SOMME

by Lyn Macdonald

  With the move into permanent camp and later the issue of anonymous khaki uniforms, their dignity and the politeness of their respectful NCOs evaporated overnight.

  The Corporals and Sergeants had not considered it necessary to show the same degree of consideration for the younger members of the Battalion. The majority were former pupils of Bristol Grammar School and had only recently left.1 They all knew each other, hung together, treated the Army as a huge joke and introduced an element of schoolboy ragging that the Battalion could have well done without. There were pillow-fights and water-fights in the barrack-room dormitories where the beds were mere makeshift arrangements of palliasses laid on trestles, and a favourite sport was to ensure a rude awakening for some unfortunate sleeper by pulling the trestle smartly from beneath him so that he landed up on the floor. There was seldom any ill-feeling.

  2nd Lieutenant H. J. Hayward, MC, No. 14314, 12th (Bristol City) Btn., The Gloucestershire Regiment, 5th Division

  We were all firm friends. There were at least a dozen fellows I knew from school, nearly all my senior. My old form-master was our Company Commander. There were some fellows who had left the school before I went there, a few more who were prefects when I was a boy in the first form, and there were two whom had been great chums of mine, although they were both older, because we lived near each other. That was Tom Webber and Harold Howell. We stuck together like glue, even after we went to France. We were in the same section and the same platoon and we shared everything together. Life was more serious when we got to the trenches in France, of course, but we still used to rag and joke. There was one thing we got out there which was café au lait. It was coffee-flavoured or cocoa-flavoured condensed milk and it was the most delectable food you could get. I never saw it outside France, and it was a great treat for us. One night Tom and I were going to share a little tin of this and I was on sentry. When I got back I looked at this tin and it was empty! I said to Tom, ‘What’s happened to the café au lait?’ He said, ‘Well, my half was at the bottom – so I had to eat yours to get at mine.’

  We nearly had a rough-house over that! But it was a joke. He’d stowed it away somewhere and there was still half a tin left. It made a wonderful hot drink. It was nectar.

  Just before Guillemont the happy trio was broken up when Hayward was ordered out of the line and sent to Battalion Headquarters to act as the Colonel’s runner. He was as furious as he might have been two years earlier had he been ordered to remain in the Headmaster’s study while the school First Eleven played the most important cricket match of the season. Just as he might have done then, he protested to his form-master. It cut no ice. Major Beckett had been told to nominate one man from each company, he had put forward the name of his old pupil, and that was that. Half-suspecting that Beckett had seized the opportunity of keeping him out of the attack, Hayward protested to the Colonel himself. But the Colonel was adamant. Half his H Q squad had been evacuated with shell-shock. They must be replaced before the Battalion went into action. Hayward could not be spared. It was an appalling disappointment and Hayward did not make a cheerful addition to the personnel of Battalion H Q. He did not even have a sight of the battle when his comrades went over the top at noon on 2 September.

  The King’s Own Scottish Borderers had gone over several hours earlier, before nine in the morning. Moving forward with the French on their right, under a barrage fired by French guns, they were to capture Falfemont Farm, to knock it out and to hold it until the general attack swept forward at Zero Hour. Falfemont Farm, to the right of Guillemont, lay on the slopes of a valley hidden by the rising land. It was out of observation both from the Gloucesters’ H Q and from Guillemont, but the first reports were optimistic. None of the leading lines of men had returned. The assault must have been successful. The black truth was that they had not returned because all had been killed or wounded. The barrage had not materialized. Without informing the British, the French guns had been obliged to swing around to deal with a German counter-attack to the south of them and the French infantry, which should have advanced alongside the Borderers were left, like them, with no artillery support. In the Maurepas Ravine they were mown down by machine-gun fire and there they had stuck. Three hours later the Gloucesters went over the top to renew the attack.

  At Battalion H Q it was a long, long day and the long night that followed was full of alarms, reports that the Germans were counter-attacking here in the Guillemont sector, waves of relief when it seemed that they had been beaten off. At dawn Colonel Archer-Shee went forward to see for himself what was happening. He took Hayward with him.

