Pte. H. Fellowes, 12th Bn., Northumberland Fusiliers, 62 Brig., 21 Div.
Our platoon officer got hold of me, and of course he knew that the transport hadn’t come up. There were two of us, so he told us to double back and go as quickly as we could and find the transport and bring back the Lewis gun, because we were going into action. So we set off. It took us a long time to work our way back past the road where the cemetery was and on to the main road we’d come down the night before. That main road – well I can’t describe it! It was just a mass of holes, and debris and dead men and horses lying everywhere. We worked our way back and eventually we came to where our transport should have been. Of course, it wasn’t there. It had never even got there! We went a bit further and it was only then that we found out that it had been shelled – knocked out! Anything that was left of it had gone back, and of course there was no gun. So we had to turn and go back again. This took a long time and by now the shells were flying over our heads, and now and again we had to stop and duck down. By the time we did get back to where we’d been, the Battalion had moved off, going up to the attack, you see. When I came back from what was left of the transport, I hadn’t got my gun, but the Adjutant stopped me. He said, ‘What company do you belong to?’ I said, ‘C Company, sir.’ He said, ‘The C.O.’s got a message for you.’
He thrust a paper into Harry’s hand and said, ‘Make your way up to the front and give it to Captain Pole.’ The message was written on a sheet from a signal pad and it read, ‘The C.O. wishes the attack to be carried out with bayonets in the true Northumbrian fashion.’ Harry thrust the message into his pocket and plodded off towards the hill, following his nose. The bombardment had lifted and the sound of the fighting ahead showed him the way.
When he arrived in front of the redoubt the first waves were well ahead and when he eventually found C Company they were standing with bayonets fixed and on the point of going over the top. The whistles blew, the men clambered over the parapet and began to run towards the redoubt a hundred yards ahead. For a moment the trench was empty then the following wave dropped in from the parados to take their place. Pushing his way through looking for Captain Pole, Fellowes could not see a single familiar face. C Company had gone. Guessing that Captain Pole would be with them, and intent on delivering the message, Fellowes scrambled over the top and ran after them into the fight.
Pte. H. Fellowes.
The whole hill was crowded with men. There was no formation of any description. The whole hill was just one mass of men, moving on, cheering like hell. All the time we were running across the Germans never fired a shot and then it just seemed as if somebody had given the order and they all opened out with machine-guns. Men were just mown down. It was just slaughter, just suicide, all hell let loose. Men began to stumble and fall, and machine-guns were firing from the front of us enfilading from the left-hand side from some other Germans. A lad in front of me was shot in the head and he fell, and I tripped and fell over him. To this day I don’t feel any shame. I stayed where I was!
Capt. D. Graham-Pole.
Going up the hill I got a horrible bang on the head, put my hand up and found it covered with blood, so whipped out my handkerchief tied it over my head and under my chin. The blood stopped flowing – it was only a surface wound – and served as a good hair fixer, as I hadn’t had time to do my hair that morning. Then I went on. When quite near the German trenches I found I was still sucking on a cigar. The Germans were perfectly awful with machine-guns – simply mowed our men down.
How long I stayed there I don’t know.
Pte. H. Fellowes.
It seemed like hours. Afterwards I knew it could only have been about ten minutes, but I’ll remember the sight until my dying day. The whole slope was full of prone figures. Men began to come back. Others never left – like the lad I stumbled over who’d been shot through the head. After a bit I began to crawl back and I got back into the trench. I landed in the same place where I’d left. We wondered what was going to happen to us! We lay there and it was awful listening to the cries of the men on the field. Some were screaming – terrible! The Scots were in a trench that they dug themselves, about four foot deep, and our lads were crowded at the back. It was trickling with rain all the time.
Colonel Warwick went forward himself after his battalion was pushed back, but there was nothing to be done. He could only stop in the trench looking for his own men in the confusion of troops who had fallen back, and hoping against hope that the confusion was such that the few bemused officers and men he could find were not all that was left of his Battalion.
