Walk a War in My Shoes

by Murray Ernest Hall

  The listening school is to train one in catching sounds underground, also to judge as to what distance they are off. I have already learnt most of this “on the job” over the last two months but the school is a great refresher, connecting the “how & why” without the pressure of being twenty yards under no-man’s land feeling the earth shake. I must say, it is much more pleasant to hear tapping and know it’s a friend on the other side than to hear the same and know it’s Fritz with a few feet of earth separating us.

  For the three days we are there we also take a few lessons in mine rescue, general mining tactics, explosives and camouflets but most of our training is directed at listening techniques. A few Belgian Officers sit in on several of the lectures, but I cannot warm to them, they come across as real sour dogs.

  I get back to Cordonnerie and the war hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s a bonny weather day and the show I walk back into is pretty lively. The clear blue sky has brought everyone out for a fight this day. There is one continual roar of guns going off and the aeroplanes of both sides are buzzing around overhead like bees. Shells in the hundreds are busting all around them, the air is thick with shrapnel. The war rages in front of my eyes and I’m staring up at it like a spectator at a Guy Fawkes Night.

  Some good news in the form of mum’s billy arrives from home. I was rather surprised to see it as it had been travelling since last April. That night I knock up a plum duff (thick flower pudding) fit for a king. Thanks Mum, I love you too.

  More good news in late September when I hear that the 1st Australian Pioneer Battalion were moved out of the Pozieres front and are now camped up in “Pioneer Camp” a mile or two east of Ypres.

  Along with fifty other men, (originally taken on strength from the 1st Pioneers), I am transferred out of the 2nd Tunnelling Company and sent up to Ypres to re-join the 1st Pioneers. I’m thrilled about this transfer and cannot wait to catch up with all my old cobbers. I’m reassigned back into “D” Company on arrival.

  The first day back in camp shatters me. I walk around all day learning who has been killed and of the hundreds of others that have been seriously wounded, it tears my heart out. The 1st Pioneer Battalion arrived in France with one thousand and sixty men. One hundred and fifty are now dead and over four hundred injured. In the three months I’ve been away from them they have been slaughtered.

  I think I’ve walked into the wrong camp, I hardly recognise anyone.

  19th September 1916

  Dear Wal,

  Your letter dated 23/7/16 to hand safely along with 8 others of about the same date. I see you are still anxious to be over here but I advise you to be in no hurry - I've been in the firing line about 5 months now and I can say it's not the game it's cracked up to be - they try to kill over here, but we are all of the same opinion i.e, if we are doomed nothing will save us, I've seen chaps come out of a bombardment that one would hardly think a mosquito could live in & then be bowled over by a chance shell - then again one of our chaps who sleeps in the same billet as I do when I'm out of the trenches was killed by a train last night & found this morning.

  This chap was all through Gallipoli & been a bit old was given a job over here of keeping the billets & surroundings clean. We used to joke with him on what a sweet cop he'd got & say that he would never get killed - of course the billets are well within range of the guns, but one would be pretty stiff to get knocked. There is only one train a day on this line and it runs at night without lights, so Fritz cannot observe it - how Watty (his nick name) got killed is a puzzle - he must have either slipped or took a fit on the line or was dead drunk, at any rate even if he did not go into the firing line, it did not save him.

  As I said in a previous letter if you ever come over then keep out of the Inf. get into the A.S.C or artillery, or better still learn to drive a motor. One gets sweet cops here in driving motor transports or lorries.

  I saw John Robertson down the line this morning he had the corner of his dug out knocked in with a whizz-bang while he was in it, but he did not get touched.

  We are giving Fritz a bit of a hurry up at present, I expect they have a few duckboard harriers in their lines. We have had some pretty solid bombardments since I last wrote but there is no advancing lately, it usually ends up in raiding Fritz's trenches and to get machine guns etc. & a few prisoners, but after a heavy shelling there is very seldom many left in the front line to tell the tale.

