9th January ’16
Murray went into Abbeville, Bowly on a course and Shelmerdine to the bombers – as you were, ‘grenadiers’ – for we must not call them the former now. Prince and I were therefore left to keep each other company, a happiness we achieved quite successfully.
The first match of an inter-company, knock-out, football competition was played this afternoon: B Company against the Machine Gun[ners]. We beat them 6–nil and I trust it means our team may go through the whole competition successfully.
Burchillxxiii made a bit of an ass of himself – but then he usually does. He is a perfect example of the clever young fellow whose personal conceit has produced that effect popularly summed up in the phrase ‘a tile loose’.
10th January ’16
We have had a most enjoyable afternoon of battalion drill. It was much needed and everyone was pretty rotten for the first quarter of an hour. But after that it all came back and the work went well and smartly.xxiv
These sudden changes back to old ground-work stuff are, as I have often said before, most useful. One is so liable to forget that they are very likely to take you off your guard. And so they make everyone buck up and think quickly – a faculty I am afraid the Army is apt to dull.
The Coy did well. Sgt Major Knowles,xxv being in his element again, was excellent and the CO quite strafeless and cheerful.
I had a sweet letter from you last night, full of excitement at the prospect of my leave. My sweetheart, you cannot be as wound-up about it as I am. I simply long for it, for the sight of you and Babs again. Only one thing mars it – that is I do wish I had seen some more real fighting. However, those older at the game out here tell me not to be a fool but to take joy when it offers and I doubt not but that they know best.
11th January ’16
We have been out and fought an advanced guard action today, and found it most enjoyable if somewhat tiring.xxvi It was quite a success, the battalion coming along Al. As for myself, I had quite an experience, being put out among the wounded. Presumably a ‘whiz-bang’ had smote me lustily upon the stomach and my lack of sadness at missing the last spurts across heavy plough was only equalled by the absence of pain. Yet I took it that, with such a serious wound, a man could be excused if he lay up beneath a haystack and smoked a pipe. And this I did, excusing my lapse to the major on the ground that my anguish was such that I was likely to cry out with it before the men unless I had something – such as a pipe stem – whereon to clench my teeth. He concurred and, indeed, thought my action so well-advised that he decided to follow it, and did. So together we sat and watched the attack mature, cheering lustily, in spirit, the gallant efforts of the hale and hearty ones who were left to bring the action to its victorious conclusion.
A year ago I should have fretted greatly of being thus early put out of action. But the year has been full of instruction. I have learned many things. One is that running over newly ploughed land is not altogether unalloyed enjoyment and that, perhaps, it will be time enough to be keen about it when there are real Germans the other side of it.
12th January ’16
A Coy played the officers this afternoon in the knock-out soccer competition – and lost. It was a good match and enthusiasm begins to run high as to what teams will be in. at the final. The battn team plays the 21st in the League match on Saturday, and we are keen as mustard to beat them. It will be a top-hole match to watch.xxvii
I had tea at HQ this afternoon – quite an event. Everyone was most affable – almost hearty. The CO was quite chatty, quite like an ordinary man. It is most remarkable. He seems to have suddenly changed completely and for no apparent reason. Perhaps someone has told him that his battn is not quite the collection of evil-meaning blackguards he has hitherto supposed it. Anyway there is a decided improvement and we sincerely hope there will be no relapse.
I saw a strange thing this afternoon. Nothing less than a shepherd boy leading his flock by the strains of a sweet-toned pipe. It was quite an idyll. I never realised before that those pipes of Pan were anything more than fantasies conjured up by the brain of the author of Peter of that ilk,xxviii or some such clever dreamer.
Ramsbottom was not impressed. He is so utterly modern, so utterly Manchester. He said the man came down the street, tootled on his pipe outside a barn and waited for the sheep to appear. This they shortly did, made a similar noise in reply and went back again. This occurred twice and the man then sent in his dog to fetch them out. I do not believe him. Neither does Cotton. Cotton said, ‘They must have been very clever sheep to make a noise like that.’ I quite agree. But perhaps French sheep may be much more clever than our old Southdowns.
