The Darkness and the Thunder

by Stewart Binns

  As Bronwyn looks across the rows of stretchers laid out in the yard of the old lace mill, she cannot help but think of floundering fish marooned in the bottom of a fishing boat suffering a gasping death. She looks across at Margaret, the woman she admires so much. She is going from dying man to dying man, holding their hands, offering words of comfort, being the angel any man would like to be there as he took his last breath.

  Since what happened between them a few weeks ago, something that Bronwyn had vowed would be a one-off, Margaret and she have become more and more intimate. For Margaret, their affair is the realization of a dream of fulfilment and happiness; for Bronwyn, a riddle of emotions and sensations but, for the time being, a satisfying one. For both of them, it makes days like the last three in Pop-Hop just about tolerable.

  There has also been a moment of profound sadness for Bronwyn. Her brother Hywel, the army’s star recruit to its new School of Sniping, has been sent to the 29th Division, which is preparing for an overseas posting to an operation in an undisclosed destination. After being reconciled to Hywel after the family’s trauma of the previous year, she has become close to him again during their time together at Pop-Hop, and to lose him now is a big blow.

  When she hears that the QAIMNS is asking for volunteers for hospital ships that will support the operation, she begs Margaret to recommend her. Margaret is mortified. ‘Would you leave me so readily?’ she asks.

  ‘Of course not. Come with me.’

  ‘But I’m needed here. So are you.’

  ‘Mags, I don’t want to lose Hywel again. You’ll be needed wherever you go. Please come with me. We’ve become so close.’

  ‘But we’ve no idea where the operation is.’

  ‘I know, but if they’re sending Hywel and hospital ships, then it’s going to involve fighting and casualties.’

  Bronwyn’s eyes fill with tears; her expression pleads with Margaret, who cannot resist her young lover’s entreaties.

  ‘All right, Bron, let me talk to Captain Chavasse. I’ll also have to clear it with Matron McCarthy. She’s a tough nut, but I think she’ll agree.’

  ‘Oh, Mags, it will be such a new adventure for us.’

  The German attack of the 22nd and the subsequent attacks and counter-attacks over the next month become the 2nd Battle of Ypres. The effectiveness of chlorine gas diminishes with time as the Allies realize that improvised protection can be achieved with a wetted piece of gauze or linen to the mouth and face, and that men’s urine is even more effective than water. They also discover that, as chlorine is heavier than air, the men should avoid the bottom of their trenches during attacks and climb to their firing steps.

  Having seen the futility of repeated frontal attacks, on the evening of the 24th General Horace Smith-Dorrien, hero of the Zulu Wars and veteran of the Western Front since his daring at Le Cateau in August, drives to see Sir John French in St Omer. He pleads with him not to order more assaults. His words fall on deaf ears, and Smith-Dorrien is sent home to England, which in effect relieves him of command. The next morning, in broad daylight, 15,000 British and Indian troops are ordered to go over the top and attempt to cross no-man’s-land against German machine-gun fire that is so fierce the bullets fly like hailstones.

  Men in the first wave carry yellow flags tied to their webbing. They protrude above their service caps to allow the British artillery to identify them and thus avoid them with their fire. Ostensibly, it is an attentive gesture, but its architect fails to realize that the flags also render the wearers ideal targets for the German riflemen and machine-gunners.

  By the end of May the Germans, exhausted and out of artillery shells, call off the attacks. They have managed to reduce the ‘bulge’ of the salient around Ypres to a little over three miles, bringing it within range of so much artillery that it is soon reduced to rubble and becomes deserted. In order to gain just a few hundred yards of muddy fields, some drainage ditches and two small streams, German losses are over 35,000; Allied losses in trying to defend them are over 70,000 dead, wounded or missing British, French, Canadian and Indian men.

  Sunday 25 April

  HMS Implacable, off Cape Helles, Dardanelles

  It is 06:00 hours. Hywel Thomas grips his Lee-Enfield firmly. He checks his sniper’s paraphernalia once more. Everything is there and everything is camouflaged. He pays particular attention to his Aldis telescopic sight, his pride and joy; his instrument of death, based on the trophy he won in his duel with a German opponent. He has painted his own summer camouflage on his rifle and side-mounted sight: swirls of pale green, beige and cream to resemble the terrain on to which he is about to step.