  2nd Lieutenant H. J. Hayward, MC, No. 14314, 12th (Bristol City) Btn., The Gloucestershire Regiment, 5th Division

  The Colonel had promised me that I could go. He said, ‘I’ll send you out to see how far the Battalion has gone forward. Just do your job here now and I’ll let you go up to the front tomorrow.’ I knew he meant when things had quietened down! We went right up to the line. It was fairly safe because we were only going to the line our boys were supposed to have occupied and there were other troops ahead of them. But all the way up, as it got lighter, we could see people lying all over the ground – I was shocked to see people in my own platoon who’d been knocked out. That was terrible!

  At first, when we got to the line, we couldn’t find the Battalion. There was nothing but a motley array of men in the trenches – not just people from other battalions in our Brigade, but people from other divisions I’d never even heard of. It was an awful mix up! Eventually we did find some of the boys and, by a miracle, I found my pals Tom and Harold. They were in the aid post. A shell had come over and buried Harold when they were going forward and the Company ran over him while he was down with all this earth and stuff on top of him. It was a miracle he got out! Tom Webber was completely shell-shocked. We’d lost a lot of our NCOs and many, many officers.

  There was a gap – a big gap – beyond the right of our line, and the ground was hidden, so we couldn’t see anybody at all. The Colonel wanted to know who was there and what they intended to do. It was all quiet then, so he told me to run down and find out. We were standing there, quite exposed, and I had just stepped away from the Colonel and turned round when suddenly I was hit by a bullet that came from behind us, from one of the lines of trenches we’d over-run. There must have been a German sniper still holding out there and, of course, the Colonel presented a good target, standing there with his stick and his badges of rank and everything. But the sniper got me instead – right in the backside!

  All the Colonel’s personal interest and protection did not prevent Harry Hayward from being carried from the battlefield as a casualty. They carried him to the Colonel’s own dugout where Lieutenant Fitzgerald extracted the bullet and bandaged the wound. Hayward had to wait until dark before the stretcher-bearers could carry him back to the road where a convoy of horse-drawn ambulances had managed to get up to the line. Alex Paterson was luckier. By the time Hayward was being loaded into the ambulance, Paterson was already settled in the comparative comfort of the casualty clearing station at Corbie. They must have passed within yards of each other that morning for the remnants of Paterson’s company had been ordered to the rear to collect the Battalions’ rations and Sergeant Paterson had been wounded leading it back to the line.

  Sergeant A. K. Paterson, DCM, MM, No. 52574, A Coy., 11th (S) Btn., The Rifle Brigade

  I can hardly describe how different the ground was as we went back up through it, compared to what it had been the day before. It had been no picture then, but now there was no sign of any landmark at all, just shell-holes and mud. We had all our equipment and as well as that each one of us was carrying a full sandbag of cheese, bread, jam, whatever they were sending up. We were carrying extra ammunition in belts slung over our shoulders and we were carrying the mail up too, letters and parcels for the boys in the line. You can imagine that we didn’t move very fast.

  I spread the men out in single file, with five paces between each
man and put Corporal Bradley with the two stretcher-bearers and stretcher in the rear, so that they could see to any casualties. When I got within waving distance of our new Headquarters – about a hundred yards away – I increased the pace and, just as I gave the order, I heard a shell coming. I could tell by the sound of it that it would drop near to my left side, so I dived into a shell-hole on my right. But I was too late. A lump of shell penetrated my left thigh and a smaller piece went into my right hand which was holding the sandbag.

  I wouldn’t let the men break rank. I signalled to them to double forward and saw them all arrive safely in the Headquarters’ shell-hole and then I called Corporal Bradley over and handed over my platoon roll book. During the night I had written out the new roll of A Company. It didn’t take up much room.

  The stretcher-bearers carried me out.

  Fred White came through unhurt – but fed up.