13th January ’16
I have a letter from you tonight in which you ask me if I love you. You must surely be depressed, my own, or else very lonely and desirous of someone to cheer you up. My dear, dear girlie, how can you ask me such a question? To me it seems so impossible that you could ever think otherwise. And yet I expect my letters are somewhat matter-of-fact and contain little reiteration of my affections. I must try and write more softly. Yet I never meant to do aught else. When I write I feel just as with you as if we were talking together and I was recounting the day’s experiences, as was my wont in the days before men had to come and fight these bally Germans. But I can understand that often enough you hunger for letters more full of unadulterated love, more truly personal missives, less everyday and plain. Here, perhaps, one is liable to forget that personal outlook. We are all so absolutely in the same boat that one gets to look upon enforced separation from one’s dear ones as an affliction common to all and therefore to be borne as such. But you cannot look at it like that. How could you, when all around you must see daily hundreds of wives still with their husbands as happy and contented as if no war existed? I know how you must sometimes feel. How you must feel inclined to rave and rail against it all and I love you the more that you do not do so. When all is said and done it is those others who are to be pitied, not us. They have not known life as we have known it. I will give place to no one for greater love and happiness than has been ours. For no one could ever have loved more or been more gloriously happy than we. And that we could part when it was asked of us is but proof of that. For had I not gone when I was wanted I had not been worthy of your love. And had you not let me go, like the brave little woman you are, you could not have held mine. As it is, in letting me go, splendidly as you did, you have bound me the more firmly to you, you have, as you must know, increased my admiration and love for you ten-fold. My sweetheart, bear up. Leave will soon be here now when for ten glorious days we can drink of joy once again.
I long and long to see you, to clasp you in my arms and hug you and I long with all my heart to see my Baby, my sweet, pure and precious Pauline. Her little, pert face looks up at me from out her photo so life-like that I can see her as though she were in this very room. My dear Baby. How I love her. How much she means to you and I. What hopes I have for her, what a sweet girl she will make. She is a truly God-like gift! I feel strangely unworthy of such a precious child. Please God I may always be worthy of her and of you also, my Maudie.
There, I have given myself the pip, as I knew I should. Too long dwelling on things such as these are not good for one here. It is better not to think too much if one would bear a smiling face about one’s work.
Curse the Kaiser, say I, and all similar tyrants who bring war and devastation and misery upon the world!
Chapter 4
‘It is the wire that is the trouble’
14–23 January 1916
14th January ’16
Quite a full day. Up at 6 a.m. and marching out to Le Fayel by 7.45 a.m. A lovely morning. It has frozen during the night but the sun came up about 8 o’clock giving just the necessary touch to the crispness of the air. Absolutely a marching day.
At Le Fayel we went into Brigade Reserve [for a training exercise]. This was rather boring. We had to lay for an hour and a half on the plough, while the wind
swept over us and chilled us to the bone. But at last it came to an end. The Colonel came running up. ‘The enemy is counter-attacking on our right. Move the battalion down the hill and advance up the valley on his left. Double.’ And we were off. These French lands are heavy going, also valleys have nasty habits of looking hundreds but being in reality thousands of yards broad. But we slogged on, down one slope and up the other till when we came to the edge of the Bois de Rusicourt there wasn’t a cool man among us. There we found the enemy had retired through the wood, and there was nothing for it but to follow him. So in we went, and a maze it was. The French apparently do not cut undergrowth. It was one, long, panting struggle with shrubs which pricked, shrubs which struck you and shrubs which tripped you up. In the end, though, we got through to find the enemy entrenched about 100 yards from the north edge of the trees. We prepared to charge them, when the ‘stand-fast’ came along. I was not sorry. Fully 80 of that 100 yards was plough.i
That is all I saw of a big divisional day. Yet everything was in, horse, foot and artillery, some 18,000 men. It must be so in the real thing. One must of necessity only see a fraction of what is really taking place. The limits of one’s company is about, or even more, than the limit one can possibly see. On our return to billets I found your letter with Charlie Chaplin’s likeness enclosed. It tickled me to death, bracing me also. For you must have been in good spirits to send that off. Dear old Charlie, I only wish to goodness we could see him shuffling round again. I know my taste is appalling, but I think I would sooner see a good series of his films than a play.ii At least my present mood tells me I would.