  When he gets to the beach he will be on his own. His reputation has won him the right to pick his spot to carry out his lethal mission. It is a simple objective: to kill any Turkish defender who puts himself in harm’s way. The only other requirement is to report to his commanding officer, Captain Richard Willis, the CO of C Company, 1st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers, at the end of each day, either to be told to carry on or to be given new orders.

  Hywel has been assigned to the Lancastrians who form part of the 29th Division, men from North Manchester and district, headquartered at Bury. A regiment with a fine pedigree, they are the men Kitchener hopes will make the difference in the assault on the Gallipoli Peninsula and allow the navy to force the Dardanelles Straits.

  The Fusiliers have just disembarked from HMS Implacable, an aging battleship, and have boarded thirty-two small coastal cutters, which are being towed towards the Turkish beaches. Their objective is Tekke Burnu Beach at the very tip of the peninsula. The men are so tightly packed into the cutters there is no room to move. Although it is early morning and quite cool, the cramped conditions make the men hot; some feel claustrophobic; a few get angry. Tension and the rolling of the waves causes many men to vomit, the spew covering neighbours as well as the spewer. This in turn makes more men sick. It is not an auspicious start to the day. A colour serjeant tries to calm his men in a gentle, paternalistic way: ‘Steady. Steady, lads, nearly there.’

  There are no lights visible on the shore, which looks bleak and inhospitable in the gloom of pre-dawn, and the sea is still shadowy from the black of the night.

  The shortage of supplies and facilities on the Greek Aegean islands has meant that preparations for the army landings have had to be done in Egypt. This has cost time and made the intentions of the Allies all too apparent. The Turkish defences have been put under the control of German general Otto Liman von Sanders, an efficient and astute soldier who has spent the five weeks since the disaster of the 18 March attack making the peninsula a formidable fortress. He has 80,000 men at his disposal; they are expertly positioned, well provisioned and well armed.

  Sir Ian Hamilton commands what is now named the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. He has under him 17,649 men of the 29th Division; 10,007 men of the Royal Naval Division; 16,762 French troops, including Zouaves, Senegalese and men of the Foreign Legion; and 30,638 Australians and New Zealanders, the cream of their armies, who will soon immortalize the appellation ‘Anzac’. Hamilton should have over three hundred guns but has only been given 118. He is short of shells and has no high explosives, just shrapnel. The logic is that the peninsula will fall quickly under the massive Allied assault and therefore he will not need much heavy armour as he drives north, conquering all before him.

  So haphazard has been the preparation that officers who should have been planning the details of the landings have been scouring the Mediterranean for equipment missing from their inventory. A motley collection of support ships has had to be turned into an invading armada: tugboats, converted cruise ships, colliers, trawlers – anything that floats, in fact. For the army, donkeys, mules and packhorses are bought at exorbitant prices. Water and petrol tanks, wire-cutters, torches, ladders and cooking utensils have had to be found. But nobody thought about mosquito nets or summer clothing, and only at the last minute has someone thought about the provision of hospital ships. />
  Surrounded by antediluvian cavalry officers grown fat in far-flung parts of the empire, Hamilton is something of a Renaissance man. Sixty-two years of age, he has seen service in India, in the Boer War and the Russo–Japanese War, where his actions suggested he is a man without fear. A poet and prolific writer, he has, over port and cigars, planned the campaign through debate, consensus and conciliation, perhaps not a technique best suited to what will become one of the most ruthless battles in modern warfare. Scholarly generals write well about wars, but ruthless generals win them.

  Two days before the landing the poet Rupert Brooke, a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve, is on his way to land on Gallipoli when he is stung by a mosquito. He develops blood poisoning from the bite and dies aboard a French hospital ship on 23 April. Winston Churchill, a great admirer of Brooke’s writing and who arranged his commission into the Royal Naval Reserve, writes his obituary for The Times:

  Joyous, fearless, versatile, deeply instructed with classic symmetry of mind and body, he was all that one would wish England’s noblest sons to be in days when no sacrifice but the most precious is acceptable, and the most precious is that which is most freely proffered.