  Rifleman Fred White, No. R.8529, B Coy., Bomber 10th Btn., King’s Royal Rifle Corps, 59th Brigade, 20th Division

  They relieved us and took us back to the support line and told us we were going out on divisional rest. We were all formed up ready to go when who should come in but the sick, lame and lazy – those blokes who’d gone up to the Medical Officer just before we went in the line and said they’d got this and they’d got that. They made a miraculous recovery as soon as we got out! There they were, about twelve of them, looking all spick and span and smart and there we were, dirty and unwashed and covered with mud and looking like nothing on earth. Just as we were ready to go, my Platoon Sergeant came up and he told off five of us – ‘You, you, you, you, you. You’ve got to stay behind and clean up the battlefield.’ Well, you know what cleaning up the battlefield means? Cleaning up the battlefield means searching all the dead people and looking for all the information and identities and then burying them.

  I didn’t argue with the Sergeant. I just said, ‘Excuse me, Sergeant, take me to Lieutenant Hannay.’ That was proper Army procedure, in the line or out. Sergeant Pearce wasn’t very pleased, but he took me to the officer and he said, ‘This man’s got a complaint.’ ‘What is it?’ says the Officer. I told him. I said, ‘We’ve been in this action. We’ve fought this action. These people there have just come out from a tidy place’ – meaning the sick, lame and lazy – ‘and now we’ve been told to go back and clean up the battlefield. They should go up. They’re more fitter than what we are to go up!’

  Lieutenant Hannay said, ‘I see your point.’ So we got off with it and he made them stay behind. I was popular with the platoon for that, but I wasn’t so popular with the Sergeant!

  Muddy, unshaven, exhausted but with a light tread, the victors of Guillemont went out of the line and the 56th Division went in to pursue the battle beyond the village. The Australians too went thankfully back to billets and the Canadians moved into their place. In every sector of the line divisions were reshuffled. For the next ten days the task of the Army was to pivot on Guillemont, to try to swing forward, to straighten the line to a position of advantage for the Big Push planned for 15 September.

  Hopes were high, for the Army would be supported by the new Secret Weapon. The tanks were on their way.

  So were the New Zealanders.

  Part 4

  The Mouth of Hell

  Into the mouth of hell,

  Sticking it pretty well,

  Slouched the six hundred.

  E. A. MACKINTOSH,

  Autumn, 1916.

  Chapter 20

  The evening of 5 September was fine and clear but the stiff breeze that had swept away the last of the rain clouds felt distinctly chilly to the soldiers squatting in a muddy field as they enjoyed the unaccustomed treat of an open-air cinema show at Morlancourt, fifteen kilometres from the firing line. Watching the comical misadventures of Charlie Chaplin it was possible to forget the sky beyond, flickering with the bombardment of the ‘evening hate’. Even the staccato bark of the guns was masked to some extent by the sound of a tinny piano. With more goodwill than skill, a young officer was doing his best to provide a ‘sound track’ of appropriate music in the style of professional pianists who performed in the more civilized surroundings of picture palaces at home. Charlie Chaplin was one thing: the second half of the programme baffled the pianist, for in his limited repertoire, there was no music which could add anything to the mood and the drama of the official film of the Battle of the Somme.

  It had been filmed by Geoffrey Malins, accredited to the War Office as a cinematograph photographer to capture an official record of troops in action in a major battle. He had ranged far and wide behind the front filming the troops in training, at rest and on the march. He had filmed them kneeling bareheaded on the open ground as surpliced Padres gave a final blessing on the last Sunday in June. He had filmed them moving up the line and assembling for the Big Push. When the battle started on the morning of the First of July he was placed in a hazardously exposed position in a jumping-off trench in front of Beaumont Hamel and, despite the danger, and the unnerving din, turning the handle of his hand-cranked camera at the steady two revolutions per second, he had recorded the scene with coolly professional detachment. Malins had filmed four reels before an explosion knocked the tripod from underneath the camera and very nearly knocked out the cameraman himself. Later, he had turned his lens on the wounded crowding into the aid posts, on disconsolate groups of German prisoners with their triumphant escorts and on troops returning cheerfully from the battle. The film had been shown privately to the King and Queen at Windsor Castle and now it was on show to the general public in halls and cinemas all over the country – half a dozen of them in London alone – and advertised as ‘authentic, realistic pictures of Our Boys at the Front’. At the end of every showing rapturous audiences, who had queued for hours to see it, cheered and applauded until their palms ached.

