SOMME

by Lyn Macdonald

  In the deep-tunnelled dugouts below Y Ravine the stench and the cries were terrible. Tiers of wire bunks were stacked with wounded, terrified by the sight of mud-encrusted Jocks appearing, with bayonets fixed and rifles at the ready, ahead of the stretcher parties. But these Germans were past giving trouble. While the medical teams got on with the job, their escorts began to explore. They were like children in a toyshop. There was Schnapps, there was brandy, there was wine, there was food, there were cigars and, best of all, there was dry clothing.

  ‘Hey, Jimmy,’ shouted one Highlander, ecstatic at the discovery of a packing case full of dry socks. ‘This is a no’ a dugout. It’s a shop!’

  They could hardly get their boots off quick enough. The dugout was littered with souvenirs and they were theirs for the taking, but, for the moment, dry socks were the most coveted of all the spoils of war.

  In the elation of achievement it was easy for the troops, now taking possession of the captured ground, to overlook the fact that they had won a pyrrhic victory. By four o’clock it was dark and new accumulations of fog, thick with the fumes of battle, clammy with damp, rolled up from the river to spread a chill blanket across the bodies of the wounded who still lay on the open ground. There was no hope now that they would be rescued before morning and, for many, little hope that they would survive through the icy November night.

  Just as it had done on the sunny evening of the First of July, and just as it had done with haunting regularity in the intervening months, the spectre of partial success laid a dead hand on the decisions of the Command. Partial success, which invariably left the Germans holding certain positions of advantage (from which, with a little more effort, they could surely be evicted) had led to a weary cycle of more ‘partial successes’ They were better than total failure, but shabby substitutes for total victory. If General Gough’s Army had only partially succeeded in pushing the Germans back, it was axiomatic that the Germans had partially succeeded in stemming the British advance.

  There had been stark failure at Serre. A swift advance on the Redan Ridge had soon been forced back when other divisions failed to come forward, and the early advantage was lost. The Germans had been pushed out of St Pierre Divion across the Ancre, but Beaucourt village, further along the river valley, was still unsecured. Thousands of prisoners had been captured, but at a cost of casualties too numerous to calculate. The line had been broken at Beaumont Hamel but the thinned-out ranks of troops who had won through were holding a weak line. If it were not secured, if they did not push on, winter would find them trapped in the valley with the enemy firmly entrenched halfway up the high ground with Munich and Frankfurt trenches guarding the heights.

  Sergeant W.J. Hoyles, MM, No. 3237, 13th (S) Btn., The Rifle Brigade, 37th Division

  We had to pass across a valley to get to this high hill where the battle was going to go on next morning. We should have dodged across, of course, and gone up in the shelter of the other bank but the Colonel was gone, and we were led by the Second-in-Command. He wasn’t one of the original officers – well, we hardly had any of the original officers left – and he was no damned good, this man. He led us in open order right across the valley, across a huge open space, and the Boche were shelling us. We lost no end of men! Freddie Lyon, my great chum, got hit almost right away. I shoved him and some other chaps into a shell-hole on the hillside and I’d hardly turned away when another shell came over and dropped right into it. They were all killed, bar Freddie.

  Then I had to find my Battalion and it was pitch dark. Everyone was all mixed up, and the hill itself was nothing but shell-holes and water. Eventually, by a miracle, I stumbled across a bit of a captured trench and this officer chap, this Major who was in command, was in it and he looked up at me and he says, ‘Where have you been to?’ I said, ‘Down there, shifting the wounded – and there are plenty of them! You left us all out in the open. You didn’t go far enough!’ I didn’t care what I said to him, I was so wild. I was shouting at him above the noise, and it was bedlam! He never spoke, so I shouted at him again. I said, ‘Where’s my Company? Where’s A Company? And he never answered. He was a washout.

