1915: The Death of Innocence

by Lyn Macdonald

  Since the start of the war Boy Scouts had been permitted, indeed encouraged, to wear uniform to school and to undertake a variety of patriotic duties. They were to be seen everywhere, from the hallowed corridors of Government offices where relays of boys were acting as messengers, to the forecourts of railway stations or cycling along country lanes in the self-appointed pursuit of suspicious characters who might be German spies, frequently causing annoyance to innocent citizens going about their lawful business. But the zeal of the Boy Scouts was not easily diminished. They were mainly affluent youngsters, for the uniform in which they took such pride was not cheap. The less well off were more inclined to join fraternities whose ‘uniform’ of cap and belt was more easily affordable and in recent months there had been a huge upsurge in the number of boys aged twelve to eighteen who had enrolled in all such organisations. But a universal source of inspiration for both rich and poor alike was the Boy’s Own Paper, which was avidly read, even at third or fourth hand, by almost every literate boy in the land. For thirty years it had been a firm favourite, packed with thrilling adventure stories, with articles on science, on new inventions, on hobbies and leisure pursuits, and it was imbued with a healthy ‘moral tone’ that extolled the virtues of heroism and nobility, well-spiced with the thrills and danger that appealed to a boyish sense of adventure. With the advent of the war the ‘moral tone’ had soared higher than ever. Out went the jungle adventures, the narrow escapes from ferocious beasts, the quelling of treacherous native tribes, the tales of derring-do in remote outposts of the Empire. In came the young heroes, the barbarous guttural Germans, the noble martyred French, wicked Zeppelin crews, vile and devious spies. They featured in dozens of exciting lurid sagas to be rescued or outwitted, as appropriate, by a virtuous schoolboy hero. A favourite character was the master whose post as teacher of German in an educational establishment was merely a cloak for his nefarious activities as a spy. It was always a public school, and the public school ethic with its stern message of moral duty oozed across every page and filtered through more mundane levels of society to impressionable schoolboys everywhere. So far as the Boy’s Own Paper was concerned they were all ‘England’s Boys’, and they were left in no doubt that a great deal was expected of them.

  On many a college playing-field,

  All fleet of foot, and strong of hand,

  They speed the ball, the bat they wield,

  And win the victory they have planned.

  Across the sward they run the race,

  The air is full of happy noise;

  Supple of limb, and bright of face,

  The pride of our country, England’s boys.

  Hope of our country, England’s pride,

  Boyhood of Britain, true and brave;

  Where’er the sun shall travel wide,

  Across the lands, above the wave,

  The world shall know not, shall not trace

  In Athens’ story, Sparta’s, Troy’s,

  A fairer breed, a nobler race,

  Than the pride of our country, England’s boys!

  Under the circumstances, and under such a flattering depiction of their worth, even readers in Scotland, Ireland, or Wales were only too happy to be regarded as ‘England’s boys’ for the duration.

  Those who allowed their minds to stray from the obligations demanded of them by the war to the wider question of civilian careers were dealt with briskly in the correspondence columns which, in the past, had been a willing source of advice: ‘We would help you if we could but due to the War there are no examinations for the most promising of the suggested careers. Your best plan is to join the Army and when the War is over you will have no difficulty in finding an opening’ And again: ‘You can get all the information you require at the nearest recruiting office. Go there at once. Your country needs you!’

  The editor adopted a milder tone with the many anxious readers who pleaded for advice on developing puny muscles or even increasing their height in order to reach the standards required by the Army. A few eager correspondents were barely in their teens but, as the editor wrote with kindly encouragement, ‘You cannot begin too soon’ It was hardly surprising that so many impressionable readers of these high-minded sentiments had inveigled their way into the Army well below the minimum age and in almost every battalion of Kitchener’s Army there were baby-faced soldiers, sometimes as young as fifteen.

  Bill Worrell, who had never been nearer the playing-fields of Eton than a boat trip on the Thames near his home in Isleworth, had joined up starry eyed at the age of seventeen and suffered the humiliation of having his mother arrive at camp to fetch him home. Since Bill had merely left a note of farewell on the kitchen table it had taken the distracted Mrs Worrell some days to track him down and by then Sergeant Hubbard had taken a liking to him.

  Rfn. W. Worrell.

  Sid Hubbard had been in the Oxfordshire Constabulary. He was a man who looked every inch a sergeant-major – he had a waxed moustache and he was over six feet, and big with it. He must have weighed all of eighteen stone and he had a very commanding manner, but beneath it all he was a very decent bloke. I don’t know how my mother found her way to me, I think it was just chance, because the platoon was marching along, or trying to march, and suddenly there she was! She wanted to haul me out there and then and take me with her to see the Colonel. It was the very early days of the war, before we had uniforms or anything, and Sid Hubbard had been made our section commander and put in charge of our tent. So he took my mother aside and he spoke to her and I don’t know how he did it but he talked her round. He said, ‘Well, let him stay. We’ll look after him.’ He knew I was a kid and he always did keep an eye on me. He always called me Willie. To everyone else I was Bill. Before we left for France he was promoted Sergeant-Major and he was very regimental. In fact he was disliked by many blokes because he was so regimental, but he was a good sort – to me anyway.

