by Paul Almond
Aug 5th: Battery positions were inspected: these are quite close, up to 1,500 yards of the enemy front line and on the forward slopes. The 3rd and 4th Battery positions are open ones and in full view of the enemy. Ammunition is being hauled up tonight.
Aug 6th: Troops were simply pouring into the area all last night and the roads forward were jammed. Fortunately the weather and observation are very bad. Enemy appears to be getting suspicious and his harassing fire at night has increased.
Aug 7th: The C.O. went forward today and reconnoitred the forward areas for OPs. Owing to very heavy rain, observation was very poor and the reconnaissance was made under great difficulties. Everything ready for the attack tomorrow morning.
War Diaries, 1st Brigade
Three months almost to the day and I was back at the Front, and no more shakes, no diving into shell holes unless necessary, and above all, not a jot of panic. Just a few bad dreams: Edward pleading, Howard’s torso, the maggot in the nose, and others just as horrible,
It helped that the First Brigade wasn’t fighting any major battles. We saw action, oh yes, but nothing compared to Vimy Ridge, or Passchendaele. Well behind the lines, we had sports days and inspections, resting up for some big push. The German advance had finally been halted in heroic manner by the British and French; now in the summer of 1918, both sides seemed to have reached another stalemate. The Americans were landing in their thousands and training; so after the disastrous spring, Allied prospects started looking up.
This night I was sitting in our Forward Observation Post on a slope facing the enemy, waiting for the last glow to leave the horizon behind me before I moved out. My two telephonists and a lineman had established communication with Brigade Headquarters and the Battery switchboard, and they were busy making sure the line hadn’t been cut by shellfire. We had brought our two messenger pigeons, rifles for the Signallers, my own revolver, field glasses, telescope and SOS rockets.
We in the Canadian Corps knew something was afoot. We had been stationed up near Arras and made a great show of that. No secret that the enemy knew us to be the finest fighting unit in the war. And our artillery was certainly also declared by both British and Boche to be the best. When we showed ourselves at different points of the Front, the Huns rushed forces there. So this long march southwards to Amiens had been undertaken in as much secrecy as could be mustered: no movement during the day and well hidden at night. Even now behind me, the boys and guns were stationed deep in a partly destroyed wood, forbidden to move by day. And we weren’t the only ones who had arrived: masses of infantry were gathering. Our big barrage was scheduled for 4:20 a.m., heralding another big attack in just a few hours.
It had been so damned wet — but what else could you expect from this crazy France? Rain, rain, rain. Right now it had let up a bit, but the clouds were dense, the mist thick, and we couldn’t see the flashes of the guns we were supposed to be marking for our boys back at the Battery.
Tim Philpott, our lanky Signals Bombardier, had brewed up some tea and he handed me a mug, which I sipped thoughtfully. I realized that if I were going to get any accurate observing done, we’d damn well better get closer.
“Tim,” I said, “I’ll have to go, take a quick look forward.”
A look of alarm sprang onto their features. “Don’t worry, I won’t get us into trouble. But we’ve got to get further under this mist. When zero hour dawns there’ll be a helluva ruckus, and we’d better have some decent reports to send back to Battery.”
I raised myself over the lip of the shelter. We had taken over an abandoned and thoroughly makeshift dugout. Not fully safe, but deep enough to protect from the machine-gun fire spraying around. The Boche seemed nervous: occasional shrapnel and high explosives had been going off in our vicinity.
I ducked down, took a last gulp of hot tea, and explained the plan to my crew: I would reconnoitre a new O-Pip, then come back to collect us, and we’d all go forward. “Give me one end of that coil of wire. I can’t see a blasted thing crawling down the slope and I’ll need to find my way back.”
With that, I crawled out on my belly over the slimy mud, and then, because it was pitch dark, I got up onto my hands and knees, grabbing the wire in one hand, and felt my way forward.