Twice they had charged up Hill 70 and twice they had very nearly succeeded in taking it. The front trenches were overrun but two hundred men in a keep in the centre of the redoubt held out. The keep was constructed with just such an attack in mind. Its trenches were deep and formidable. They faced in four directions and up to twenty machine-guns could pour out fire from concealed positions. They could command the slopes in front when fresh waves pressed on from the captured trenches. They could command the summit of the hill behind if any troops managed to gain it. Not many did, for the machine-guns in the keep also dominated the slopes on either side and the British soldiers attempting to pass were scythed down like meadow grass. The Scots were in the vanguard of the rush up the hill. Some of them survived and almost reached the crest, but it was too much to expect of the half-trained inexperienced soldiers of the 62nd Brigade. The survivors following close behind hesitated, wavered and then began to drift back, crawling, stumbling, even running in a dash for safety. A few remaining Scottish soldiers, unsettled by the sight, or perhaps believing that an order had been given to retire, followed suit.
Lieutenant Christison had been ordered to bring back his guns from the outposts near Bois Hugo and to protect the left flank of the Battalion as the Camerons went forward to the attack.
Lt. A. F. P. Christison.
My chaps were most indignant. They felt they had done well and were in a strong position. Lance-Corporal Campbell even argued we should ignore the message but Orders is orders’ and regretfully we disengaged and ran for it across the Lens road under fairly heavy rifle fire, losing another gun and one or two men on the way. When we got to a large German support trench near Puits 14 bis, I found a party of about eighty or a hundred Camerons in it without an officer. I could see a battle going on on Hill 70 under heavy fire and I heard that we had taken and now lost Hill 70. It seemed we were trying to retake it and I tried to lead the party in the trench forward to help. But they were unwilling. Seeing most of them were West Highlanders or Islemen I stood on the parapet and sang the first verse of the ‘March of the Cameron Men’.
There’s many a man of the Cameron clan,
That has followed his chief to the field;
He has sworn to support him, or die by his side,
For a Cameron never can yield.
He sang it in Gaelic and it was a song that had stirred the blood of the Highlanders for as long as anyone could remember. The men still looked sullen and frightened but there was a twitch of reaction. Christison was dangerously exposed standing at full height on the parapet but he launched into the well-known chorus, roaring rather than singing it to make himself heard above the chatter of machine-guns and the clamour of battle.
I hear the pibroch sounding, sounding,
Deep o’er the mountain and glen;
While light springing footsteps are trampling the heath,
‘Tis the march of the Cameron men,
‘Tis the march, ‘Tis the march,
‘Tis the march of the Cameron men.
They were stirring now, standing up, picking up rifles, and Christison knew that he had won. He hardly needed to continue. As he launched on the third verse the Camerons were already scrambling out of the trench and encouraging reluctant stragglers to come on.
Oh! proudly they walk, but each Cameron knows,
He may tread on the heather no more;
But boldly he f
ollows his chief to the field,
Where his laurels were gathered before.
Hoarse with his efforts Lieutenant Christison led the Cameron men at a trot to pick up what laurels they could on Hill 70.
Lt. A. F. P. Christison.
As we approached the main part of the Battalion I was told the CO. had led two charges up the hill and gained some ground each time. He was preparing for a final effort.
I handed over the stragglers I had brought forward to Captain Campbell Colquhoun and was told by the Adjutant to get my guns out to the left flank and give covering fire. I do not think there was any artillery support as the situation was too confused. There was no Forward Observation Officer.
The arrival of the stragglers gave Colonel Douglas Hamilton the chance to charge again – and he knew very well it was the last chance, for there were precious few Camerons left. A little way to his right, in the immediate vicinity of Hill 70, there was no sign of another advance. The officers of the 62nd Brigade had bravely tried to rally their men, knowing that they must, but so many officers had courted danger in setting an example, waving encouragement from the rims of the shelter pits where the shocked men were huddled, that most had been shot down in the act. So far Colonel Douglas Hamilton had seemed to be immune, twice charging up the hill ten yards ahead of his men in fruitless attempts to reach the top. Now he prepared to try for a third time. His force was almost spent, but if, with a supreme effort, they could advance, it might do a great deal to encourage others to join in, and one more charge might just succeed in encircling the vipers’ nest in the redoubt and outflanking it.
