Walk a War in My Shoes

by Murray Ernest Hall

  Fleurbaix village had taken a hammering, long before we turned up. All the houses are shattered with shrapnel and bullet holes, some of them have been blown to atoms. So, you can guess things around here have been pretty fierce from time to time.

  Our trenches have been copping a hiding in different sectors also. They get smashed a treat when Fritz gets his range right but it’s very hard to get it exact. If they only hit a few yards off it means a miss and the trench is left standing.

  One evening we were sitting down making tea when the Germans sent some trench mortars (small shells) over. Wiz-bangs is what we call them. Of course, we didn’t appreciate this funny business and made a hurried retreat. The shells burst about ten yards from where we had been sitting. That particular trench is around three hundred yards from Fritz’s line and there are some sections where the gap between us is only seventy-five yards distance.

  There is no advancing our positions at present as the land needs to be harder after the winter to carry the large guns over it. Consequently, most of the shooting is done by the machine guns, these boys can fire six hundred bullets a minute, so a rifle is not a very big item.

  The nightly lousing parade continues but I’m disappointed with tonight’s effort, only one kill! No matter how often we put on clean clothes we still seem to get them. When we are back out of the trenches we can get hot baths, and clean clothing almost whenever we like. The local area government has taken over an old factory and turned it into Divisional baths. Because thousands of men pass through them, many French people are employed in the washing and repairing of clothing. So, you can imagine it’s a large operation.

  Most of our Australian issue clothing is worn out so we are now getting all “Tommies” uniforms that we swap in exchange at the baths. We can get any quantity of underclothing as well but of course everything is second hand.

  The French language has me stonkered, I get lost very quickly trying to string a few words together. One manages to get by using a couple of words and a lot of hand signals, but it might be a while before I can boast of “speaking French”.

  A couple of baths, a few hot meals and in the blink of an eye we are back in the trenches at Fleurbaix. The area has been slammed again in the short time “D” Company has been away. I spend most nights sandbagging and re-establishing the trench parapet and parados which in some places are almost non-existent.

  One night we are taking a lot of machine gun fire from Fritz. He’s obviously seen the damage in our line during daylight and sets his sights over the area in anticipation of a night time rebuild taking place. During the night, at different intervals, he will sweep the area. He won’t be able to see what he's shooting at however, he knows we are there somewhere. Our men are constantly frustrated by the sweeps and delays in rebuilding the parapet. We no sooner get a sandbag up on the parapet and the mongrel shoots it down.

  Second Lieutenant Meldrum Dobie, who had been in charge of the rum rations early in the night and who has clearly had a few extra nips of his own, informs Corporal Hedley Stephens that he has been out earlier to look at what was being done from the German line. He insists on going out again, maybe “take out the machine gun” while he’s out there.

  Stephens isn’t too happy with Dobie’s bravado but decides to go out with him to “make sure he gets back safely”. Both men are big healthy coots, I wouldn’t want to fight either of them. Dobie is over 6’ and Stephens not far behind him at around 5’10”. Solid Aussie specimens.

  Rum or no rum, it’s a big call and takes a lot of guts to crawl out. They slip out of the gap in the trench wall between a lull in the incoming fire and disappear on their bellies towards Fritz. The rest of us keep filling sand bags. There is a lot of commotion, several rifle shots, and more machine gun sweeps.

  Neither Dobie nor Stephens return.

  No one knows if they have been injured, killed, or taken prisoner, nor are we in a position to take a walk out into no-man’s land to investigate. To put your head up higher than the parapet in daylight would be a sure bet on losing it.

  A few days later they are recorded as POW’s but it’s impossible to say what happened to them.

  At around 7:30pm on 30th May Fritz opens up on our trenches with another savage bombardment that lasts two hours. The party I was with were in a communication trench on our way to the firing line when they started sending over aerial torpedo shells. It is the most frightful experience one can imagine. We were unable to move anywhere, forced to shelter low on the trench floor and ride it out. The shrapnel was flying over us a treat.

