Walk a War in My Shoes

by Murray Ernest Hall

  I’ve witnessed a few aerial dog fights between our boys and Fritz, we don’t always win though, we’ve lost a few. Fritz shouldn’t be underestimated, he is also very skilled in the air. Win lose or draw, I’m in awe of their skill and bravery.

  In late May there has been a massive improvement in the weather and with it comes the very welcomed news that the Battalion is to be rested.

  We are pulled back twenty miles south-west to the hamlet of Dernancourt. With every yard put between us and the front line, I can feel the pressure and tension leaving my body. I start to relax the shoulders a little, bounce a few steps on my toes, share a joke, feel the life and soul slowly return to my bones. It’s a good feeling.

  Dernancourt is another small town, narrow main street with a few little shops, bakery, café and a small tidy church. The 1st Australian Pioneer Battalion are billeted in a tent camp a couple of hundred yards away from the town centre.

  While the pressure of front line soldiering is off, the Commanding Officer is a hard task master. Dernancourt town centre is off limits, only a handful of leave passes are offered at any given time. The daily notice board lists, “Battalion sports, church parade, training and inter-company competitions” to keep our minds and bodies active!

  France

  5th May 1917

  Dear Wal,

  Here beginnith another epistle.

  It is some considerable time since I wrote, but one does not get much time to himself.

  I received a mail a couple of days back and one P [postcard] was from you dated 4.3.17. Well I am still camped near Bapaume and still almost neutral well behind the firing line. We are attached to the A.L.R. (Anzac Light Railway) so I am well up in the art of navvying7. We've been making and repairing lines around Bapaume for the last month or 6 weeks and have only been among the big noises a couple of times, so we are in clover.

  Nearly fell in the fat the night before last though, there had been a big stunt on the evening before in which our chaps gained ground and Fritz was counter-attacking, we had to stand to, but Fritz was held back, so we were not needed. He still shells Bapaume, but they are few and far between, a Taube [German plane] came over last night and dropped a few bombs but did not do much damage.

  We are having bonny weather at present, almost a fortnight's drought up to date and still going strong, so you can guess that with good weather the bombardments are getting heavier, also plenty of scrapping in the air.

  It is good-o with all the countryside looking green again, quite a different aspect to what it is around Fritz’s - the old front line. I was down there the other day, in fact it is only 4 or 5 miles from here and it’s still as desolate as ever - too much like the Egyptian desert for my liking.

  We are shifting off this front any day now, but where to 'tis hard to say, likely enough up North.

  Leave to Blighty is still given pretty scantily. I reckon if I'm lucky I'll get mine 'après la guerre' [after the war].

  Well its nearly time for me to go on shift, so I close with best regards to any enquiries and hoping you are well, as I am.

  Your Aff. [Affectionate] Bro. [Brother] Ern.

  CHAPTER 13

  YOU WIN SOME, YOU LOSE SOME

  June – July - August 1917

  16th June 1917

  Private E.A HALL 4208a

  CRIME – When on Active Service, absenting himself without leave from 11:00am 10.06.17 until apprehended by Military Police in Amiens at 2:30pm, (3 ½ hours).

  Fined by Field Commanding Officer, 1st Australian Pioneers.

  Total forfeiture: Two day’s pay, 10/-

  EARLY IN JUNE General Walker arrived in camp to inspect and address the Battalion. A thousand men line up and are told that the Allies, which included the 1st and 2nd Australian Tunnelling Companies, have blown nineteen very large mines just south of Ypres, along high ground known as Messines Ridge. The Germans have lost thousands of men and many thousands more have reported to have surrendered. We have taken ground off Fritz and the sense of pride attached to the progress in this darn war has everyone poking their chest out. It’s a very joyous day.

  Eighteen months of planning, excavating, tunnelling and stock piling massive amounts of high explosive (Ammonal) under strategic points deep under the Fritz front line along the Messines Ridge has paid off.