He was the first man out of the trench. He raised his arm, gave a final shout of encouragement – ‘Camerons… charge!’ – and set off up the hill. As the Camerons began running forward the Germans were lining up and preparing to counter-attack. They met before the Camerons had got half-way up the hill and, spent and exhausted as they were, they hardly stood a chance. Those who survived the encounter were pushed back well beyond their start-line. The Colonel was hit and, seeing him fall, Campbell Colquhoun dragged him to the shelter of a shell-hole and did his best to bind up his wounds. Douglas Hamilton had been caught across the middle of his body by machine-gun bullets and he only spoke twice more. ‘Colquhoun, I’m done!’ he muttered as the captain cut away his tunic to staunch the blood. For a time he seemed to be unconscious, then he opened his eyes and began to struggle a little, saying, ‘I must get up, I must get up!’ Moments later he died.
Christison and his machine-guns had been left behind.
Lt. A. F. P. Christison.
I was left away forward with my two guns. I never discovered what happened to one of them, but a wave of German infantry swept down on us. The gun I was with did some fine execution and then it jammed. I struggled with it while I sent the No. 1 back to collect more drums from the No. 3 and for some reason the No. 2 crawled out of our shell hole and was immediately hit, and I was left alone. The No. 3 crawled up with the last two drums and as he handed them to me he was hit and rolled into the next shell-hole. As I was struggling to release the drum which had jammed I looked up, and there was a German officer with a pistol in his hand. I drew mine and we fired together. I felt as if a mule had kicked me in the groin and he fell dead on top of me while the waves of German infantry swept by. I heaved him off and got a fright when I saw where he had caught me – in the thigh just below the groin. Thank Heaven I had been a medical student and had done an advanced course in First Aid. I suspected that an artery had been severed and I thought I was done. In panic I snatched off my whistle and stuffed it into the wound – which was not hurting then – and fixed and tightened my field dressing with the muzzle of my revolver to make a tourniquet. I tried to remember how many minutes later one had to release it and re-tie. I lay doggo and managed to change the drum.
Until now there had been little shelling for the position was too indeterminate for the Germans to risk hitting their own men, but on the dot of eleven o’clock their guns opened up and shells began to fall on the western slopes of Hill 70 where the remnants of the infantry lay helpless in front of the redoubt now firmly back in enemy hands. And the enemy, intending it should stay there, were pulverising the trenches and the ground for a mile behind to prevent supports and reserves from coming up to renew the assault. But there were no supports, and there were no reserves, and the frontal assault on Hill 70 would not now be renewed.
The plan had been for the 24th Division and the remainder of the 21st to attack side by side as soon as Hill 70 was captured. Even though the attack on the hill had failed, the Corps Commander intended to carry on with the second part of the plan, for the two new divisions were to attack to the left of Hill 70 between Bois Hugo and the village of Hulluch, secure behind the Germans’ second-line defences, which the 7th Division had disappointingly failed to capture the previous day. Now the 1st Division was to try again and General Hairing reasoned that, if two divisions at full strength could advance alongside them far enough to penetrate the German second line, Hill 70 would be out-flanked and easily enveloped. It was true that the 21st Division was short of its 62nd Brigade, now spent and shattered, but there was still, it seemed, a very reasonable chance of success. The 24th Division was also short of a Brigade. Their 73rd Brigade was with the 9th Division at Fosse 8.
The 21st Division was already in position in the line, the 24th was not, and written orders for the attack only reached them at 5.30 that evening long after it was over. They would have known nothing of it had Brigadier-General Nickalls not gone to Divisional Headquarters and returned with verbal instructions a matter of minutes before they were due to begin. Long before they reached the line their sister Division had been forestalled by events and overtaken by near disaster.