  As the bombardment eased, the call came to “stand to”, meaning that a raiding party of Fritz troops was imminent. Every man still standing, and we had a few down, locked in their bayonets and concentrated on the rim of the trench parapet. It was extremely dark and only a muzzle flash or the odd flare going up reflected any light.

  I could feel my heart jumping out of my chest. Shoot first or be shot. If the first shot is wasted then the bayonet becomes the next choice of defence or at worse, I fear, it will come down to a fist fight. I can hear shots, yelling, screaming from along the trench. I’m as tense as a violin string moving my rifle, left, right, left, right, aimed at the parapet rim. I’ve never been so scared in all my life.

  To my relief, nobody came over.

  A messenger bolts through the trench yelling that the raiding party has been chased off, but the trenches have taken a serious knock. The call is for all Pioneers to drop whatever they were doing before the bombardment started and report specifically to the most damaged areas, Front Pine, V.C Avenue and the hardest hit, Mine Avenue. These trenches are only 100 yards from where we were and the 11th Battalion, who were occupying the area, have been cut up badly.

  When I arrive, I went stretcher bearing (they called for volunteers). It was then that I saw some of the most frightful sights you would ever want to see. Men cut down and blown to pieces, I don’t wish to see another sight like it. My hands shake as much from the fear of working with the dead as the fear of the fight. I do my best, offering as much respect as I can but the conditions are very unpleasant. Stacking body parts on a stretcher disturbs me greatly.

  The trenches are rebuilt, and communication lines repaired by daybreak.

  A few days later a couple of letters are pinned up on the Commanding Officers notice board. The first one is from the General’s Staff and the second is from the Commanding Officer of the 11th Battalion. They are full of praise regarding the 1st Pioneers’ efforts and assistance in resisting Fritz, cleaning up and rebuilding the trenches in quick smart time following the recent bombardment. The pat on the back is much appreciated but the truth is that we are all soldiers, that’s what we do.

  Four of our men in the 1st Pioneers are awarded honours for their work from this battle. Sergeant Thomas received the Distinguished Conduct Medal, Corporal Edmonds, Private’s Ryan and Anderson, received the Military Medal.

  Anderson’s medal was awarded posthumously as he was injured by a bomb blast on the night and was dead by the time we got him back to the dressing station.

  Fritz continues to shell our camp in Sailly-sur-la-Lys more frequently and with greater accuracy. There is very limited cover there and we receive orders to construct dug outs that will afford suitable cover for 100 men.

  We are also instructed to build a two-room hut for a farmer whose farm house has been destroyed by fire after Fritz dropped a shell in his farm yard. The inhabitants had been very supportive of our troops in the area so the rebuild is seen as compensation.

  Back in the carpentry workshop our chaps have come up with a magnificent contraption for viewing the German lines from the trenches without having your head taken off. It is an 18” periscope. A timber framed box with a mirror set at an angle at each end. It allows the user to look clearly out over no-man’s land with the benefit of their head being a full six inches below the parapet. Superb work chaps. No sooner has the General Staff inspected it and the order is given to issue each
trench division with one as soon as possible. Another pat on the head for the 1st Pioneers.

  By mid-June we are back in the front-line trenches around Fleurbaix again. The main project of this stint is to dig three saps (trenches) directly out from our front line into no-man’s land. At a given distance the trench then swings left and right, connecting each sap up as if joining three letters “T’” together. The work is all carried out in darkness and we are extremely close, forty – fifty yards, from the German trench. Fritz is that close we can hear him talking some nights.

  The saps are only three feet six inches deep so most of the work is being done on our knees. The plan is that when the saps are complete our chaps will use them to launch raiding parties onto the enemy. We spend a week working on these saps before instructions are received to abandon the project and withdraw. No explanation is offered, however the next company that follows us in sandbags the sap entrances and a Lewis machine gun is installed there. That little toy will give Fritz some tickle when it fires up.