So many bits of corpses and shell fragments, all in deep mud. I put my hand right onto the face of a mushed-up skull. Ugh! My stomach churned. That fella was once like me, full of dreams and maybe a family back home. Quickly I banished those thoughts and kept on. After a time, I was stopped short by another squishy mess. Oh Lord! Bodies on top of each other like a pile of logs. I manoeuvred around. A star shell decorated the sky and illuminated a black shell-hole ahead, but ugly mustard coloured its surface. Not for me! I started around it and then, as the flare died, I knelt on something else — a dead horse. What was it doing here? The stink! Awful. My knee broke open the hide. I wiped the maggots off and tried to keep on, but a machine gun opened up and I had to drop flat into the squirming mass of putrid flesh and crawling beasties.
Brushing them off as best I could, I wondered if I was getting too close to Fritz’s line. Or were these intermittent bursts coming from an unusually advanced machine-gun post? I calculated that it let loose a burst about every five minutes. Timing myself, I got up on hands and knees and crept forward when suddenly — I sensed right ahead: movement! A clink, I heard, some rifle or bayonet hitting a jutting rock.
Should I turn? The sounds came nearer. Not ten feet ahead, I could even hear breathing. A raiding party! One of ours? Guttural whispering — no, an enemy patrol. Now what?
I lay down flat and got out my revolver. Should I just barrel into them and shoot like hell? But what good would that do? Kill a few and then — get killed myself? No, my job was to set up an observation post so that our batteries could wipe out hundreds. So get out of their way? Not possible, no time. I swallowed hard. Closer came the sounds of the patrol. So this was it, then. My last fight.
Silence. I scarcely breathed. They were listening, too. That moment stretched out forever. Then didn’t I hear them turn and head back? I let out a big sigh. Too close, that was. Being foolish again? Probably. But we had a job to do when our attack began.
I moved laterally, trying to avoid going closer. Come on, send up another flare, Heinie, show me where the hell I am. No luck. But then, with my hand I felt a smooth edge. An old dugout. Good! I got out my flashlight, shone it down, yes, six or eight feet deep, perfect for our forward O-Pip. At the bottom, well, what else do you expect? Decomposing corpses. I can put up with that, I thought. We’d learned how to rid dugouts of corpses a couple of years ago.
Right now, stake the wire here to establish our new posting, so we could follow it back. I hooked it around a half-buried duckboard and started back on my hands and knees when I heard a whizbang coming and squashed myself deep into the mud. It landed close, too close. Shrapnel showered down.
I lay still, half buried. My first tours of duty had been at the firing lines or even further back in Wagon Lines. Dangerous, for sure, but nothing like this. So why wasn’t I now yellow with fear? Well, that’s not the way of an officer, I said to myself. I tried to roll, lift myself out of the muck, and all right, I’ll admit my heart was hammering and my breathing had quickened. Any minute another whizbang might go off and this time right over me. So in a sense, I was keeping my fingers crossed.
So far so good. But as I was creeping around another shell-hole didn’t that damn machine gun open up again? Before I could duck, something knocked me flat.
Damn! I picked myself up but my right hand wouldn’t work. I felt it with my left. Mangled by the bullet. Then I realized that my throat was filling with blood. I coughed it up as best I could. I felt with my left hand and my God, my chin was mashed. I’d been adjusting my helmet, I guess, and those bullets got both. Just dandy.
What now? Get back to the O-Pip as fast as you can before you bleed to death! To signal something was wrong, I yanked hard on the wire and it came free. That whizb
ang must have sliced it. Oh well, there’ll be a flare up any minute to light my way back.
I felt dizzy and nauseous, and like I had been burned by hot metal where the bullets struck. But for pity’s sake, don’t lose consciousness, I yelled at myself. Come on, Eric, stop the bleeding, you idiot! With my one good hand I grabbed my jaw to lessen the blood spurting. By feeling around, I think I got the artery okay. So press there, I told myself.
But how to get back? I was lying on my back. I managed to roll over and somehow kneel up, and hobbled ahead on my knees. And then, another whizbang hit right close? I lurched sideways into the ground, covering my neck as the debris showered around. Brushing it off, I knelt up holding my jaw, but found myself wondering, was this the right way? Could I find the other end of the wire? No, because it would be beyond any shell-hole dug by that whizbang.
Well, keep going. I felt disoriented. I tried to crawl on all fours but one hand was useless and the other held my jaw to stop the blood spurting. So I knelt upright and again hobbled on my knees. Damned difficult.