  Sir Ian Hamilton immediately reaches for his diary to write:

  Rupert Brooke is dead. Straightaway he will be buried. The rest is silence … Death grins at my elbow. I cannot get him out of my thoughts. He is fed up with the old and sick – only the flower of the flock will serve him now, for God has started a celestial spring cleaning, and our star is to be scrubbed bright with the blood of our best and bravest.

  But Hamilton is a soldier, not a poet, and although his reports are lucid and eloquent he is overawed by his superior, Lord Kitchener, and fails to challenge any of his judgements. He is also surrounded by men who have been given senior appointments made by Kitchener, none of whom he feels he should overrule and almost all of whom will be found wanting when the time comes.

  On the other hand, the leader of the Turkish forces, von Sanders, has on his staff a thirty-four-year-old divisional commander, who will, despite his relatively junior position, have a crucial impact on the outcome of the battle and, in years to come, the modern history of Turkey. His name is Mustafa Kemal. Charismatic, a brilliant strategist and an inspirational leader of his men, he will make several decisions, often way beyond his level of authority, which will alter the course of the brutal encounter against the Allies.

  Like the men around him, Hywel is apprehensive. They are almost at the beach and freedom from their sardine tin. But is their arrival going to be as tranquil as it appears? Hywel turns to look at Captain Willis, who nods reassuringly. There is still no movement, light or sound coming from the beach. But dawn has broken and, through the half-light, heavy entanglements of barbed wire can be seen on the beach. However, the men are unable to see the tripwires below the water line, or the land mines they are attached to, nor can they see the 2-lb pom-pom cannons hidden out of sight. Despite the unnatural doings of mortal men that are about to be released, nature has provided a perfect day. It is warm, fresh and clear; there is not a breath of wind. Insects buzz and hum and the birds sing and spiral into the air – but not for long.

  The Fusiliers have been assigned to W Beach, at the southernmost tip of Cape Helles. The beach itself, 350 yards long and 50 deep, is relatively flat and sandy, ideal for a relaxing day at the seaside, but is overlooked by a steep, rocky cliff, perfect for entrenched positions and offering a textbook line of fire on to the landing site.

  Just one crack from a single bullet breaks the silence and heralds the beginning of the battle. One of the dozen sailors straining with their oars to row the cutter the last few yards to the shore falls forward, blood pouring from an exit wound in his back. There is hardly time to realize that he has been shot before the entire vessel is riddled with bullets.

  Wood cracks and metal pings as bullets land and ricochet all over the cutter. But bodies make different sounds when they are hit. They squelch like a stone hitting mud or, if bones are shattered, there is a sickening snap like a twig being broken, followed by faint echoes as fragments tear into surrounding tissue. But the most nauseating impact is the splash of cerebral matter when a bullet explodes someone’s head. These noises are heard many times over as the Lancashire Fusiliers are slaughtered like fish in a barrel. A few leap overboard in the hope of salvation but, with 70lbs of kit attached to them, plummet straight to the bottom.

  Captain Willis is shouting orders, as is his surviving lieutenant and the two NCOs who are still standing, but no one can hear them above the firing and the screams and cries of dying men.

  After thirty seconds the cutter is close enough to the beach for men to wade ashore. Most stumble as they jump, some drop their rifles, others get clogged by sand. Then the mines are detonated, blowing a dozen men to pieces and flinging their torsos and limbs into the air. The pom-pom shells land in little clusters, maiming anyone close by. Those who make it to the beach struggle to cut through great swirls of barbed wire. Yet more men are killed as they try to crawl under it or cut their way through, their bodies caught up like a macabre line of washing on a clothes line.

  Hywel is lying prone just above the water line. He has piled up the bodies of three of his comrades and is using them as cover and support for his rifle. His targets are the three machine-gun positions which are wreaking most of the havoc. He has also seen several snipers, but the machine guns are his priority. Captain Willis, who is rallying his men and working his way up the beach slowly and methodically, has sent Hywel a lance corporal with extra ammunition and given him his field glasses so that he can help identify targets.

  ‘What’s your name, Corporal?’

  ‘Shutt, Colour. Bert Shutt.’