  Under the benevolent eye of Sergeant Hubbard, Bill had survived the training and emerged as a fully fledged member of the Rifle Brigade. In mid-August he had been in France for over a month and he was thoroughly enjoying himself.

  Rfn. W. Worrell.

  When we went into the trenches at first at Laventie it was fine. Every part of the line wasn’t blood and shells and fighting and many parts were comfortable, cushy we called it. You just sat around in the trench and nobody wanted to do anything. The people on the other side were said to be Saxons and they didn’t want any trouble, so we all just carried on and it was all very new and interesting to us, and very, very novel.

  When we came out of the line it was delightful, and of course I was top dog, because I had my schoolboy French and these other lads hadn’t any French at all, so when we got into the estaminets and other places, I could do the shopping for them and go into the patisserie and the grocer and get grub, which they couldn’t do. My platoon was in the racing stables and the concrete floor was a bit hard for sleeping on, but opposite the billet was the estaminet and the daughter, Julie, was the serving maid. Julie was really ‘magnifique’ – a big buxom girl with beautiful curves. She was nearly six feet tall and she must have weighed about twelve stone with a figure about 48–38–48 – inches of course, just like an hour-glass! Well, my fighting-weight was about seven stone, but I was first favourite with Julie, because I could talk to her and she could understand what I was saying, so when she was in difficulties with the troops she used to call on me to interpret. She used to call me her ‘petit anglais’ and her mother occasionally invited me into the kitchen for a bowl of soup after closing time, so I was in clover. We had a very pleasant sort of comradeship. Also I was young then and I wasn’t taking the liberties that the other fellows were taking. Most of these chaps were crude. They thought all Frenchwomen were very loose women and of course the women didn’t wear any underclothes. That was found out pretty quickly and the fellows used to take wicked liberties with Julie, patting her bottom under her skirt and that sort of thing. They didn’t do anything worse
than that, but that was their game.

  One pay day the estaminet was packed and Julie had to squeeze her way through the benches to serve the drinks. One chap, who was a real cad called Shaughnessey, was sitting opposite me and, as Julie passed, he put his hand under her skirt and patted her bare bottom on my side. Julie put the glasses down and without turning round to look she threw a vicious back-hander that caught me behind the ear and I went sprawling on the floor. Shaughnessey was roaring his head off thinking he’d got away with it. Of course immediately Julie had twigged what had happened she picked me up and then let rip at Shaughnessey, hit him over the head with her tray and then pushed him under the table and kicked him. That wiped the silly grin off his face! It was pandemonium. Poor Julie looked at my swelling ear and was ‘desolé’. She knew that I wouldn’t do such a dirty trick – at least, not in public – so, having put Shaughnessey in his place, she took me to Mama in the kitchen, who sat me in the best chair and said I must rest awhile and stay for soup. Well, I suppose I did put it on a bit, but feminine sympathy was in very short supply in France.

  It was closing time and I could hear Julie chucking the troops out. Mama began filling the soup bowls and I began rubbing my turn in anticipation. Then, of all the blasted bad luck, in came the Provost Sergeant, Tim Arley. He was a big raw ex-Irish Guardsman who fancied his luck with Julie and he used to use his exalted rank to get into the kitchen after closing time. When he saw me sitting there he went berserk – grabbed me by the collar and the seat of my trousers and literally threw me through the back door into the stinking midden in the courtyard. I scrambled out, smelling of non-violets! But I had the small satisfaction of hearing Julie roaring that he was a big ugly cochon who was no longer welcome in Mama’s house. I almost felt like going back to interpret that for him! I scraped off the worst of the muck but it was days before even my best friends would come anywhere near me. The sequel came when I met Tim Arley at the reunion dinner in 1921. I gave him a nasty look and reminded him that he had insulted me in front of a lady in 1915. He pretended not to remember but as I turned away he said, ‘Phew. There’s a terrible whiff of a midden here all of a sudden.’ That did it! ‘Choose your weapons,’ I said. ‘Right,’ said he, ‘one pint of bitter and thank you very much.’ What could you do with a man so lacking in decency! Anyway, he was out of luck with Julie – he told me she never spoke to him again as long as he was at Laventie.

  Compared to the innocent enthusiasts of Kitchener’s Army now pouring into France, men like Frank Moylan who had been at the front for several months were old hands, but, although the new men had a lot to learn and it would be months before hard seasoning would turn them in the eyes of the Army into useful soldiers, even now the Army was glad of them. There was a lot more territory to cover. The British had now taken over a line that stretched across the downlands of the Somme to meet the right of the French Tenth Army, and on its left they had extended their front from the la Bassée Canal across the coal-fields where the trenches ran among spoil-heaps and mining villages. In front of the trenches of the 47th London Division was the looming black pile they called the Double Crassier.