  I am particularly proud of my small involvement in this brutal destruction of the German front line. My three-month stint with the 2nd Australian Tunnelling Company around Armentieres last year was spent digging, listening and labouring with the same objectives in mind. Many of the men that I worked with and who remained with the 2nd Tunnelling Company would have been directly involved. My thoughts are with them and the sense of achievement they must be feeling.

  The rumour mill is up and running that the Messines Ridge explosions will be enough to send Fritz packing and end the war. Every man in our camp is buoyed with this news and fingers are crossed that we might all still be home by Christmas.

  The next day, the notice board reads that the daily activity will be “Church Parade”. The euphoria of the previous day’s news overrides my desire to spend a few hours standing around being preached too. Along with a mate who comes from Wangaratta, Arthur Howell, we jump a ride on a motor lorry and travel to the town of Amiens, about an hour south-west of here. With a few franc’s in our pockets, our intention is to grab a decent feed and a bottle or two of plonk then be back in camp by nightfall.

  If the war has really taken a turn for the better then we deserve to let our hair down a bit, besides, no one will miss us.

  The day started off well and we were in a café in Amiens by lunch time. Wolfed into a decent feed of steak stew that was choc-o-block with fresh veggies, magnificent. Washed down with a carafe of the local red wine and we were on top of the world. We had a couple of other chores in mind, so we made a conscious effort not to get trapped in the café all afternoon. The next stop was an open shed behind the café that had been set up as a photo studio. Typical of other photo shops I’ve seen behind the lines, it’s fitted out with a painted canvas backdrop, floor rug and cloth covered chair as props. Easy to give the impression that we were in the King’s palace. We paid for a couple of postcards with the pair of us in the photo, Arthur standing, me seated.

  We walked out of the barn and came unstuck.

  The first three chaps we walked into are Military Police who ask to see our leave passes. We cannot produce them and attempts to plead our case and be allowed a few hours extra grace fall on deaf ears.

  The Police have heard all our banter before and cannot be persuaded to turn a blind eye to our indiscretion. We are “officially” arrested and escorted back down the cobble-stoned street to where our lorry is still standing.

  The driver of the lorry returned about half an hour later (with a couple of bottles of his own under his jacket) and is instructed to take us straight back to the Dernancourt camp. We share a few laughs, and the driver’s plonk, on the journey back in, accepting our fate with good humour.

  A few days later, around twenty men including Arthur, myself, and the lorry driver, are berated by the Commanding Officer for a variety of offences. Depending on the extent of each individual’s case, most are fined. What saves Arthur and I from being locked up is that we are currently in a camp “resting” so the offence is not considered as serious as if we had walked away from the front-line trench and got on the grog.

  After a day or two, and probably because he’s sick of men walking out of camp, the Commanding Officer relaxes the issuing of leave passes and a bit more freedom of movement is allowed. This doesn’t help me get my two-day’s pay back though.

  I arranged for another chap to pick up our photos from town. When I received mine back, I squeeze a bit of news onto the back of it and posted it off to home. I made mention of the mines explosion but not with much detail as the censors would only scribble all over the card or even tear the photo up, so I was careful not to elaborate on that point. I also mention that
I’d caught up with a good mate from Beech Forest, Les Scouller, he’s going well.

  I heard that Ern Smedley lost a couple of fingers and has been shipped out to Blighty to have the injury attended too.

  It has been great weather lately, too hot if anything. A couple of thunder storms and lightning have rumbled past, but the temperature has remained quite warm. There is a river close by, (River Somme) and many of us have made the most of it, swimming backwards and forwards from one bank to the other. One would not think it possible that the climate and the appearance of this country could change so much in a couple of months or be so tranquil a handful of miles away from the front.

