by Will Davies
Nulla's next task is another dangerous one. Lewis gunners have been sent out a few metres ahead of the tape line, to protect the men who will be digging the trench. Now he has to guide seven men out into the blackness of no-man's-land to set up listening posts in between the guns, which are placed at about 50-metre intervals. The job of each man at the listening post is to be alert for any sounds of movement by the Germans; at the slightest sound, they are to report back.
The gunners that are posted in front of the new trench-line are manning Lewis guns. The Lewis gun, considered the best, most efficient light machine-gun available at the time, was invented in 1911 by an American army colonel, Isaac Newton Lewis, but was not issued to British and Australian units until late 1915. It weighed 12 kilograms and had a rate of fire of 500 to 600 rounds per minute. Supported on two legs and with adjustable sights, it was effective up to 600 metres. Its introduction into the war revolutionised Allied tactics because one Lewis gun had the same firepower as fifty riflemen.
The only solace for Nulla in his night as a runner is the swigs of SRD rum he is offered. The initials stood for 'Service Rum – Dilute', meaning that it was concentrated and was intended to be watered down before drinking, but the troops coined their own explanation: 'Seldom Reaches Destination'. Though it may be hard to imagine in today's military that men could be sent out in the dark amidst tortuous trenches after drinking alcohol, in the British and Australian armies during the First World War, rum was a staple ration. Shipped to the front in one-gallon pottery jars, the rum brought a feeling of warmth and comfort to the men in the freezing trenches, and perhaps gave them a touch of 'Dutch courage' and the will to go on. As Nulla says after he accepts his CO's water bottle, to find that it contains not water but rum, 'I begin to feel it's not such a bad war after all.'
The men are moved into their new frontline trench. It is only 4 feet (1.2 metres) deep, so they have to walk bent over to avoid being shot at by the enemy, but nonetheless it is quite an achievement after one night's digging. In the following week, as was customary in this kind of operation, the men would deepen the trench, cut fire steps into the sides on which they could stand high enough to see and fire their rifles over the parapet, shore up the sides and lay duckboards on the floor.
Nulla settles down in a dugout with two signallers and offers to take a shift on the phone, allowing them to sleep. Signallers were of an equivalent rank to privates, but were part of the Corps of Australian Engineers. On the Western Front, they upheld their motto, 'Certa Cito' or 'Swift and Sure', under very trying conditions, continuously carrying out repairs to lines blasted apart by artillery bombardment.
The signallers are pleasantly shocked to discover that Nulla has had signals training and can communicate in Morse code, which the signallers use to communicate with the battalion headquarters behind the line. At regular intervals, signallers on each end of the line would 'sound through' to ensure the line was undamaged and they still had communications.
Lynch's records show he attended a signaller's course late in 1918, and no doubt this training informed his portrayal of a night in signaller's headquarters. Certainly it must be behind his deft translation of some joking Morse code from the battalion headquarters explaining the dreadful sound coming down the phone line: the snoring of the colonel. It is a moment of levity that gives Nulla a much-needed chuckle after a night of relentless danger.
NINE
The Carrying
Party
Although major advances were not planned until the spring, the Allies did launch minor attacks throughout the winter, in order to keep up the pressure on the enemy. The advancement of the line at Hoop Trench near Gueudecourt was one such example.
Among the attacks the Allies planned in the closing stages of the 1916–17 winter was an assault on the German stronghold at the Butte de Warlencourt. It was a 20-metre-high ancient Gallic and Roman burial mound to the east of the Bapaume–Albert road, just to the north of Le Sars. For the Allies, who had been fighting to wrest the Butte from the Germans for months, it had become something of an obsession. The Australian 2nd Division were positioned there, as they had been tasked with the job of helping to capture the Butte.
