British Voices

by William Sheehan

  Information given or volunteered by a friend was best ignored – if only for the safety of one’s friend – the source of information might leek out or be adduced by a too astute enemy. There was one sad example of this worth repeating. A loyalist wrote in giving information and by some means or other the letter was obtained for period by the enemy. In order to get a sample of the writer’s handwriting to trace the author, he was approached while playing golf by a man with a slate who appeared to be deaf and dumb. By means of the slate the ‘dumb man’ induces the victim to write down certain questions.

  These were taken away and thus the writer was traced and killed. It so happened that the ‘dumb man’ was also traced, or believed to be, and a certain priest was induced to leave his house one night on a visit to the sick. Some weeks later children playing in a part of the country found the partially covered body of the self-same priest near a bog.

  On occasions the ‘third degree’was employed to extract information, sometimes with amusing results, at others causing the total breakdown of the captive with an accompanying flow of information and tears. One place chosen for this process was an old water mill. A couple of prisoners were led into the outer room of the mill – one being a fake prisoner.The ‘fake’ was taken into the inner room through the floor of which water rushed; a violent interrogation then ensued during which the ‘fake’ made constant refusals to give information. Finally there was a clanking of chains; the grinding of machinery ... a dull thud ... a shriek! ... a splash!!! The interview had ended.

  With a horse laugh back came the inquisitors for their ‘next’ victim; usually he would become tractable on seeing the black rushing water below or on being reminded of it by an application of cold water.

  One night, the victim happened to be older than usual and perhaps the shabbiness of his clothes prevented the captors from perceiving that he was a man of some intelligence. The inquisitors watch eagerly for the expected signs of fear as the whole play was acted for his benefit. In the inner room the explanation of his impending fate was given; but the prisoner, instead of becoming overcome with the usual cold fear, drew himself up and looking round scornfully on his captors calmly said – ‘Drown me in that? There isn’t a foot of water in that race – I happen to be the engineer who built this mill!’

  Sometimes, in the case of a killing, information was adduced from prisoners believed to be connected with the event by actually re-acting the killing before them – a most trying ordeal. A room was curtained in two, on one side the prisoner was seated and left sitting for some duration in the uncanny silent darkness; perhaps after a time a cold wet clammy hand would silently embrace him or wander over his face in the gloom …then suddenly the curtain would drop! and behold before him lay the cold waxen face of the victim in it’s funeral shroud; the very wounds being accurately depicted. Few who had actually had to do with the deed could resist such an appeal.

  Several times I was detailed to take despatches to GHQ in Dublin. It’s not such a very nice job to arrive in North City at midnight in the winter, and to have to make one’s way on foot from Broadstone to Parkgate when there’s shooting about. I looked as rough as possible in mufti with hat pulled down over the eyes as, with the dispatches fixed to the inner part of my leg, I trudged onwards. I lost my way and had to adopt the somewhat risky procedure of asking the way to the nearest landmark – the quays – from which point direction I knew the way ... on a night like this every lonely individual in the streets might have been a mobile arsenal ... or possible each had a dozen notches in his gun – you know the feeling! I decided that the oldest person one met would be the more likely to be less implicated in the struggle for the birth of the new nation. To doubly secure my position I addressed him in the little Irish I knew, but he explained that he knew no Irish – few people in Dublin do. So I gained the information from him using my best imitation of a Dublin North Circular Road accent – it was effective, and I passed on in safety. Parkgate was reached without further mishap; entry seemed surprisingly easy, for I passed the guard without being challenged and climbed up the dusty stairs to the duty-room to report. I entered the room unannounced – the tired looking officer, on my entry, made a furtive grab at his pistol: then withdrew his hand leaving the weapon on the table with the butt pointing politely towards me. I received a receipt for my packet and lingered a little somewhat amused. ‘I’d like to say’ said I ‘that although I admire your second line of defence, I passed your guard on the gate and came up here unchallenged.’‘Good God!’ cried the tired one ‘impossible’. He seized the telephone, almost terrified at the thought that he might possibly have been assassinated, and proceeded to make exhaustive enquiries. The guard turned out and all below seemed in uproar in the yard. I am rather sorry I had told him – I had some difficulty in getting out.

