Somme Rewind 1 – Gallipoli veteran Sam arrives in France, steals kiss… then the British Army crushes the 2/1st Royal Fusiliers, and Sam settles into “the business of war” on the Western Front…

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Dear all

A hundred years ago this week… Once in a while ultra-peripheral political events suggest the way the WW1 winds were blowing even more than the latest news from the Front. This week it was the breaking off of diplomatic relations by the latest in a long sequence of nations who, during the course of the summer, had thereby placed their bets on the outcome – namely, Peru (October 5) and Uruguay (7). The Kaiser’s secretary probably didn’t even bother to tell him, but presumably these gestures told the Allies “We were right behind you all along, no, really!”

    Still, on the Western Front the conflict continued as deadly as ever. Within the Third Battle Of Ypres campaign, (July 31-November 10), the Battle Of Polygon Wood reached its denouement after eight days when the British Army resisted German counterattacks around the Menin Road (October 1 and 3). The immediate follow-up to this success for General Plumer’s “bite-and-hold” stratagem was the one day Battle Of Broodseinde (4); British and Anzac troops hit the Gheluvelt plateau along an eight-mile front and achieved their objectives before nightfall, a terrible “bonus” being that their artillery caught a mass of German troops gathered to launch their own attack (casualties: British 12,000, Anzac 8,200, German uncertain but heavy).

    Further south, after a period of progress around Verdun, the French Army came under pressure throughout the week – at Beaumont, near Reims, too – but held their lines.

    Meanwhile, in Latvia and elsewhere, the Russian Army proved it was not yet in any state of absolute collapse, beating back a German attack east of Riga (October 7) and getting the better of them at Czernovitz, western Ukraine (6). Incidentally, down in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) they defeated Ottoman troops at Nereman, 50 miles north of Mosul (3).

    Otherwise, Allied momentum was diversely sustained by the Romanian Army driving back German/Austro-Hungarian forces in Bukovina, some miles north of their own frontier (October 3), the Italians resisting Austrian counterattacks on the Bainsizza plateau (1) and around Mount St Gabriel (2 and 3), and British and Belgian advances across the vast territory of German East Africa throughout the week.

    The pocket histories also show that more and more bombing by planes – a very weapon, of course – occurring across Europe: German raids on London and Dunkirk and Oersel Island in the Baltic off Riga (all October 1); British and French sorties against several towns on the Rhine (1), plus Metz, Cambrai, in occupied northeast France, and Courtrai, Belgium (2).

[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, around his 19th birthday on July 6, a few summer weeks stomping around Yorkshire on a route march… which in due course led him to hospital again, to recover from some lurking effects of trench warfare and prepare him for more. However, I’ve had 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, through to late October, 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 – Gallipoli concluded last week, so now it’s five weeks of edited episodes from the Somme, April-late September, 1916, when he was 17-18…]

FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS

After my father’s 2/1st Royal Fusiliers Battalion’s second evacuation from Gallipoli (Suvla Bay mid-December, V Beach January 6), they returned to Egypt and spent more than three months recovering – though it was called “training” – in a fairly pleasant location between the Nile and the Sahara.

    During that time the 200 remnants of the original thousand-man Battalion who’d sailed away from Gallipoli grew to about 250 as some of the campaign’s sick and wounded rejoined them. Writing about this restorative period, Sam stressed how Gallipoli had brought these men together – “bonded” would be the modern word – in a way that transcended all natural and inevitable personal differences. The result – highly relevant to their upcoming first weeks in France – was that, without much discussion, they determined to stay together and become the battle-hardened core of a Battalion refreshed by reinforcement back to full strength.

    Accordingly, throughout their Egyptian sojourn they worked relentlessly to impress the top brass with their fitness, discipline and capabilities.

    But these excerpts begin with milder observations as Sam sees France for the first time (their troopship SS Transylvania sailed from Alexandria on April 17, and docked in Marseilles on the 24th):

‘How lovely France looked when we anchored off Marseilles, the shore lined with the white, usually flat-roofed buildings I’d found so attractive when viewing other Mediterranean towns from the sea. Close up they usually didn’t look quite so white, nor did the air around them always carry aromas as pure as sea breezes, but I preferred the illusion to the reality until proved wrong.

     A three-day rail journey followed. I found it delightful. No hurry about it, evidently. We would be shunted into a siding for food and natural relief and, if the streets of a village or town were adjacent, we’d take a stroll. A wave or shout would fetch us back to the train in a moment – we were good boys, still chasing that soldierly perfection which would win for us reinstatement as a Battalion.