My knee went down into another shell hole, but I just stopped from toppling in. When I began around it, I asked myself, how far should I go? Might I just be heading back Heinie-wards? Rest a second...
Damn machine gun went rat-tat-tating again. Down I went! When it stopped, I got up and inched on my knees through this sticky, clammy, awful mud. But being upright, I was getting lightheaded. I tried to clear the fuzziness, but dammit, I started going black. I fell forward.
Keep awake, I ordered myself, get up! But my head spun. Hang onto that artery! My hand was also bleeding. So what? Get up and get going or you’ll just be another corpse littering this awful No Man’s Land. I tried, and then...
Down I went, one knee in a pit. This time, I didn’t even want to get up. My bloody hand hurt like hell where I fell on it, and now pain was pouring back into my jaw. What a damn nuisance.
Then as I lay holding my jaw, didn’t I hear a sniffing? I lashed out with my good hand. The bloody biggest rat, drawn by the smell of my blood, scampered across my face. Horrid. He’d be back for a meal, for sure, if I didn’t get going. So I knelt up and started off as fast as I could. This time, I made headway. I must have even gone twenty or thirty feet. Then, I heaved a big sigh of relief. Voices! So I had made it.
I stopped. Voices? Yeah. German.
So turn around and get going — for a heart-stopping moment, I thought they might have seen me. But after another ten feet, I felt faint again and had to stop. Must be a good long way from the O-Pip. How the hell would I make it. Which way was it? More and more tired by the minute. Losing blood does that, I guess. And I’d been up all yesterday and tonight.
I forced myself onwards, but my head was spinning again. Was I heading in the right direction? I thought so. Another five yards and I had to rest.
As I lay there, I had visions of dawn breaking. Finished for sure — I’d be spotted and a hundred bullets would tear into me.
I tried giving myself commands: don’t let that happen; get going. But for the life of me, I couldn’t. I lay there and tried to think up the worst visions to drive me on. But no use. Then I thought about the Old Homestead: I had to make it back there. Yes, that did it, and I struggled on a bit more. But in what direction? Completely disoriented, I wondered if I was being wise. Then I heard distinct laughter. I stopped. Not ours. Damn. Wrong again.
All right, just give up. You’re finished. Just prepare yourself. Get comfortable. Think about what you could possibly do. One revolver, a few rounds... But even the blackness seemed more black. Death on its way, oh yes. Pray a bit, sure, and ask the Lord for a quick end. I faded...
In my dreams I heard a hissed whisper: “Mister Alford. Mister Alford.”
Aha! Angels coming! Whaddya know, I’ve gone straight to heaven with no pain. “Mister Alford.” That whisper again. It sounded real. And familiar.
“Yes, it’s me,” I hissed.
You know who turned up? Of all people in the entire world? Cecil.
“I been zig-zagging back and forth in the dark. I knew I’d find you. But you got yourself awful close to the enemy here...”
“Cecil I can’t believe it!”
He grinned in the dim light, and I saw his buckteeth. “You did good, Eric, back in Gunnery School, getting me assigned to your Brigade. Bet you’re glad now!”
“I’ve always been glad, Cecil, you’re the best Runner ever,” I mumbled, trying to summon my strength. Cecil had been wounded in France, and after recovering he’d been sent for training and re-assignment at Whitely, where we reconnected. I had arranged for him to be posted back to 1st Brigade with me. Thank Heaven!
“Dawn in twenty minutes,” he whispered. “Be the end of us.” He reached out and tied some sigs [signals] wire around my chest. “I won’t go fast.”
I don’t know how I did it, but having him find me gave me such a burst of strength, I was able to struggle along as he led us right straight back to the O-Pip.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Amiens
Bois de Gentelles, Aug 8th: At 4:20 a.m. the Barrage opened, and at 5 a.m., the Batteries moved forward to support the Infantry. During the night, Lieut. Almond, 4th Battery, CFA was wounded, 1 Gunner killed and 4 Gunners wounded.
War Diaries, 1st Brigade, CFA
Thumping over the lip of the O-Pip, I woke up.
Just as well, because I had been losing a fair amount of blood being dragged these remaining yards by Cecil after I’d passed out. So now, here we were. Though for some reason, I had started to shudder.
