To Fight Alongside Friends

by Gerry Harrison

  14th June ’16

  A quiet day. Nothing at all happened. Just the usual working parties and the consequent necessity for killing time on the part of senior officers. It has rained and we have sat and talked or read, discussing the Russian offensive and speculating on how many more prisoners our Allies will capture before they are through with it. The Austrians seem to have crumpled badly.xv No doubt they are utterly fed up.

  15th June ’16

  Something in the nature of a contretemps has occurred today. Two competitors for the position of Second-in-Command have arrived and we therefore do not quite know where we are. Davidson, the younger, a captain from the 2nd Warwicks, came first and Major Woodwardxvi from the L.N.L. [Loyal North Lancashire Regt] next. The former is a very nice fellow, quite young and with about the same experience as myself. But he is a Regular. That is the fetish here. Personally I think it rather unfair on the New Army. The new Major is straight from ten years’ Egyptian service and has never seen a trench. Also he is elderly and unsmart. Of the two I prefer Davidson and I think we are all of this opinion.

  Definite orders for the big offensive have now come in. It is to be quite soon, within a fortnight I believe. It is the largest thing yet attempted and if it means our success, I think it will be the beginning of the end.xvii

  16th June ’16

  This afternoon Davidson and I rode up to Durham trench to reconnoitre the ground of our advance. The face of the earth is changed up there, has changed within the last seven days. It is now honeycombed with gun emplacements. Guns are everywhere. Guns of all calibres. Some 9.2s were registering on Mametz whilst we were watching. They are terrible shells and simply knocked lumps out of the village. 9.2s, eight inch, six inch, 4.7s, 4.5s, eighteen pounders, thirteen pounders, all sorts and conditions there all bristling out of the ground ready to belch forth a regular tornado of fire. As Worthy said when he saw it, ‘Fritz, you’re for it!’ It is a sentiment I quite agree with.

  Ammunition is pouring up, that for the heavies by motor transport, that for the lighter fry by wagon and limber. Two convoys of the latter, each of them fully 500 yards in length passed the Bois at sundown. It was a great sight.

  It is marvellous, this marshalling of power. This concentrated effort of our great nation put forward to the end of destroying our foe. The greatest battle in the world is on the eve of breaking. Please God it may terminate successfully for us.

  Fritz I think knows all about it. At any rate a day or two ago he put the following notice on his wire opposite the 4th Division.

  ‘When your bombardment starts we are going to bugger back five miles. Kitchener is b.....d. Asquith is b.....d. You’re b.....ds. We’re b.....ds. Let’s all b.....r off home.’

  It is vulgar, as his humour invariably is, but the sentiments are so imminently [sic] those of Tommy Atkins that it must certainly have been a man with a good knowledge of England and the English who wrote the message.

  17th June ’16

  We have moved to Bonnay today and are once more back in billets. It feels quite strange to see oneself in a mirror. Personally, I have not done so since I saw you on leave, four long months ago. It was a fine day for marching and the change is very welcome here. We stay, I believe, about four days and then go back and into the line ready for the assault.

  I must not allow myself to dwell on the personal – there is no room for it here. Also it is demoralising. But I do not want to die. Not that I mind for myself. If it be that I am to go, I am ready. But the thought that I may never see you or our darling baby again turns my bowels to water. I cannot think of it with even the semblance of equanimity.

  My one consolation is the happiness that has been ours. Also my conscience is clear that I have always tried to make life a joy for you. I know at least that if I go you will not want.xviii That is something. But it is the thought that we may be cut off from each other which is so terrible and that our Babe may grow up without my knowing her and without her knowing me. It is difficult to face. And I know your life without me would be a dull blank. Yet you must never let it become wholly so. For to you will be left the greatest charge in all the world; the upbringing of our baby. God bless that child, she is the hope of life to me. My darling, au revoir. It may well be that you will only have to read these lines as ones of passing interest. On the other hand, they may well be my last message to you. If they are, know through all your life that I loved you and baby with all my heart and soul, that you two sweet things were just all the world to me.

  I pray God I may do my duty, for I know, whatever that may entail, you would not have it otherwise.

  18th June ’16

  We have done nothing today but clean up and rest – and well needed it was. The CO is back so we should soon now have our definite orders. As it is we have the men all patched in pink – the Divisional colours and many others daubed about with sloshes of yellow or white or red. These to signify carriers or runners or what not. They are awfully braced about it.xix

  Had tea with C Coy on their river frontage. They have tents under the trees on a patch where the hay has been cut. It is very pleasant there with the tiny rustic bridge and the stream gurgling along beneath it.

  19th June ’16

  This afternoon we went out en masse to practise attack with aeroplane control. It was quite interesting and worked without a hitch. It rained however and wet us after a hot climb and has resulted in a bad chill pour moi. I now lie in bed full of aspirin and ache in the eyes, head and back, feeling thoroughly miserable and a trial to my friends. By tomorrow I trust the fit will have passed and that I will be myself again. One cannot afford to be ill at this time.

