fit enough to move.

(6) Independent Air Force (IAF): a short-lived World War I strategic bombing force (founded June 6, 1918), part of the Royal Air Force (itself founded April 1, 1918), used to strike against German railways, airfields and industry; statistics don’t suggest the IAF enjoyed great success – 550 tons of bombs dropped and 109 aircraft lost – and it was disbanded soon after the war ended.

 (7) Writing in the ’70s, my father is referring to the long-standing ad slogan “Guinness is good for you” which ran from 1929 for about 40 years.

(8) Kriegsgefangenenlager means prisoner of war camp.

(9) My father really did come through the war a virgin, despite various temptations preferred – this being the last. Apparently, the situation didn’t last too long once he got settled back into civilian life at home.

All the best– FSS

Next week: Sam ends those being-mistaken-for-a-poilu problems by scrounging a British uniform (pre-owned by a dead Tommy, but still…) – and, now he’s found the clothes dump, he does a crafty bit of business with some freezing Chinese Labour Corps lads. And so on to an American hospital where he can get some good meals under his belt at last… even though some German POWs there die of food poisoning! Finally, a romantic interlude… for two other people. And home. Yes, back to dear old Blighty.

(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.

Gallipoli rewind 3: Sam has a bizarre encounter with “Number 9”, the Battalion sawbones, and nearly dies of a centipede bite. Then he plays an “accidental” part in the saving of Signaller Jackson…

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

All proceeds to the British Red Cross

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Dear all

A hundred years ago this week… Early September’s (relative) lull on the Western Front didn’t stop a general drift towards the Allies taking the upper hand. The British advanced at Villeret (September 10; Aisne region) and repulsed a German attack at Langemarck (13), while the Portuguese did likewise at Neuve Chapelle (15), and the French reversed a German gain at Caurieres Wood (13-14; near Verdun) and held them off at Apremont Forest (16; near St Mihiel, Meuse region), while also bombing Stuttgart, Colmar, Thionville and Saarburg (16). In terms of grander strategy, the British Army “officially” launched the Second Phase Of The Third Battle Of Ypres by capturing a German “strong point” at Inverness Copse (15).

    Russia’s chaotic state dominated developments on the Eastern Front as Kerenski declared himself Dictator (September 10), the rebellious advance on Petrograd (formerly St Petersburg, soon to become Leningrad) led by Army C-in-C General Kornilov expired with his surrender (14), and the Provisional Government declared the country a republic (15; it lasted six weeks).

    Nonetheless, the Army combatting Germany in Latvia remained operational and prepared to take a stand 30 miles northeast of Riga (September 10), and the Navy in the Baltic bombarded German batteries on Latvia’s Kurzeme coast (12). Further, the Russian Army in Romania gathered its resources sufficiently to support the defence of Focsani against a renewed German attack (14), and down in Macedonia it combined with the French to drive the Bulgars across the River Devoli and 20 miles further into Albania (10).

    Meanwhile, in Slovenia, the 11th Battle Of The Isonzo – Italy versus Austria-Hungary – is reckoned to have concluded (September 12; it began on August 18) with the Italians holding on to the Bainsizza Plateau at the end of what one source calls an “inconclusive bloodbath” (casualties 158,000 Italian, 115,000 Austro-Hungarians). The fighting continued regardless of historically nominated dates…

[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, along with a bunch of other under-age Tommies until such time as they severally became eligible for the trenches again… An interesting year ensued – four months of blizzards, a meningitis scare, special training in various northern locations, and then, just after his 19th birthday on July 6, a few summer weeks stomping around Yorkshire on a route march… which in due course leads him to hospital again, to recover from some lurking effects of trench warfare and prepare him for more. However, now I have to break off from the this-week-100-years-ago excerpts from his Memoir because my father didn’t write enough about his year “out” to provide 52 blog excerpts. So, for the next 10 weeks until November, before he returns to France and the Front from December onwards, I’m revisiting his previous accounts of historic battles as seen by an ordinary front-line Tommy – the Somme and, first, Sam’s Gallipoli, his initiation into the realities of war. He was a 17-year-old Lance Corporal Signaller by the time his Battalion approached Suvla Bay, Gallipoli, on the night of September 25, 1915.]

FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS

Last week, my father, Lance Corporal Signaller Sam Sutcliffe, and his mostly novice-soldier pals came under fire for the first time and experienced their first deaths of comrades – young Nibs, old Ewart Walker – not to mention those other WW1 battlefield treats: lousy food (instant apricot jam overload), the stinking bucket latrines in plain sight of the enemy above… and the enemy, in fact!

    Now as he settles into dealing with all this, he recalls and reflects on a whole range of events amid the grind of attritional warfare – starting with an early shock which made him realise that, already, he could entirely understand comrades committing acts that he’d have called “cowardice” a year earlier when he was a gung-ho kid in the grip of the prevailing war fever back home, and enlisted with his brother Ted and their pals Harold Mellow and Len Winns:

‘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.’

Throughout the war, whenever the “Blighty” issue came up, Sam maintained his empathetic view of those who cracked and, one way or another, ran for it. That sometimes included officers who fought in the front line. Those who rarely showed their faces among the Tommies, though…

‘I did sometimes wonder where our top officers were. One of them, at least – our adjutant** – had what it takes I knew, although I saw him once only in our front line… As I sat in a trench with my headphones on, sending or receiving a message, he appeared above me. He stood up there, on the rim of the trench, in a very exposed position, one arm in a sling, his face showing the pain and tiredness he was suffering. Why he was there in that awful condition I did not know. Had a ranker exposed himself thus to enemy fire without good reason, he would have been put on a charge. Obviously wounded, he should have been sent away from the line by the Medical Officer; but then we all knew of that peculiar medico’s terrible reputation – I soon gained personal experience of his utter ineptitude.’

** The “adjutant” here seems to be the officer my father earlier referred to as “Captain Blunt”, an alias I presume, even though he had nothing but praise for him.

Ah, the MO. Here’s the story of Sam’s tragi-comic encounters with him:

‘The Medical Officer mentioned above – 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!”‘

*** 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”.

His ineptitude became even more dangerous when Sam got bitten by one of the five-inch centipedes that lurked in the trenches:

‘… 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.

     … 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.’

**** Royal Army Medical Corps: referred to by its initials RAMC for most of the Memoir.

Just as the medics deemed him healed, he observed a British strategic manouver which filled him with disgust:

‘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.’

He sneaked back to his Battalion, dodging snipers en route, and recalling that, in his agony, he hadn’t notified anyone about his absence when he left the line a couple of weeks earlier; that is, technically he’d deserted. No matter, though, he found that his pals had explained his problem to an NCO. So they’d presumed him dead or on a hospital ship. All sorted, he then found himself dispatched to a Signals post – more accurately, a hole – on a hill whence he, his assistant, and a bunch of veteran machine gunners from a Regiment he later transferred to, the Essex, observed the battlefield below:

‘… I could see the trenches of our forward positions; quite a network had been constructed by now and I ruefully admitted to myself that the steam had gone out of the whole operation, the purpose bogged down in holes and trenches.

     The machine gunners could give useful fire cover to our chaps down there should they be attacked. But why should the Turk bother to attack? He must have concluded by now that the British had failed in their original objective and that, if he came forward to drive us into the sea, he would suffer many casualties and gain only a useless strip of land. Leaving us where we were to face a winter in terrible conditions was the better strategy’

The hole remained his workplace for some weeks, his spirits lifted by glimpses of home and normal life provided by his mates’ fond reminiscences:

‘As a Lance Corporal, with one man to assist me, my job was to maintain communications with 88^th Brigade Headquarters. Clearly, that meant one man resting, one on duty. I talked over the possibilities with my helper, and we decided to try doing four hours on and four off, night and day. We occupied a square hole, about six feet each way, with no roof. A short trench joined it to the main trench along the top of the hill. This was to be my home. Although on a hilltop, these trenches had been dug into the same soft, layered rock as those first holes we’d worked so hard to excavate down near the beach, so their unstable walls constantly flaked away.

     My first Signaller mate there was a pleasant chap, quite a philosopher in his way, probably my senior by four or five years. He showed me photographs of his parents and a sister, and I warmed myself in the glow of love emanating from him as he talked about them and their life together before the war. A good worker too, meticulous in his time-keeping, he woke quickly during the night when the luminous dial on my watch told me four hours had passed and I nudged him to take over.