  Much of the ‘work’ in our part of the country seemed to be carried out at night. The main difficulty was the procuring of the necessary transport. Once a car was procured from a doctor who unfortunately discovered its location and put the matter in the hands of his solicitor demanding hire and compensation. The matter rapidly developed into an acute duel which necessitated the owner being constantly ushered away from the precincts of the local headquarters. At last one wag hit upon the brilliant idea of turning the medico’s political opinions upon him. Some notepaper had been captured from the enemy bearing the Sinn Féin badge and flag in colours. The doctor in question shortly received a letter purporting to come from the IRA headquarters; it stated that it had come to the notice of the ‘authorities’ that he had been corresponding with the enemy and trading with them regarding the hire of his car, in consequence of which, if dealings continued his loyalty to the cause would be questioned and a personal example would be made of him. The car remained ‘free of hire’ for some months.

  There was in one district a man who always assumed a very supercilious air. He wore a pointed beard, which beard, in spite of its wearer’s undoubted loyalty to the ‘cause’ and the fact that his son was ‘on the run’, was said by those who did not like him to make him like King George in appearance. The offence he had received by this likeness he would tell his friends of with a very annoyed air, at the same time leaving little doubt that he felt some pride in his resemblance to Royalty. One cold January night he was visited, his house ransacked, and the missing son searched for. However one side of the ‘King George’s beard’ was removed by a few rapid strokes, and the Royal prototype’s decadent chin exposed.

  News came from the district that the owner of the ‘Royal Beard’ had been confined to the house for several days while a razor was procured from the town. Finally he appeared somewhat shamefacedly in public with a ‘minus 4’ chin and excused himself by stating that he had perforce to remove the royal emblem owing to an attack of eczema.

  The staff themselves sometimes came in for a little chipping. Once the brigadier was at first somewhat surprised to hear from a certain CO, who he was visiting at a distance, that he did not want any more visits from a certain intelligence officer who had a peculiar command of the English language, because that officer always required a lot of labour after he had gone. ‘Does he want a lot of work done, or what?’ inquired the brigadier. ‘Well’ said the CO, ‘I always have to employ large fatigue parties when he has gone – to sweep up all the H’s he always drops.’

  On another occasion the GOC was going through a circular with a unit regarding indiscretions of various units on the subject of intelligence and secrecy. The CO had carefully gone through his office copy noting in the margin against various items the action to be taken. The GOC suddenly waxed very wrath on reading this copy, and suddenly turning to the CO said ‘What, Sir, do you mean by writing the word “Balls” against certain items in my instructions?’

  ‘That, Sir, was written against those parts of the instructions which I wished my orderly room clerk to attend to – his name happens to be Balls,’ replied the CO.

