1915: The Death of Innocence

by Lyn Macdonald

  It was 18 June, and the hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. Across the Channel at Berkhamsted the Inns of Court Battalion was drawn up on Kitchener’s Field for a special parade. There were thirteen hundred of them, but more than half as many again had passed through the ranks and were now serving as subalterns in almost every Battalion of the New Army. They had recently reached the remarkable total of two thousand commissions, and it was to mark this achievement that Colonel Errington invited their honorary colonel, Field Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood, VC, to inspect the battalion. The Field Marshal had set 18 June as a suitable date, not merely because it was Waterloo Day but because it was a date he had particular reason to remember, ‘For,’ as he explained in his letter of acceptance, ‘I got a big hole in me that day sixty years ago.’

  Sir Evelyn Wood was eighty years old, he had got ‘a big hole’ at the siege of Sebastapol in 1855, and to the men in the callow ranks of the Inns of Court he was a historic figure. He had been in the Ashanti wars, had won the Victoria Cross in the Indian Mutiny, risen to be Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Army and had retired a mere twelve years earlier with the rank of Field Marshal. He took the keenest interest in the Army although, to his bitter regret, he was considered to be too old to serve in the present war. But on Waterloo Day the Field Marshal was in his element. He insisted on taking the salute mounted, stopped frequently during his inspection to speak with gruff good humour to numerous soldiers, and later cantered round the field, as the Colonel remarked admiringly, ‘as if the day had been really sixty years ago!’ He addressed the troops in the most complimentary terms, and if his speech was a little rambling as he recalled his own bygone days of soldiering, and if his voice cracked at times and did not quite carry to every corner of the field, the Inns of Court were delighted and rewarded him with three hearty cheers.

  There were other Waterloo Day parades and celebrations in various parts of the country, and especially in schools, but the centenary was not celebrated as it might have been in peacetime. It passed virtually unnoticed at the front, but on the same day, by coincidence, a shell exploding near Essex Farm on the Pilkem Ridge uncovered an ancient cannon-ball, buried since Marlborough’s wars. The following evening the 4th Gordon Highlanders were relieved and U Company thankfully handed over the trenches in Y Wood and went back to rest. There were many faces missing on the march back to the fields round Brandhoek and they only got there in the small hours of the morning, dog tired, but extremely happy. Their glorious rest was to last for almost four weeks.

  Their casualties, though bad enough, had been less severe than those of the battalions in the forefront of the attack, but their 8th Brigade had held the trenches on the Menin Road for the best part of four weeks, and Colonel Tommy Ogilvie intended that his Battalion’s rest should be a good one. Muscles were soft from lack of exercise and the Army decreed that when men were relieved from the front there should be a stiff programme of training and exercise to toughen them up for going back again. Captain Hopkinson, who now commanded U Company, interpreted this order in liberal terms and the platoon commanders taking their cue from him were determined that the men should enjoy themselves so long as the fine weather lasted.

  Sgt. A. Rule.

  We were camped in hessian bivouacs and we enjoyed a spell of almost unbroken sunshine and glorious summer mornings. The term ‘early morning parade’ was broadly accepted by our Platoon Commander as embracing gentle strolls past promising field crops, and physical exercises in the morning sunshine, just strenuous enough to stimulate our digestive juices. Training took place after breakfast and our Platoon Commander had taken a university course in agriculture so perhaps for that reason he had an eye for a well-sheltered training field. Through pastures green he led us where, instead of wearisome drill, we could enjoy a private sun bathe and a siesta. Unfortunately, after about a week of this pastoral idyll, the commander of another company blundered into our preserve and, although he and his men did have the good sense to follow our example, our sanctuary was robbed of its privacy.

  There was good food, plain, but plenty of it. There were estaminets in Brandhoek where the beer was thin but abundant, there was money to jingle in their sporrans – four weeks’ unspent pay – there were letters from home and parcels galore whose contents included the occasional bottle of whisky which certainly helped to enliven camp sing-songs in the warm evenings.