Though it is just off the Le Sars to Bapaume road and well signposted, like many significant places on the Western Front, the Butte de Warlencourt is easy to miss. Its mound shape has been hidden under trees, weeds and privet and for all the lives lost in trying to capture it, the Butte is a fairly unspectacular feature of the landscape. But if you take the time to stop and walk the winding path to the top, you can appreciate its military significance as a high point, with a view to the north extending beyond Bapaume, to the west out to Loupart Wood, south to the high ground at Le Sars and southwest to Pozières.
The Australian front was about 4 kilometres long. Next to the 2nd Division AIF, to the southeast, or the right when facing across no-man's-land, was the 1st Division. In front of them was the 'Maze', a heavily defended section of the German line protected by three lines of barbed wire and a tortuous series of trenches. In November of the previous year the 2nd Division had unsuccessfully tried to take the Maze; now a new attack by the 1st Division was planned towards the end of the winter. To the east, or the right, of the 1st Division was Stormy Trench, a former German trench that the 13th Battalion (the 'sister' battalion that had split to form the nucleus of the 45th) had attacked on 4 February. In that action, Captain 'Mad Harry' Murray had added a Victoria Cross to his fistful of decorations; he was to become the most decorated Australian soldier ever and survived the war. Parts of Stormy Trench remained in enemy hands, though, and it was decided to push into the German stronghold in the western part of the trench towards the end of February 1917. That job was given to the 45th Battalion.
As 'The Carrying Party' opens, we find Nulla in the war-ravaged town of Dernancourt, just south of Albert and about 17 kilometres behind the frontline.
We're living, or rather existing in the dirty damp billets of the shell-torn, rat-infested shambles that was once the French town of Dernancourt ... And how we hate this hole, its dirty dilapidated dwellings, remains of sheds and damp, foul-smelling cellars which house our battalion. [p. 108]
Hiding from German observation balloons or aircraft, they are cautious about unnecessary movement during the daylight hours, only able to come out at night to work on various fatigue parties such as grave digging, repairing roads or rebuilding bridges. Nulla complains that German prisoners are brought in from their work details when the rain starts, to be replaced by the men of the 45th, even though that night they are marching back into the line to help the push into the west of Stormy Trench.
In reality, according to the 45th Battalion history, prior to being moved up to Stormy Trench the men were resting at Bécourt, on the outskirts of Albert:
Some much needed reorganisation was carried out, and the mornings were devoted to training which consisted chiefly of route marches, or else of lectures and specialist training given indoors owing to the inclemency of the weather. In the afternoons, organised games were held and, as an indication of the good feeling which always existed between officers and men, a football match between the officers and other ranks was played.1
The conditions the men of the AIF had to endure that winter had led the High Command and the Australian quartermasters to encourage officers to make extra effort to look after the comfort and wellbeing of their men. At the time when trench-foot cases were at their worst and instances of 'lack of care' of the men were observed, commander of the AIF Lieutenant General Birdwood issued a circular to every officer, 'to put all thoughts for himself, his comfort and his wellbeing, far in the background, and to ... always look after the men first and foremost and sacrifice himself completely'.2
With its references to football and the practice of keeping the men indoors during bad weather, the official battalion history may have been making a conscious effort to paint a rosy picture of the 'good feeling which always existed between the officers a
nd men', but there is no doubt that in such trying times, the men generally appreciated the concern of their officers. To provide entertainment, in rest areas behind the lines regimental brass bands were revived, concerts and film screenings were organised and a newspaper, Rising Sun, was produced by the AIF hierarchy. Sports meetings were held, as happened on Anzac Day 1917 in Hénencourt Wood, where the competition between the battalions was keen. (Anzac Day was already being observed and celebrated.) At certain times, men were given leave to visit nearby cities and towns. Time in back areas also allowed men to have hot baths and get clean clothes, de-louse their blankets and repair equipment and weapons. Men spent their free time writing letters home, playing two-up and card games and generally amusing themselves as best they could.