We had Taylor,iii of the 21st, and D.S. Murray to dinner last night. Quite a slap-up little affair. And afterwards Ross and Pulleniv of the Brigade Bombing Company came in, also Bland, and we sat up till midnight talking and smoking.v
Ross is a smart fellow, quite young, a captain and with the Military Cross. I think it likely that more will be heard of him.
15th January ’16
Intense excitement this afternoon. A yelling, ‘shouting’, cap-waving crowd of men surrounded the football ground. It was a topping match, which the 21st won, 3–2. On the play the game was ours but our men were just putrid round the goal, not being able to shoot for toffee. The 21st are a really smart lot and the work all round was most excellent football and very enjoyable to watch. We are all jolly sorry, though, that we lost. It rather puts us down.
Half way through Bowly rolled up. He had walked in from Le Fayel, where he is at present enlarging his knowledge and having a pretty decent time on a course.
These courses are a strange feature of army life. Some are excellent, indeed all are good – for men in need of them. But so often it happens that men are sent for instruction in most elementary stuff, stuff they knew well years ago. It seems quite unbusinesslike, quite like the army. It seems to me that there are still many things could be improved in this profession.
For instance, why not treat generals as admirals are treated when they make a mess of things? Why should they not be court-martialled and the findings published? No one ever criticises the efficiency of our Navy, nor does the procedure in any way impair the discipline of the Senior Service. It is sensibly run, the Senior Service.
If a man is not in the wrong he would welcome such a procedure. If he is the sooner he is got rid of the better. I cannot help thinking that a properly informed public opinion would be greatly beneficial to our Army, splendid though it is. No matter how good the man the knowledge that he is but a servant of the public would not be brought home to him in vain.
I know I would be thought an absolute heretic by many in the Service for talking like this, but I do not mind. The New Armies I feel sure hold a big volume of opinion similar to mine. We are new, you see, we have been accustomed to the ordered ways of business, we bring business minds to bear when we think. It makes us critical. And it will, I know, have a very great effect on the management of the Army after the war.
The Army is magnificent simply because Englishmen are what they are and, when trained and disciplined, it is in them to be the finest troops in the world. With such soldiers and German organisation and staff efficiency I think the army would be incomparable.
By that I do not mean to condemn as a whole our higher commands. Some of them are most excellently filled – our own Division could not be better served – but what I mean is that there is ‘room for improvement’ in our service and it would surely be well if it was looked to.
16th January ’16
As I slept last night there came a banging on my door which startled me into peevish wakefulness, I thinking it an alarm! But Beck,vi the colonel’s messenger, had nothing so awful in store. It was only a notice that today there would be a walking competition [marching event] and that B must enter two teams. B accordingly did it, as ordered.
The event came off this afternoon, the machine-gun team winning. They marched jolly well and thoroughly deserved the success. Afterwards Worthington and I rode as far as [illegible] to have a look at the place. We ran into a French battalion on the move there. God save the mark! Its transports, drawn by the most terrible conglomeration of decrepit horses it is possible to conceive, stretched for hundreds of yards. The men looked the usual tough and hardy French type but were all over the road, in any order and looked, but for uniformity of clothing, not a great deal better than an armed mob. They must be good fighters else they could not have accomplished what they have, but I never saw troops whose appearance better belied their reputation.