     The beautiful greenness… I couldn’t describe the pleasure it gave me. Grass, green acres of it. Trees – copses, woods, forests of the lovely things. Until I saw all this beauty I didn’t know I’d been missing it. And another kind of vision on show to us could stir a young man’s pulse to extra activity – the sight of a European girl with white and pink complexion, brunette and blonde, as opposed to sallow or dark tan with near-black hair.

     At the time all these differences aroused thrills of appreciation in me. So when, on one occasion, I inadvertently stepped from the train almost into the arms of a girl, words failed me. When she indicated she would like a tunic button for a souvenir (one of the few words we both understood) I cut one off with my jackknife pronto – in exchange for a kiss.

     During the night, when our train paused in a big, well-lit station, local people brought along big jugs of red wine from which they filled our mess tins. No charge! Living it up, indeed, and we quickly became a joyful crowd. Although we had to sleep sitting up in crowded compartments, no one complained; who knew what pleasures the morrow might yield?’

Initially, the pleasures of the massive British Army encampment outside Rouen, Normandy, where they arrived on April 27/8:

‘Each day we were marched off to an intensive training ground where we had our first experience of a battle course. With fixed bayonets we would charge forward, jump a ditch, climb a wall, then see ahead a line of hanging sacks which represented men. We had to stab them with our bayonets, the while we emitted blood-curdling yells calculated to scare the enemy stiff before we skewered him. Instructors lined the course, swearing at us, urging us lazy bastards to scream and stab. The whole thing was like some horrible, mad orgy and they soon had us behaving like the lunatics they appeared to have become.

     Our frantic performance did have a purpose, of course, however daft it looked. One day, the Sergeant who put us through our paces marched us into some lovely woods, had us sit down, and made a pretty little speech – it almost brought maidenly blushes to our cheeks. We had, he said, passed the battle course with distinction and he was sorry he had only just been told, before the morning session, we weren’t “rookies” straight out from Britain, but veterans of the Gallipoli campaign.’

Thus acknowledged – a hopeful sign, surely – they returned to drilling under their own officers with a view to winning the approval of the General who would decide their fate. They did a march-past after which Major Booth (beloved Battalion CO in Gallipoli though aliased by my father – his real name was Harry Nathan, later a Lord and Government Minister post-WW2) read out a message from the General saying their form would have done credit to the Grenadier Guards.

    Serious-minded Sam’s idea of a celebration is to visit the wondrous Rouen cathedral. His companion, Haines, goes along with him, but then suggests some less formal recreation:

‘He suggested having a drink and we entered a place which, from its appearance, I took to be the kind of estaminet where a glass of wine or beer could be had cheaply.

     Inside, though, I saw no bar, only some marble-topped tables and chairs. Then, unprompted, an electric bell rang loudly – it shook me, being so unexpected – a door opened and in marched a line of eight or so women dressed in gowns of various colours. Facing us, they threw open these gowns and stood there, obviously inviting inspection and selection. None of them was young, some as old, I judged, as my mother. I hope I didn’t show the revulsion I felt. I expected my companion to get out with me right away, but instead he pointed to one woman. She stepped forward and he departed with her.

     I was in a dilemma, but made it clear by my actions that I wasn’t interested and the women marched out – all except one. By now I felt scared and ordered wine to propitiate whichever invisible person ran the establishment. It meant spending a couple of scarce francs, but provided time in which to think. I remember pouring myself a glass from the bottle, pushing it towards the woman and making signs that she should help herself… and when she had drunk that, insisting she had another glass. Some time passed, the awkward situation becoming ever more distressing for me. Relief came with the reappearance of Haines. I stood up, waved farewell, and was outside the place in a second.…

     From cathedral to brothel, from beauty to horror, from procreation to recreation… And from prostitution, commercial copulation, battle, murder, and sudden death, Good Lord deliver us.’

Thus, as often in the course of his war, my father adhered to the chaste and chivalric teachings of his revered spirit of Mr Frusher, the vicar/choirmaster/Scoutmaster/piano teacher who mentored him, his brother Ted and their pals back in Edmonton before the war. Well, his “celebration” may have misfired, but it soon turned out to be premature as well:

‘With all present, we were surprised not to see our popular Major out in front(1). Instead, his adjutant stood there. I had not seen him since the occasion of his appearance at Gallipoli, walking out in the open when we were all in holes or trenches – when one of his arms was bandaged and supported by a sling and he looked ill. Today, he looked fit physically, but his face was pale.