While Lynch chose to diverge slightly from history by placing the 45th Battalion in a rainy, shell-torn French village, the official histories tell us that Lynch's 45th Battalion certainly did go up to the line to help the push into Stormy Trench, just as Nulla does in this chapter. And just like Nulla's journey, Lynch's trip into the line would have been horrendous. The narrow roads were clogged with vehicles of all sorts, including horses dragging wagons and gun limbers, artillery and ambulances, all in a continuous stream. Men were forced to the sides and into the mud or, at best, left to stumble along broken and splintered corduroy roads.
Nulla and his mates find themselves in Grease Trench, part of a series of trenches near Stormy Trench with names such as Lard, Bacon and Ham. On this stint in the line their job is to be carriers. Their first task is to carry a hot stew in containers on their backs from a support trench up to the frontline. The Germans start shelling so the men begin to jog – and Nulla's mate Longun slips in a shell-hole. There's burning hot stew in his pockets and his respirator bag, down his pants legs – naturally a cause of great mirth for the other men. But as could happen on the battlefield, mirth soon turns to terror as 'there comes a high-piercing scream of an approaching shell'. A mate is hit – the Prof, whose shoulder is gashed and whose side is 'a mangled mess, bleeding profusely'. He will live, but will be away from the line for some time. Nulla's little band is shrinking one by one and he knows the odds are that 'some of the rest must follow soon'.
Their next job as carriers is to supply bombs to other members of the battalion who will be attacking Stormy Trench. From Bean's official history we know that the attack was scheduled to take place on 19 February 1917, but the ground, which had been frozen, thawed and the trenches were once again horrendously muddy. The men became bogged down and fatigued trying to get to the frontline along the communication trenches and the attack was postponed. Lynch did not include this detail in 'The Carrying Party', but he does refer to the 'unbelievable' conditions in the trenches at this time:
We live in a world of Somme mud. We sleep in it, work in it, fight in it, wade in it and many of us die in it. We see it, feel it, eat it and curse it, but we can't escape it, not even by dying. [p. 108]
Bean's official history tell us that in the early hours of 21 February, under cover of rifle-grenadiers and trench mortars, the attack was successfully carried out; 300 metres of trench was captured, with 17 Australian casualties. The role that Lynch gave Nulla and his mates – to keep the Allied attackers supplied with bombs – was a crucial one on that night, for no artillery bombardment was used in the attack. The success of the operation depended in large part on ensuring the attackers had a constant supply of bombs. The call for 'Bombs!' was urgent and frantic.
The Australians used the Mills grenade, which weighed 680 grams and could be thrown about 30 metres, compared to the lighter German 'egg grenade', which weighed far less and had a range of 50 metres. During this attack, though, the Australians fired Mills grenades with cup attachments on the front of their rifles, which meant they could fire them up to 150 metres. The type of trench mortar used in this attack was the Stokes mortar, basically a metal tube supported by two legs and fixed to a base plate. When a mortar bomb was dropped into the tube, it struck a firing pin at the base that triggered a charge and propelled the bomb from the tube towards the enemy. A Stokes mortar could fire as many as 22 bombs a minute, up to a kilometre away. Each mortar bomb weighed around 4.5 kilograms.
Nulla and his mates climb over the block into the part of the trench that the Australians have just stormed, after mortars and grenades have been rained down upon it. There are many Germans lying dead or wounded on the trench floor; others are surrendering, yelling 'Kamerad!' – meaning comrade or companion.
Once the attack is over, Nulla and Jacko are given the job of carting heavy loads of bombs to the newly won trench position. Their hands are full when they spot movement behind a blanket covering a dugout. Nulla assumes it's one of the Australians searching for Fritz souvenirs, but the blanket is suddenly flung aside and a German comes charging for the unarmed Jacko with his bayonet. Nulla is unarmed too but has the sense to fling one of his bags of bombs into the German's face, just in time, as Jacko has frozen in fear and shock. Then Jacko not only snaps out of his immobility but pitches into a violent, frenzied attack on the German soldier, repeatedly kicking him hard in the face and neck.