  20th June ’16

  We have moved back to Morlancourt today quite unexpectedly and I expect we’ll stay here till the battle comes off. The place is full of troops, the 21st Yorks and [the 6th] Dorsets being here with the Lord knows how many machine gunners, artillery etc.

  The Staff has wind up that we will be shelled. I hope not, not yet anyway. A night or two more sleep will be very acceptable. I have two more new officers now, Jones and Brunt.xx They seem two good fellows and the latter has seen previous service as a platoon sergeant. I think I have struck two very likely men.

  Donald has been told today that he is not to go in. He is dreadfully upset about it, poor old boy. The four Seconds-in-Commandxxi are being left out and they have all gone and got drunk tonight as a protest. It is a pity, but one cannot blame them. Under similar circumstances I think it more than likely that I should do the same.

  21st June ’16

  A day full of orders, reams and reams of them till one’s head is in a whirl and one hardly knows where one is or what this or that or the other fellow is going to do. It requires quiet and seclusion to digest the detail – essentials not too easily obtained but a walk up on to the open ground with Donald in the evening and a quiet talk over it all brought clarity of thought and an ability to write my own orders for the company.

  This has now been done and relieved indeed I am. I think l have done all that lies in my power to make all clear to everyone and with reasonable good fortune we should get to our objective and capture it.

  I pray to God we may be victorious and break the Hun line thoroughly. The battalion has a great honour thrust upon it. It is the right of the immortal 7th Division and my old company is right of the line. Little did I dream in those far off old Morecambe days that I should rise to command a company, which occupies a position envied by every battalion in the Army. It is up to us to justify the trust and, if I know my men, we will.

  22nd June ’16

  Up on the top with the company [command] telling them their jobs and practising various formations. The men are as keen as mustard and fit for anything.

  This evening the officers met together and talked o’er. Worthy has a pretty tricky job on, but he’ll do it well.

  John Cotton was very humorous. He says that it is probable that he’ll meet his old pal Moses within a week. He is, h
owever, most keen on seeing Noah. He says he wants to tell him that he really knew nothing at all about shipbuilding. John says, ‘What I shall say to him is, what about the Lusitania?xxii That was some ship. Your old Ark wouldn’t have made a decent life-boat for it!’

  He is a good fellow – one of the very best and, personally, I hope it may be a long time before he meets his old friend.

  23rd June ’16

  Everything is speeding up no end. Ammunition by the hundred wagon-load [is] pouring up. The village is alive with transport and artillery and the Bray-Corbie road one incessant stream of heavy-laden motor-lorries.xxiii

  It should certainly not be for lack of ammunition if this time we do not make a huge success of the venture. Yet one cannot help feeling a little anxious and worried. So much depends on this great throw and, for us, it is our first venture into anything really big. I doubt not, however, but that it is a much more anxious time for Fritz. His higher commands cannot but fail to be somewhat nervous with so much on their hands at once, what with the Russian advance and now this.

  This time, at long last, should really see a heavy blow delivered to Prussian prestige. If that is accomplished little else matters.

  24th June ’16

  Tonight we had a little reunion of all the old boys. There was the doctor, Murray, Worthy, Bill Bland, ‘Gommy’, Mellor and myself and we sat round a table and sang all the old mess-songs of Morecambe, Grantham and Salisbury.xxiv It was top-hole, and we all loved each other.

  There are so many new faces with us now and so many old ones missing that the battalion hardly seems the same – and one cannot let oneself go with the new like one loves to with the old boys. I would that the battalion was going over with all its original contingent. How certain we would have all felt then. Not that the new stuff isn’t good. Some of it is excellent. But we knew all the others so well. However, I have no doubt that this is no new experience at any rate for those who have soldiered long in this war.

  More orders today. Still they come. The foolscap is piling up into most formidable piles. One almost begins to feel that if any mistake is made in the fight it will be from over-organisation. The bombardment has commenced. It is quite gentle as yet but it will speed up in intensity with each succeeding day. Up to now Fritz is quiet. I’ve no doubt he is saving up ammunition for a real good burst when he does start.

  I am told that he has little more than 150,000 troops on the whole British front at the moment and that it will take him nearly a week to bring up another 100,000. How much truth to attach to it of course I do not know but I believe it to be fairly authentic.

  In conjunction with the French, our front is to be forty miles in extent and we have any amount of both troops and guns to cover this. The unforeseen alone excepted then, it looks as though we should break through somewhere. At any rate friend Hun is likely to have all his work cut out to stop us.

