by Harry Askin
All at once the shells came over but, instead of playing on the redoubt, they were bursting on our trench. I thought we should all be wiped out. Shrapnel was bursting amongst us and we hadn’t a scrap of cover. I was crouched near the artillery officer and heard him as he frantically tried to get in touch with the batteries. ‘For God’s sake stop the guns,’ he yelled, ‘you’re wiping us all out.’ The fire died down but there was no attack. Nearly all our men had fled to safer regions. Two or three more wounded wanted attention and a dead man or two required carting away after that spasm.
Some of the Howes and Ansons who had been in the first German line came dashing up the CT to take part in the attack on the redoubt. The first party I saw were headed by Sergeant Major Sands (a marine but attached to the Drakes). He came back again in three minutes with a piece of shrapnel in his leg; and for that, his first touch of fighting, he was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM). He stopped for a chat with me and then went down to have his leg dressed. He said he wasn’t sorry to get away from it. He had only got as far on the trench as Jock Saunders’ post.
Then along the trench dashed ‘Dickie Downs’, the battalion sergeant major of the Ansons, and after three minutes he was back again; and for that, he was awarded the DCM. It was damned little gallantry those two could show in the time. They never even got out of our trench.
The redoubt still held out and continued to dole out casualties amongst us, mostly now with trench mortar bombs and grenades. Things got very monotonous and I asked the commander if I could take the marines forward to join our own battalion. He didn’t know where they were, though, so we had to stick it. Part of the Bedford battalion came to reinforce just before dusk, but why? The Lord only knows. The trench was full of scroungers enough.
Darkness came on and with it a bit of peace from the redoubt. No peace for me, however. Commander Fairfax wanted some Very lights and light pistols. Could I find some? I said I would try, but I remembered the strafe we had coming up and didn’t think I should touch. I hunted round and found some German lights and a couple of pistols, but the commander wouldn’t use them. He said the artillery might think the Germans were sending them up and shell us. The Germans in the redoubt were soon sending up lights in vast numbers, evidently under the impression that we should attack under cover of night. I don’t think anybody thought about that, however.
I turned in again for about half an hour, but again came the cry ‘Corporal Askin’ and there was no turning a deaf ear to it, so I went along again. Just as I reached Battalion HQ a 5.9 burst in the trench amongst a group of us, killing three outright and wounding four. One poor Irish kid was cut to pieces terribly. I was the only one unhurt, although I was badly shaken and the cries of the Irish boy and the moans of the others got on my nerves. ‘Jesus! Mother! Oh Jesus! Don’t let me die.’ The cries of the Irish boy shook one up as much as the shell. I sent for stretcher-bearers and with them came the Roman Catholic padre who tried to comfort Irish but the poor kid was soon dead.
Commander Fairfax was down the dugout and he asked me to get four good men together and patrol the front of the trench for two hours when he would send out a relief. He said Captain Ellis was taking one of his men and would try to get in touch with the party in front, either on the Green Line or wherever they had got to. No messages had been received from them, and of the many runners who had been sent forward none had returned.
I was out ’til 4.00am with Holt and Nicholson, the only men of mine who I could find and a terrible job we had, prowling about in the dark fifty yards in front of our trench, stumbling in and out of shell holes full of water up to the knees in sticky mud the whole time, and always with the risk of falling into a trench full of Germans, or stumbling on a strong patrol of them. Then if we worked too far to the right we ran the double risk of being shot by our own men behind and by the Germans in the redoubt. Sniping was being carried on by both sides. After being nearly shot up from back and front we decided on the safest part of the front to stick to and stuck to it. We waited in vain for the relief to come out to us and with all three feeling about all in, tired, hungry and caked from head to foot with mud, I decided to go in and report. The commander said we might turn in until it was light, when we could rejoin our own battalion. Captain Ellis had located them dug in just beyond the Sunken Road.
I turned in in a different dugout, and there, fast asleep in one of the bunks, was one of our company sergeants, Dick Howarth. Some of our lads said he had been there all the time and had never even put his nose outside the dugout. There is one good thing to be said about Dick Howarth though: he never brags about his bravery.
I turned in without anything to eat and was soon well away, but by doing so I missed a smart bit of work by two tanks. One of the marine officers, Captain Campbell, guided one tank over to the redoubt at dawn and the garrison numbering 776 surrendered right away.
About 7.00am on the 14th Commander Fairfax sent along for me and gave me orders to get all the marines together and take them along to his headquarters. After a lot of trouble, and with the help of Dick Howarth, who had managed to get a move on, we gathered all the visible ones together. Commander Fairfax and Captain Ellis were at Battalion Headquarters and they showed me which way to take. In fact, I could see our chaps lying out under the lip of the Sunken Road, evidently taking cover from a German strafe with heavy black stuff. They were about 800 yards away and Captain Ellis told me to take them straight over the top and report to Colonel Hutchinson who was in charge of our battalion.
It struck me as peculiar that these orders should be given to me, a corporal, when both Jock Saunders and Dick Howarth were there, both of whom were regular sergeants with years of pre-war service in. However, it was so. Commander Fairfax practically ignored both of them, and the funny part about it was that neither Saunders nor Howarth appeared to mind it.