  Cpl, F. Moylan, 1/7th (City of London), Bn., London Regt., 140 Brig., 47 Div.

  Let me explain the position of the front line. There was a communication trench leading back to the mining village, a sort of model place, with a brick wall round it and a hole had been knocked in the wall, that’s where the communication trench ended, and there were all the miners’ cottages there. There was a wide road and these cottages were on a slope each side, most of them with the furniture still in, and little gardens, and if you were in support you were in these houses. We had a company commander, Captain Green, and we used to think he was a bit of a martinet. These cottages had red-tiled floors and he made us clean them while we were in there. Of course you couldn’t move out in the daytime, and it kept us occupied, but they had an obsession about cleanliness, these officers. Even the brigadier, Brigadier-General Cuthbert, ordered brooms to be taken from these houses up to the front line and we had to actually sweep the trenches! And not only that, but there was a sandbag pinned up in each fire-bay, stuck to the side of the trench with a spent cartridge, and this was for rubbish to keep the trench tidy. We used to call him ‘Spit-and-Polish Cuthbert!’ That was his nick-name. Of course, in the summer months when it was comparatively dry it was easier to keep the trenches in good order than it was later on when we had all the mud.

  Anyway, when you were in support you were back in these cottages and they all had gardens and they were full of soft fruit, blackcurrants, raspberries, gooseberries, and naturally we wanted to get at them. The only way you could do that was to open the back door and lie flat on your tummy and crawl down the garden and reach up for the fruit. You couldn’t stand up because it was on a slight slope and the slope faced the German line and the wall didn’t hide you because you were above the wall because of the slope. If you stood up you could see the German trench, but nobody was fool enough to stand up. We used to crawl out into the garden when the officers weren’t about to gather this fruit. There were young carrots too and young turnips and they were all just about right, and we used to pull them up and cook them. Of course we couldn’t make smoke, but sometimes we got hold of dry fuel that would flame and if we had none and we could get hold of newspaper that would do. (I discovered you could boil water and make tea on one newspaper. You would roll it up and twist it round into tight sticks and that was one useful thing I learnt. I can still do it!) It was fairly quiet there in August so long as you didn’t attract the attention of the Germans, but I had one nasty experience. I wasn’t company runner, but this day when we were in the front line I had to take a message back to Battalion Headquarters which was in these cottages, a beautiful sunny day it was. I went along this communication trench and I was coming to that hole in the wall and all of a sudden about six whizz-bangs came – one after the other. Not one of them dropped in the trench, just nearby, but by Jove, that made me lie low for a bit. After it was quiet I got up, started going along a bit and it happened once more. Still they didn’t drop one in the trench. Then it suddenly dawned on me. They were very profligate with their ammunition and there were balloons, observers, and if they saw some movement it was the old idea: ‘If it moves, shoot it.’ I was extremely careful about my movements until I got through that hole, believe me, and I was very careful indeed going back again.

  Not far ahead of the trenches, easily visible on rising land behind the German line, was the small mining village of Loos. It was an insignificant place, familiar to no one but the local inhabitants of the region, but within a few weeks the name of Loos would be blazoned in the headlines of newspapers round the world. It was here among the pit-heads and the slag-heaps that the British Army was to make its next desperate push.

  The planners were busy but it was summertime and although the August weather was unpredictable and a few warm days were often succeeded by a period of rain and thunder storms, the intermittent sunshine was heartening. Barnyard billets, so draughty and inhospitable in winter and chilly spring, were pleasantly cool on summer days. Drilling, parades and route-marches, endured with sullen stoicism in inclement weather, seemed less arduous, and off-duty in the long pleasant evenings even Tommies with nothing to spend in the local estaminets could pass the time pleasantly enough lounging in a field, leaning on a farm gate, or strolling in the pleasant countryside. Some even helped gather in the sumptuous harvest and the women and girls who had been left to run farms single-handed were happy to repay them with an acceptable jug of cider or rough wine. And there were entertainments. Most battalions out of the line took the opportunity of holding traditional field days and sports days just as they did in peacetime and they kept the troops amused and in high spirits.

  2nd Lt. F. Best.

  The greasy pole over the corner of a muddy pond afforded great mirth, the competitors being dressed in the regulation Army Service Corps swimming costume of honest underpants. The
entire population of the village formed up round the water to spectate. The most shouting event of all, however, was the band race. Here all the players were formed up at the starting point and were handicapped according to the nature of their instruments. Triangle and cymbals started at scratch, tuba well forward, and so on, with the big drum ahead. The conductor started them all playing ‘Come Lasses and Lads’ which is the Staffs march-past and he instructed them to continue until I dropped my stick. I let the bandsmen play on for at least fifteen bars or so, and on dropping the stick at an unexpected moment, the whole mass moved forward at a run while the harmony groaned and slid all over the scale. I was doubled up with laughing at this point, but I learnt that the tenor trombone just overhauled the big drum in the last five yards! Everyone thoroughly enjoyed it.