The walls are papered with some dark, patterned stuff and sketches by Bairnsfather, maps, pictures by Kirckner – rather unspeakable some of them – extracts from La Vie Parisienne, and one or two of Lawson Wood’s efforts adorn or disfigure it according to your taste.vii The floor is tiled in red and the ceiling white-washed. Our bedrooms lead off this apartment, the first being occupied up to now by poor Bowly and me, the further by Don Murray and Dowling.
For illumination we have an acetylene lamp, a ripping affair but the ASC have been unkind to us lately and have brought us no carbide. We have therefore been compelled to fall back on candles and three of these we have down the centre of our white table-cloth – of which, by the way, we are very proud it being the only one in the battalion and the others still relying on the daily paper – stuck on the top of empty bacca tins and gleaming quite cheerily withal.
Tonight we had another concert – a regular topper. It was most enjoyable. Now, 10.17 p.m. The ‘Alarm’ has just been given. Bow-wow, off we go. What the hell is up?
1st April ’16
All Fools’ Day, and when I think of last night’s tour I have an uneasy feeling that the major was anticipating a little. It was a regular tear round. Perspiring, shouting sergeants, sarcastic officers and confused, stumbling men still dull-witted from their heavy slumbers. But the battalion moved all right and was ready to march out, fully equipped in battle order in twenty-one minutes. That was good and we are quite pleased about it. It was, of course, only a test – a valuable one.
Prince has come back today I am glad to say. He makes another officer for B, a real help and one I badly needed because Dowling, though he tries, is still somewhat raw and rather an anxiety than otherwise. He improves however.
Knowles’s court martial was promulgated this afternoon. He is only reduced to sergeant. It is a surprisingly light sentence and comes as quite a surprise. I am very glad, though, and hope I will soon be able to have him back in his old rank. That, however, depends upon the CO and must rest in abeyance until his return.
There is no further word yet of Bowly’s trial.
2nd April ’16
A happy day. One that took three of us clean out of ourselves and blew away the cobwebs of care and anxiety, which have lately been depressing us, completely. The Doc, Worthy and I rode to Heilly – Corps HQ – via Morlancourt, Ville, Maricourt and Ribemont all along the river valley and across country the whole way.viii It is right out of the war there, peaceful, clean and soothing. We lunched at a house whose owners have seized their opportunity and turned the large conservatory into a restaurant for officers. There madame sits at the receipt of custom and two clean, nicely dressed, English-looking daughters wait upon you and serve you with a first-class meal on thin china and in dainty glasses all resting on spotless linen. It was like a breath of home. After lunch we walked in the garden and lay down beneath a willow with the stream rushing past our feet and the sun bronzing our faces. It was completely restful – a little spell to be thankful for, the which we all were. Afterwards we rode back getting in the cool of the evening, very tired and saddle-sore but happy.
Worthy goes on leave tomorrow. I do not envy him, but how I wish I was going. How I long to see you, my sweetheart, and our darling Babe once more. I long till I am sick with it. Thought of you both fills my very being till it is almost a physical sensation.
Today we have heard that we come out of the line on the 6th. Pushes and rumours of pushes fill the air but whether we are to do so or not I do not know. Events begin to move, however, and activity is evident everywhere. If we do, God send that this time we are entirely successful. We want no more failures. We want this war to end.
3rd April ’16
The CO has returned from leave today full of beans and ideas. Otherwise there is little to report save that my erstwhile Sgt Major has gone from me, in the humble rank of sergeant, to Ramsbottom in C Coy. It is very sad but quite inevitable – the only thing for discipline and he lucky indeed to have got off so lightly.
This afternoon I think nearly every officer in the battalion has been round at our mess and we have laid out by the river and Prince, and Gomersall and Pullen have been in it swimming. It was quite summerlike.
Our much talked of ‘move’ has fallen slightly flat. We don’t move at all. Only the 21st and the Staffords do so – back to rest. This rumour business is really most trying.
4th April ’16
Back in the old Rat Hole dug-out again with Fritz pooping over quite a few whiz-bangs and chattering away with machine-guns intermittently. He seems quite lively. The reason no doubt being that last night the South Lancs dug 250 yards of new fire trench connecting up two minor salients of ours and carrying our main line some 100 yards nearer to his at that point. I’ve no doubt but that he was quite surprised when he woke up this morning.
The 21st seem to have worked quite well. The fine weather has given them a chance of which they have made the most. I hope we will be able to continue it so that in the end we may get our holding into [a] thoroughly satisfactory condition.
Prince is in with me and Dowling. The former sleeping in the bunk in CHQ and the latter relegated to the spare dug-out down Minden Avenue. It has turned cold again and feels like rain if not snow. If either transpires I think the battalion will curse en masse. We do really want to get a lot of work done this time.