  I left him and a bit further on I came to a shell-hole and there crouched into it was a Sergeant-Major and two other Sergeants I knew. The extraordinary thing was that I knew these fellows were going to die – and they knew it too. You get that instinct. I said, ‘What’s the orders? What’s happening?’ They didn’t know. They just looked back at me, absolutely blank. They knew they weren’t going to come back.

  By the time I got my section up to the top of the hill we were being enfiladed by machine-gun fire. We were crouching in a shell-hole, a very shallow one, waiting to go on and this burst of machine-gun fire took the tops of their heads straight off. I lost the whole of my section – every single man! I got it in the lung, and that was the end for me. The whole thing was an absolute muck-up.

  Sergeant C. M. Williams, MM, No. 54556, 13th (S) Btn., The Rifle Brigade

  I was in charge of the Battalion Machine-Gunners, and we’d lost a tremendous lot of men in the shelling before we even reached the Green Line where we had to jump off from. But it wasn’t until after we’d taken the first German line and a lot of prisoners who gave up without much trouble, that our left flank came under heavy sniper fire and machine-gun fire, because the Battalion to the left of us hadn’t got forward. I was in a shell-hole with three of my machine-gunners and I shouted to the men who were round about to drop down and take cover. Rather than dropping where they were, three riflemen made a dash for a shell-hole further away, where there were some other chaps, and, just as they got alongside our position, they were caught in a burst of fire and they literally fell in on top of us. All dead. All killed outright.

  Sergeant Johnson collected some bombers and detoured and crawled round the back of the Germans who were firing at us and smashed them out. We went on again and managed to capture another few yards of ground, but again we came into enfilade fire on our left, because the battalion to the left of us was still held up. It was all terrible confusion. We didn’t know where anyone was the whole day long, so all we could do was to stop where we were and do the best we could. When dusk fell I collected Corporal Bissell and five other machine-gunners and we crawled out thirty yards or so and dug a position in line with the German sniper position, but beside an old German dugout that gave them a bit of cover and protection. There was terrible firing going on and Very lights started going up. When I’d seen the boys settled, I crawled off again, making for the trench I thought I’d come from, and I hadn’t gone a dozen yards before I saw a German in it. It was a German trench I was crawling into! And it wasn’t a dozen yards from the machine-gun post we’d just set up. Heaven knows how we’d missed them on the way forward! I crawled backwards, very cautiously indeed, and got back to the boys to warn them.

  When I moved off again I didn’t know where I was! I knew full well that I’d lost my direction, but I just kept on going, trusting to luck and lying close to the ground when the flares went up and when there were bursts of machine-gun fire. They were spraying the ground practically all the time, but I kept on moving to my right and eventually I struck our line – or rather, the place where most of the boys were! I crawled back again at daybreak and the Germans had gone out of the post I’d stumbled across. Later we were relieved and by morning we were back where we’d started, on the Green Line.

  It was the second time in the space of ninety-five days that the Battalion had lost almost half its fighting strength – three hundred and twelve casualties, of whom ninety-three were dead.

  Looking around them at the protective belts of wire, the gun positions sheltered by steep banks, the warren of deep dry dugouts, the survivors marvelled that the Green Line in the valley had ever been captured at all. Even now the dugouts had not been entirely cleared of Germans but those who remained, waiting to be marched back as prisoners, were in no mood to cause any difficulty. Nevertheless, a few of the boys, observing Serg
eant–Major ‘Rainbow’ Oliver sitting on the top step of a dugout occupied by thirty surly Germans, rather admired his nerve. He was unarmed, he was reading a letter from home, and he had every appearance of being completely relaxed. He explained kindly that he had not had time to digest his correspondence before going into action.

  Charlie Williams’ machine-gunners had ‘captured’ a Westphalian ham. It was covered with green mould but they had easily scraped that off. Now they were frying thick rashers in a mess-tin lid and pronouncing it a jolly sight better than bully beef. Through the mist the rattle of continued fighting reached towards them from the high ground across the valley.