     He quickly told us that, in spite of all our endeavours and successes, it had been decided that our numbers were too small for making up with reinforcements. Groups of us would be sent to various Battalions in the two Territorial Divisions on the Front in France. He said much more. One could see tears on his face. But no comment came from the ranks, no response whatsoever. Had the Major done the execution job, some men would have said a few words, heartfelt if not exactly polite. However, the adjutant’s emotion was wasted on us; when we dispersed we were quite a different set of men to those hearty mugs who had, for weeks, tried so hard to please.

     I had one desire now and that was to somehow get a leave pass. To spend a few days in England before going into action. I, and many others, went around voicing this desire and also letting it be known that, because of the scurvy treatment we had received, the Army could get stuffed. Dangerous conduct this, but our outraged feelings needed some outlet…’

     In camp, though, where were the smiles and cheery greetings which had become customary during our recent combined effort to impress the top brass? Gone missing, replaced by faces registering all the wrong emotions, such as scorn, sadness and defiance.

     Family men must have felt additional anxiety at times, after having survived some risky situations and come now so near to home, yet apparently still to be denied a short period with their loved ones before going into battle alongside strange comrades, men about whom they knew nothing.

     … Our Battalion disbanded, no training programme to be interrupted, still some days to be passed in idleness while our individual fates were decided.

     These matters occupied almost all our thoughts and conversations. We became monomaniacs on this subject of leave. Battles, logistics, advances, retreats – those things concerned others; we were single-track thinkers who just wished to go home for a while…

     I was foolish enough to allow today to be fouled up by speculations as to what tomorrow might bring forth…  the impending dispersal of the old crowd soured most of my waking moments at the time… That most of them felt similarly afflicted showed clearly in their faces.’

(1) In his biography of Lord Nathan, Strong For Service, author H Montgomery Hyde reports the probable explanation for the Major’s absence from this event: he “was granted a month’s leave” shortly after the Battalion landed in Marseilles and returned in June, 1916, to find remnants of his Battalion merged into a Reserve Corps in the 29th Division of the 8th Army ("Reserve" didn’t mean non-combatant) under General Hubert Gough’s command on the left of the Somme front.

After the malcontented waiting, Sam’s orders to transfer came so suddenly he didn’t even have time to say goodbye to brother Ted. A couple of trains –concluding with open trucks – took him to where his new Battalion, the Kensingtons, were resting within earshot of the front line. As far as I can work out – my father maintained discretion about place names, even writing 50 years after the event – this village was Souastre, 7.5 kilometres west of Hébuterne where the Kensingtons did their front-line fighting at the time, opposite the German-occupied village of Gommecourt:

‘After detraining, we marched until we reached a quite pleasant-looking village, the first I had been able to see at close quarters. Far in the distance, I could hear the rumble and thud so familiar a few months earlier. Once more, the belly-tightening tension resumed its grip and I was all set to face and deal with personal risks to the limit of my physical ability.’

Sam fell to wandering and exploring, as was always his wont, even in quiet spells on the battlefield. And he always loved to find signs of normal life, as this village still manifested, “real” non-military people somehow going about their business:

‘Just the sight of females, from time to time, made the place seem homely. Not that any attractive girls lived there, though many must have graced the place before filthy war and rape, or the risk of it, drove them elsewhere… I still retain a mental picture of a youngish woman behind whom I walked a while as she drove three cows along a lane: her hair coarse and matted, she wore a man’s cap, an old, dark-blue, military tunic much too big for her, a knee-length skirt of mud-coated, dark cloth – below which her thick calves were clothed in British Army long pants, with grey Army socks and heavy, Army boots on her feet. A boy such as I was then could feel sympathy not untinged with amusement, but I imagined she would remain totally safe from the lustful cravings of even the most sex-deprived old soldiers. That apart, she was a good‘un just to be in that place so near to the front line, at risk from long-range enemy guns, trying to keep the little farm going while her men were away.

Despite his bitterness at the old Battalion’s demise, Sam was soon chatting away with his new Kensington comrades, finding out what was going on back home – given he couldn’t get permission to go and see for himself. No diminution of his disillusionment ensues:

‘I encouraged any chap who cared to talk about the Regiment to do so, but they knew little about it because they turned out to be the first conscripted soldiers I had met.

     It seemed that, during our sojourn in the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, changes had taken place in England. The original voluntary-service fervour had quickly expired and heavy casualties on the Western Front had to be made up by the only means now available, namely, compulsory service.