You can imagine it didn’t take me long to get my lot over the top and away to the Sunken Road. The ground was cut up in a terrible state by our artillery strafes and the weather had made it into a stinking quagmire.
The German shelling had died down to just a stray 8-inch shell trying to get the Sunken Road, and I was able to join up with the battalion and report to the colonel without loss. I found the battalion down to about eighty men with three officers, the CO, the Medical Officer Jimmy Ross, and Lieutenant Abrahams, and I think the latter’s lack of spirit and inability to get a wriggle on got him through. He was a perfect dream.
On our left, towards the remains of the village of Beaumont Hamel, were the remnants of 1 RM, about sixty men with Colonel Cartwright and one other officer, and on the right were the Ansons with two officers, one of whom was my old friend Dave Gowney. They had evidently suffered some casualties during the last strafe. They had been holding and working in the trenches just beyond the top of the bank when Jerry started sending over 5.9s and 8-inch shells and one big shell dropped amongst about a dozen men, killing several and badly wounding the others. Even while I reported to the CO I could see Jimmy Ross giving morphia to one of the chaps who, I found out afterwards, was one of my own platoon. He was dead though when I found that out. Most of the men who were left were loaded up with souvenirs, German helmets, revolvers, field-glasses and boxes of cigars and gold-tipped cigarettes. I knew where the majority of that stuff would land if the men managed to get it back. As soon as the francs got scarce they would sell them to the Army Service Corps people, and booze away the proceeds. I think the ASC and Army Ordnance Corps are the only people who will have anything to show after the war. They have money to burn, getting five times the amount of pay the infantry gets and their risk of getting put out of action is about the same as the people at home.
An infantryman has little chance to get home with souvenirs unless, of course, he gets away on leave straightaway. I think that even if a chap found a bag of gold he would part with it after he had carried it in his pack round the front and trenches of France.
We carried on consolidating in th
e trenches throughout the day and nothing very exciting happened. Jerry tried occasionally to hit us with 8-inch shells, but most of them dropped across the Sunken Road, making a nasty mess of some of his dugouts. I noticed three shells drop exactly on the entrance to one dugout, so that did away with the theory that shells never hit the same place. Word came along later on that Lieutenant Colonel Freyberg had taken Beaucourt and had been wounded three times at the head of his men. A brigade of a rifle division had been lent to us and had gone forward to occupy our last objective, and to fill up gaps in the line occasioned by the holding on of the Germans in the redoubt.
As dusk approached we manned the trenches for the night and patrols were told off for the front, but luckily I missed that. I turned in in the trench and tried to sleep but found it too cold, so tried digging with an entrenching tool. What with that and a feed of German bully and biscuits I managed to keep fairly warm, but I felt just about at the end of my endurance, and I was longing for dawn and a chance to turn into some hole for a sleep.
Dawn did come, a cold foggy dawn again, but no chance to turn in. Jerry had been waiting, too, and sent us a few 8-inch and 5.9s to try to dispel the fog. Word was passed along to keep on the alert as the Germans were preparing for a strong counter-attack; very soon after shells were falling about the trenches in a most unpleasant manner. After about half an hour the CO told us to get back to the Sunken Road and take cover there. We were very thankful too as it gave us a chance to make some tea. Tommy cookers were knocking about in plenty, mostly German and they were better than ours. They actually boiled a canteen of water, provided you kept the draft away. Very near to me was the CO’s servant, vainly endeavouring to make some tea for the colonel. He was struggling with a wood fire and the old man kept stamping up expecting his tea to be ready. We were all drinking ours and the sight made the CO mad. He stormed at his man and put him in such a flurry that, just as the water was ready, he upset the whole lot on the fire. Colonel Hutchinson got no tea that morning for just then the Bosch opened up on us with a terrific hail of heavy stuff. There was a mad dash for the shelter of the bank and there we stuck for two hours while Jerry kept it up.
It was obvious to us that the strafe was due to a trick of the Germans. Just after dawn, when we had left the trenches, an aeroplane came over from our front, flying very low and dropping red lights. It had on it the red, white and blue circles of the British planes so we thought it wanted our position. The CO passed word along for any men with red flares to burn them, so of course we did. Very soon the edge of the Sunken Road for as far as one could see was one line of red flares. Then the aeroplane, with a burst of machine-gun fire, disappeared in the direction of the German lines. Hence the strafe. The devils had sent over one of our own planes that he had captured at some time.
Some of the shells dropped very near and we were peppered badly with lumps of casing and covered time and again with dirt. Not one man was hurt though and we all kept fairly cheerful, smoking his cigars and cigarettes and eating his rations each time he sent over his kind regards.
Word came along that we were to be relieved at 1.30pm, for which our grateful thanks were very audible. Everybody from the CO down had had quite enough. We were all anxious to get back to the promised hot tea and rum, more particularly perhaps the rum and the ride back in the motor-buses. The time for relief came, but no relief, but we moved away and left the Sunken Road to anybody who wanted it.