  It was the morning of 15 November and they were conscious of having done well. They had advanced the line halfway up the ridge and D Company on the left had got as far as the edge of Munich Trench. On the right they had taken Beaucourt Trench and linked up with the Royal Naval Division. Lieutenant-Commander Freyberg had rallied a conglomerate force of men and led them, against the odds, to capture Beaucourt village.1

  The outcome of the gamble had been limited success and less than General Gough had hoped for. But the capture of St Pierre Divion, of Beaucourt and of Beaumont Hamel were three trump cards. The previous evening Gough had had the gratification of placing them in the hand of his Commander-in-Chief and that morning Haig laid them on the table at the opening session of the Chantilly Conference where they had the desired effect of mollifying the French. He played them again next day at the Paris Conference of the British and French Governments and they even trumped Lloyd George. He had come prepared, with all the powers of his formidable rhetoric, to plead the case for shifting the main arena of the battle away from the atrophy of the Western Front and, even after the Prime Minister had insisted on his deleting the most virulent and inflammatory passages of Lloyd George’s prepared speech, it had promised to be a lively meeting. Now all was changed. The Conference, which had set out to curb the powers of the Military, unanimously accepted the conclusions which the Military Commanders had reached at Chantilly and endorsed their plans for the continuance of the war in the spring. A few had doubts. Lord Lansdowne was already mentally composing the memorandum which, on his return to London, he would circulate to the Cabinet. Are we to continue until we have killed ALL our young men? But, for the moment, all was accord.

  But although, from his own point of view, the outcome of the Conferences had been highly satisfactory, Sir Douglas Haig was not without qualms and he had already sent a message to General Gough clearly stating that he did not wish him to continue with any large-scale attacks during his own absence. Gough was perturbed. His Army had hardly had a fair crack of the whip. The omens were good. He was assured that all ranks were fighting fit and eager to go on. They had captured Beaumont Hamel. They had captured Beaucourt. But the Germans were still dug in on the hump of high ground between them, still holding out in the high redoubts at Munich and Frankfurt trenches. With just a little more effort, one last push, his Army could gain the heights.

  Against his better judgement the Commander-in-Chief allowed himself to be persuaded.

  General Gough was delighted and put the matter in hand right away.

  Part 5

  Friends Are Good on the Day of Battle

  Translation of the Gaelic inscription on the 51st Highland Division Memorial which looks across to Beaumont Hamel.

  Chapter 25

  The scrag-end of the Glasgow Boys Brigade Battalion – officially the 16th Highland Light Infantry – paraded by companies in a gale-swept field at Mailly Maillet, but the sight was too awful for words and, shortly before General Gough arrived to inspect them, Colonel Kyle ordered the ranks to close up. They were still a sorry sight. Three days earlier, on the heights above Beaumont Hamel, they had advanced through the first snow-storm of the winter to fight the last action of the Battle of the Somme. The Battalion could claim to have been in at the kill. A handful of the originals who had escaped annihilation at Leipzig Redoubt on the first of July could also claim to have been in at the beginning.

  General Gough addressed the men with kindly words. He thanked them for their efforts in the battle. It had been a considerable achievement to capture Munich Trench and it was no reflection on their courage and endurance that a counter-attack by a vastly superior force had pushed them out again. They might rest assured that, by their deeds, they had added fresh laurels to the name of the Highland Light Infantry.

  The men gave three apathetic cheers. General Gough stood stiffly saluting as they marched off, then he turned to Colonel Kyle.

  ‘What were your casualties?’ he asked.

  Even after two roll-calls the Colonel was unable to answer with precision. There might yet be stragglers. In the early hours of the 18th they had gone into the attack on Munich and Frankfurt trenches with twenty-one officers and six hundred and fifty other ranks. Eight officers had returned. At the last count 390 men had been killed, wounded, or were missing.