     These men, my new comrades, proved more than willing to shed a new light on the behaviour of some civilians in the dear old homeland. Setbacks on land and sea had brought realism to the fore. In the early days of the war, natural optimism, faith in the unbeatable British Navy and our world-beating Army, plus much official propaganda, had encouraged those who intended to keep clear of personal involvement in the nasty business to believe that Britain would surely smash the Kaiser’s forces.

     Many at home already earned more money than they had in peacetime, and they intended hanging on to their jobs come what may. Should call-up papers pop through their letter boxes they could appeal to tribunals. Deferment of their conscription to armed service might be arranged if, perhaps, their employers could prove their work important to the national effort. Who, would you guess, comprised the membership of those tribunals? Local bigwigs. If an appellant was by way of being acquainted with a member, ’twas said he might secure deferment almost forever.

     So the next best ploy was to change jobs and get work in one of the new armaments or ammunition factories being built at a great rate. These places paid well, perhaps two or three times more than in peacetime factories, because of the urgent need to speed up production. They employed many women too and one conscript told me bullets and shells were not the only products of some folks’ work on the night shift.’

Then Sam encountered a philosophical conundrum he’d never considered before… and reached an interesting conclusion for a Gallipoli veteran now about to fight on the Western Front:

‘… some prominent people concerned with improving the status of working-class people had promoted the idea that, if a man had religious convictions strong enough to forbid him taking part in warfare, he should be allowed to state them before a special tribunal, the members of which might decide that he should do “national work” other than join the armed services(2).

     As World War I progressed the numbers of men who held or adopted these strong pacifist beliefs increased, and some men thus avoided all the risks and sufferings to which most were exposed. I heard that if the tribunal disbelieved the heart-rending yarn you spun, if you still refused to take up arms you would be imprisoned, or put to work in agriculture, or something of that sort. In any case, you avoided all the pains and hazards of the battlefield – that had its attractions. Some of these “conchies”, as the “conscientious objectors” were contemptuously called, were politicians, and some later achieved high positions, after the prejudice against “war dodger” types had subsided.

     And yet… here too was a concession which appeared to indicate that one fence separating The Workers from the rest had been demolished – in part, the “conscience clause” entailed an admission from on high that the dwellers in the terraced side streets were capable of thought, able to form, maintain and explain a conviction reached after study and evaluation.’

(2) The right to conscientious objection had been recognised in the UK since the 18th century, but only for Quakers, says Wikipedia; it became a general right in March, 1916, after the Government introduced conscription. The same Military Service Tribunals that heard appeals against conscription on all other grounds decided on conscientious objectors’ appeals (which comprised about 2 per cent of the 750,000 cases the tribunals heard 1916-18). In all, 11,500 appeals on grounds of conscience were upheld during World War I, while 6,000 appellants were refused, conscripted, then, potentially, jailed if they refused to obey orders.

Mooching around and observing everything as usual, Sam soon found good things to say about his new Battalion, even in areas where they made the 2/1st look bad by comparison (remembering he was with the 2/1st from September, 1914, when they, men and officers, were nearly all Territorial novices in civvies):

‘I soon recognised that this Battalion was run by men more skilled in caring for and providing for their rankers than any I had encountered earlier. A Quartermaster Sergeant, a Sergeant Cook, and some well-trained men worked miracles with the rations to produce meals of a quality I’d seldom experienced in front-line soldiering. They had several mobile field kitchens, comprising large boilers, food store boxes, fuel containers, fire boxes under boilers with tubular chimneys and so on, along with two-wheeled vehicles, usually pulled by mules, which allowed cooking to proceed while on the march. According to circumstances, they either stayed behind to work and caught up with us later, or moved with us in the column, or went ahead to our destination if our progress was slower than their wagons could achieve.

     Always, a substantial hot meal and good steaming tea arrived when needed – well, except when “enemy action” occasionally disrupted their praiseworthy efforts. The Quarter-bloke, a tall, strong, purposeful man, a tower of strength and efficiency, often achieved near-miracles under terrible difficulties. For men who, for hours, had endured exposure to rain, cold, shot and shell to unexpectedly be given a mess-tin full of hot stew or tea with bread was to restore our faith and hope and courage — the very knowledge that others thought about our discomfort, even misery, and had been kind enough to do something about it heartened us.

     None of the messing about with bits of rations here, no cooking puny portions in a mess-tin over a small spirit burner – often producing nothing worth eating. No going for days with nothing but hard biscuits, jam and a small allowance of water…

     Observing this, and other matters of organisation, I came to understand that, here in France, with the war obviously going to be a long one, the British Army conducted it rather on the lines of a business....

     Here I could remove boots, tunic and trousers at night, instead of wearing them continually except for brief louse-hunts. Up in the firing line, men told me, you might have to remain fully clothed for 10- to 14-day periods – but never for weeks on end.