  The Boys who actually were at the front viewed the film with mixed feelings. Some senior officers had doubted the wisdom of showing it at all, at least to the troops, like those at Morlancourt, who were about to take their own chance in the Battle of the Somme, but the men watched, rapt and attentive.

  The celluloid soldiers marched jerkily at ease, as cheerily – to judge by their grins and inaudible mouthings – as they themselves had marched to Morlancourt. They saw them wink and laugh and salute the camera in a silent bravado of excitement as they waited to go over the top. They saw the awesome soundless swelling of the earth as the mine above Beaumont Hamel tossed half the Hawthorn Ridge into the sky and the men rose like phantoms from the trenches and ran like clockwork toys across the ground beyond. They saw men falling soft to the earth as a rag doll might be tossed down by a child, the gushing fountains of exploding shells, the gauze of cordite fumes that drifted lazily across the erupting earth. To the men who sat watching in the chill and the dark under the open sky it seemed like a spectral battle fought by the long-dead ghosts of soldiers uniformed in phantom grey. In all the images that flickered across the big screen in the corner of the field, there was not an echo of the fight, not a hint of the roar of the guns, the crash of explosions, the crack of rifles, the screams, the shouts, the deadly rattle of machine-guns. It was insubstantial as a dream. But for the rumble of the distant guns they might have been watching from another planet. The reality was that the cinema-goers themselves would soon be on their way to that place where the guns glowed on the thundersome horizon.

  The far-off growl of the bombardment had rolled nearer with every step the New Zealanders took on the march from Amiens. By the time they reached Laviéville, just a few kilometres from Morlancourt, they could feel the vibration beneath their feet. It was 8 September. In a bid to rock the line so painfully gained by the British and French, and to thwart the big attack they were clearly preparing, the Germans had mounted a mammoth counter-attack. The line swayed, and held, but the shockwaves of the duelling guns, massed now in thousands on both sides of the line, rippled across the few miles that lay between them and the hutted camp at Lavi
éville as if to underline the uneasy fact that the N. Zedders were for it. It was not that they had never before heard gunfire, but they had never before heard it on such a scale.

  They had been five days on the march and on the whole it had not been unenjoyable. It was a change to get out of the trenches. It was a change to perambulate in small towns and villages where civilians kept up a semblance of normal life. They had enjoyed ogling the girls, who trailed alongside the long marching columns, fascinated by the strange appearance of the New Zealanders in their lemon-squeezer hats. There had been quaint sights to explore on rest days, wine to be sampled in estaminets and, finally, encamped by the River Somme at la Chaussée, a glorious bathing parade to wash away the heat and the dust and soothe swollen and blistered feet. In the ist Canterbury Battalion Howard Kippenberger, Harry Baverstock and Jack Gee were popularly known as the Three Musketeers and commonly referred to as Kip, Bav and Gee. All three were privates and they were bosom friends.1

  They were marching together on the last long stretch of road that led from Amiens to Albert – a full eighteen kilometres – and they were finding it hard going. By the time they had covered ten of them the Kiwis were filthy, sweating and bedraggled and there was still a long, long way to go. They were also parched and Platoon Sergeant Geordie Hudson was particular on the subject of water-bottles – so particular that he would scarcely allow his men a drink. ‘You never know when your need will be much greater than it is now, so keep that bottle intact.’ A raging thirst did not add to the delights of the march.

  The long straight road between Amiens and Albert had a single bend and at it stood an imposing figure outside an equally imposing gateway. He was only a sentry, only a private like themselves but, from the stiff peak of his hat to the polished toecaps of his boots, his burnished, immaculate turnout was the very antithesis of their own. Despite the splendour of their recently acquired lemon-squeezer hats, the New Zealanders felt like a bunch of grimy hobos. ‘Look boys! A soldier!’ It was Kip who called out as they passed – and he was only half joking.