8th March ’16
A March morning in the trenches. A white frost over everything, the air cold and crisp, full of life and vigour. Overhead an arch of blue, stretching unflecked from zenith to horizon save where, in one place, little balls of down break out suddenly to the accompaniment of dull thuds. That is where Fritz’s Archibald is bursting his shrapnel impotently, in pursuit of a Vickers fighterii which changes course, twists and turns but nevertheless works ahead over the enemy’s lines, on reconnaissance bent. In the trench the usual litter of old tins, torn sandbags, heaps of miniature landslides from the walls with men bending amongst it whistling, their breath a tiny cloud on the morning air, as they clean up the floor and put our house in order. Just over the brink of the parapet one catches a glimpse of jagged earthenware, the remains of a rum jar, or the battered lid, rising oyster fashion, from a discarded jam tin. That is in No Man’s Land, a portion of the earth where Tommy can with impunity gratify his natural tendency to untidiness by flinging to it all that endless rubbish which a battalion mysteriously accumulates even in the short span of a day.
Only birds live out there – apparently as happily as ever. A lark trills blithefully somewhere up in the heavens above it even as I write, his note throbbing as though ’twould burst his throat, full of the joy of the dawning and of the promise of spring.
It is calm and peaceful everywhere, like a springtime, Sunday morning in some remote village in our own England. It is a strange war. That is a remark I find myself repeatedly making. But one sometimes finds such difficulty in realising that it is really war at all. The necessarily small limits of one’s vision no doubt is largely responsible for this.
Later: We came out again this evening. Quite an easy relief, everything working smoothly and the sharp march home down the frozen road in the light of the new moon most enjoyable. The men sang to their step for the first time for weeks. A sure indication of their feelings and that they also feel the spring in their blood.
9th March ’16
I think I said somewhere that a record of Minden Postiii was worth having. I still think so but feel chary of venturing on the task of description, it being so difficult to get ‘atmosphere’ on to paper. And it is the atmosphere of Minden Post which one is so conscious of there. In peace time it would be merely a heap of uninteresting sandbag shelters which one would pass by with perhaps a word as to their lack of comfort, and take no further interest in. Now, however, they mean so much to us that that casual view is quite impossible. The Post occurs against a natural embankment along the top of which runs the road to Fricourt, the road we may one day march along towards the East. Partly it is tunnelled out, partly strongly sandbagged into perhaps a dozen roomy dug-outs wherein live the CO, Adjutant, Doctor, BSM [Battalion Sergeant Major]iv and all the other hundred or so of the Headquarters personnel.
Along the front of the shelters runs a corduroy footpath deeply ditched on either side and ornamented at frequent intervals with mounds of scraped-up mud. The footpath emerges from a trench which comes down the hill-side, runs in the open for a hundred yards and vanishes into another trench which, commencing where the embankment ends, wanders across the countryside to the Rat Hole and other such interesting spots. Coming down the dug-outs are on your right. On the left is first a large sump hole, fenced round, then a block heap of sandbags with dark, uninviting entrances in its sides, from which continually arises a flurry of smoke. That is the cook-house for the left half battalion, or rather it was till the Rat Hole felt capable of doing some of its work for it.
This is what you would see if you strolled that way by daylight, a most unhealthy thing to do under present conditions. It is only at night one passes the Post in quantities and then all that makes you aware of its existence are a few chinks of light cutting the blackness or perhaps a hurricane lamp by a dug-out door with some dim shadow of a man beside it. You hear shuffling feet, splashes and quiet cursing, low toned words of command or anon the sound of someone singing softly somewhere in the darkness. You stand aside and become aware of a string of men, black against the lighter darkness of the night, filing slowly past you all heavy laden and laboured of breath.
These are the ration parties winding their way to the men in the front line.v How they ever get their loads to their destination some nights when the moon is absent and trenches knee-deep in mud I do not know. I am afraid I do little towards it. All I insist upon is that the rations do arrive. Discipline does the rest.
And Minden Post cares not one way or the other. All it is concerned in is that the wants of the firing line are despatched from it, a task it discharges with remarkable success considering the darkness in which it must necessarily work. There are telephones there and signal rockets. All the doings of the battalion are controlled from it. It is the nerve centre of a thousand rifles and perhaps a dozen machine guns. A Post of no small importance. Yet could a careless man stumble past it of a night and never know of its existence. It is a fascinating spot, Minden Post, one which in some vague way breathes of war, focussing in perfect miniature the whole spirit of this struggle. I would that my pencil were not so halting that I might do it justice.
10th March ’16
Men are so distressingly unimaginative. I suppose that is because they are British, and no doubt it is a virtue. It sometimes however produces contretemps which bring grave matters perilously near the absurd. One such occurred the other night when we were turned out to a gas alarm. The signaller who warned me went first to the gas sentry, whose duty it is to bang the gong and alarm the men. The man rushed at the sentry and cried, ‘Gas’. The sentry was unmoved. He winked at the apparition before him. ‘Chuck it,’ he said. ‘We don’t want none of those b....y games here!’