  More bad news finds me while in Dernancourt when I learn that my childhood mate and neighbour, Jim Neighbour, has been killed. Jim had lived with his mother and worked as a farm labourer wherever he could to support them both. My father had given him a few day’s work clearing trees and helping around Cloverdale farm from time to time. His poor mother would be suffering terribly with the loss of her only child. She could never expect to run their three-hundred-and-twenty-acre property on her own. Poor woman. I cannot begin to imagine the heart ache and stress that Jim’s death will cause her. I must write to her and offer my condolences.

  It gets worse. My cousin Fenton Hall who has been with the 21st Battalion has been wounded. The word is that he received a severe gunshot wound to the arm and has been sent to hospital in England. I can picture in my mind the scene around the “Woodlands” farm dining table with the Hall clan gathered around. I can only hope that he recovers quickly.

  By late June, Battalion training and Church Parades have just about run their race and we are delegated more specific soldiering roles again. Albeit, away from the front line. Two companies are marched a few miles north to the village of Aveluy to construct a school while the rest of us are kept close to camp excavating several trenches. Both projects are to be utilised for training of our own troops.

  One day we are all marched a mile and a half to Ribemont-sur-Ancre where we have a Divisional Gas School and spend the day being instructed on the use of liquid fire apparatus. Using air pressure to pump fuel or oil through a hollow tube, these units can throw liquid fire twenty to thirty yards. The biggest danger to the soldier operating them along the front is that if the enemy sees you then you carry an even bigger target on your back. They will make every effort to knock over such a weapon before it gets close. Fritz has the same weaponry, he invented it, so we play the same game.

  On another occasion, the entire Battalion are marched a mile away to Lavieville for inspection by King George V. We all line up on both sides of the roadway and wait for a couple of hours until his motor lorry and escorts drive slowly past. I was lucky enough to be in the front row and had a decent look at the man. It was quite a warming experience to see our King at such close quarters. He didn’t stop to chat or shake any hands, just the odd wave and salute as the motor moved along. I fear that his presence is a moral boosting exercise which would suggest a big stunt is in the wind. Our Battalion have been away from the big guns for nearly five weeks now, so the Kings visit could suggest we are going back into the fight very shortly. This wasn’t exactly how most of us had thought it was going to be.

  Bert Hamill is another lifelong mate from Beech Forest, (we’ve know each other all our lives). We signed up on the same day and have been together through the sand, mud and blood since. The lucky beggar picked up a ten day leave pass to England. My application is obviously still on the bottom of the pile.

  Ten days after the King’s visit we’re on the move. The 1st Pioneers are marched out of Dernancourt Camp and head north a few miles to Marlborough and Wellington Camps in Bouzincourt. We spend a few days there with full knowledge that the Battalion is now required to travel further north in support of the strategic stronghold of Ypres.

  “D” Company entrain from Aveluy siding late in the afternoon of July 8th and travel through the night, arriving at Caestre around nine o’clock next morning. From there we march the four miles into camp at Hazebrouck and stay the night. The next day a convoy of motor lorries transport us the twenty miles further westward, away from the front line, to Saint-Martin-au-Laert. We camp overnight in a paddock under the stars. The following day is a decent slog, marching ten miles into the tent camp at Lumbres.

  The beauty of all this travel is that we find ourselves a fair distance from harm’s way. The tortured town of Ypres and the front line is fifty miles to our east. If the rest of the war is to be spent this far back in open green paddocks and not a big gun in sight, then our luck might just have improved.

  The Battalion numbers have been lifted with replacements arriving into Lumbres camp. We are now considered to be at full strength again. Forty-eight Officers and one thousand one hundred and forty-nine other ranks, a total of eleven hundred and ninety-seven men.

  Three days in a row we are sent out to construct a rifle range close to the Lumbres camp, but the rain has returned and has been unrelenting. We march out to the site at 7:30am, do a “U” turn in the pouring rain and proceed back to camp.

  An area under canvas is converted to a training school as an alternative activity. A couple of Lewis machine guns are set up and most of the chaps are put through their paces learning basic handling skills. The Battalion now has around fifty Lewis guns and it is critical that everyone knows how to pick one up and use it if called on to do so.