The dry battalion history can describe how the Australian frontline was transformed by attacks or retreats, but it cannot show us the shattering transformations that individual men went through during those operations. Lynch, the survivor of many military operations, understood the changes men go through when their lives are under threat, when the rules of ordinary civilisation have broken down:
Jacko is no longer an Australian schoolboy. He's gone back fifty thousand years. No joy, aim or ambition in life but to smash that face into a gory pulp ... I know the fellow has gone out to it and Jacko hopes he's killed him, but he doesn't kick again. Civilisation regains control; the caveman's paroxysm of blood-lust gives way to the sportsman's code that won't kick a man when he's out to it. [p. 120]
In Stormy Trench, the 45th Battalion came under counterattack from the Germans, described in 'The Carrying Party' as a harrowing episode of shelling. That is where Lynch ended the story of the attack on Stormy Trench, but in fact the following night, according to Bean, the Australians resumed their attack and captured another 150 metres of trench, a German trench mortar and 32 prisoners (in addition to the 23 they had captured the first night).3 The battalion history reports:
The captured trench was then consolidated by a party under Captain Schadel, who, when out in no-man's-land, dispersed with his revolver a German patrol. The attacking party had three men wounded, but besides the capture of the prisoners, they killed and wounded many Germans. One of the prisoners, a German cadet officer and ex-Oxford student, who spoke excellent English, indignantly complained to battalion headquarters that one Australian in the attacking party had jumped on him and rudely said, 'Tick Tick' meaning he should hand over his watch.4
The practice of souveniring items from German prisoners – known by the men as 'ratting' – is highlighted by Lynch in 'The Carrying Party', so perhaps the operation in Stormy Trench was a particularly fruitful one in that regard. When things are quiet, the men compare 'watches, iron crosses, field glasses and a few pistols and trench daggers' [p. 121].
The Australians were renowned amongst the other forces for stripping German prisoners of anything they could pocket, including wallets, buttons, medals and insignia. And in an army famous for its ratting, one of the most famous ratters was a 45th Battalion man, Private John 'Barney' Hines. The 'Souvenir King', as he became known, was born in Liverpool, England, in 1873. At the age of 14 he ran away to enlist in the British army, but was taken home by his mother. He is supposed to have spent time in the Royal Navy and seen action in the Boxer Rebellion in China (1900) and the Boer War (1899–1902) before he arrived in Australia just before the outbreak of the First World War.
Initially, when he tried to join the AIF he was already in his forties and was rejected, but he persisted and finally joined in August 1915. He was discharged as medically unfit in early 19
16 but joined up again in May 1916 and was one of the 150 men of the fourth reinforcement with Lynch on the HMAT Wiltshire; there is no doubt that Private Lynch would have known Barney Hines, if not personally then certainly through reputation.
Though he was an effective fighter on the line, Hines is better known for his ratting and for causing trouble off the battlefield. In early December 1916, about six weeks after arriving in England, he took himself off to Bethnal Green in London for over a month and was punished by losing two months' pay. By late 1918, he had racked up a number of Absent Without Leave charges, one for Drunkenness and another for forging entries in his paybook.
His ratting was legendary. One tale (possibly a tall one) even went that he came by a grandfather clock, but men from his own unit blew it up because they became a target of enemy shelling every time it chimed. He became widely known as a result of a photograph that was taken after the fighting at Polygon Wood, in September 1917, of Hines surrounded by bounty he had collected from conquered Germans. The story goes that copies of this picture were passed around in the trenches, the Germans found one on an Australian prisoner and from there it found its way into the hands of the Kaiser himself, who declared Hines a 'barbarian' and put a reward on his head – dead or alive. The photo is one of the famous and enduring images of the war. (Today, if you pass through Pozières and stop off at Le Tommy Café de Souvenir, you will even find Hines's image on the place mats on the tables and on postcards.) Hines was wounded twice and returned to Australia in early 1919, where he became a postwar celebrity. In his sixties, he volunteered for the Second World War, but was turned down.