FootSoldierSam’s (rough) life on the ocean waves…

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Dear all

A hundred years ago… tomorrow (February 9) the first Canadian troops to join the battle sailed from England to France and… yesterday (the 7th), in a snowstorm, the German 8th Army launched a surprise attack on the Russians in East Prussia (now Polish territory) – the Battle Of The Masurian Lakes. They advanced 70 miles in a week, a near-massacre with 200,000 Russian casualties to 16,200 German. (A remote connection to Sam Sutcliffe, my father, is that German commander General Otto Von Below later switched Fronts and oversaw the March 28, 1918, Arras wing of the Spring Offensive, one of the micro-outcomes of which was Sam being taken POW.)

      Meanwhile, Sam, still 16, his brother, Ted, 18, both under-age volunteers, their pals Len Minns and Harold Mellow from Edmonton, north London, and a thousand other comrades in the 2/1st City Of London Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, sailed through a terrible storm for a destination unknown…

FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS

Hardly any of the rankers had left England before. Their introduction to the traveller’s life proved less than comfortable. Last week, Sam climbed out of H Company’s stinking chamber below to take his first look at rough seas and use the, shall we say, open-plan latrines – perched over the side. Now he tried to settle in (here, for new readers, still writing in the third-person and calling himself “Tommy”):

‘…he found that a blanket had been issued to each man. Removing his boots, he folded his greatcoat to form a pillow and arranged the blanket with a quarter of it hanging over the side to tuck around himself as he made himself comfortable. After several ungainly attempts, he succeeded in mounting the hammock and lay suspended perhaps 24 inches from the ceiling.

     One advantage to sleeping in a swinging net soon became obvious. When the ship did a sideways roll the hammock did not, it just hung there. However, when the ship’s nose dipped into a trough one could feel that all right. Head up, feet down… then vice versa, of course. A strange night, that first night at sea; half-awake for the most part, fully awake several times when the forepart of the ship seemed to receive a terrific blow. No alarm call followed… she hadn’t struck a rock… so one dozed off for a while.

     Large, two-handled urine tubs had been placed in an area where no hammocks hung and, as the night wore on and the ship’s wallowing increased, the homely sound of men pissing gradually gave way to the horrible noises of men vomiting into it.’

The voyage - not to France and the Western Front they soon realised with some relief – took ten days. So, in hopes readers aren’t feeling too queasy, we necessarily continue the alimentary theme. The soldiers could think of little else. Sam/”Tommy” found his own way through, spending as much time as possible away from that foul hold, the Company’s living quarters:

‘He clung to a rail, amazed to see and feel the forepart of the ship rise high, then plunge… at which his side of the ship would sink down, then rise up, up, while the far side almost vanished beneath the waves. These plunge-and-wallow movements increased in depth and height as the weather grew worse. And so the thing he had been fighting for several hours took possession of him and his loss was the fishes’ gain… he felt so ill that fear vanished…

     When the ship wallowed in a trough, various sideways rolls occurred, but fore and aft movements were only slight. Then, when the peak of the next huge wave rushed at the ship and looked to be about to fall on and bury her… at the last moment her bow rose about 50 degrees until, as she started to level out on top of the wave, a big bang for’ard preceded a horrible vibration shaking the whole ship as the propeller, now out of the water, raced madly before… the slide down the other side of the water mountain began and a foot or two of water scurried across the deck. Seeing this coming, Tommy raced towards the stairway leading to a higher level and just beat this on-board wave. Happily, there he found that only an occasional fine spray wafted his way…

     The weather only worsened… Tommy thought even experienced sailors must have worried that the ship would, at some time, either fail to come out of a sideways roll and capsize or continue one of those mad slides down the distal side of a huge wave and maintain that stern-up 50-degree plunge straight down to the ocean’s bottom.’

A crew member later told him the Galena* was “noted for her wallow”! Always nauseated, Sam nonetheless resolved to keep eating whenever he could – “he chewed and swallowed with determination for seasickness seemed harder to endure if the stomach was empty”. He ate dry bread and hard biscuits – no butter because what the Battalion Lieutenant Quartermaster provided proved rancid (for Sam, this man remained a hate figure all the way through to the beaches of Gallipoli). Some cheese. Stew from the communal dixie.

      And then he found a sanctuary. Wandering the upper decks – not an officer in sight for days – and then down again when he reached the stern, he entered a passageway, opened a door and stepped into… a throne room in more senses than the obvious, a place of “heavenly calm”:

‘… [it contained] a washbasin and a lavatory with hinged seat and flush tank above. Faint light came through a small fixed porthole. He bolted the door and dealt with a wave of sickness which assailed him. The weakness caused by this regular vomiting made him appreciate the warmth and privacy of this little room. He sat and dozed at first, while endeavouring to keep wakeful in case someone really entitled to use the place should come along. However, no one disturbed him and, in due course, deep sleep for an hour or two did him a lot of good.