  The Lewis is a completely different toy than the Vickers machine gun. Whereas the latter takes a crew of three, the Lewis gunners operate in pairs. One handles the weapon, the other keeps his head down and will do the reloading. If the primary gunner is incapacitated, the second chap assumes both roles.

  The Lewis is also much lighter and very easy to carry around, not much more cumbersome than the standard issue rifle. The designer was an American chap, however the version we have been issued with was manufactured in Britain. It’s good for five to six hundred rounds a minute and accurate to around five hundred yards. It’s a fantastic advance in modern armoury and extremely easy to operate.

  The exercise helps fill in a couple of days but due to the firing range not being set up, no live firing can take place.

  I receive a tap on the shoulder that I am required to report to the Battalion headquarters tent. The hairs on the back of my neck are standing up as I walk up and introduce myself. My first and obvious thought is, “Who’s died now”?

  The bad news is that “D” Company will be transferred to Ypres immediately. The good news is presented to me in the form of a ten day leave pass for England, valid from 06:00am next day. You beauty!

  Fifty men from the Battalion, all long timers, are granted leave. The process is very well organised and orderly. We entrain before daylight and travel the short distance to Calais and then a short walk to the wharf where a hospital ship is waiting for us. I’m told to put on a life belt and instructed to be alert for enemy ships. Although the coasts are only thirty miles apart this is a major shipping lane and Fritz has often attacked ships in this region.

  The crossing takes three hours and I spend most of it on the open deck chatting and passing around tobacco to a few wounded soldiers being transferred to hospital in England. There are a lot of poor coots below deck that are seriously wounded and are in the care of Australian and English nurses. On arrival at Dover we all chip in and help carry the wounded off the ship and into waiting motor lorries.

  The train to London is easy enough and we have already been briefed on our billet options and where to get a free meal courtesy of the Commonwealth of Australia. I team up with three of my closest mates from the 1st Pioneers and spend three days sightseeing around grand old London town. We settled on accommodation in a boarding house where the rate is also subsidised by the Australian Government, so we don’t need to dig too deep into our own pockets.

  What a magnificent place London is, so much history, so many things to see and do. Jumping on and off buses, learning how to use the underground
railway system. I’ve never been so busy in all my life!

  One of the chaps has a relative in Sheffield and convinces us all to jump on a train and go up there. Our Australian uniform is a free ticket on the transport system while we are here.

  It was a good call as we are treated like kings. Fed, entertained and introduced to tabbies left, right and centre. The lassies are truly great company, they show us around Sheffield and Chesterfield and take us to some theatre shows. We take walks through the parks, eat too much food and swap names and addresses. Everyone promises to write. It will cost me a month’s pay in writing paper.

  I had one lump in the throat moment when in Chesterfield. An old lady came over to a table we were sitting at in a café and wanted to talk. She had two sons who had joined the British army and had been sent to France some time back. She was asking us if we had ever heard of them or crossed their paths. Maybe we had visited the towns they had been in? The lady pulled up a chair and went on to explain that her youngest son had been killed a year ago and that she hadn’t heard from her eldest for two months.

  The poor woman was holding my forearm and running the back of her other hand over my cheek. Her voice didn’t falter but tears rolled down her face. She was searching for her sons through me and the other chaps at the table. I felt quite useless that there wasn’t anything I could do to help her. We shared a cup of tea and gave her a big cuddle. What else can you do?

  In the blink of an eye a week had passed, and we made our way back to London and reported in. The return journey to Belgium was a bit of a slog. The weather was crook and the crossing back to Calais was about as rough as it gets. The moral took a dive knowing that we were being delivered back to war. I was a little surprised that us chaps returning from leave are all dropped back into the Lumbres Camp and not sent directly into Ypres to re-join “D” Company. The assumption at this point is that “D” Company will be returning to Lumbres shortly.