The Darkness and the Thunder

by Stewart Binns

  ‘Careful, Mary!’ shouts Kath. ‘Do yer want me t’drive?’

  ‘No, I wer just thinkin’ abaht summat. Reach in me pocket. There’s a letter there fra Tommy.’

  Cath takes the letter from Mary’s greatcoat and begins to read it. ‘Bloody hell, Mary! John-Tommy tied to a gun wheel out in t’open fer eight hours a day fer defendin’ ’imself! I thought they’d stopped all that years ago.’

  ‘Aye, well, apparently not. To be fair, Tommy sez that Ross an’ Tough spoke up fer ’im an’ Tommy, an’ Rickman changed ’is mind an’ cleared their names.’

  ‘Even so, Mary, it’s barbaric, an’ shows everythin’ wot’s wrong wi’ Britain. We’re still livin’ in t’Middle Ages!’

  Mary smiles at Cath’s belligerence.

  ‘So, Cath, London, ’ere wi come, to start a revolution!’

  ‘Aye, lass – workers of the world unite!’

  Saturday 18 December

  Hostellerie St Louis, Clairmarais, St Omer, Pas-de-Calais, France

  It is Sir John French’s last day as Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force, a role he has fulfilled since the BEF landed in August 1914. He is regarded as an outstanding cavalry soldier, some saying the best since Cromwell, but the static warfare of the Western Front, what he calls ‘a siege on a gigantic scale’, has become an insoluble mystery to him, as it has to military leaders everywhere.

  Perhaps coming as a blessed relief, political machinations in London have finally put an end to his tenure. Criticisms about the delay in committing the reserves at the Battle of Loos, and whether he or Douglas Haig was to blame, have begun to threaten both Kitchener’s and Asquith’s positions. It thus becomes obvious that someone of seniority has to be blamed. The King has been brought into the intrigue and the outcome is that French has been told to resign, a request to which he has, with great reluctance, agreed.

  Hostellerie St Louis is a small country hotel a few miles north-east of St Omer. Its surroundings are green and tranquil, not unlike the Home Counties, and the food excellent. Sir John and Winston have been driven out for a quiet lunch together.

  ‘I know Haig is going to replace me. So does he, but yesterday morning I sent a telegram to the War Office and one to Downing Street, asking if I might be given formal confirmation of who my successor will be. I got a reply only an hour ago. It read, “Lord Kitchener and the Prime Minister have both gone to the country this weekend. Expect a reply on Monday.” Bugger me, Winston, there’s a war on!’

  ‘I know, John. Let’s hope that they’ve all gone to the country in Berlin.’

  ‘I recommended that Robertson take over from me, but that’s been ignored. Haig’s not the man for the job; he can’t even speak in public without his knees knocking.’

  When the pair return to GHQ at St Omer, Douglas Haig agrees that he has no objection to Winston being given a battalion. That night Winston, still livid that Asquith bent to political pressure to deny him a brigade, writes to Clemmie, begging her not to discuss anything of importance about him with Asquith or his wife, Margot: ‘Asquith will throw anyone to the wolves to keep himself in office. He presides over a weak, irresolute and incompetent government, but I worry not, I let it all slide away without a wrench. I have priorities that are more important. I shall give my battalion my very best.’

  He then writes to F. E. Smith: ‘I find myself treated with goodwill, tho’ I’m often urged to go home and “smash the bloody government”.’

  While waiting to hear from Haig which battalion he will be given, Winston returns to London for Christmas with his family. While there, he has dinner at the Reform Club with Lloyd George and is delighted to hear that the Welsh Wizard is determined to bring Asquith down and that, should that come to pass, Lloyd George would have him back in the government. Winston scribbles a note to Lloyd George after their dinner: ‘Don’t miss your opportunity, the time has come.’

  Back in France for the end of the year, he travels to the very north of the Western Front, to Nieuwpoort on the Belgian Coast, where the trenches stop on the sand dunes and barbed wire runs into the sea. He then travels to Vimy Ridge, where the British sector ends and the French trenches begin, and where he finds a much more benign atmosphere than in some of the British lines: ‘I think I am the only Englishman to have ventured this far. The lines are only a few yards apart and here the sentries don’t skulk under cover, but stare at one another only a few yards apart. While I was there, the Germans passed the word to the French that their officer was about to start shelling, which he duly did. How very civilized!’