     There was a homely touch about this little room and he had no wish to leave it. Hoping to come back, he slipped out, closing the door carefully.’

Eventually, after three days, given the respite afforded by that small sanctum – an unused crew toilet, he deduced – his stomach settled. He got talking to a couple of the sailors, a gleeful experience, Sam observes, “to make friends with civilians, already regarded as a separate race… That gap grew wider as the war grew older and bridging it demanded ever greater effort.” Officers emerged from their cabins to order a clean-up and Sam volunteered to fetch the unappetising rations for his mates, now he felt capable. He wandered some more – and ran into his brother (and hero, more or less) Ted, previously immured in G Company’s hold:

‘A reunion more demonstrative than ever before ensued. Normally, they greeted one another with the studiedly casualness befitting men of the world. But pleasure and relief at each discovering the other safe and well compelled them in that unguarded moment to throw their arms around each other and behave as humans should. Typically, Ted appeared to have remained well throughout.’

They met and wandered and talked for hours every day after that. But one more scare awaited:

‘At dusk, though, someone shouted orders for all to get below and H Company’s Sergeant West told them no lights must be shown, no matches struck. A submarine which, in darkness, could only locate them precisely if lights were exposed, was following them. So, down below with hatches covered, portholes shielded. Terrible, just terrible. And the fear that, if a torpedo struck the ship, the imprisoned crowds of men would not stand a chance of surviving. Only the really sick showed no sign of concern.’

No torpedoes came their way, though, and, finally, the old ship turned east. In the distance, land loomed.

* Actual name SS  Galeka     – another of my father’s mysteriously discreet, thin disguises of actual names, in the spirit of calling Tonbridge Bunbridge!

All the best — FSS

Next week: Gibraltar at last!

Sam’s last precious moments with his family before leaving England – goodbye “for a long time… maybe forever”

For Details Of How To Buy Sam’s Memoir In Paperback Or E-Book See Right-Hand Column – All Proceeds To The British Red Cross

For Free Sampler Gallipoli Chapter See Right-Hand Column

For Excerpts In AUDIO Click Here

Dear all

A hundred years ago… with the Western and Eastern Fronts settled into attritional, murderous grind, On January 24 the British Navy won a considerable victory in The Battle Of Dogger Bank, beating off a German raid and sinking a cruiser (954 of the crew died), while on the 26th a new campaign began in Sinai and Palestine when an Ottoman Army, led by a German Colonel, trekked across the desert for 10 days to conduct the Raid On The Suez Canal which ended, on February 4, in defeat by a “British Empire” force comprising Punjabis, Baluchistanis, Gurkhas and the Bikaner Camel Corps from northern India. And in London, on January 28, the British Government confirmed plans for a Naval attack on the Dardanelles in February…

      Eventually, that decision would have quite a bearing on the future of my father, Sam, 16, his brother, Ted, 18, both under-age volunteers and their pals from Edmonton, north London, in the 2/1st City Of London Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, lately billeted in comfort – apart from days spent digging trenches to defend the capital – down in Tonbridge, Kent, but now about to move on to who knew where…

FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS

After a surprise mid-January week’s leave at home and a disconcerting lantern-lecture from young and much-mocked Lieutenant Swickenham which, oddly, yoked together the apparently unconnected topics of VD and Malta, suddenly the Fusiliers find themselves on the move. In this passage, my father began to edge away from third-person narrative, referring to himself as “Tommy”, via a long passage “quoting” Tommy in the first-person – a pretense he dropped shortly afterwards (a big step towards finding his confidence as a writer I feel).

      One morning in late January, after roll call, Sam dodged volunteering for some chore cooked up by the Lieutenant-Quartermaster, and felt quite pleased with himself momentarily:

‘… until the CSM warned me and others to rest until 9pm when, with all our belongings packed in kitbags, we would report for duty at the railway station. We should say goodbye to our hosts before leaving, having told them that they would be called on during the day by an officer who would settle outstanding debts.

    So this was it…’

Rumour said they’d travel up to London, wait a bit, then be “re-routed”. Abroad they guessed. The Front? Sam needed to speak to his brother:

‘At the station, I quickly found brother Ted at work loading stores on to the train, having volunteered for the Quartermaster’s detail. Not many civilians had telephones in those days, but we managed to persuade a sympathetic chap to let us into his home to use his and we got a message to our father in his office. We told him it seemed certain we were finally leaving England, but that our train would stop at Waterloo for some time before we set off. He promised to hurry home as early as possible and collect mother and then they would try to get to us at the railway station.

     There suddenly welled up in me an unsuspected affection for our homeland. “Homeland”? The first time we had thought of calling it that. And the family always rather taken for granted — their value rocketed suddenly. Uncertainty as to when, if ever, we would see them again made this coming, improvised farewell terribly important…

    Back at the billet… That last, rather sad day with the kindly Fluters passed with the dear lady feeding us far too liberally. When I regretfully left them that night, I took with me several of her gorgeous pasties. Lovely people. I would never forget them and intended, as I promised, to see them again as soon as possible.’