     Most of the men in my new mob wore steel helmets, an item I had never seen before. All I had was an old cap from which I had removed the shape wire so that I could still wear it while sleeping. Stylish headgear – the soft top could be pulled to one side quite rakishly, suggesting I was no end of a devil – yet ineffective protection if a bullet or a piece of shrapnel came your way.’

Hereabouts, his Kensingtons Captain told him he wouldn’t be required as a Signaller, they’d got enough already, so he’d serve as a plain infantry Lance Corporal. Sam had no objection to that, but he took the opportunity to request demotion to Private:

‘I wanted no rank, no responsibility except to myself. Rank entailed being careful, steady, a good example, even though a Lance Corporal was everybody’s lackey, often jeered at by the Privates and ordered around by Corporals and Sergeants. I longed to lose that stripe and be a carefree nothing’

Unsurprisingly, he was refused, adding to the frustration which he reckoned led to him reframing his public persona during this short spell before the action began again:

‘… with pleasant fellows in my platoon, on the whole, and a new mood now upon me – occasioned by living among strangers – I could behave in a relaxed manner, laugh without restraint at even the corniest joke, and make a few cheeky comments about people around me (usually taken in good part). The underlying bitterness remained in me, though, and stoked up the fire of reckless humour which ruled out thoughts of a serious nature and ensured that nobody would wish to attempt serious conversation with me – while roughly the opposite of my style in the old Battalion, this resulted in a sort of coarse popularity which pleased me. Consequently, I quickly earned for myself a soubriquet I liked, to wit, The Pisstaker.’

But, of course, the move towards the battlefield came soon enough, thrusting all extraneous considerations into the background:

‘Came the day for us to pack up and move forward…(3) and now my gut-gripping tension increased, although I believed, or hoped, I remained outwardly the flippant ass they liked. For some kilometres our drum-and-fife band led us on with tunes which had probably cheered up our soldiery in the days of Good Queen Bess. Anyway, the rhythm of the drums kept our feet moving in unison – most useful in that it saved us from tripping each other up.

     When the band stepped aside we marched on awhile in silence, save for the crunch of boots on gravel road. Soon we entered the ghost of a village(4) and halted.’

(3) Probably May 21. The Kensingtons’ War Diary for that day notes the Kensingtons relieving the 1/8th Middlesex on the right of the Gommecourt front line. It records that my father’s Company A, under Major CC Dickens (grandson of the immortal Charles), reached their front-line trench at 11.15pm, –“after dark” as Sam recalled (whereas WD reports the other three companies arrived in daylight).

(4) Probably Sailly-au-Bois, 4.6 kilometres southeast of Souastre.

All the best – FSS

Next week: Somme Rewind 2 of 5: Sam’s first experience of the Western Front… the Battalion enter the trenches on a pitch-black night, then take a day-time artillery bombardment… Sam starts to get used to it until he leads an advanced-trenching detail into No Man’s Land at night… “machine-gun bullets spattered around me…”

* 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 earns a new, unofficial title – the Pisstaker – and returns to the “trap” of a front-line trench for the first time since Gallipoli…

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 British Red Cross

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

Dear all

A hundred years ago this week… at Verdun, the French Army tried to gain the initiative by launching a major attack (May 22), heavy artillery bombardment followed by infantry onslaught in the habitual Western Front way. They gained ground at Fort Douamont (22) and lost it again (24); the Germans took Culières (24) and lost it again (26). In other words, no great change while the French incurred 5,640 casualties and the Germans 4,500.

    The only other note of specific action I’ve found on the standard timelines is a German bombardment of the British between Lassée Canal and Arras, but now that my father has reached the Western Front his accounts (including today’s Memoir excerpt below) serve as a reminder that deadly, if “minor”, battling proceeded non-stop – he reached the Somme Front around May 12, 1916, and saw almost constant action from then on but it’s only the catastrophe of July 1 that features on the historical narratives.

    Further south, the Italian Army regrouped somewhat and began to hold the Austro-Hungarian incursion at the Battle Of Asiago (near Trentino) despite defeats at Monte Civaron and Monte Moschicce (May 25-7).

    Elsewhere, the Greek government ordered the surrender of Fort Rupel on the Greece-Macedonia border to Bulgarian and German forces (May 26, leading to a Greek Army mutiny), the Russians continued their Armenian advance by taking Mamakhatun (24), and British forces took control of Dafur by defeating the Sultan’s Army at Beringia (22). The British also backed the South African and Portuguese invasion of German East Africa (now Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania) by briskly taking several townships (25-7).

