1915: The Death of Innocence

by Lyn Macdonald

  In the opinion of Kitchener’s Mob, marching occupied the minds of their commanders to an obsessive degree. They had marched for literally hundreds of miles in the course of their training, starting with gentle route-marches of five or six miles, gradually increasing in length and difficulty, carrying more and more equipment, until now they could march for up to twenty miles with a full pack and ‘ammunition’, represented by slabs of lead cut to fit the empty pouches. These were known throughout the army as ‘Kitchener’s Chocolate’ and the passage of a Battalion along a long march was easy to spot by the trail of hated ‘chocolate bars’ discarded by weary Tommies resting at the roadside.

  Capt. Sir F. G. Kenyon, KCB, Inns of Court OTC (TF).

  March discipline was important. The foundation of steady marching is observing the regulation hundred and twenty paces to the minute. This was practised in company work as well as when the whole Battalion was together and it was kept to, however short the distance. Guides were expected to check their step by looking at their watches at frequent intervals and not to drop the pace more than necessary going up hills. When a company has learnt to keep the regulation rate without distress and as a matter of habit, the foundation of good marching is laid, and the actual distance covered will not matter, provided the men are in reasonably good training.

  We also observed march discipline in the matter of regular halts and intervals and, of course, in forming up the column again and keeping to the proper side of the road etc. The men liked to sing but, in that respect, they certainly did not come up to the best standards. The singing was usually spasmodic and none too good! If they had taken the trouble to learn the words of songs, and not merely fragments of choruses, singing on the march would have been far more inspiriting. It was surprising what a large proportion of men could continue to sing contentedly with the beat on the wrong foot, or even attempted to march to rag-time!

  But the Tommies were oblivious to such criticisms and carried on singing in their own sweet way. It was their only means of asserting their individual feelings and by now some of the songs were very individual indeed. One Battalion found the tune of ‘Diamonds in Amsterdam’ convenient to march to, but their version, they believed, was an improvement on the original.

  I’ve seen maggots in Tickler’s Jam,

  Tickler’s Jam, Tickler’s Jam,

  I’ve seen maggots in Tickler’s Jam

  Crawling round.

  And if you get some inside your tum

  They’ll crawl through

  Till they bite your bum,

  So watch what you’re sucking

  Next time you eat fucking

  Old Tickler’s Jam!

  It was crude enough to bring a blush to the cheeks of some younger soldiers in whose schoolboy vocabulary ‘Drat it!’ had ranked as a strong expletive. But there was safety in numbers, and with repetition their scruples were gradually overcome until they were singing as lustily as the rest. But the battalion reserved this ditty to enliven marches along quiet country roads where there was little danger of offending the prudish ears of civilians who chanced to be in earshot.

  The Tommies of Kitchener’s Army were popular with civilians. They cheered them as they marched in interminable columns through country towns and villages. They hung around camps watching them at drill, at bayonet practice or marching in formation, and on open land and commons the sight of Tommies digging and revetting trench systems was a popular spectator sport. They dug trenches the length and breadth of the country and they had been digging them for months. By spring there were eight miles of trenches on Berkhamsted Common alone, and it was rumoured that there were more trenches in Great Britain than there were in France.

  The civilian population took the Tommies to their hearts and, whenever they got the chance, showered them with kindnesses.

  Pte. A. Simpson, 5th Bn. (TF), Yorkshire Regt.

  As we got our khaki we became available for guard duties outside our billets. I did one outside the Beechwood Hotel, and a few days later I was detailed for another one. We were only supposed to do one guard a week, so I saw the sergeant-major and told him I’d already done one guard that week. ‘What!’ he said ‘And you’ve been selected again?’ ‘Yes, sir,’ I said. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you must be extra good! Do this one and then I’ll see you get another.’ That was the beginning and end of complaining in the army for me!