  Chapter 11

  Major Gene
ral Douglas Wimberley

  Details

  This section is a chapter from General Wimberley’s memoirs which are held at the Imperial War Museum. Wimberley’s military career began in the Officer Training Corps at Wellington and Cambridge University. He completed his military education at Sandhurst from December 1914 to May 1915, and was commissioned into the 3rd (Militia) Battalion Cameron Highlanders at Invergordon. He was transferred to the 1st Battalion and saw action with them at the Battle of Loos, October 1915. He transferred again, this time to the newly formed Machine Gun Corps, and saw action at the Somme, 1916, with the 1st and 2nd Brigade Machine Gun Companies. He saw action at 3rd Ypres ( July to September 1917), the Somme (October 1917), and at Cambrai (November 1917). During 1918, he commanded the 51st Battalion, Machine Gun Corps. In 1919, he saw service in Russia, with the 8th Battalion, Machine Gun Corps, after which he returned to the Cameron Highlanders. Wimberley served in Ireland in County Cork with the Camerons during the War of Independence, returning afterwards to Aldershot. He served with the British Army of the Rhine from 1923 to 1925, time which included a spell at Cambridge University. He attended Staff College from 1926 to 1927. From 1928 to 1933, he served in India, including service in the 1st Indian (Gurkha) Infantry Brigade. He was attached to the Adjutant General and the Military Training Directorates of the War Office from 1934 to 1937. From 1938 to 1939, he commanded the 1st Battalion Cameron Highlanders. In 1940, he was placed in command of a temporary brigade earmarked for the capture of Stavanger in 1940. He held the command of the 13th Brigade (5th Division), the 152nd Brigade (51st Highland Division), before assuming the command of the 46th Division in Britain from 1940 to 1941. He took command of the 51st Highland Division, which fought in North Africa, taking part in the Battles of El Alamein, Medenine, the Mareth and Akarit Lines, and the conquest of Sicily. He served as Commandant of the Staff College, Camberley, from September 1943 to September 1944. From December 1944 to September 1946, he served as Director of Infantry at the War Office.

  Ireland – ‘The Trouble’ (1920-1921)

  I NOW DECIDED that I must try and get back to the Camerons, though I knew this meant dropping my Major’s crown, which I had now worn, and drawn army pay for, during almost two years.

  I set off to Aldershot, to see the 2nd Camerons there, and find out if the Home Battalion had any room for me. It was quite an ordeal. I had not been with the regiment since early 1916, and three years, in war time, is a long time. However, they were all very nice to me, particularly Donald Cameron, who had known me in the MG Corps at Gratham, and was now their very efficient Adjutant.

  So I left the Machine Gun Corps and returned home to my regiment and found myself as a mere spare Captain in ‘B’ Company commanded by J McK. Gordon, whom I had served under in the same company of the 1st Battalion in France for a few weeks in 1915. He was a strict disciplinarian, and could be touchy and choleric, but a first rate regimental officer.

  Later I was to discover I had made the right decision. In 1919 we seconded officers were being urged to transfer to the MG Corps, and told thereby we would get quicker promotion; yet in a year or so the whole MG Corps was disbanded, MG’s were once more given to Infantry Battalions to man, and most of the regular officers in that Corps drifted into the Tank Corps, amongst them Nasmith and Freddie Garrett.

  I now enjoyed my time at Aldershot very much, as a spare captain I had little work to do, and very little responsibility, and after five years of war, and war conditions, it was a very pleasant interlude.

  The commanding officer was George Sorel-Cameron, who certainly looked the part. Very smart and well turned out, and with a good word of command, he was a fine horsemen. He was as straight as a dye, and was popular with all ranks. He had been a prisoner almost all the war, and being a slow thinker, he did not know much about what was then up to date soldiering.

  The second-in-command was Aldecron, one of the very few Regular Army English officers we had in the Camerons. He, too, was a very popular if eccentric officer, with a gallant war record. He had been shot through the head in the Boer War, and we thought, rightly or wrongly, this was what accounted for his eccentricities.

  The then Regimental Sergeant Major was a great character, ‘Big Jimmie’Templeton, DCM, from Kinloch Rannoch. A fine figure of a six foot Highlander, and at one time a deer stalker, with a splendid war record. He was though, unfortunately, a hard drinker. He was a magnificent RSM of the old type, whereby all the soldiers felt to see that their Glengarry was cocked at the right regimental angle, and all their brass buttons were correctly done up, when he was seen a hundred yards away.

  Our own Company Sergeant Major was Neil McCaskill, DCM, a fine character, and a west coast gaelic speaking Highlander from the island of Bernera. He spoke his English in the Gaelic idiom usually beginning all sentences with the words, ‘I wasss thinking ...’

  I could not have had around me a nicer lot of officer contemporaries of my own age, most of whom were to be my great friends for life. Owing to the recent war, we were all substantive captains, so with our war medals and decorations, and the experience that went with them, there was bound to be a considerable gulf between us, and the few young subalterns in the Battalion who had seen little or no active service.