Another similar case happened to Cowan. The CO desired a practice ‘stand to’. He detailed Cowan to get his company out and decided to accompany him. Speed is, of course, the essential factor. It was about 4 p.m. The usual hour for the permanent movement was perhaps an hour later. Cowan rushed at the first sentry he saw. ‘Stand to,’ he shouted. The man looked at him sorrowfully. ‘But us asn’t ’ad our tea!’ he said. The CO fumed. Cowan rushed to the next man. He was, as it happened, Jarvis,vi the deafest man in the battalion. ‘Stand to!’ bellowed the captain twice. Jarvis looked at him and smiled. Then he said, ‘Is it true, sir, that the government is going to stop our rum ration?’ Cowan subsided into sweating inanity. The CO spat fire and brimstone. I am afraid D Coy was not in high favour that night.vii
11th March ’16
We had a little party last night in honour of Don Murray’s birthday. Practically every officer in the battalion was present and we sang and talked and played games till nigh midnight. C Company brought their gramophone which become the chef-d’oeuvre of the evening till Bowly in a moment of excessive admiration managed to break it and thereby brought wrath upon himself. Wood turned up, his head all bandaged, and lent quite a martial air to the gathering, crammed as it was in our little mess-room and lit by the flicker of four guttering candles stuck in empty bottles. Grimwood turned up from the Brigade and was received with joyous acclamation. He was telling me about the manner of our late General’s going. It is strange how men can deceive themselves. The old boy was useless and had received the boot in no uncertain manner. Yet by the time he left he had told so many people that he was leaving in order to take over a higher command that he had come quite to believe it himself. Indeed so firmly did the conviction grip him that his final parting was both gracious and benign. Incidentally he took the new general’s saddle with him and Grimwood had to be dispatched to England to fetch it back, a task which sadly marred his pleasure at the chance of a visit to ‘Blightie’.
12th March ’16
There is something painfully sad about war. I do not speak from the soldier’s point of view. This is not really so bad. He merely takes a risk, his eyes open. If he is hit, he has lost the throw and there the matter ends. But for the civil population in a war-stricken land life must be the
sublimity of anguish. Imagine an orderly-looking, small house, red bricked, with a decently pointed door, tiled entrance and well cared for windows. A comfortable-looking little place of eight rooms, with a small garden at the back, half roses, half vegetable, a stable, coach-house, hen run and all the hundred and one other domestic appurtenances which go to make the home of a well-to-do, happily minded, middle-class family. Even the cellar below is commodious and well stocked with wine, both blanc and rouge of a sound quality and elderly vintage. A few weeks ago the family lived here more or less contentedly and in as happy a state as any Frenchman in this stricken northern France can be.
Then Bosche pushed at Frise, made a momentary success and reached for a few days a point where he could turn his guns on Bray. Think of the father of the family when the shells commenced to pitch around his home. Imagine his state of mind when the barn across the way was blown to bits. One can picture the hasty scraping together of the more valued and portable of the household goods and the hurried flight from their native village to sanctuary – where?
Evidence of that fleeing is all about me as I write. Rooms in a hopeless litter, frocks, corsets, bedclothes strewn everywhere, crockery on the floor, the last meal lying unwashed in the scullery, coal-scuttle over-turned, ornaments fallen and broken. Everywhere confusion unspeakable. And through it all the marble and gold clock on the mantelpiece still ticking peacefully on.
We have taken the house, we officers who are left behind, Ramsbottom, Bland and myself.viii It is to be the Rest House for officers left in Bray. Major Ommanney, ix 21st, has pruned the roses and I am having the bulbs, already sprouting in their box in the wash-house, planted out. Our servants are here and such other help as we can command and today we clean up the litter and put our house in order. I hope when Madame, M’sieur and les petite filles return their home may look none the worse for their absence. It is the most we can do for them. Pray God war may never set its horrid foot in our England!
13th March ’16
A long day at the Brigade office getting out complete plans of our position. Most interesting work. I have quite enjoyed it. And to lighten it I heard a most entertaining story. It hung on the shortage of coin in Berlin and the rumoured bartering in iron in substitute. A man called at a paper shop, lifted a fender off his car, plonked it down on the counter and said, ‘Daily Mail and Comic Cuts, please!’ The shopkeeper tendered the papers then looked with speculative eye on the fender. ‘Sorry I’ve no small change,’ he said. ‘Here, take this anvil.’
Bland is not at all himself and still keeps near his bed. Ram and I therefore strolled by ourselves along the Somme this evening. There was a glorious sunset, all flaming pinks and greys stretching the full extent of the heavens and the broad, smooth waters of the river reflected this till the world seemed alight with a soft, still radiance most peaceful and witching to behold.
It is very lovely here, but I can see will be painfully hot when the spring really does come in on us.
Tomorrow we go to Corbie, and we are going to buy fishing tackle there. The Somme should be full of sport and the mere thought of fresh fried fish for breakfast is tantalising in the extreme.