  If it had been a guard on the big house in Cold Bath Road I wouldn’t have complained – no one did! The house was used for isolating new recruits who arrived suffering from scabies, and an old lady in a very large house opposite used to send a servant to a fish and chip shop every night for four fish and chip suppers for the guard corporal and three men. On Sundays when the shop was closed she sent sandwiches across, and often there was a brand new pair of socks for each man. No, we didn’t mind a bit doing that guard.

  Every night some Harrogate churches put on free suppers and provided free writing materials and rest-rooms for the troops, and there were no inquiries about your religion, if any. These kindnesses were particularly welcome to chaps like myself because I made an allotment to my mother which left me with only sixpence a day to provide Blanco, postage stamps, razor blades, and so on.

  2nd Lt. W. Cushing, 9th Bn., Norfolk Regt.

  In May we went by train to Reigate and spent a most delightful fortnight digging trenches on the hill outside the town. We were under the impression that they were for the defence of London, and a sorry bulwark they would have been! But the whole exercise was an excuse for a good time. We were billeted most comfortably, the men in good houses and the officers with the high society of the town. Two of my colleagues, Glanfield and Everett, were billeted with some well-to-do people in a fine house, really a mansion, and I was invited to dine there one evening. I can’t remember their name, but I do remember their lavish hospitality! Champagne, port, liqueurs, and goldfinger bowls. My God, those gold finger bowls! I stared helplessly at mine, wondering what they were and what we were supposed to do with them. (Glanfield and Everett were equally at a loss, because usually we all dined in the mess.) We were saved by the charming daughter of the house. She must have seen that we were embarrassed, because she whispered to a servant and had them quietly removed.

  Rfn. W. Worrell, 12th Bn., Rifle Brig.

  People were awfully kind. I was invited to tea with Lady Haliburton, but I’ve never had such an awkward afternoon in my life. I’d thought to get a good tuck-in and that there would be other people there, but I was all on my own in this fancy drawing room, and there was even a footman serving out the tea. I sat on the edge of a little chair trying to balance a tea-cup and eat these dainty little sandwiches, with a lady old enough to be my grandmother asking me questions and me trying to make polite replies and not to talk with my mouth full. I thought, ‘No more of this for me!’ But as I was going out Lady Haliburton said, ‘I don’t think you’ve enjoyed yourself, have you?’ I said, ‘Oh yes I have, and thank-you-very-much-for-having-me’ – like a well brought up lad. She gave a half-smile and said, ‘Perhaps you’d like to come back next Sunday and have tea with the servants?’ So out of politeness I had to say yes, and out of politeness I had to go back the next week.

  They took me down to this big kitchen where there was the cook and the other maids and they made an immense fuss of me. They said, ‘What would you like for tea?’ I said, ‘Can I have anything I like?’ The cook said, ‘Yes, of course you can. What would you like?’ I said, ‘Well, I’d like smoked haddock with an egg on it’ – thinking I’d beat them! – but she said, ‘Yes, certainly.’ So I had poached haddock with an egg on it, and I don’t know what-all after that. We had a very jolly time, and I also had a large bag of home-made cakes to take back with me.

  Pte. Η. N. Edwards, 6th (Bristol City) Bn., Gloucester Regt.

  When we moved to Danbury in Essex I was billeted with two other blokes on some very nice people called Lancaster. I shared a room with a chap whose father was the man who cleaned
out the dustbins in Bristol. You met all sorts in the army. The other chap was a bit of a snob and he rather looked down on this chap, Billy Williams, but I found out that he was as nice a chap under the skin as anybody else and we mucked in together and got on like smoke.

  Mrs Lancaster was very good to us and looked after us really well. She always gave us an onion pudding before the main meal on the Sunday. It was a long roly-poly suet pudding with plenty of onion in it. She’d cut you a good thick slice of that and pour gravy on it. It was an old tradition in big families, because if you had that you wouldn’t eat so much meat, but we loved these onion puddings. We thought they were marvellous and, of course, with the exercise and all the fresh air you were getting, you were permanently ravenous. But she’d always put on a meal for us, though the billeting money couldn’t have gone far. Oh, she was good to us! We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves there. When we left we clubbed together to buy Mrs Lancaster a present, just some small thing but she was ever so pleased. Many’s the time when we got to France, sitting in some dirty old trench, nothing but bully beef and biscuits, we’d say, ‘Remember those onion puddings at Mrs Lancaster’s?’ We often used to think of them. We could have done with one then!