  When he returns to GHQ, he learns that he is to command 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers, a battalion of the 9th Division. Raised in Ayr at the beginning of the war as part of Kitchener’s New Army, they arrived in France in May. But it is now a battalion in mourning. It lost so heavily at the Battle of Loos that only one of its officers is a regular soldier, an eighteen-year-old, who joined them only a few months earlier. The rest of the officers are volunteers: Scottish solicitors, chemists, engineers and civil servants. Fortunately, Winston has managed to secure as his second-in-command an old friend from the Liberal Party, Archibald Sinclair.

  He writes to Clemmie, asking for a copy of Burns: ‘I will soothe and cheer their spirits by quotations from it. But I shall have to be careful not to drop into mimicry of their accent! You know I am a great admirer of that race: a wife, a constituency and now a battalion! You see, I love the Scots!’

  He then reaffirms his antipathy towards Asquith: ‘I have found him a weak and disloyal chief. I hope I shall not have to serve under him again after his “perhaps he might have a battalion” letter. I cannot feel the slightest regard for him. He was a co-adventurer, approving and agreeing at every stage. And he had the power to put things right. But his slothfulness and procrastination ruined the policy and his political nippiness squandered the credit.

  ‘I have examined the entire Front as far as I can. We must expect another year of war. I do not see how any end will be reached in 1916, and the probability is that 1917 will dawn next year in worldwide bloodshed and devastation. We must be unyielding and unflinching. We must do more than we have ever done before. We must find a way to win.’

  Winston ends the year receiving the news that his plans for a trench-crossing caterpillar vehicle are not being pursued and that Asquith, fearing the political consequences, is still resisting the idea of national conscription. When he hears, he opens his latest letter to Clemmie and adds a postscript: ‘God, for a month of power and a good shorthand writer!’

  Sunday 19 December

  Nibrunesi Point, Suvla Bay, Gallipoli Peninsula, Turkey

  ‘All snipers ready and in position, sir.’

  ‘Very good, Lieutenant. Excellent work.’

  Bardie Stewart-Murray and his Scottish Horse are among the last to leave Suvla Bay and Anzac Cove in the great evacuation of the Gallipoli Peninsula. He has asked his newly commissioned lieutenant, Hywel Thomas, to get the company of snipers he has been training to dig themselves into various camouflaged positions above the beach to cover the final withdrawals.

  Kitchener’s visit in the middle of November, to see for himself what Gallipoli is like, heralded the decision to abandon the campaign, and set off a polemic of blame and recrimination that will last for decades. However, where the landings and subsequent attacks were gross examples of ineptitude and mismanagement, the evacuation is a military master class. The arrival of General Charles Monro has made a difference.

  Forty thousand men have already left during the day on the 18th, and another 20,000 the previous night. So far, the Turks are not aware that anything untoward is happening. The artillery bombardments continue as normal and all the campfires are lit, despite most of the camps being abandoned. Blankets are laid to deaden the footsteps of retreating men, trails of salt and flour to guide men in the darkness. Barbed wire and booby traps are set to hinder pursuit.

  When the evacuation ships come in close to the beaches, empty boxe
s of supplies are unloaded, which convinces the Turks that they are just routine shipments. Then the ships are loaded with men under cover of darkness. They are old soldier’s tricks, the sort of thing at which they are very good. Unfortunately, it is the new ‘tricks’ of warfare in which they have been found wanting.

  ‘Now, what have you devised for disguised covering fire?’ asks Bardie.

  Hywel leads Bardie away to show him what he has prepared in the forward trenches.

  ‘Two things, sir. We’ve rigged three dozen rifles on timber supports, each with its trigger attached to water-powered weights so that when the water trickles away the trigger is released. We’ve put varying amounts of water in the containers so that the rifles will fire at random intervals.’

  ‘Ingenious, Lieutenant.’

  ‘We’ve also done several of these. As it’s a calm day, we’ve got these candles under taut strings to the triggers. When we leave, we’ll light the candles, which will slowly burn through the strings, then, bingo: the Turks will think we’re still here.’