  25th June ’16

  Up on the top with Donald and the doctor this morning watching the bombardment over La Boiselle, Fricourt and Mametz. The speeding up has commenced. The hillsides over there are under a haze of smoke already. Shells which, bursting, throw up clouds bulkier than the ‘Cecil’,xxv white puffs, black puffs, brown puffs and grey. Puffs which start as small downy balls and spread sideways and upwards till they dwarf the woods. Darts of flame and smoke – black smoke these last – which shoots high and then into the air like giant poplar trees. These are the h.e.s.xxvi The shooting was magnificent. Time and time again the explosions occurred right in the Hun trenches. By Mametz Wood an ammunition dump must have been struck. The resultant smoke column was enormous. Mametz itself one cannot see. It is shrouded in a multi-coloured pall of smoke all its own. It must be awfully rotten for the Huns holding the line, yet one feels no sympathy for them. Too long they have been able to strafe our devoted infantry like this, and without hindrance or answer from us. What is sauce for the English goose is surely sauce for the German gander – and may his stomach relish it.xxvii

  26th June ’16

  We are now back in the Bois [des Tailles], tucked up in old tents and shelters, whilst the rain pours down and we are leaked upon. However that is a minor detail now. The bombardment is intense, one continuous boom and rumble. Fritz has retaliated, shelling our wood, among other things, slightly. But up to now his reply has been feeble indeed in comparison to what he is getting.

  According to latest information the Hun is pushing hard again at Verdun. No doubt he hopes to draw troops from here. I am afraid, Fritz, that this time you are too late.

  In three days from now we should be through you and threatening your final line.xxviii I bet the French go with a hearty good will. I think they look to this as their greatest chance since the war began.

  Chapter 12

  ‘We are all agog with expectancy’

  27th June ’16

  The Battle of Mametz, I suppose, may really be taken as having now commenced. True, it has been working up, so far as artillery activity is concerned, for the last three days but as no infantry have yet come in I take it that I give no offence to anyone if I call the period ending today as the ‘Preliminary Proceedings’.

  From today, however, the battle should begin to show definite shape. Infantry are now moving up. Small parties as yet it is true, but still the infantry. Runners and wire cutters, signallers and dump guards have already gone. The assaulting troops follow tomorrow. The mass of detail we have waded through to reach this point has been enormous but at last we have mastered it and the army is ready to strike.

  The guns are never silent, sometimes their detonating is one reverberating roar which fills the whole air and causes even the ground to tremble. At others they dwindle down a little until you can distinguish the notes of different guns but always they fire and fire and fire. The Bosche must be having a regular thin time of it all round.

  28th June ’16

  We were to move up tonight to take up our positions, were all ready and anxious to get away, to get up and moving and done with the waiting.i Waiting is rotten. I think it tries the nerves more than the actual moment of assault. Then one has action, movement, a hundred things to strive for and to occupy one’s attention. But, in waiting, there is nothing but anxiety and fruitless speculation on every phase conceivable.

  But we have not moved. At the last moment came an order ‘Stand by’.ii

  And so here we are still, the artillery pounding on as ever and we left, with speculation rife, and rumours bright and rumours grave, flying about on all sides, to twiddle our thumbs and wonder.

  Cowan has come out of the line this afternoon. He has been in charge of the wire-cutting party and Donald has gone in to take his place. The old boy was pleased as ‘Punch’ about it. He feels quite sure that he’ll be in the show yet.

  The news from everywhere today is excellent. The moment seems very auspicious for us to strike. Perhaps we will on Friday?iii

  29th June ’16

  A long day of waiting. The time seems interminable and one simply hates the thought of the long hours before us before the dawn comes. However, no doubt we’ll get through it all right.

  We move from here at 10 p.m. and should be in position about 1 a.m.

  The bombardment still goes on. Mametz, they tell us, has ceased to be. The Hun should be getting pretty well fed up. Indeed from the statements of various prisoners and deserters it would appear certain that he is. Nearly six days of the most appalling bombardment he has had now – a thing calculated to shake the morale of the finest troops in the world. It destroys sleep and interferes with rationing. Lack of either of these always affects a soldier. If his old machine-gunners have only suffered in proportion to his other ranks we should not be too seriously hurt doing our job.

  We are all agog with expectancy, all quietly excited and strung to a pitch but unhesitatingly I record that our only anxiety is that we will do our job well. That is but natural. This is the greatest thing the battalion or any of us have ever been in.iv

&nb
sp; [There is no entry for 30 June. Charlie obviously had no time to write in his diary, but on this day all COs received a Special Order from Brigade Headquarters to the men waiting anxiously in the trenches: ‘The use of the word retire is absolutely forbidden, and if heard can only be a ruse of the enemy and must be ignored.’]

  1st July ’16, 5.45 a.m.

  We marched up [to the assembly trench at 9.30 p.m.] last night. The most exciting march imaginable. Guns all round us crashed and roared till sometimes it was quite impossible to hear oneself speak. It was, however, a fine sight and one realised from it what gun power really means. Fritz, of course, strafed back in reply causing us some uneasiness and a few casualties before ever we reached the line.

  The night passed noisily and with a few more casualties. The Hun puts a barrage on us every now and then and generally claims one or two victims.

  It is a glorious morning and is now broad daylight. We go over in two hours’ time. It seems a long time to wait and I think, whatever happens, we shall all feel relieved once the line is launched. No Man’s Land is a tangled desert. Unless one could see it one cannot imagine what a terrible state of disorder it is in. Our gunnery has wrecked that and his front line trenches all right. But we do not yet seem to have stopped his machine-guns. These are pooping off all along our parapet as I write. I trust they will not claim too many of our lads before the day is over.