17th January ’16
A joke has just come to light – a joke perpetrated on New Year’s Day. The Cameronsvii sent a message of goodwill for 1916 to the Brigade, coined in Gaelic. The brigade did not understand it and asked for an explanation. This was duly rendered and amused the Staff considerably. Grantviii immediately scented game, and caused the message to be wired to our CO, marked urgent. We all knew that the CO had been hurriedly called off parade that day and that he had left simply bursting with importance. But we did not know that he had taken the message as being a ciphered one or that he had pored two hours over it in a vain attempt to decipher it. That, rather than own to the rustiness of his knowledge of Playfair,ix he had sought local help, and only admitted his failure to the Brigade afterwards.
The Staff spent quite a happy day over it, as would we have had we known, but the CO has admitted the joke against himself to no one. And where we got it from cannot be told by me, even here.
Another item of passing fair general interest was told me today. Col Kentish, now of the Divisional Schoolx but lately the worshipped CO of the East Lancs, is the hero. His battalion had been having rather a thin time. So much so that the doctor became overworked and he had to go away on leave. A new man came to temporarily fill his place. The new man was very new – just out in fact. The wet, the mud and dirty, ugly wounds distressed him. His face became long and miserable. ‘That is not the sort of expression I like to see on my officers’ faces,’ said the CO, ‘I will see the doctor at Orderly Room.’ Duly the MO paraded. ‘You look depressed,’ said the Colonel, ‘And I cannot allow my officers such untold luxury. You must smile, you must laugh. There is a barn there and here is a mirror. You will go into the barn, taking the mirror and practise hilarious expressions before it for one hour daily until you feel capable of maintaining a permanent aspect of cheerfulness.’ The doctor only had one practice. He was permanently cured.
I have not met Col Kentish, but I can quite understand why the East Lancs loved him so.
18th January ’16
Poor Bland is in rather serious trouble. Major Merriman has charged him before the CO with using ‘insubordinate language’, a most serious thing if it is true. I do not believe there is any foundation, nor does anyone else and Bland denies any such thing. The major unfortunately thoroughly dislikes the old boy and treats him abominably. He told me ‘he was utterly sick of him’.xi
It is a great pity, but we all sincerely trust Bland will
come out all right. The chief misfortune is that the major is no soldier, he has no idea of ‘pulling together’, and is filled with the conviction that he should take every petty little thing to the CO, so changing it from the petty to the serious and upsetting everyone’s applecart. I believe he means most awfully well but I must also admit that he has strange ways of showing his good intentions. However, let him pass.
This afternoon I have had a topping job, being one of the Clerks of the Course for the Divisional Cross Country run, an event in which our poor old team was quite outclassed. We will draw a veil over that sad part of the day and hope for better things next time.
For myself, I met Major Dillon, GSO1, with all the other clerks at 2 p.m. and rode right round the course. The major is just a splendid fellow, the beau idéal of a soldier. Thank God we still have some of his type left to us.
Captain Warr,xii of the Gunners, and I had the same stretch to divide between us and we paddled up and down it in the wind and rain till the race came along – a half-mile stream of panting, dead-beat humanity, still game and cheery after four miles but pretty well all in. The going was really awful.
Warr told me, during our wait, something of the first battle of Ypres.xiii In his words, ‘The Germans came on, line after line, battalion after battalion till the whole landscape was blotted out by a sea of grey.’
‘Our infantry fired and fired till men’s arms became dead with the strain of holding their rifles. The guns came up close behind the foot and fired into the oncoming mass at point-blank range, literally blowing heaps of it into the next world. As fast as the gunners could load they fired and that awful slaughter went on from about 8 a.m. to 1 o’clock when the 1st and 2nd Divisions came up and took some of the pressure off the 7th. The infantry suffered little from rifle fire but were simply smothered with shell and shrapnel. It must have been a perfect inferno. The Queens came out with 30 men, the South Staffords with 75, the Royal Welsh with 50 and so on. They had been full battalions in the morning.’
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