  ‘Well, Shutt, grab a couple of bodies, get behind them, keep your head down and see what you can see with those bins.’

  Hywel’s Lee-Enfield can take five rounds at a time and he has reloaded four times.

  Lance Corporal Shutt is impressed. ‘That’s twenty rounds you’ve got away. How many ’ave yer plugged?’

  ‘At a guess, sixteen. There’s a drift of wind that has started to run along the back of the beach that’s difficult to read.’

  ‘Bugger me – sixteen; that’s a bloody miracle!’

  ‘No, it’s not. It’s four bullets wasted and four Turks still alive to kill more of us.’

  Hywel pulls the trigger on another round.

  ‘ ’Eck! I can see the little bugger tumblin’ down yon cliff like a ragdoll. Yer got him good an’ proper.’

  ‘Keep that ammunition coming and keep your trap shut, Shutt. I’m trying to concentrate.’

  It takes Captain Willis and his men over an hour to get over the beach and around the cliff to drive the Turks out of their trenches and secure their objective, Hill 114, which is 450 yards beyond the ridge at the top of the beach. In doing so, his company has been reduced to 67 men from an original force of 256. First Battalion’s overall strength has been reduced from 1,029 to 410.

  When Hywel and his young spotter/ammunition quartermaster, Bert Shutt, reach Hill 114, the first to greet them is Captain Willis. The CO is dripping with sweat and shaking from the exertion of battle. He has a graze to the side of his head, where a bullet came close to blowing his brains out, and a gash to his left arm, the result of a bayonet thrust or a slash from a Turkish officer’s sword. He gathers himself.

  ‘Colour Thomas, we couldn’t have done it without you. Very well done.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘How many did you bag?’

  ‘A few, sir. The drift along the beach was a little tricky.’

  Shutt is taken aback. ‘Excuse me, sir. “A few” is twenty-seven by my count, including two of their snipers.’

  ‘Twenty-seven! That’s extraordinary shooting. Where did you learn how to shoot like that?’

  ‘On my farm, sir, but Major Hesketh-Pritchard says I was born with a gift.’

  ‘So you’re one of his S
niping School boys?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I’m proud to say I think I’m the first.’

  ‘Well, I’m not surprised. You have a remarkable eye.’

  The captain looks down at Hywel’s gloved right hand. The glove is no longer black; Hywel has bleached the black out of it, making it as pale as he can to blend with his camouflaged rifle.

  ‘So, Colour, why the glove?’

  ‘Sir, I had a bullet through my palm in Flanders, but a surgeon, a wonderful man, Captain Noel Chavasse, rebuilt my hand and got this glove made for me in London. It’s reinforced with copper rods and gives me a stable supporting hand.’

  ‘How bloody ingenious. May I see your hand?’

  Hywel takes off his glove to reveal his disfigured palm and wayward digits, and Willis examines them closely.

  ‘I’m lucky, sir, I’m left-handed.’

  ‘You’re not lucky, Colour, you’re a phenomenon. I pride myself on being a good shot and did well in the Army Championships a couple of years ago, but with two good hands. I’m going to get you a medal for today, Colour Serjeant Thomas. I’m going to recommend you for a Distinguished Conduct Medal.’

  ‘Thank you, sir, but I’m not sure that I deserve it.’

  ‘Oh yes, you do; you saved many lives this morning.’

  Besides Hywel Thomas’s DCM, for their bravery on the morning of 25 April six Victoria Crosses will be awarded to 1st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers, one of the most decorated regiments in the British Army, including a VC for Captain Richard Willis. They will become known as the ‘Six VCs before breakfast’. That evening Sir Ian Hamilton orders that Tekke Burnu Beach will henceforth be known as ‘Lancashire Landing’.

  Hywel walks away for a quiet moment of reflection. He has, in the cold-blooded way that is the modus operandi of the sniper, just killed many men. Not for the sniper the hot blood of an infantry charge or the adrenalin of hand-to-hand fighting; he has to kill by stealth, his pulse calm, his heartbeat frozen as he pulls the trigger. He cannot afford to be squeamish about his prey; they are just targets to be killed as clinically as possible. His is a pragmatic business; there is no room for morality or regret. If ever either appear, the game is up.