  In this sapping we are always near his trench & perhaps under it, underground where I am now on a listening post writing this & at the same time hearing the lovely (very, I don't think) work of Fritz. It's a sensational life (do you think you would like it) never knowing when you will be blown to kingdom come, where the crows fly backwards to keep the dust out of their eyes.

  I believe they are cutting up one Aust division that has not been in action yet to reinforce the divisions here as the reinforcements from Aust are not sufficient, so you can guess the causalities have been heavy. We are all known as "Anzacs" over here, I suppose you know the meaning of it, i.e, Australian New Zealand Army Corps".

  So you have a "mademoiselle" in Coburg now. What's Sth Yarra done?

  Well Wal this is all for present so will close, hoping you are well as I am.

  I remain your aff Brother, Ern Alf.

  CHAPTER 10

  THE RIVER SOMME

  October – November – December 1916

  “Our chaps were caught in a big raid the other night and suffered terribly.

  While now in no-man’s land are dozens of dead which cannot be buried unless an armistice is granted. Before going over the parapet our artillery bombarded Fritz heavily and of course he retaliated which was the cause of most casualties. Most of the Australian’s were caught by machine gun fire.

  The other morning (four days after the bombardment) one of our chaps spotted something waving half way across to Fritz’s line. After studying it for a while through a periscope, we came to the conclusion that it was a wounded man in a shell hole waving a gas helmet to attract attention.

  Two stretcher bearers then got permission to go out and get him (this was in broad daylight). So, throwing the stretcher over first they ran out & brought him in while Fritz, to his honour, never fired a shot.”

  THE SECOND DAY back with the 1st Pioneers turns into another very ugly affair. The Battalion is “resting” after being on the front line for three months, and the newly established Pioneer Camp is considered to be back far enough from Ypres to be safe. About a mile east of us, between our camp and Ypres, is a Belgium Artillery Battery. We can clearly hear and feel the percussion of those big guns lobbing shells over the top of Ypres and into the German front line. The Germans have probably worked out where the shells are coming from and are continually trying to take out the Belgium Battery in retaliation.

  The Germans extend their range and at five o’clock in the afternoon our camp is shelled. “C Company” are billeted in a farmhouse on the perimeter of the camp and they take two direct hits. Five men are killed and nineteen injured.

  For the next two weeks, all available men are engaged in fortifying the camp with a row of trenches and the construction of deep dugouts. The secondary purpose of these works is that if Ypres falls to the Germans our troops would have an established trench line in place to fall back too.

  In the middle of October, the Battalion receives orders to move out. We are required in an area around one hundred miles south of Ypres where the front line passes through the River Somme. Thousands of Australians are fighting there. It’s also the area where the 1st Australian Pioneers were positioned previously, while I was away from them doing my stint with the 2nd Tunnelling mob. So, while the area will be familiar to some, it will all be new to me.

  With a few stops along the journey, the trip south takes two weeks. From Pioneer Camp in Ypres we march eight miles west to Poperinge and camp up in a field for the night. The following day we are on foot again, crossing back into France and ten miles to Steenvoorde. Another nigh
t in the open. Steenvoorde to Arneke, fourteen-mile day, sleep in the bush. Arneke to Serques, twelve miles and the luxury of a tent billet.

  We are in the Serques “Tent City” for five days, the camp is rough but far better than sleeping under the stars, or rain. The weather is turning quickly, very cool at night and at least every second day it rains. We occupy ourselves with some light training drills but there isn’t much pressure on for a change. Three hundred men at a time march the five miles into St Omer for a bath and clothing exchange. That filled a day in nicely with a walk back to camp wearing new rags on the back.