    Meanwhile, after their terrible winter in Gallipoli, and three months recovering in Egypt, my father Lance Corporal Signaller Sam Sutcliffe from Edmonton, north London (still under-age at 17), his older brother Ted, 19, and their remaining comrades – the 250-ish 2/1st City Of London Battalion Royal Fusiliers who’d survived – had transferred to a huge encampment outside Rouen, France, in April. There, to the young veterans’ profound chagrin, the British Army carried out its long-standing threat to disband, rather than rebuild, the Battalion. Soon they were scattered among various other outfits on the soon-to-be notorious Somme Front. Sam had joined the Kensingtons (1/13th Battalion, London Regiment) on or about May 14…

FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS

Last week, my father settled in with the Kensingtons, billeted in a village called Souastre, a couple of miles behind the Front. He tried on his first tin hat and gas mask and generally appreciated a level of Army organisation and provision he’d never encountered at Gallipoli.

    Today, and throughout the summer, these blogs will be unusually long simply because Sam had such vivid memories of and so much to say about his experiences a hundred years ago on the Somme. But I think you’ll find there’s not too much wasted verbiage and plenty of truth and substance.

    First, though, Sam had a personal matter he wanted to attend to:

‘Because this new lot’s Signals Section was at full strength when I joined, I became a humble Lance Corporal on ordinary duties. So I sought an interview with the Captain in charge of our Company and asked to be allowed to revert to the rank of Private, but he refused.

     I wanted no rank, no responsibility except to myself. Rank entailed being careful, steady, a good example, even though a Lance Corporal was everybody’s lackey, often jeered at by the Privates and ordered around by Corporals and Sergeants. I longed to lose that stripe and be a carefree nothing.

     But, with pleasant fellows in my platoon, on the whole, and a new mood now upon me – occasioned by living among strangers – I could behave in a relaxed manner, laugh without restraint at even the corniest joke, and make a few cheeky comments about people around me (usually taken in good part). The underlying bitterness remained in me, though, and stoked up the fire of reckless humour which ruled out thoughts of a serious nature and ensured that nobody would wish to attempt serious conversation with me – while roughly the opposite of my style in the old Battalion, this resulted in a sort of coarse popularity which pleased me. Consequently, I quickly earned for myself a soubriquet I liked, to wit, The Pisstaker.

Came the day for us to pack up and move forward…* and now my gut-gripping tension increased, although I believed, or hoped, I remained outwardly the flippant ass they liked. For some kilometres our drum-and-fife band led us on with tunes which had probably cheered up our soldiery in the days of Good Queen Bess. Anyway, the rhythm of the drums kept our feet moving in unison – most useful in that it saved us from tripping each other up.

     When the band stepped aside we marched on awhile in silence, save for the crunch of boots on gravel road. Soon we entered the ghost of a village** and halted. Each Company remained cohesive, but the general idea, with enemy onlookers in mind, was to get lost visually.

     Far away, we could see active “sausage” balloons, with baskets housing observers*** suspended beneath them. I learnt that both sides now commonly used aeroplanes for observation purposes too, so we had to take great care to avoid being spotted, because artillery might open up and polish us off before we even reached the front line.

     We spread out in small groups among the village’s remaining walls, or parts of same, all remaining within hailing distance of our officers. Our Company cooks demonstrated their efficiency as usual, for within half an hour we were enjoying a rich, tasty stew, a generous helping for each man. Obviously, they had prepared our meal on the road as we marched. Then, when we had our meal, they quietly cleaned the boilers, filled them with water and brewed tea, for they soon gave us a welcome drink of that morale-improver. In addition, most of us had little extras we’d bought earlier – chocolate, biscuits and the like.

     The rumble, roar, and occasional extra-loud crump of a shell exploding nearby, offered constant reminders that some of us would have to pay for this present indulgence in blood and pain ere long. With the sun sinking, we were warned to pump ship, attend to all nature’s wants, and rest, in preparation for some trying hours of movement in darkness across open country, and then in strange trenches.

     The enemy maintained fairly steady bombardment of places where he knew transports and troops must pass during the hours of darkness. Horse-drawn and motor vehicles usually had to stay on the roads, so crossroads became favourite targets for German gunners. Soldiers on foot could avoid these deathtraps, but the necessary diversions added mileage to their journeys and often took them through messy, muddy areas, slowing progress.