  We called ourselves, in fun, the ‘Captains’ Union’, and if Donald Cameron, the Adjutant, put us on duty in the afternoon, we used to protest vociferously; though I may say quite without avail.

  There was Angus Collier, later to be best man at my wedding, as I was at his; some day to become a major general. There was Phil Christison, later to command a Corps in much Burma fighting, to be C-in-C Scotland and a Knight Cross of the British Empire. Colin Cameron, a fine all round athlete, who was later to do splendid work for the regiment as retired officer at our depot at Cameron Barracks, Inverness. Pringle-Pattison, or PP as he was universally known, my companion at the Stirling nursing home, son of a distinguished professor of philosophy at the University of Edinburgh; and Ian Maxwell, a Catholic, whose mother was a Lovat Fraser, a most pleasant companion, but to whom punctuality meant nothing, much to the worry of his faithful CSM.

  When I first rejoined the regiment, also serving at Aldershot was Puggie Stewart of Kinlochmoidart, who had command of a Battalion with distinction in Salonika at a very early age, and Lawrence Sloane, DFC, our best athlete, who had also played rugby football for Scotland, but these two were shortly to retire still as regimental captains; I did not therefore get to know them as well as the others.

  But if we had but little work to do at this period, this certainly did not apply to games and athletics. Except at weekends, almost every afternoon saw us playing strenuous rugby or hockey, and most of us were in strict training with the Jocks. About two days a week we were all herded into the gymnasium after the mess dinner where we were put through vigorous physical training by the RSM himself.

  It was entirely due to the RSM Templeton that I achieved some prowess as a runner, a sport I had never cared for, and never attempted since my Sandhurst days. Every Saturday morning, the entire unit were ordered on a cross-country run, except those over the age of 30. We were gradually graded into packs according to our ability, and after a few weeks I found myself promoted to the fast pack, in which were the Battalion cross country runners. In a month or so, I found myself detailed for the Army and Command Cross Country races; gruelling affairs that afforded me no pleasure, and, in addition, picked too for the regiment in the half mile and mile.

  In the rugby fifteen we played the maximum number of officers then allowed, which was eight, as except for our handful of Borderer Jocks from Hawick, Selkirk and the like towns, none of our men had ever played the rugby code. In the football team, on the other hand, no officer from the regiment was good enough to play in the first eleven, with the sole exception of David Macdonald, the charming son of a famous Cameron major and quartermaster, who had been at George Watson’s school and played football there.

  Thanks to the encouragement of the Adjutant
, Donald Cameron, and the drive of the RSM, we, the Camerons, soon became very successful at all games and sports at Aldershot, winning many competitions, which at once did much to raise the morale of our Jocks, and make them proud of their regiment.

  So, for me, some halcyon months passed by, only interrupted by a few small alarms. At one time we were under definite orders to go at short notice to Memel in East Prussia on the Baltic to supervise a plebiscite, and optimistic as the young always are, most of us at once laid in large stocks of shot gun cartridges for the geese, and wild fowling, which was reported to be very good in those parts. However, at the last minute, and after our advance party had already left, the move for some reason or other was cancelled.

  It was really the first time, in all my six years spent in soldiering, that I had lived in a peace time Mess of the Regular Army, and this, too, I found very pleasant, after years of war and active service.

  In those days the ante-room was closed to officers for half an hour before Mess dinner to let the waiters tidy up and open windows, etc., while we officers bathed and put on mess kit, and the tight strapped trews, this of course included stiff white shirts. When we gathered in the mess room, summoned by the Orderly piper, no smoking was allowed, and sherry and bitters was the normal ante-room drink.

  We then walked in behind the senior officer dining, and sat down to a five course dinner. As soon as the port wine had circulated, officers were free to leave the table, but most nights of the week we sat on and talked for, maybe, another half hour. Mess dinner every night was, therefore, a leisurely affair, lasting in all anything up to a couple of hours.