     At that point, you placed the headphones and microphone in the other man’s hands, briefly switched on the torch to show him that the combined phone/Morse signal instrument with its buzzer key, earth pin and single landline, and the message pad and pencil were all handy. Then you swapped positions in the hole.

     On duty or resting, at night you arranged your thick, rubberised groundsheet so that you rested on half of it and pulled the other half over your legs for protection from the cold or rain. When writing down any messages coming in, the groundsheet also came in handy to screen the heavy-duty torch beam.

     But it was all very difficult and uncomfortable.’

Imagine two men, on rotation 24 hours a day, week after week, struggling to do this job well:

‘… we learned that four hours on, four off, meant we never had a satisfactory sleep. So we experimented with two on, two off, eight on, eight off, every arithmetical combination we could think of to cover the 24 hours. Nothing really worked.

     When you took over after whatever interval, your mate, released from that crampy corner of the hole we lived and worked in, should have felt free for some hours of beautiful sleep – but was he? On duty, you must want to go to the bog some time, so your mate had to wake up and take over. During the day, you would need nourishment, so your mate had to procure it, and very often cook it on our small meths heaters. Actually, we catnapped day and night and just made the best of a terrible existence.

     The resulting fatigue, along with poor diet, was reducing us to shadows of ourselves.’

His first assistant coming down with jaundice confirmed the extent of their physical decline. For rather different reasons, his replacement didn’t last long:

‘… a jolly fellow, always cheerful, named Bill Jackson. He wore thick lenses in wire frames – I saw his presence in Gallipoli as one more tribute to the doctor who had examined us volunteers at the time of our enlistment. The daft, old medico shouldn’t have approved him for active service. The truth was, if Jackson lost or damaged his glasses he’d be almost blind. He had a lovely wife and three children of whom he talked often. Such a loving family as he described must be missing dad terribly…

     One night, as we sat in chilly darkness and thoughts once more turned homewards, the futility of what we were doing became very apparent to me. “Bill,” I said. “Why are you here? A wife and kids thousands of miles away, you stuck here in a hole in the ground. What’s the use?” He had no sensible answer to that one, so I told him I had a plan aimed at getting him away from this rotten country.

     It was simple, his part being to remove his spectacles when next taking his rest. Should he happen to lay them on the groundsheet anywhere near me I would not be able to see them. If I happened to kneel on them they would be crushed on that hard ground and he would be unable to see where he was going, let alone write down messages.

     He demurred about all this. But later, in complete darkness, just such an accident did occur, and when daylight came I had to give Brigade HQ a detailed account of the strange occurrence and they sent up two men, one to replace Bill, the other to guide him down to the beach and a hospital ship, no doubt.’

So, at 17, already full of anger and despair at being caught up in this fag-end of the Gallipoli folly, Sam was venturing into, erm, unorthodoxy. Bill’s replacement brought him little joy, but the Essex veterans certainly did in their own extra-curricular way:

‘… they sent me up a sad, little man called Harry Green. His arrival coincided with a brief period of wonderful luck with our food. The machine gunners nearest to my hole in the ground belonged to a regular Battalion of the Essex Regiment; country lads, very shrewd – and tired, as we all were, of the poor and monotonous diet, they secured an officer’s permission for two of them to make a foraging trip to the beach. A lighter had unloaded a cargo of fresh meat, we’d heard – very likely this had happened many times previously, yet our lot had never had a mouthful of it, not the rankers anyway.

     These two resourceful men returned with – would you believe it? – a whole leg of beef. Whether they stated that they represented a large group of men I don’t know, but they got hold of it, and they carried it, each taking turns, a long way across open country, risking shells from field guns and bullets from snipers until they got down into a communication trench leading uphill to our position. When I saw this huge piece of meat I marvelled that two men could have hauled it such a distance.

     Generosity to comrades was part of the faith of these Essex farm men, so they included me and my dour helper in their feastings. They gathered old planks and anything that grew nearby. At dusk, they partially covered over a disused trench with sawn-off branches and started burning small quantities of our scavenged wood, restricting the flames carefully to avoid inviting a shell. Gradually, they built up a big heap of glowing embers whereon we laid our mess-tin lids with their folding handles to cook thin slices of the beef. The smoke filtered away through the branches and the night air grew rich with the smell of meat roasting.