  On the 21st of October, the Battalion marches out of Serques early for the five miles march to the St Omer siding. At 8:30am we entrain to Ailly La Haut Clochers. The sixty-mile train trip is very slow, sometimes at walking pace, the locomotive driver surveying the condition of the tracks along the way. While we are a fair distance away from the enemy lines, sabotage of infrastructure such as train lines is not out of the question. We arrive in Ailly at 8:00pm and camp up beside the siding. We’re there for two days.

  A motor lorry convoy transfers us to Dernancourt, passing through Amiens on the way.

  The big gun boom, boom, boom comes into hearing range and progressively gets louder. The landscape changes quickly with bomb craters all over the place and damaged buildings everywhere.

  The camp we walk into is called “Pommiers Camp” and is situated between Fricourt and Mametz. It’s a pig sty. We are completely exposed and there is no shelter available. No operational cook house and the officers are in a flap as they don’t even have a headquarters to run the Battalion from. A few chaps scrounge up some tarpaulins and stretch them out between a couple of trees. The conditions are so inadequate that “C” and “D” Companies are turned around and marched back four miles to Albert. The billets here are only marginally better, just a couple of badly damaged barns, some with the roofs blown off. The majority of us are sleeping out in an open paddock.

  A call came out for volunteers to try their hand as machine gunners.

  Now I’m a machine gunner.

  I got the nod and spent two days lugging one around and putting a few shells down a makeshift range. It takes a bit of getting used to, the noise is frightening when your eighteen inches away and pulling the trigger. The weapon is the British made “Vickers” and uses .303 ammunition. The unit is good for five hundred rounds a minute in battle but for training purposes this is reduced to about half that rate.

  We train in three-man teams. One is the gunner, a second manages the ammunition supply and will assist if the gun becomes jammed. The third acts as a back-up for the first two but his primary role is to manage the water supply required for cooling the gun.

  Each man trains in all roles and my eye is good as the gunner. I can sweep a decent, level arch with good accuracy after a few sessions.

  My only downfall is in moving the gun from one point to another rapidly. It weights around forty pounds and although the tri-pod legs can be folded up quickly, I struggle to carry the main body easily. Taller men can get a bit more ground clearance lugging it around than I can. Under pressure to change position, you really need to have the arms of an octopus to ensure that gun and the consumables - water & ammunition - all move together. My other two mates were terrific chaps and as a team we did fairly well. So, we are in the reserve at present and will be taken on strength (called up) as soon as there is a vacancy.

  There were some fine orchards close to the range with trees loaded with apples. You may guess that I made the most of that little windfall!

  The Battalion which is now back up to full strength of a thousand men are all engaged in repairing a road from Montauban to Bazentin. The road runs roughly parallel to the front line in a north-south direction, about a mile or two from the River Somme. It is in a terrible state, in fact, in some places there is no road. It’s been blown to atoms by the shelling and all must be repaired and made stable before we can bring heavy equipment forward.

  We have to put up with a lot out here. Two weeks of rain and cold, camping out in it all the time, Fritz throwing the odd shell over our heads. It’s starting to knock everyone’s moral around.

  The main highlight lately is that our mail is still getting through which helps lift the spirits. It’s not uncommon to pass a few letters around to each other, even if you have no knowledge of your mate’s background. He’ll willingly fill in the gaps if you are interested enough to ask.

  Due to the heavy rain in late October, the road to Bazentin is just one big mud hole and the Battalion is moved a mile westward to Bernafy Camp. We are under rag torn canvas in a section nicknamed (by someone with a sense of humour) as “Cosy Corner”. The companies are split up again to cover a range of requirements. Trench improving and repairs to “Switch Trench”, repairing and relaying sleepers on a light railway and my mob are back up to our knees in mud, sapping and deep dugout mining. Fritz’s trench line is one hundred yards away at its closest point and no-man’s land is a mud pit. A few rolls of entanglement wire, debris and dead men litter the area.

  I don’t think there will be anymore advancing as the weather has really closed in. In fact, I reckon we’ll be in the same trenches here when the war ends.