  Best of all there were baths. Baths were arranged at Poperinghe for one company at a time, and although water was plentiful and U Company had been able to wash regularly, a cold water wash in a bucket could not be compared to a bath – even if the bath was a communal one in the vats of a brewery. U Company’s turn came at the end of their first week’s rest and it was a red letter day. It was their first trip to Poperinghe and, after a blissful scrub, a lot of horseplay, and an invigorating cold douche from a two-inch hosepipe, the men were allowed the indulgence of two hours to explore and to enjoy the novelty of a town that still contained shops and civilians and was only slightly battered by shell-fire, for many of the refugees and tradesmen had returned. Since they had existed entirely on army fare for the past five months, most of them explored no further than the cafés and restaurants in the square, and once the novelty of being presented with menu cards had evaporated, and given the limitations of time and money, they set to and did their utmost to work their way through them. Stew was not popular, but there was good hearty soup, gargantuan omelettes, veal, steak, sausages, and mountains of golden chips, so cheap that even the less provident, who had spent the lion’s share of four weeks’ deferred pay on beer, could afford several large portions of chips, if they could afford nothing else.

  By the time they fell in for the three-mile tramp back to Brandhoek, U Company were new men. They were pleasantly replete with decent food, washed down with quantities of beer and wine, but best of all they were clean – and felt properly clean and spruce for the first time in weeks. During the past days they had spent hours smartening up. Kilts and tunics had been dried off and brushed clean, buttons and boots were polished, puttees were free of mud, faces were scrubbed and shining beneath khaki Tarn o’ Shanters perched at a jaunty angle on gleaming slicked-back hair. They stepped out smartly, for the pipes were playing them along the road to the lively strains of ‘Cock o’ the North’, and U Company, who knew a variety of versions, was in excellent voice. It would have been hard to find a happier-looking bunch of Jocks. Just as the tune came to an end they caught up with a battalion of Kitchener’s Army. They were the first New Army men they had seen and they were not an alluring sight.

  Sgt. A. Rule.

  They were resting by the wayside and looking unutterably weary and dispirited. We later learned that they had just received their baptism of fire on the Menin Road and had been relieved – after just forty-eight hours in the line. They were probably misled by our ‘shining morning faces’ and took us for a newly arrived Territorial unit, anyway they began to shout caustic comments and we catcalled back at them. One woebegone-looking sergeant called out, ‘Just wait till you’ve been up there, lads, and you won’t be singin’ then!’ Well, we soon put him right. I’ll never forget his look of utter incredulity when we informed them we’d just come back after holding the Menin Road for weeks on end. It sent us into roars of laughter.

  To add spice to the joke someone sang out in a high falsetto voice ‘We don’t want to lose you, but we think you ought to go…’ It set U Company off again and when they had recovered they favoured Kitchener’s unfortunate soldiers with another mocking ditty which struck them as peculiarly appropriate, bellowing as they swaggered down the road:

  Send out the Army and the Navy,

  Send out the rank and file,

  Send out the good old Territorials,

  They’ll face danger with a smile!

  Send out the Boys of the Old Brigade

  Who kept Old England free,

  Send out my brother, my sister and my mother,

  But for God’s
sake, don’t send ME!

  It was a touch unkind, and the Kitchener Battalion shouted insults and imprecations until U Company was well down the road. They were the 9th Battalion, the Rifle Brigade, of the 14th Light Division – the very troops who had relieved U Company’s own brigade a few days before. The riflemen had been in Flanders for just over a month and, if they did not at present appreciate the joke, they looked forward to getting their own back. As the second of the New Army divisions to reach the front they too would be acting the old sweats before many weeks had passed, lording it over newer arrivals as the pace gathered momentum and Kitchener’s Army began to arrive in significant numbers.*