As we set off “across the plain”**** – a Sergeant’s words – there was no moon. His remark aroused little interest among the troops; they’d done this trip before, and I refused to remind them that I was a stranger among them by asking, “What plain?” Our Company, walking in twos, must have formed a considerable crocodile as we weaved around shell-holes and various vaguely visible humps which mystified me until ear-splitting explosions and skyward-leaping flame flashes, changing to brief red streaks and short-lived shrieks issued from one of them – British gun batteries, of course. Someone could have tipped me off – we were stumbling through such a concentration of guns as I had never imagined.

     And I had no idea about the extent of this “plain”, but if these batteries were lodged to left and right of us, not to mention fore and aft, for distances which one could guess at as more and more guns opened up, then this was war on a scale to which I was a complete stranger. Sometimes we had to walk in front of and quite close to these artillery clusters and a fear assailed me that they might let fly at one of these moments. If they were sighted on distant targets we would be at little risk because the guns would point upwards, but if they were aiming to hit enemy positions only a mile or so distant the barrels would be lowered and the shells pass through us before exploding among the Germans…

     By the light of muzzle flashes, I saw that gun-pits had been dug to house these guns, placing them below ground level and giving their crews some protection. Their mound-like appearance in the dark came from the nets slung over frames to camouflage them in daylight.

“Into single file now.” This order passed quietly from man to man as we moved down a slight incline… and there I was once more in the confinement of a trench. I could perhaps move to left or right if self-preservation seemed to require it, but not far. After several months of freedom from this wretched situation, the whole, hateful, trapped feeling returned. Bursts of machine-gun fire, the crashes of bursting shells, sometimes singly, often in numbers, the whining of bits and pieces – fragments of metal. This was to be my life, night and day, for several weeks to come, or for longer if anything in the nature of attack and counter-attack developed.

     But then came a shaft of hope, almost of joy, for I remembered that here no sea lay behind us, that in periods of rest from front-line trench life we would withdraw some miles away from all noise, wounding, or sudden death, and enjoy relief from our fears and these unnatural living conditions.

     We steadily made our way along the winding communications trench, seeing little, hearing much. When I sensed, rather than saw, a cross-trench going to left and right, from past experience I identified it as the reserve trench. Somewhere along it would be located our Battalion Headquarters and various ancillary services. In the next cross-trench, the support trench, probably two Companies were stationed. But we moved on… and into the front line, the trench that faced the enemy. He might be close, 20 or 30 yards distant, in which case we would have some advanced holes and short trenches in between the front lines – probably manned only during hours of darkness. If there were a wide gap, it would be scouted by patrols from both sides during the night.

     As we approached the front, a stream of men passed us, going back the way we had come – happy, because we were relieving their burden of tense preparedness with no let-up, night or day. Always some part of the trench system was being damaged or destroyed, some danger threatened. Mates maimed, blown apart. So, as they threaded their way through our advancing line, they made quiet, little jests, wished us good luck, gave useful hints occasionally about special features of the terrain. Nice chaps going for a well-earned rest, bless’em.

     I felt I was a stranger here while the others had done all this before. In my previous spell of front-line service, as a Signaller, to maintain communications between points A and B I had been compelled to make my own decisions, once I had received orders. Now, I was a member of a Company and must decide nothing until my immediate superior told me what to do. This situation, which reduced me to just a soldier with a number, and a damned long one at that, added further to my suppressed anger about the way things had gone of late.

     In this regard, with some cynicism, I noticed a ploy the authorities put into operation. Now that masses of men were being “called up”, as the expression went, those in command – military or political, I didn’t know – abhorred the idea that chaps who had volunteered when war started should have anything to distinguish them from conscripts. My first number, for instance, was 2969, but on joining the hordes rolling off the Kitchener production line, I and all the other “old-timers” must be branded as one of them. So 2969 became 302337…***** Well, may I remind you once more that this yarn has no connection with the story of World War I; it’s a record of what happened to just one very insignificant member of HM military forces in that scrap.

We now halted and took over a small stretch of the front-line trench lately vacated. Nobody told me anything about procedure, no doubt because they had all done this routine on other occasions. I asked no questions, but chatted to an older man who sat on the firing step beside me. He had the unusual name of Smith, worked in a coal mine, he said, though his speech didn’t smack of Yorkshire or Wales or any northern area. On my other side sat a youngster who said little.

     Soon a man whom I couldn’t see in the darkness detailed us off in pairs for lookout duty. This meant that the first pair would get up on the firing step and keep watch on the area between us and the German trenches for two hours and would rouse the next two when it was time to change over. Meanwhile, the rest of us could sit and doze if we wished. But, the enemy artillery being lively – salvos of shells roared over and burst nearby – we knew some of them might land among us at any moment. Sleep didn’t come easy.