  We get and give more or less the same amount of shells every day and it’s all about raids along this sector. We shell Fritz like billyo and then a picked party goes over to see what they caught and return. There is a big gamble going out into no-man’s land after we have shelled them. The assumption is that we have knocked a few over but you cannot be sure that our shells have been successful. The first inkling of a bad decision is if Fritz opens up with machine gun fire on our advancing party crossing no-man’s land. This is where the majority of casualties occur. Of course, Fritz does the same to us. It’s called trench warfare.

  We took a few hits a night or two back which opened up a section of trench facing Fritz and it needed to be rebuilt quick smart. In daylight, one side of the remaining trench would have been isolated from the other. Fritz’s snipers would have a ball picking off our chaps trying to get from one side to another. He would surely have an open view looking slightly downhill into the gaping hole that his artillery was responsible for.

  The good news is that the Fritz bombardment eases up. Reports trickle back to us that he has been pushed back or been subdued by our artillery. Our chaps have sent observers out to have a look but for the time being, it is relatively quiet.

  Before we commence the work of rebuilding, we need to clean away a considerable amount of debris including bodies and body parts. Good warfare practice is that all unusable debris is utilised as fill for the crater, anything that will take up space and save time shovelling blue clay and mud gets turfed into the crater as backfill.

  The crater that has collapsed the trench wall needs to be filled in, the walls shored up, parapet in place and communications along the length of the trench restored, all before daylight.

  We only had a couple of kerosene lamps to shed some light. There was just enough light to see what we were doing but not enough to light the area up, there wasn’t any need to give the Germans a bullseye to work with. So, it was very dim light with a hundred men working over the top of each other like ants.

  As I approach the missing section of trench a soldier walks towards me. He’s holding an arm. He has his right hand clasped into the right hand belonging to the arm. He is using both hands to carry it.

  The soft light allows me to see some flesh and blood where an upper arm should have been.

  The soldier is holding it with the same care and respect as one might do when you meet someone you know, joining right hands in a solid handshake. He must know the owner of the arm really well as he holds their elbow up with his left hand as an added sign of a close bond.

  An officer behind me barks to the soldier, “What are you doing Private?” The soldier does not answer, he has that glazed look, the stare that many chaps around here have developed. “Don’t waste time.
Into the pit (crater) with it.” There is a delay while the officer’s orders sink in. The soldier looks down in a caring manner at the arm, he turns around slowly, walks a couple of yards back and throws the arm into the middle of the crater.

  Because I am a farmer I’m familiar with the sight of blood and guts, it comes with the profession. From as far back as I can remember animals were slaughtered and dismembered for the purpose of supplying produce to market or to feed our own family. I accepted the ugliness of that side of our industry and you do what you must do, including the clean-up required.

  In this stinking hell hole in the middle of this war, my mind will not allow me to deal with death and slaughter in the same manner. There is a very real chance that I know the person who owned that arm or any other of the bits and pieces laying all over the broken trench. I cannot work in the trench as if I was on the farm.

  I pick up a shovel and move to the crater rim and commence shovelling earth, mud, and debris back into the middle. I’m not concerned that I am exposed, standing up in no man’s land. If Fritz opens up in the dark with a machine gun sweep, then I’ll worry about that then. For the time being, I’ll swing on a shovel. Others can attend to the ugliness.

  As the winter starts to bite further and snow beings to fall daily, the fight with the enemy slows. It’s almost as if a part time truce has been called while both sides deal with the weather. The days are very short as it gets dark around 4:30pm and if the fog rolls in it’s impossible to see anything anyway.

  Neither side seems short of ammunition though and throw a few shells over at each other at various time of the day or night just to keep everyone on their toes, but nothing like the twenty-four hour a day onslaught we were getting when the sun was out. The scrapping in the air has also backed off. On a clear day you might see one or two planes passing over and recently I saw one come down in flames but it’s quiet up there too.