  The vast bulk of the ‘First Hundred Thousand’ of Kitchener’s Army were champing at the bit. In their opinion they had been ready for months, and the last weeks of waiting had been weary. They were sick of drilling, sick of route-marching, sick of training, sick of mock attacks and if they were not exactly sick of the Army, they wanted to get on with the war. It had not been easy to equip them but now, at last, they were garbed in respectable soldierly khaki and could say goodbye to the suits of ‘Kitchener’s blue’. At long last they had rifles, and some who were natural shots could fire them. Others had been dragged through the final musketry tests on which the proficiency of the battalion depended. It was an open secret that a well-meaning instructor, seeing that a man was firing an unacceptable number of outers – or even missing the target altogether – had his own system. ‘I think there’s something wrong with that rifle, lad,’ he would say. ‘Let me try it.’ And, on the pretext of testing the weapon, he would pump enough inners and bullseyes into the target to make sure that a soldier got the required score. They would improve with practice – and they would get plenty of opportunity to practice in France. But they were fit, and they were keen and, ready or not, in the opinion of many Commanding Officers, as eager as their troops to get to the front, they were in danger of going stale with the long delay. Now that things were hotting up and there was a real prospect of getting going, the anticipation was unbearable as the days dragged and the troops chafed at the bit, waiting for the final inspection that would signal their departure.

  The King was working hard, for he was anxious to inspect as many Kitchener’s Brigades as possible to wish them Godspeed. He was a modest man and he regarded this as a duty, for Kitchener’s men had been exhorted to join up in his name ‘for King and Country’, and even if he was exhausted by the end of June, his effort had given enormous pleasure and satisfaction.

  Sgt. J. Cross, MM, 13th Bn., Rifle Brig., 37 Div.

  King George was coming down to inspect the Division before we left and we’d been told that we had to keep a sharp look out. Well, at ordinary times the police used to do the guard for the camp because we were busy with our training, but this particular week we had to do camp guard for twenty-four hours and this particular day I was in charge of it (I was paid Acting-Sergeant at the time) and of course the other lads pulled my leg about this because I’d never done a guard in my life before, not even as a rifleman, because we hadn’t been anywhere to do one. I told my sentries, ‘You keep your eyes peeled. And if you see a cavalcade of horses come along there and if His Majesty is there there’ll be a chap riding along with the Royal Standard, so don’t forget to give us the word right smart!’ Well, suddenly a voice rang out, ‘Guard, turn out!’ And we jumped out and stood to attention. The King’s party passed along between the road and the camp, riding on the grass. When they got round more or less to my front, I pulled the guard to attention, ‘Royal salute. Present arms!’ – and the bugler sounded the royal salute. They stopped and the King wheeled his horse round and he saluted the guard and something was said to one of the aide de camps, and he came galloping across to me at the guard post. He said, ‘What regiment are you, Corporal?’ I said, ‘Thirteenth Battalion, Rifle Brigade, sir.’ ‘All right,’ he said, ‘you can stand the guard at ease.’ So I gave the order. ‘Guard – order arms. Stand at ease!’

  The Orderly Sergeant came round at night. He says, ‘Jack, you’re for orders in the morning. Belt and side arms,’ he said. ‘Do yourself up well.’ So, next morning’s Orderly Room, before they saw the prisoners, I had to go in. Colonel Pretor-Pinney sat at the table and he looked at me straight. He said, ‘I’m very pleased with what happened yesterday and the way you conducted the guard as His Majesty passed by.’ I said, ‘Thank you, sir.’ He said to me, ‘What is your rank now?’ I said, ‘Paid Lance-Sergeant, sir.’ So he said, ‘From now on, I promote you to full Sergeant,’ and that come out in Battalion Orders that night. So I went to France as a full Sergeant.

  Jack Cross’s comrades of the 13th Battalion, the Rifle Brigade, had been gratified by the King’s visit, but the visit of Duggie Jones’s mother had given even greater pleasure to at least a dozen of his particular chums. They thought it was particularly civil of her, for Duggie was only sixteen, although his large bulk and his height of six feet had easily deceived the recruiting sergeant. Unlike many mothers of under-age boys, she had sportingly connived at the deception, and even more sportingly arrived two days before their departure to give Duggie and his friends a memorable send-off. Mrs Jones was rich, her son Douglas was a public schoolboy, but he was ‘one of the lads’ – and what a night the lads had! Duggie’s mother had reserved a private room in a local hotel and treated the boys to such a dinner as they had seldom enjoyed. There was smoked salmon, there was caviare, there was turbot followed by a joint of beef large enough to go round half the battalion. There was trifle, there was ice cream, there was even a savoury of roasted cheese. There was good wine to wash down the meal and, as if that were not enough, Mrs Jones presented each of the dozen guests with a half-bottle of whisky to take away with him. It was a wonderful evening. She had also had the tact and foresight to charm Colonel Pretor-Pinney in the course of a personal visit and to beg his acceptance of a case of champagne for the officers’ farewell dinner, thereby ensuring that there were no recriminations when the merry diners returned to camp, long after lights out.*