  In the afternoon of the same day an urgent signal from Divisional Headquarters brought Colonel Kyle the astonishing news that ninety of his casualties were not ‘missing’ at all. They had been trapped by the German counter-attack and were lying low, marooned in Frankfurt Trench some distance behind the recaptured German line. At roughly the same time this interesting information also came to the notice of the Germans and, almost as routine, anticipating little trouble, they sent a sergeant and a small armed party down the communication trench to take the Highlanders prisoner. The handful of men who returned reported that half of their number had been killed or captured by the British who had blocked and fortified a stretch of Frankfurt Trench, that they seemed determined to fight and that, to all appearances, they were armed to the teeth.

  They were not armed to the teeth. All they had, apart from a length of battered trench and two captured dugouts, were their rifles, four Lewis-guns and a reasonable supply of ammunition, most of it retrieved from the scattered bodies of dead soldiers. They also had the fixed intention of defending their position until the next successful attack brought comrades to the rescue.

  But it was 21 November. The Battle of the Somme was over and the long campaign had fizzled out in the failure of Saturday’s attempt to seize the heights. Three days had passed. It was Tuesday now and, until winter loosened its grip, there would be no more attacks on Frankfurt Trench. Except, of course, by the Germans, faced with the galling necessity of attacking a part of their own line where a small isolated British force was still, unaccountably, holding out.

  They held out until Sunday.

  Tuesday evening. In the German front line there is an outbreak of heavy fighting, a frenzy of rapid fire and explosions. Hopes soar in Frankfurt Trench. At midnight the fighting dies down. They listen on for a long time. Eventually there is silence.

  By Wednesday, there is no food left. A reconnoitring aeroplane pinpoints the Highlanders’ position and flashes an ambiguous message which causes excited speculation. Did it read Coming tonight or Come in tonight? No one can be sure. They wait, on the qui vive. The British do not come – but the Germans do. The Highlanders fight them off. Two men are killed and half a dozen more are wounded. At night they hear another British raid on the front line. The Germans repulse it.

  On Thursday, a short-range hurricane bombardment smashes part of the parapet. Explosions in the morass around the trench break up the snow-filled shell-holes. The precious supply of clear water left by the melting snow trickles away and soaks into the mud. A force of German infantry attacks in the wake of the bombardment. The Lewis-gunners guess that they have accounted for at least a dozen. The surviving Germans retire. The Highlanders repair their parapet. There are now more than fifty wounded in the foetid dugout. The last candle has guttered out and they lie there in the dark. Later three men crawl through the freezing slush to search the bodies of the dead Germans. They retrieve their water-bottles. There is another raid on the German line, but no breakthrough.

  On Friday, the Germans attack again
at close quarters, but without success. Company Sergeant-Major George Lee is hit. He is a foreman in the Glasgow Corporation Roads Department and has taken the lead for the past five days. The bullet strikes him in the head and he slumps across the parapet. As they lift him down he opens his eyes once, and says, ‘No surrender, boys.’ Then he dies. Some of the wounded have died too, but in the dark of the dugout they cannot tell how many. The night is quiet.1 Two men crawl to within arm’s length of the Germans in Munich Trench in search of water.

  On Saturday, a small party of Germans approaches behind a captured British soldier who carries a large white flag and a message from a German Colonel. Surrender quietly and you will be well-treated. Otherwise you may take what is coming to you. The Highlanders are given an hour to decide. They ponder, take a vote, and decide to send no reply. After dark they search for water and return with a small quantity which is brackish and polluted. A few are driven to drink it. The night is quiet.

  On Sunday, the able-bodied men take stock of their remaining ammunition. There is a single drum of bullets for four Lewis-guns and one Lewis-gunner left alive. They load spare rifles and place them in readiness round the crumbling mud walls of the trench. They spot a continuous line of German helmets moving down the communication trenches and brace themselves for an attack.

  The Germans had surrounded the position and they attacked it simultaneously from all sides. The fifteen able-bodied men defending it were easily overwhelmed. Of the original ninety, some thirty badly wounded men were still alive. The rest were dead.