5th April ’16
A decent enough day, threatening to rain on and off but holding fine to the end and so allowing us to get on with our work. And work enough we have to do, with more to follow with a vengeance. For today has come the great news that we are to attack – with the 25th as a tentative date. We are to go away and practise it for a bit and then come in and get on with the job. The 22nd is to be in the first line on the right of the Division and to B Coy has fallen the luck of being the right first line Coy of the battalion. So old B has at last got its job and may God grant that we perform it well, that we bear ourselves like English soldiers and that the whole scheme is successful and results in victory for us all.
The line is considerably livelier lately. There seems quite a spirit of expectancy in the air. The men do not know the full news yet but I know it will buck them all up when they do. There is no other news tonight beyond that – it seems to dwarf everything else.
6th April ’16
We have had a minor bombardment today in that Fritz has strafed our new trenches with heavies and searched round the support with H.E. shrapnel and other such obnoxious stuff. And the battn has had hard luck. D Coy suffering especially. One shell claimed three NCOs and wounded three men. It is a nasty jar and has set the battalion by the ears, particularly B and D Companies. We all feel wild to get at the beast, and rumour having it that he may try some minor stunt against the new trenches tonight, we hope he will that we may string him up on the wire. I saw the killed go down the line. It was a pitiful sight. Poor English soldiers battered to pieces. Poor boys, shell-fire is a horrid thing.
Gresty – a lad who was a sergeant of mine before he went to D, a good man and one whom we liked well – was about the worst.ix His poor body was full of gaping holes. It was very, very sad. Do those at home yet realise how their boys go out for them. Never can they do enough for their soldiers, never can they repay the debt they owe. Not that the men ask any reward – an inviolate England is enough for them, so be it we can get our price from the Hun. Confound the man. He fights with iron and steel against poor, brave bodies. It is what a German would do. But one day we’ll get at him with the bayonet. The issue must come at last to man to man. And when it does I have no doubt as to the issue. We’ll take our price then for Gresty and all the other hundred thousand Grestys slain as he was standing still at his post.x
7th April ’16
It is a terrible thing to have one’s faith shaken, to have the world one knows suddenly so dashed across with new and totally unexpected happenings that one finds it different, changed so that one feels one has lost one’s grip on it and
is, in consequence, unsteady. It has been even so today with us and it is our dug-out in the Rat Hole which has occasioned our distress. We had, as you know, faith in that dug-out. We liked and we trusted it. We used to seek shelter in it when Fritz strafed, and felt happy in the full knowledge of its strength. Alas! Today it became necessary to revet that part of Minden Avenue which runs past the back of the burrow. During operations one man, more careless than his fellows, flung his sand-bag rather heavily on the new revetment. There was a thud, the deadened sound of a landslide and then the very clear voice of a man raised in anger, and saying naughty words indeed.
Yet you couldn’t blame me. I know you couldn’t. A man with his world about his ears is to be excused a short lapse into profanity if his reason is not to be endangered. And I had cause enough! Cause? I ask you! That blessed sand-bag had come right through our wall and smothered the foot of Prince’s and the head of my bed in about three inches of chalk stone. Not that we minded that. It was the shaken faith we hated. All along we had believed that wall thick, fully splinter if not actually shell proof. As I said before, Alas! Really I should be pleased that the weakness has been discovered. Actually I am not a bit. We lived in but a fool’s Paradise I grant you, but it was such a pleasant one.
8th April ’16
It was poor Bowly’s court-martial today. The CO, Tawney and I left the trenches for it at 6 a.m. Our horses met us over the hill and then we rode the five miles across country to Morlancourt. There was a regular crowd of officers there, quite a terrifying spectacle to Bowly I am sure. Brig General Devereux [Deverell] was President with all sorts of Colonels and Majors and people to help him.
The court was held in the church, up on the altar dais; the altar having been lately removed. It reminded me of tales of Cromwell and the billeting of his men and stabling of their horses in sanctified buildings.
It was quite an old church, with high narrow pews and, in one row, pews with neck-rests cut out in an overhanging board, presumably to allow the elite of the village to slumber the more comfortably. The place makes swift strides towards decay. Lumps of plaster have already fallen from the ceiling and there is that cold, mouldy smell in the air which invariably attends upon the death of an ancient edifice. At the bottom end of the aisle was a bar with shelves behind and on this were piled packets and tins of Gold Flake, Woodbines, Navy Cut, together with Oxo packets, Huntley and Palmer’s biscuits, packets of Price’s candles, buns, doughnuts and a tumbled crate of oranges. Indeed all the ordered conglomeration of colours and smells which go to the making of a dry canteen. For when the church at Morlancourt is not doing duty as a Hall of Justice it is a YMCA store. And I doubt not but what it does its work now – as a refuge for tired and hungry men – as pleasingly in the eyes of the Lord as when its roof, in pre-war days, was filled with the hot scent of burning incense.
After the court, the Doctor and I went on to Heilly to lunch. The CO told us to go. It made a most pleasant break in our 8 days in and it was decent of him indeed to let us have the treat. Back in the trenches by 5.30 p.m. in time to find the company changed over all complete by Prince. We now hold the firing line.