We struck off right, almost to the front of what was once Beaumont Hamel, now a churned up heap of sticks and stone and stumps of trees. Then we entered a wide tunnel that had served the Germans as a communication trench. It was a splendid piece of work, the roof, floor and sides lined with heavy planks. Along one side, and strapped to the woodwork, was a set of light rails that could be let down and used with a light truck set for rations and ammunition. At intervals, large rooms for different staffs were let off on either side and access could be had to his three lines of trenches with large dugouts in each line. Large basket-covered bottles were strewn about the place, which had contained cognac not long before the Scotties of 51st Division had taken the place.
Some of the chaps said that the place was found full of drunken men with kilts on, and all the Germans that were found were dead. Progress up the tunnel was slow for various reasons. Our battalion was, of course, last to leave the road and some of the other battalions had got hung up at the entrance to no man’s land where the Germans were dropping 8-inch shells near to the tunnel outlet. Then, of course, we were all on lookout for anything we could pick up, but nothing useful had been left by the gangs of souvenir hunters. Had they carted some of the dead bodies away instead of leaving them to stink and rot in the tunnel, our progress would have been quicker. We got to no man’s land eventually, only to be strafed with 8-inch shells on our emergence into daylight; and it was a case of dashing for cover as soon as a shell had burst.
We got to Knightsbridge Dump about 5.30pm and once there felt safe and, of course, not a little bucked with ourselves at accomplishing so much. We knew that we had done practically all that had been asked of us, and in some cases more, but no details were yet to hand.
We struggled our way down to Hedanville as best we could, and it was a struggle; some poor devils could hardly keep going. It was a pitiable sight, a thin staggering, reeling line of mud-caked men, about eighty strong or rather weak, all that was left out of nearly 500 or 600 men three days before.
Colonel Hutchinson was marching slowly along at our head with Jimmy Ross and looking as proud as punch. Lieutenant Abrahams was dreamily bringing up the rear. Damn it, I thought, we ought to be marching back with a swing as though the band was at our head. Where was the discipline of the marines? Discipline was there alright though. The colonel hadn’t forgotten who we were. A man belonging to some regiment ran across the road with a Dixie of tea, broke through our straggling ranks and made for a group of his kind who were standing watching us pass. Before he could reach them, however, the colonel had hold of his tunic collar and was shaking him like a terrier shakes a rat. ‘What the devil do you mean by breaking through my ranks?’ he roared. He said a lot more, then made the chap walk back across the road, but away round the rear of the battalion. Our men woke up after that, they seemed to realise that we were Royal Marines and tried their best to live up to it.
It was a weary lot of men who lurched into the huts at Hedanville about 7.30pm, absolutely beaten. The first chap I clapped eyes on was Billy Hurrell, who, it appears, had not been badly hurt and was by then quite fit again. Several other fellows were also in the hut who we all thought had got Blighties and they had nothing to show apart from bruises or scratches from the barbed wire.
I looked a sorry mess when I got into the light of the hut, caked from head to foot in thick mud and my tunic and trousers caked with dried blood from poor old Osgood and others. Jeffries had been true to his word and, as soon as I had dropped my gear, he was waiting with a mug of hot, steaming tea with plenty of rum in it, which was very acceptable. When it was finished I felt as though I could do it all over again, but as there was no need for that I set to and shaved the three days’ growth of beard off my face with the remains of the tea and rum.
My pack had been brought up from Brigade HQ, so I stripped, had a good rub down in lieu of a bath and put clean pants and vest on and I needed them. I don’t think I have ever been more lousy. All the chaps were congratulating me and I was certain for a medal, so they said. I said very little to that, but all the same I knew that no one had worked harder than I had.
I turned in with Billy and slept like a log until 3.00am when we were all roused out. The motors had come for us and we tumbled sleepily into the lorries and continued our sleep after the grumbling had died down. Why the b***** hell couldn’t they leave us till daylight.
We were soon bumped and jolted as far as Puchevilliers, where we were shoved in billets, or rather barns and cowsheds, and told to clean ourselves up for the colonel’s parade.
/> The colonel made a speech to us, not much, just said how he appreciated the spirit in which we had done our job, in spite of the hardships we had had to endure beforehand, gave us a few details as to what we and the division as a whole had accomplished, then touched on the losses we had suffered, which he said were heavy, but not in comparison with the gains of the battle.
We had been engaged, he said, in an action bigger than the Battle of Waterloo and no one could say yet what far reaching results would accrue from it. He asked us to give particulars of the known casualties, but unless we had actually seen a man dead we were to state that he was missing. Then he thanked us for what we had done and for the way we had carried on the glorious traditions of the Royal Marines.
There were tears in the old man’s eyes at the finish and his voice broke. Some greasy sergeant from D Company called for three cheers for the colonel which, however, were given right heartily. Then we were dismissed with the exception of platoon sergeants and officers. One or two officers had remained behind on the 12th so we weren’t quite destitute. I might say, though, that the best were gone. Major Eagles, our second in command, was left behind at Englebelmer to superintend the traffic and for that little job was awarded the DSO.