  The 1st Pioneer Battalion are issued with our colours (badges). They are a purple square with a white border and a crossed, gold coloured pick and rifle in the centre. We are as proud as punch to receive these, it gives us a sense of recognition. At the earliest opportunity, we sew them onto our tunic. They look really flash and will no doubt take the tabbies eyes in Australia!

  One night, one hundred and seventy of us are sent out after dark to urgently construct another sap. Before we arrive, our parties encountered German patrols that were out, and shelling of our intended work area is taking place. The operation is abandoned, and we return to camp.

  The weather in June was very decent. Some days were even hot and the country behind our firing line is looking just the thing, everything back there is green. Grass a foot or so high and the fruit trees all have small fruit on them, so I ought to be able to look forward to a good feed in the near future. General rule is that we get one day a week off (lately) so I’ll keep checking in on the fruit which is in a few paddocks just behind the township.

  We get issued with tobacco and cigarettes once a week, but one does not become reliant on it. Ration supply can be a bit hit and miss at times.

  Late June, almost all the one thousand men in the Battalion are assigned to night works. It is simply too dangerous to be out in the open in daylight hours. There are plenty of projects in progress including the digging out of more saps. Unfortunately, it rains non-stop for a week and the trenches become half full of water which quickly becomes mud.

  All the saps are christened with a name which is painted on a timber plank and hung up on the trench wall for ease of location. The head across the sap I work in is named “Rhonda Sap”. Someone’s wife I suppose.

  We also ran out one hundred and fifty feet of spiral wire entanglement (barbed wire) in front of the advanced line between machine gun sweeps on another night.

  A couple more times we are called to “stand to” but nothing eventuates. However, I got the opportunity to stand up on the trench ledge and send five rapid (shots fired in rapid succession) over on a few occasions.

  There are times when I am sure that the Germans are about our equal with their artillery fire. There are days on end where the “boom, boom” from behind and the incoming appear to be one for one. Almost in unison.

  Of course, I cannot see what damage we are doing to them, but I fancy their front line and firing line must be getting a decent stitch up.

  A couple of miles east of our camp in Sailly is a village called Estaires. It’s well known and popular with our men as a place to wander off to when we can get a day off and permitted a leave pass to walk out of camp. It’s an easy trek of about fifty minutes and on one such opportunity I took off with a couple of mates to find a photo studio that we had been told about. We located it without too much trouble and had a few photos taken, individual ones and a great shot of the three of us together. The painted canvas back drop gives the impression of us being in a fancy concert hall. The truth is the studio is in a farmer’s barn.

  We had only been out of the trenches for a couple of hours and hadn’t had time to clean up so there is a lot of mud on display in the photos.

  Our gas masks are slung around our shoulders and you can see our colours that I had sewn onto my upper sleeve. We order a few post card size photos and arrange for one of us to pick them up a couple of days later. I send the best one, with the three of us in it, off to Wal. My individual photo isn’t that good, I look as if I wanted a good sleep, which was true.

  It is rather awkward for letter writing sitting outside the dugout in the firing trench with shells and bullets going overhead. I do my best to get letters away back home as often as I can, apologising for the scribble and mistakes.

  In early July, I let home know that I will soon be transferred to the 2nd Australian Tunnelling Company (2ATC) along with a hundred other men. I have been told that the transfer will only be temporary which pleases me greatly as I’m happy with the Pioneers.

  Now I’m a Miner.

  The transfer narrows the scope of work required of us. Tunnelling has become a very specific engineering activity and we are using deep mines to get under the German front line trenches. The purpose is to blow their line apart from below their feet, hopefully with an element of surprise. The tactic has been working well for us along the front, however, Fritz is doing the same to us.