  ‘Bloody marvellous. Where did you learn all this?’

  ‘I didn’t, sir, but being a hill farmer in the Welsh hills teaches you to be resourceful. Again, we’ve varied the number of pieces of string, so that they burn through at different rates and the rifles fire at different times.’

  ‘Excellent. Lieutenant, I intend to be the last British soldier to leave Suvla Bay. Would you like to accompany me?’

  ‘It would be an honour, sir, but only after I fire the last shot in anger from the top of Lala Baba.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  As evening turns to night, Hywel’s sharpshooters cover the withdrawal of the last few thousand men at Suvla and Anzac as they troop in single file along the prepared footpaths to the beach. Occasionally, a shot rings out as another Turk has carelessly put his head above the parapet. It is a long night, but eventually all the British, Indian and Anzac men are taken off. Bardie waits by his small boat as Hywel and his men set the automatic rifles they have rigged. When they are ready, Hywel calmly walks to the top of Lala Baba to seek his prey and settles into position. He is the last Allied soldier in the north of the peninsula.

  The weather has been kind to the evacuation. In the area’s worst autumn in 40 years, after weeks of rain, some of it turning to snow, the night is clear, the air still. There is a waxing half-moon, giving Hywel enough light to see into the Turkish trenches. He soon sees his target, a Turkish kabalak poking above the parapet, a lighted cigarette in the hand of its wearer.

  Some of his auto-firing rifles begin to fire. The kabalak and the cigarette disappear. But moments later they come into view once more. Hywel squeezes the trigger, then pauses. Over a million men have been committed to the fighting on Gallipoli. The Turks have suffered a quarter of a million casualties, over 80,000 dead. The British dead number more than 21,000; Australian fatalities almost 9,000; New Zealanders’ almost 3,000, from a contingent of 8,500.

  Hywel decides on an act to defy the odds. He pulls the trigger and watches as the bullet strikes the anonymous Turk’s head. But it strikes the red-crescent cap badge of his kabalak, sending it reeling into the air. In a last act of compassion on a peninsula that has become a mass graveyard for over 100,000 men, Hywel spares one life. The now bareheaded Turk ducks down below the parapet, offers a quick prayer of thanks to the Prophet and lives to fight another day.

  Hywel then runs down to the beach where, waist deep in water, Bardie is waiting for him.

  ‘Did you bag one?’ he asks.

  ‘No, sir. It didn’t seem right. Just put the wind up him a bit.’

  Bardie smiles and offers Hywel his hand to help him aboard. ‘Perhaps you’re right. I suppose there’s been enough killing for a few yards of worthless sand and rock.’

  Both men clamber aboard, Bardie being the last to lift his foot from Turkish sand. As they make for the lighter which will carry them to Imbros, both men look back to the empty beaches and barren hinterland of Gallipoli. Abandoned supply dumps are blazing, sending sparks and embers high into the dawn sky. Artillery shells are blowing ammunition dumps, as are carefully laid explosives, timed by the sappers to go off thirty minutes after the last men depart.

  The fires create an eerie orange-red glow across the desolate landscape.

  ‘A foreign shore if ever there was one, Lieutenant.’

  ‘Indeed, sir. Was it ever worth the effort?’

  ‘I suppose not, but hindsight’s a wonderful thing.’

  ‘So, Egypt for us.’

  ‘Yes. Kitty, my wife, is there. So it will be a happy Christmas and Hogmanay for us. What about you?’

  ‘I don’t have a sweetheart, sir, and my two brothers died in Flanders last year. I have a sister out here somewhere on a hospital ship. Hopefully, she’ll end up in Egypt eventually, and I’ll find her there.’

  ‘Well, let’s make sure you do. I’ll speak to someone on Lemnos with RAMC and track her down. What’s her name?’

  ‘Bronwyn Thomas, QAIMNS.’

  ‘Regard it as done, Lieutenant, and my grateful thanks for all you have done for the Scottish. You’ve produced a fine company of sharpshooters. What will you do after Egypt?’