  If the problem of housing the troops had not been entirely solved it was at least much improved since the chaotic early days of mass enlistment when they had squeezed sardine-like into camps and barracks, town-halls, public houses, even race-courses, sleeping in grandstands, on floors, on billiard tables and occasionally at first in the open. Those who were in private billets usually came off best, and even though the majority had moved into camps and the tents were gradually being replaced by huts, private billets were still in demand as Kitchener’s Mob moved around the country. There were few landladies who failed to give full value for the billeting allowance of seventeen shillings and sixpence a week, supplying hearty meals, washing clothes, darning socks and generally mothering their ‘boys’. Some even rose from their beds in the small hours to brew cocoa or Bovril for a Tommy returning wet and chilled from a night exercise and to stoke up the kitchen fire to dry his clothes for the morning.

  Now that Kitchener’s Army had been licked into shape and equipment was trickling through, training was more intensive. There were night exercises at least once a week and they were not beloved by the troops, divided into companies, one to ‘attack’ the other, stumbling across dark countryside to some unknown rendezvous and not infrequently losing their way. The night on which novice guides led them on a compass bearing was not easily forgotten by one half-Battalion for the guides had omitted to allow for the difference between true and magnetic north. It was a night of torrential rain and the unfortunate Tommies were obliged to wait in the inadequate shelter of a hedge until the error was corrected. This took a long, long time and, as one unfortunate observed, ‘It’s hard to say how long we were held up – perhaps an hour, perhaps two – but I do know that, as we stood there in the downpour, everyone had ample time to reflect on how much he was enjoying himself.’ When they finally arrived hours late at the barn they were supposed to ‘capture’, the ‘enemy’ who held it had long ago succumbed to cold and boredom and they were all fast asleep. Their opponents were in no mood to wake them gently and the free-for-all that ensued was not precisely the ‘attack’ their Commanding Officer had had in mind.

  But with the arrival of weapons, training was becoming more sophisticated and more interesting.

  Pte. Η. N. Edwards 6th (Bristol City) Bn., Gloucester Regt.

  I joined the machine-gun section when we were at Danbury. At first we only had two machine-guns, and one of them was an ancient old crock. They reckoned it had been used at the Battle of Omdurman! But it had been converted to fire 303 ammunition and it weighed a ton. We all tried to dodge carrying that one because it weighed at least ten pounds more than the other. That was the worst side of it – humping round and carrying these heavy guns and tripods. The glamour side was firing them and we were very proud of ourselves when we got to that stage. But first we had lectures and we had to study and learn all sorts of things, which was easy enough if you had some knowledge of mathematics. But I always remember one occasion when we were learning the use of the clinometer. Now, this simply means that if you’re carrying out direct fire, you put this thing on the gun, and you move it, and it registers so many degrees up, so then you can work out how far your bullets will go parabolically. So the officer who was instructing us took us through it a few times and then he left us to practise working it out. He said, ‘Carry on, Sergeant, will you?’ And Sergeant Mawley looked absolutely baffled and said, ‘I’m very sorry, sir, I don’t think I can do this. I’m a greengrocer in civil life.’ I always remember him saying that! He didn’t know anything about mathematics at all. Poor chap, we simply roared with laughter.

  In the well-organised peacetime army it took three years to train a soldier to the standard of full-fledged efficiency which the men of Kitchener’s armies, grappling with every conceivable shortage and difficulty, were now expected to approach in a mere eight months. But they were men of a very different stamp from most pre-war recruits, drive by poor circumstances or unemployment to enlist. The majority of Kitchener’s men had joined up for very different reasons. They were fitter and stronger, they were enthusiastic and keen to learn, and the standard of intelligence was generally high, for the rank and file was made up of men from every stratum of Britain’s rigidly structured society. And they were doing well.