  I had a sad experience the other night. We get forty-eight hours rations at a time, so what I did was shove mine in a sand bag and put it on top of the dugout while I did my shift sapping. On coming back for a good feed, what a sight to gaze on, those darn rats had scoffed all my bacon and cheese and put a sap in the bread. The rats are as thick as bee’s and as big as cats, I hate them.

  The English Bantams, who were here before us would put a lump of cheese on the end of a bayonet fixed to a rifle and lay it along the sand bags. When the rats started nibbling they would pull the trigger. I hang my tucker up inside the dugout now where there is always someone going in or out to shoo them away.

  We got another hurry up here when Fritz started sending over some sausages (aerial torpedo’s), along with his usual artillery. These sausages are the boys that one can see coming and they make a hole large enough to bury three or four horses.

  The report is deafening. We saw them coming in and had to dive into a deep dugout double quick time. Our artillery boys opened up in retaliation and I hope we gave them as much back as they gave us. Some more of our chaps got knocked though.

  It seems that there is one continuous bombardment working along different sectors of the front at a time. Day and night, all day every day, the big guns just keep dancing. The noise and shaking ground never seem to ease up.

  The Germans have also found their range on Sailly camp and we get hit day and night, it’s definitely safer now being in a front-line trench than in camp. The situation became unliveable and the order is given to prepare to move the camp back further. The final straw came when the cook house was destroyed. We had to sort out our own tucker for a few days. I managed to bandicoot a few potatoes, there are plenty of them growing beyond the camp.

  The decision to move back coincides with handing over the sector to the 5th Pioneer Battalion who have arrived to relieve us. The 1st Pioneers had been in Sailly for just over three months, hadn’t taken any ground off Fritz but we didn’t lose any either. Three months of digging trenches, throwing bombs at each other, and burying a few good men.

  There is a lot of relief when at 05:00 on the 9th July one thousand and forty-six men belonging to the 1st Pioneers march out of Sailly-sur-la-Lys on a five-hour (eight mile) trek north-west to the village of Merris (France).

  Just out of Sailly, along with the other one hundred men that have been selected to transfer to the 2nd Australian Tunnelling Company with, I wave goodbye to our mates and turn right. About midday I walked into the 2ATC camp near the front line at Armentieres (France).

  CHAPTER 9

&
nbsp; 2ND AUSTRALIAN TUNNELLING

  COMPANY

  July - August – September 1916

  “The leaving of dead bodies in the trenches is an objectionable practice.

  Nearly every trench had numerous bodies or portions of bodies which, from being walked in, became covered in earth and gradually they form an insecure footing and at all times lessen the cover available.

  Burial parties should patrol trenches and systematically remove such obstructions.”

  Daily Intelligence report entry, August 1916

  THE ACTIVITY ABOVE ground, around the front line of Armentieres, is very much the same as it was a few miles south at Sailly-sur-la-Lys. The enemy is at arm’s reach, literally. The big guns are shaking the earth and the incoming shelling is just as relentless.

  The major difference between the sectors is the amount of work going on beneath the surface. Almost seven hundred men are with the 2nd Australian Tunnelling Company (2ATC) working this area. While the ongoing work requires us to keep the trenches repaired, dig saps and dugouts, the major emphasis is on mining very deep forward tunnels under the enemy’s front line.

  My first couple of weeks, barring the odd day off, are spent working the dark to daylight shift in the trenches. When we get a few hours off we need to walk back behind the firing line and camp up in some billets for any sleep we can steal. Food is a big problem. It’s completely a “do-it-yourself-job” for days on end. We lost a couple of chaps a few nights back who were issuing out stew & tea along the trench. They took a direct shell hit and we haven’t seen them, or a tucker run since. I’ve had three biscuits and a cup of tea in three days.

  Mum had written to me saying that she had sent me a “Billy” and some food stuffs. It hasn’t arrived yet, but it would sure come in handy about now. I could polish off the contents without winking. The fruit about these parts has ripened on the trees so there is a fair amount of five fingered purchasing going on when we get back to grab it.