  Kitchener’s Army had basked in the glory of the first weeks of the war, when the flags waved and the bands played and every volunteer was hailed as a hero, but the euphoria had evaporated over the weary months of slog and marching and training – and waiting, waiting, waiting. Now, on the eve of their departure, now that they were real soldiers at last, and now that they were on the brink of the long-awaited adventure, there was a new sense of bravado in the air and it came through proudly, if a little selfconsciously, in farewell letters home.

  Rfn. J. Hoyles, 13th Bn., Rifle Brig., 37th Div.

  My Ever Dear Mother and Father,

  I started writing a letter this afternoon, dear Mother, but in the meantime I have been so busy drawing ammunition (a hundred and twenty rounds) and other jobs.

  First of all dear Mother I wish to thank you for the cake and socks. The cake was ripping and I thoroughly enjoyed it. My chief news, dear Mother, is to tell you we are going tomorrow morning after breakfast either to Southampton or Folkestone and we embark on Sunday for the front. The King sent a message down, which the Colonel read out on parade, in which he wished us every success in the future and by the grace of God his protection over us, at which our Colonel broke down. He is such a nice gentleman, a man liked by everyone, and we cheered him to the echo.

  Dear Mother, we had our photographs taken yesterday and if you should see it in the illustrated papers I am just behind the Marquis of Winchester.†

  Mother dear, I know at times you must feel sad, but I know you will keep a cheerful appearance for my sake. It does not seem that we are going out, somehow we cannot realise what lays before us, the hardships and dangers of real warfare. Mother dear, I ask of you that you will say a prayer beside your bed (every night) for me, asking God to protect me through all the dangers I have to traverse. As you say, Mother, you will leave me in the hands of God, which is a kind thought from you for me. Take care of everything of mine at home as I priz
e everything I possess.

  Dear Mother, I am glad to hear you are going to Liverpool for a change, but I am so sorry to tell you, owing to the rotters not paying us the billeting money, I shall be unable to send you anything as they are going to credit it to us in our pay books. I think the reason is because of the men getting too much drink and kicking up a row before we go. They owe me £2.

  Frank’s division is following us out in about a week’s time. Tell him, dear Mother, I am gone.

  Well, dear Mother and Father, I think I have told you all and I will write as soon as we land. Kiss all the children for me and Goodbye to Jack and all friends at home and look for the time when I, Frank and all are reunited again after this war.

  Goodbye to all. With fondest love and my first thoughts for you, from your ever loving son,

  Joe (of the Rifle Brigade).*

  Gnr. D. A. Pankhurst, Stokes Mortar Bty., RFA.

  We were given twenty-four hours’ leave and I went home. Father left for work very early in the morning and he came into me before he went and woke me and said (these are his exact words. I shall never forget them), he said, ‘I know you’ll do your duty, but don’t forget, Mother will be worrying about you.’ Those words went with me through the whole of the war. ‘I know you’ll do your duty’ – so I had to do that if only for him. And my mother.

  The first two hundred thousand were ready to go to war. The problem that faced the Government was where to employ them to the best advantage – whether to send large reinforcements to the Dardanelles in the hope of tipping the scales and ensuring success, or to concentrate resources on the western front in the hope of eventually breaking through the German line. The long-postponed decision had at last been taken – but it was still in the nature of a compromise. Three New Army Divisions would be sent to the Dardanelles, with more to follow if necessary. The political crisis had caused four weeks’ delay and the first of the three embarked in mid-June, the third on 7 July. The voyage was long, the temperature on the peninsula was rising, the new troops could not possibly take the offensive before August and by then the blistering heat would have reached its peak.