     Then, during daylight hours, we filled our bellies with beef stewed in a couple of large dixies left overnight on the smouldering mound – small additions to it being made at intervals by those whose duties kept them up and about. Large tins of dried potato shreds had been issued and we all added our shares to the cook pots to thicken the liquor. Into one dixie, went a quantity of curry powder for those who liked their stew really hot – and had no fear of possible consequences.

     This feasting continued for several days and I felt my strength building up and youth’s natural cheerfulness returning. We could smile again; such a change from the dejected hangdog expressions with which we had all been depressing each other.

     Even my fellow Signaller, Green, a gloomster to the depths of his nature, permitted himself to speak of his home life and his girl. She I pitied though, for the prospect of sad, little Private Green for a husband, even in his happier moods, was daunting. I knew I was a mug to put up with his moanings instead of telling him what a miserable devil he really was.’

An oddity to remind us all that this really was a different age: Sam sees his first warplane!

‘High above us, shells exploded and I saw that, near the white puffs of smoke, were two flying machines, their wings somewhat swept backwards like a large bird’s. Although I had never seen a warplane in action before, I was able to recognise them as German Taubes*****.

     Only a year or two earlier, I had seen my first aeroplanes taking part in a race from London to Manchester and back — now the things had already been adapted to combat uses.‘

***** Taube: monoplane fighter/bomber/surveillance aircraft, manufactured from 1910 onwards; Germany’s first mass-produced military plane, unless you know better.

With the food supply to his Royal Fusiliers Signallers’ hole getting erratic through confusion with the Essex lads’ supply line, Sam takes a walk (?) down to Battalion HQ to set it straight. On the way back up he sees something that really gets him thinking about the ins and outs of how Tommies should conduct themselves:

‘This time that communication trench yielded a strange experience; on my right, at a spot I hadn’t previously noticed, an opening caught my eye. I peered in and it revealed a sight almost unbelievable to me: a rather wide, roofed trench, with a long, narrow table, on each side of it a plank seat occupied by men who looked remarkably clean and spruce; on the table, their enamel mugs and plates, knives and forks, symbols of civilisation and decency. They did not appear to see me, perhaps because the light from the candles placed at intervals restricted vision to things close by. I recall standing there, tears, for some emotional reason, streaming down my face… although I was now 17 years old. The difference in the way of life of those trained, experienced soldiers, and that of myself and most of my Territorial comrades was never so apparent to me as at that moment.’

     Of course, it all started at the top. Their officers were all career military men, capable of assessing the usefulness of every single thing, place or circumstance within their purview. The very disciplines to which the best of them submitted and which they practised in peacetime too made them admirable leaders when war surrounded their lives with discomforts and dangers. The amateur officer would try to carry out basic standing orders to the very letter, regardless of the health and comfort of his men and the fact that wounds and sickness were daily reducing the numbers of those he commanded; so his surviving men would have to do longer and harder stints and themselves become gradually reduced to mindless, humourless automatons.

     Much of the routine stuff wasted energy at a time when all signs indicated a position of stalemate, be it only temporary. The good officer would use such periods by allowing – or ordering – men otherwise unoccupied to give attention to personal hygiene, improvement of habitation, sanitation and the procurement of maximum rations.

     Memory may play me false here, but I seem to remember that those fine men I glimpsed in that side-trench, who conspicuously insisted on preserving some of the decencies amid conditions which defeated less efficient soldiers, were members of the Royal Scots Regiment******. I learned that the small number seated in their improvised dining hall were all that remained of a full Battalion who did marvellous work in the earliest landing on that Turkish peninsula.’

****** Several Battalions of Royal Scots did fight at Gallipoli; from the following reference to them being involved in the earliest landings, it seems the men who impressed my father may have been members of 1/5th Battalion (Queen’s Edinburgh Rifles), part of the Royal Scots (Lothian Regiment), see http://www.1914-1918.net/royalscots.htm

All the best – FSS

Next week: The great Gallipoli snowstorm; trekking down from his hilltop, Sam risks snipers to beg HQ for food. But then an interlude of plenty… and the best gift of all, the evacuation of Suvla Bay for Christmas!

* 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.