  ‘Well, if your regiment is posted to France, I’d like to go with you. If not, I’ll ask to be transferred back to the School of Sniping.’

  ‘Good, then let’s hope we both go to the Western Front.’

  The faultless withdrawal from Anzac and Suvla Bay will be repeated with the same flawless precision at the tip of the peninsula, at Cape Helles, a few days later. Remarkably, after all the death and destruction of the previous months, all three Allied bridgeheads are evacuated without a single casualty. Jack Churchill writes to his brother:

  Monro and Birdwood carried out the whole operation, and I think the government and Lord K owe them a great deal. A disaster would have sealed it for the government, I should imagine, but this will give them a new lease of life – more’s the pity! It was a great feat – but we’re all very depressed at having to come away. The Anzacs feel it very much. One of them said to me, ‘We have lots of friends sleeping in those valleys. We should never have been told to leave them.’

  Several years later, the new leader of his nation, Mustafa Kemal – Atatürk – will gladden the hearts of the loved ones of all those Allied dead left behind on Gallipoli with the words:

  Those heroes that shed their blood

  And lost their lives.

  You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country.

  Therefore, rest in peace.

  There is no difference between the Johnnies

  And the Mehmets to us, where they lie side by side

  Here in this country of ours,

  You, the mothers,

  Who sent their sons from far-away countries

  Wipe away your tears,

  Your sons are now lying in our bosom

  And are in peace

  After having lost their lives on this land they have

  Become our sons as well.

  Atatürk’s immortal words will later be carved on a memorial stone above Anzac Cove on Turkey’s Gallipoli Peninsula for future generations to read.

  Friday 31 December

  Myrina, Mudros Bay, Lemnos, Greece

  The second year of the Great War closes quietly. It is as if the world is taking a breath before another year of anxiety and suffering begins. The conundrum of the Western Front continues to muddle the minds of the generals, so they have hibernated for a while, hoping that a magical solution will occur to them in their slumber. The anguish of Gallipoli has passed, leaving the combatants to lick their wounds. The Eastern Front is locked in the icy grip of winter, allowing, at least, time to count the dead.

  There has been no Christmas truce to offer a spark of hope on Christmas Day. One British divisional order declared bluntly, ‘Nothing of the kind is to be allowed on the Front this year. The artillery will maintain a slow barrage throughout the day and all men will be inst
ructed to shoot on sight any of the enemy exposing themselves.’

  At one point on Christmas Eve, near Plugstreet Wood, a fine German tenor began to sing arias from La Traviata, but stopped suddenly and was not heard again. Near Wulvergem, in a repeat of the previous year, a Christmas tree, complete with lighted candles, appeared at the top of a German parapet. The British officer opposite ordered that it be shot down. A few moments later the candles were extinguished and the tree cut to pieces in a hail of bullets.

  There was just one exception, an incident that will be covered up until after the war, when the story will finally emerge. Encouraged by their German enemies opposite, a few foot guards from 1st and 2nd Scots Guards and 1st Coldstream wander into no-man’s-land in sight of a junior officer. Only when a senior officer bellows at them do they return. GHQ in St Omer is so outraged by the incident that Lord Cavan, Commander-in-Chief, Guards Division, is asked to account for himself. The junior officer concerned is sent home in disgrace and Cavan has to issue a grovelling apology on behalf of his entire division.

  At Blair Atholl, Helen Stewart-Murray’s Red Cross Hospital is up and running, and the Ballroom Ward is full of Scottish NCOs and rankers from various Scottish regiments. Helen’s fiancé, David Tod, has taken over the administration of the hospital and is acting as its supplies officer and book-keeper. The 7th Duke is in better spirits over the holiday period and Maud Grant even persuades him to travel to Blair Castle for Christmas lunch, although he declines the invitation to play Father Christmas and deliver Red Cross parcels to the patients.

  Harry Woodruff and Maurice Tait are still digging and repairing trenches for the Royal Engineers near Dickebusch in Flanders. But they were in billets for Christmas Day, when the cooks managed to serve roast pork, courtesy of the local Belgian farmers, and a surfeit of Christmas puddings, some of which the men will still be eating well into 1915, courtesy of the Red Cross and hundreds of well-wishers at home.