It turned out that Sam’s first duty that evening was to guard the train – against what, he couldn’t imagine – rather than travel on it:

‘During that dark night in the railway sidings, I had to make periodic inspections along one side of the several coaches placed in my care, a comrade doing a similar job on the other side. When resting, I could have one carriage door open and sit in the doorway on the step. The Sergeant visited us from time to time and, when you heard him approaching, it was important to be on your feet and keen.

    Nothing happened and, when daylight began to cheer up the scene, most of us were allowed to take our ease in the station waiting rooms and drink some of the strong tea brewed on the coal fires there. I ate some of Mrs Fluter’s tasty food and had a couple of hours sleep on a long seat.

    As the hours passed, I began to doubt the necessity of all the hurry to leave our billets and spend the night guarding an empty train. I felt unhappy at leaving the Fluters almost a day before I need have done. Others had their grievances too. So we grumbled and swore to relieve our feelings. A stranger might have thought he was witnessing the start of a mutiny. He might also have noticed that the approach of an officer effected a sudden reduction in the vocal noise, so perhaps rebellion was not exactly imminent.

    But we had fallen victim to one of many blunders at the top which, throughout the war, made us call into question the parentage of officers from Field Marshals downwards. With a whole day to get through, our superiors had made no provision for feeding those of us who guarded the train all night and who now, for lack of orders, hung about the station and sidings. With no information about time of departure, we didn’t dare risk wandering off to look for somewhere to eat. No better informed, NCOs could not permit absence…

    We had to devise an unofficial catering system. Four men would swiftly vanish over a fence and eat a hurried meal in a café a hundred yards or so along the road; one of our chaps lingered near the fence, ready to climb over and warn them should a quick return be necessary. Thus, we all in turn were supplied, but at our own expense, whereas the Army should have fed us without charge.’

Chatting with a comrade, Sam came to blame the Lieutenant Quartermaster for this neglect of basics. He’d had trouble with the man, then a Sergeant, on the day he volunteered the previous September – the comrade told Sam this man had “just one expression on that horrible face, it said ‘I hate you’” – and would encounter his malevolently careless ways again in foreign parts. Still, eventually, his hunger staved by Mrs Fluter’s last kindness, he and the Battalion got under way, Sam and Ted hoping they might yet be able to see their family and say goodbye:

‘The short journey to London took a long time. The railway controllers could have done without our long train running among the scheduled commuter traffic at peak hours so, where a line ran behind station buildings avoiding the platforms, they diverted us and left us standing there for long periods. It was evening before we reached Waterloo.

    Within a moment of the train stopping, we had all piled out on to the platform, stretching ourselves and stamping our feet. The next order: “Men wishing to pump ship will be taken in groups to the lavatories by NCOs”. The train had no corridors, no sanitation, so groups quickly on the move were encouraged to hurry by shouts from those who had to wait for relief.

    Men who hoped that family or friends might be trying to get to them for a last farewell gathered as close as possible to the platform gates. I spotted my parents, but at first we could only exchange a few shouted words. The crowd waiting outside the guarded gates looked surprisingly small, considering the hundreds of men involved…

    As time passed, the majority of the troops made themselves comfortable and returned to their seats on the train. Now, as the platform cleared, officers and NCOs could see that, were a brief reunion of soldiers and their relatives permitted, it would not increase the risk of some demented soldier making off. Anyway, the watch on platform entrance and exits made that almost impossible. As I wandered about, waiting, I heard several discussions on the subject and noticed a general movement of officers towards the first-class coach in the middle of the train. Shortly, they called the NCOs to that coach and, in turn, the CSMs and Sergeants soon hurried back to their respective Companies to loudly announce that civilians would be allowed on the platform for the remaining half-hour or so till departure time.

    I found Ted, then Harold joined us and so, unexpectedly, did dear old Len [Harold and Len: the Edmonton pals who’d volunteered with them]. With our mother and father, and Harold’s mum and dad, and his broad and beaming half-sister, Madge, we all relaxed.

    Our family became far more talkative and forthcoming with each other than we had ever been before. No reticence — it no longer mattered that we should try to be witty, sarcastic, grudging in praise, proud of or ashamed of each other. Here were a few precious moments we could spend together before being parted for a long time. Or perhaps only a short time. But maybe forever.

    We youngsters might possibly feel ashamed of this blatant display of affection at some later date, but at that moment natural feelings dominated. Even Dad smiled and chatted all the time and to each and every one of the party in turn. He noticed that quiet Len had no parent or friend to wish him farewell and so gave him special attention. Both families had brought gifts of food – sandwiches, cakes and fruit – and these they shared out equally between the four soldiers whose last minutes in London they were making so sweetly memorable.’

All the best — FSS

Next week: Sam sets sail from Southampton, the Bay of Biscay cuts up rough…