Since early morning small reconnoitring parties of the enemy had been filtering out of the second-line position a thousand yards ahead and working their way towards the British outpost line concealed by the morning mist. When it cleared there had been skirmishes, and even before larger bodies began to approach there had been many casualties in the fledgling battalions. But they had stood it well, and they had stuck it out with little protection from a heavy bombardment that preceded the German attack. When it lifted, the Germans moved forward and began to take up position for the assault. The 12th West Yorks had done well. They had already repulsed one attempt by rifle fire alone and now they were in action again, in a crude and shallow trench just north of Bois Hugo, firing at a group of enemy infantry moving diagonally across their front some hundreds of yards ahead. Their line was the base of a rough triangle formed by the western leg of Bois Hugo and the Lens-la Bassée road. The West Yorks were firing steadily and well, then a burst of fire from the eastern end of the wood took them by surprise. It ripped along their line, at lethal close quarters, and it caused devastation, It also caused panic. Soon most of the survivors were running back towards the Lens road. They ran fast and purposefully, but they were not an unruly mob; they were merely adjusting to the circumstances, and, with good Yorkshire sense, removing themselves as far as possible from the hurricane of bullets that showed no signs of letting up. Many more were wounded or killed as they ran. It was unfortunate that the colonel had been knocked out minutes earlier by a shell, and although the officers did their best to rally their men on the road and in the Chalk Pit further back, they met with no success. Brigadier Nickalls who saw the debacle from his headquarters at Chalk Pit House ran forward personally to help and was killed as he ran. After that there was no stopping them. One battalion after another, unsettled by the sight of men streaming back from the line, rose up and joined them in the retreat through Chalk Pit Wood and beyond, and the Germans began to follow in a great mass. Then it was their turn to panic. Five heavy shells fell among the leaders as they emerged from the cover of Bois Hugo and, stunned by the explosions and the sight of the carnage, the rest turned and fled back into the shelter of the wood.
As the British troops continued down the hill
intent on reaching the shelter of its lower slopes they almost ran into disaster. A battalion of the Durham Light Infantry on its way up saw them approach, mistook them in their long overcoats for Germans, and opened fire. There were several casualties before the mistake was realised and the firing ceased. The men in retreat were not deterred – and neither were the 14th Durhams. They moved on, advancing up the slope to the front through the lines of retiring soldiers. The 15th Durhams were also on the way and, like the men of the 14th, they pushed on steadily to the line. On the stroke of eleven o’clock at the precise moment at which the attack of the two divisions had been planned, the two solitary battalions fixed bayonets and advanced in accordance with their orders. They did not get very far.
The 24th Division was in better fettle. It was true that they had started late and left the support position at the time they should have been going into the attack, and it was also true that, due to the detachment of one brigade and two battalions of another, they were at half strength, but they were full of pep and gave every impression of being delighted at the prospect of getting to grips with the enemy. They moved off in immaculate order down the long bare slope from Lone Tree Ridge into Loos Valley and, circling to their left to bring them parallel to their objective, kept in a perfect alignment. The very precision of their advance, their cheerful demeanour and their resolute step, put heart into men who were still retreating. As they dressed into fighting formation and began to advance up the hill, most of the men who were falling back turned and went back with them. They were still disorganised, the brigadier was gone and there was no one to direct the battalions to any particular objective, but when the whistles finally blew, they began to advance from more or less the positions they had left.
No order had reached Lieutenant Christison. He was still lying wounded far out in front. The tide of battle had flowed past him, and ebbed, and flowed past again. But lying in a small pocket of ground, he still had his machine-gun and it was enough to protect him, and to hold off any Germans who might have captured him. He had accounted for quite a few of the enemy as he lay waiting and hoping for support, or for reinforcements, or for rescue.
1915: The Death of Innocence Page 66