9th April ’16
Going round the line we have taken over from the Queen’s I came upon the following today. It was cut in chalk beneath the carved crest of the regiment:
This is a famous regiment
And one with a tale to tell
Of how we fought at Ypres
And then at Neuve Chapelle.
We met him on the Marne,
We licked him by the Aisne,
We drove him back at Festubert
And now we’re here again.
I thought it showed a height of confident optimism on the part of the composer and altogether it is so soldier-like in its sentiments that I felt it were a pity to miss jotting it down.
10th April ’16
Rather a successful little patrol scheme last night. Sgt Whiteheadxi went out in charge and reached Fritz’s wire. There the patrol was seen, fired upon and compelled to dive into a shell hole for safety. And whilst there they discovered a most peculiar weapon. Nothing less than an aerial ‘torpedo’ intact. They brought it in, a most fearsome object. Oldham loved it at once and immediately proceeded to delve among its highly dangerous intestines to ascertain how it went off. This he found without accident and the missile now reposes outside our dug-out as a warning to all men to henceforth tread the path of the righteous and shun the sorrowful way of the evil doer.
There is nothing else of import to record. We are working hard and satisfactorily. There is a deal done, but one ocean more is required and we have really but little time in which to work. However, ‘it’s dogged as does it’ and we’ll make a good show I know before we are finished.
11th April ’16
Some strafe this evening! It started away on our left but drew considerably nearer later and so kept us standing to for over an hour awaiting our turn. This, however, did not come. What the row was about we none of us know but it was a real good one. There is little else to record. We are working the clock round and making good progress, a source of satisfaction to us all.
Thornton,xii of the Queens, was in today. He takes over from me tomorrow.
He seems a good chap and one who will work. I am glad if it is so since it will be a considerable happiness to have a pushing fellow working on the same lines as ourselves.
Prince has put the name of our new abode up, we having shifted to entirely fresh quarters on the right of our line.
A.F. 143.
WERFER VILLA AAAxiii
NO TRAMPS, HAWKERS OR HUNS
The one in the Rat Hole we have left we called HATE HOUSE. These are very mild little witticisms, you will say, but they quite amuse us in here.
12th April ’16
Relieved today, and glad we were. Eight days is just long enough in the line even though one has a whole host, as did we, of interesting things to do. The Queen’s took over from us, their D from me. Thornycroft,xiv the Company Commander, is a fine stamp of a man and all their officers appear to be a decent crowd.
It rained fairly hard and relieving was therefore a somewhat lengthy affair but we were all in by about 1 a.m. and in bed by half past. Then at 3 a.m. Fritz commenced shelling us and we had to turn out and get the men down in the cellars where they ‘stood to’. This lasted till 5 a.m. and one had to be up at 8. Sleep, at this game, is a thing one must learn to look upon as a luxury, a thing to be done without.
We have taken over the B Mess of the Queens. It is a sorry affair and not a patch on our late little house by the Somme. That, however, is nothing but Madame is. Madame apparently does not like us, an antipathy evidently shared by her father. Madame turned up last night, abused Bunting, flung our valises out in the mud and then smashed chairs, tables, windows and the door. Quite a New Cut Saturday night affair I believe. And really most unpleasant for us all. And to crown it, this morning le père rolled up, called us les cochons anglais [English pigs] and nailed up the side door. Dearly would I have liked to have taken him by the ear and kicked his bottom down the street. But one mustn’t do that. We soldier in a friendly country and we must respect the rights of the inhabitants – even, I suppose, to the extent of allowing them to fling one’s kit in the filth of their ‘midden’. It is, of course, only the wretched peasantry who behave in so unseemly a manner and I doubt not but that our own lower classes would do the some or worse to a French army fighting in England. It is not the true French, no more than it would be the real English, who behave like this. Pig blood will always come out, runs it in the veins of English, French, Spaniard or Basuto. It is Fritz’s great fault that pig blood runs throughout his social system.
13th April ’16
The attack scheme has been altered today. The main thing is that we have been given a much further and more difficult objective. Also the Staffords, Queen’s and ourselves are in the front line with the 21st in Brigade reserve. It means a wider front and a lessening o
f men on it but the Staff appear very confident of our superiority in guns and all we can hope is that their confidence may be justified.
Parson Woodxv came in to tea. He is a somewhat dolorous person but means well, works harder and is I fully believe a most Christian man. He thinks us a sad lot of rogues and I have no doubt is justified according to his lights.
I have had two sweet letters from you today, my own, together with a most scrumptious parcel of all sorts of goodies. We have had quite a beano for tea and will continue to do so till the stock runs out and we fall again on to the lean days.
Our late irascible landlady and her père are to be evacuated tomorrow. It is rather rough on them but the authorities are very down on anything which might lead to friction.
Chapter 9
‘God bless the fool who made that shell’
To Fight Alongside Friends Page 15