In no time at all, Tim Philpott tore open my jacket and got out the field dressing stitched inside. He wrapped it around my head to keep my lower jaw shut, pressing hard. I felt helpless not doing my duty, but nothing for it, because I still felt groggy.
I had to find out what on earth Cecil was doing up here in the first place.
“Right after you left on your reconnoitre, he turned up,” Tim explained. “Absolutely no reason for it, but he looked real distressed. Told us he’d been bringing an important document to the Brigade Liaison Officer with the Infantry Battalion near our O-Pip here, but somehow he knew he just had to come. Against all regulations, of course.” Amazing, I thought. Good old Cecil. “I tried to send him back before he got into trouble, but he wouldn’t go, he just kept looking anxiously over the edge of our O-Pip. Then without warning, he took off.”
Strange story indeed. My jaw bandaged, Tim started wrapping another field dressing on my hand.
“After he’d gone,” Tim went on, “I heard this great explosion down where you were, and I pulled on that guide wire. Napoo! It had come free.”
Napoo we often used: came from the French, il n’y en a plus, “no more, gone, finished”. Well then, I thought, how on earth did Cecil —.
“Don’t ask me to explain any of this,” Tim finished, with an odd expression, still patching up my hand that hurt like hell. Obviously bones broken. My saviour, meanwhile, had been sitting, sipping a mug of tea after his exertions.
After Tim finished on my wounds, he suggested, “You’d better be getting back to the ADS now, sir.”
“I’ll take him,” Cecil said firmly.
I was about to object but I didn’t feel that good: the shivering was getting worse. The dense mist and overcast kept it pitch black and without the guide wire I’d laid down, my little team would never find the new O-Pip I’d located. Nothing I could do about that now.
I hoped our Heinie machine gunner would not spray more bullets in our direction. We waited for his next burst, then headed out quickly, Cecil holding me, limping as fast as we could up the long, sloping hill. I kept pressing my left hand against my face to stop the bleeding. It was mainly a flesh wound, with the jawbone not broken, I figured.
Well, we made it to our support line, where a Battalion Medical Officer was already tending several wounded men.
“I’ll look at you in a moment, Lieutenant,” he said.
I sat on an up
turned ammunition box trying to calm my shakes, but soon, Zero hour! Our Amiens attack struck with deafening fury: all guns firing, howitzers on one side and 18-pounders on the other. For some reason, the noise so shocked me I leaped up; I just could not take it for one second.
“I won’t be long, Lieutenant,” said the MO, but I didn’t care. I ran for the rear as fast as my shaky legs would take me.
Cecil quickly overtook me. “Mr. Alford, better wait for the MO.”
“I’m waiting for nobody,” I mouthed with difficulty, regretting my manner. I just had to get away. My stumbling showed me I had no real control of my faculties. Cecil grabbed one arm and held me round the waist, and we set off fast and furiously for the nearest casualty collecting point.
After about half a mile, we caught up with a horse-drawn ambulance and Cecil ran to the Driver, stopped him, and helped me get into it. I thanked Cecil profusely. He had saved my life, and I told him so. He greeted that with the biggest grin, his buckteeth gleaming in the dawn light, and hurried off.
I grabbed on tight with one hand, because I found myself slipping in and out of consciousness, and still shuddering. Not far now, I told myself.
When we arrived at the Advanced Dressing Station, an orderly brought me to a stretcher where I could gather my strength for the next journey, and gave me an anti-tetanus shot, the first thing for a wounded man. I kept clutching my jaw to stay any bleeding, but my arm ached. I didn’t know how long I could keep this up. Dammit, I thought, I should have waited for the MO to tape it more securely. But the shaking lessened.
I must have passed out or slept because before I knew it, more wounded began arriving. That opened my eyes! The stretcher cases were crowding in, still in their trench-stained khaki with the clothing roughly torn away from around wounds, stuck by their congealed blood to the canvas stretcher so it had to be cut by the medics. Seeing so many untreated wounds was like visiting a butcher’s shop. Men choking for breath, others in anguish begging for attention, still others bore their dreadful, gaping injuries with stoic fortitude.