14th March ’16
We have been to Corbie – a most enjoyable ride along the high road from where glimpses of the river valleys on either side could be caught occasionally. Tiny panoramas these of brown trees, blue, sparkling waters, white, brown, red, blue and purple houses clustering around their grey churches. Last year’s forests of bull-rushes and pampas grass now stand across the swamps in ordered lines of corn-gold, and the new shoots for the coming year show the greener by comparison. It is all very lovely, if you look at it in the distance and forget about the jagged shell-holes by your feet, and it seems an awful pity that such a fair land should be torn and scarred, its people slain, its villages destroyed by war. It makes one feel very annoyed with Fritz. One can’t help thinking him a swaggering, thick-headed, bullying fellow with no thought in his head for what is beautiful when one sees the ravaging brand of his army across this countryside.
But these abstract dreams I suppose carry one nowhere. The war is too full of hard, unpicturesque facts to allow of over indulgence in them. One cannot help, however, feeling them – and what I feel I like to record.
15th March ’16
Two new officers arrived last night.x They were hungrily waiting on the threshold of my billet when I returned to it about 8 p.m. Bland was entertaining them rather frigidly. Afterwards I found that he did not like either of them. We fed them and gave them drink and then Bland deliberately set about the task of making their flesh creep. I protested to him as well as I could but it had no effect. He took them as fair game and would not be persuaded otherwise. Afterwards I also, I am half ashamed to say, fell. But both became rather too knowledgeful – always a thing to be instantly checked in a subaltern – and for their future good I was compelled to ally myself to ‘Blasé Bill’.
I am afraid we have been rather cruel. They went away very silently to sleep and, I doubt not, had the distance considerably curtailed by the fact that as they left our door Fritz commenced to strafe Cappy with heavies. It sounded very near on the still night air. What a game it is!
16th March ’16
Ram, Bland and I spent the afternoon fishing. We didn’t catch anything – a quite superfluous statement – but we quite enjoyed ourselves for all that. It was very pleasant down on the marshes in the sunshine or meandering along the river bank. In the middle of it Fritz commenced to strafe Jean [illegible] whose trenches are on the hill about a mile away. It was some strafe and presently traversed quite near us. We watched it with interest. It is remarkable what an impartial view one takes of such things out here. One is foolish enough not to think even of taking cover. Ram remarked, ‘Some strafe. And they’ve such a nice day for it.’ Thereupon we continued fishing.
The battn came out this evening. Quite a fresh battn, singing and whistling. What a difference the sunshine makes. If that could only be whispered in the ear of the Clerk of the Weather I’m sure he’d do his best to ‘shape a bit’, as S-M. Knowles always says.
I have arranged a new canteen, [in] a one-time butcher’s shop. Have got in beer and all the nick-nacks for the ‘dry’ bar and we are all fit and ship-shape for a roaring trade in the morning. We’ll do it I know. And I also know that the men will be braced as blazes with the chance of buying a pint of beer.
17th March ’16
Dowling has come to me as an extra officer. He is rather gross, somewhat blatant and quite rhinoceros-like of hide, but I trust he will turn out all right after a bit.
The Major seems to have made some trouble for himself this last tour in.xi All his NCOs have asked to be allowed to revert to Private en bloc. It is rather pitiable. Indeed it would be wholly pitiable and, to some extent, humorous, if it was not so serious.xii
The net result up to now is that his Sgt Major has been transferred to C and C’s sent to him. He has easily the worst of that bargain. I understand I am to take one of his sergeants – Thompson – a good man and one whom only last week he recommended for a ‘Mention’ – and give one of mine in exchange.xiii Gladly would I have Thompson but not at all ready am I to part with one of my men to him. He would break any good man’s heart and I am too fond of all mine to let them suffer that fate lightly. He is the picture of a man who has made a mess of it. He is a silly ass. And for the good of the battalion I wish he would go home. This is no place for incompetency.xiv
18th March ’16
I do not think I have ever mentioned the French interpretersxv – that very efficient body of men who act as mediators or buffers for peppery colonels reduced to blasphemous impotency in dealings with the civil population.
They are nearly all of officer’s rank, quiet, gentlemanly and indefatigable in one’s service. They take a joyous view of life and are fond of both their dinner and their wine. Their dress is plain khaki riding kit, well-cut and finished for the most part, picked out with b
lue tabs at the turnover by the throat, with brass Sphinx heads set on this. The Sphinx is their badge though its exact relation to their calling I have been unable to ascertain. I was always under the impression that the Sphinx was the emblem of silence.
Up here near the line they wear the street casquexvi and to meet one riding, happy visaged and thus clad, on his stock-built charger about the [illegible] of the Somme or over the upland roads is to be flashed back to the living pages of the Three Musketeers. For just such others as these were, I know, d’Artagnan, Porthos and Athos.xvii
Ewald is our man. He is attached to the Brigade. An Alsatian by birth, German by name, happy by nature, polite by intuition and indefatigable by the Somme, that is Ewald! As jolly a free-lance as ever clanked a spur in saucy defiance past the gates of My Lord, the Red Cardinal.
He has been with the English from the start, won the DCM on the advance from the Marne and fully intends to win another and as good a time as he can when the Army goes forward and he is able to trot his stock old dobbin down the broad high-ways of the Rhineland. Ewald is a sample, a vignette of a type. I am glad I have recorded him. I should have been sorry to forget l’interprét[eur].
To Fight Alongside Friends Page 13