     The Germans also sprayed the area with machine-gun bullets from time to time, frequently making our lookout men duck down.

     Smith said, “Come with me if that stuff starts to get too close,” and this I did when necessary, but with increasing misgivings; I perceived that if I repeatedly moved along to the traverse – a deep trench section to our right – we would get no rest at all and be quite unfit for duty when daylight came. In that traverse, when a shell came near us Smith would say “Down!” and we crouched as low as possible. We bobbed up and down constantly…

     I thought about the wretched life I’d often endured on that Turkish peninsula. But I was coming to understand that warfare here could, at any moment, be more intense and dangerous than at Gallipoli. However, I felt certain that this bobbing up and down business would, in itself, soon be the death of me.

     I had no idea whether personal movement was restricted, so I presumed not and wandered along the traverses and bays, the former unoccupied, each of the latter crowded with its complement of soldiers. None of them knew me, but no one questioned me, until I came to a bay – think of a bay window and you’ll get the idea – where, as I could see by the gun flashes and the occasional flickering glare of a falling Verey light******, the men were taking their war in a more relaxed manner than my new comrade Smith.

     In particular, one man stretched full length on his back along the parapet above his comrades – twixt him and the Jerries just a mound of earth perhaps 18 inches deep. When he spoke, I joyfully identified him as a happy former member of our old Battalion and I congratulated him on the obvious comfort of his chosen bed. We exchanged wisecracks and, amid the resulting laughs and chatter with others present, I recognised two more of our “old boys”. Conversation roamed over our Mediterranean experiences and, naturally, favoured our former close comradeship and our sorely missed Major. But we laughed and joked a good deal, and forgot present dangers in the brief, but mutually affectionate spirit of reunion.

     Of course, I had strayed from my Company and, after a while, it dawned on me that two chaps standing near me wore different uniforms to the rest of us and must be officers. I’d heard them join in the giggles at times, but still thought I’d better express a hope that I had not offended by barging into their Company. They told me not to worry, they were just out from England and our bit of fun had relieved the nervousness felt by every newcomer to the battlefield. Nice chaps, but I just hoped they would not recognise me should we meet in daylight, for I had deserted my own section for rather a long while.

     On returning, I avoided Smithy as far as possible, did my stint of lookout duty, and dozed at every available opportunity – I wanted to be of some use at “Stand-to” dawn alert, when with fixed bayonets and loaded rifles we had to be keenly ready to repel any enemy move. That uncertain light of early morning gave advantage to an attacker provided he moved cautiously. Every man must remain intently watchful, speech forbidden, save if an order must be given. When full daylight arrived, came the order to “Stand down” and fags could be lit and the rum ration issued to “warm the cockles” after a chilly night.

     It was then I heard for the first time the regular morning performance of a short, swarthy Sergeant who had come, someone told me, from South America, just to win this war for us. He would yell his “Stand down, men!”, then call out a greeting to “You German bastards – I’ll be over after you in a minute and I’ll knock seven different kinds of shit out of you!” This he repeated as he strolled along the line, getting many a hollow laugh from men who’d heard it all before, but still hoped he meant it.’

* Probably May 21. WD for that day notes the Kensingtons relieving the 1/8th Middlesex on the right of the Gommecourt front line. My father’s Company A, under Major Cedric Charles Dickens (grandson of the great novelist, killed at Bouleaux Wood on the Somme Front, September 9, 1916), reached their front-line trench at 11.15pm, “after dark” as he recalled (whereas WD reports the other three companies arrived in daylight).

** Probably Sailly-au-Bois, 4.6 kilometres southeast of Souastre.

*** Observation balloons: their use peaked in World War I, says Wikipedia, because artillery had been developed to fire at a range beyond sight of ground-level spotters; the observers – attached to balloons full of inflammable hydrogen – became the first aviators to use parachutes.

**** British soldiers quoted in Pro Patria Mori called the flat 3.4 kilometre stretch of land between Sailly and Hébuterne “the plain”.

***** One reference, for which I can’t find confirmation, suggests that at some stage he had a third number, 3928 – during his Kensingtons period. One of those details I’ll get to the bottom of at some point, no doubt.

****** “Verey”, as my father wrote it, is a common alternative spelling despite the pistols and flares being named after their inventor, US Naval officer Edward Very.

All the best – FSS

Next week: Sam in the front line: praise for the cooks and the sanitary men; digging advance trenches in No Man’s Land at night… and how to evade a sniper’s bullet!