  Many were professional men who had been encouraged to enlist in the first heady wave of recruitment and it was a matter of annoyance to some in authority that there were numbers of men serving in the ranks who might have been more usefully employed as officers and, since Commanding Officers were reluctant to weaken their Battalions by recommending their best men, the pleas of the War Office for suitable candidates fell on deaf ears. The supply of officers was a headache but although they were desperately needed the hierarchy at the War Office was not yet prepared to compromise on the rules that had governed the granting of commissions to career officers of the Regular Army in peacetime. Although a few exceptional men were occasionally commissioned from the ranks, the military authorities held to the belief that, with rare exceptions, the qualities of leadership and refinement required by potential army officers could only be nurtured in the public schools. In the present emergency the War Office was not prepared to grant even temporary commissions to men who had not enjoyed the benefit of a public school education.

  2nd Lt. W. Cushing.

  I applied for a commission on the strength of three years in the Cambridge OTC and in due course I was appointed Temporary Second Lieutenant in the 9th Service Battalion of the Norfolk Regiment. I joined my unit at the Old Ship Hotel, Brighton. The officers were billeted in the hotel, which also served as Battalion HQ. In the orderly room I found the CO., Colonel Shewen, and also Captain Stracey. They were very official, but very courteous – so courteous that they didn’t even rebuke me when I failed to salute the Colonel – and, what’s more, I even omitted to salute the Brigadier General when I had to report to him. Those officers must have said, ‘Upon my word, that’s a green one!’ Their judgement was true, because the Cambridge Officer Training Corps had not fitted me in any way to be a commissioned officer, and this fact was sharply brought home to me in the following weeks. I got very little training that was of any value.*

  True, I shouted words of command at an obedient line of strange faces under the eye of a dear old boy. He was a white-haired superannuated sergeant-major and I suppose he had volunteered to come back to help in training the ‘awkward squad’, for he was far too old to fight. I can still hear him calling to the platoon in his thick Norfolk accent: ‘Give me your attention naow, while the orfcer ‘ere is a-larning of ‘is wark.’

  I had no command of my own until I went to France. When I did eventually join the regiment overseas I was given a platoon and was expected not merely to bellow commands on parade, but to know how to feed, cl
othe and billet sixty men, know all their names and characters, keep a platoon roll, attend to their wants, be responsible for their efficiency and the good order of their arms and equipment – clothing, boots, gas-masks, entrenching-tools and a dozen oddments – and also lead them through the discomforts and dangers of trench warfare. My training fitted me for none of these things.

  But the apprentice officers were shaping up and what they lacked in experience they made up for in enthusiastic application. As a matter of course, in the leisurely days of peacetime, army officers in home stations spent almost as much time on leave, on the hunting field and in sporting and social activities as they spent in performing their regimental duties. There was a vast gulf between them and the men they commanded, and the day-to-day running of infantry platoons was, more often than not, left entirely in the hands of an NCO.

  These regular officers were not dilettantes, and they were certainly not amateurs. The army picked the cream of all applicants, the entrance examination was stiff, the training at Sandhurst or Woolwich was arduous and, even when a subaltern was commissioned into a regiment, promotion came slowly and had to be worked for. The high standard of professionalism in the Regulars had proved its worth again and again since the start of the war, and the Old Army had been decimated in the course of it. There were few enough Regular officers left to hold the fort at the front. There were certainly none to spare for the New Armies and their lack of trained officers was critical. Old officers, often long into comfortable retirement, had been brought back as Commanding Officers and adjutants of New Army battalions consisting of a thousand men and a dozen or so junior officers, temporarily commissioned, who were as inexperienced as the men themselves. Often they were the sons of family friends or acquaintances, chosen by the Colonel himself who then put their names forward for temporary commissions. On his recommendation they were usually granted.